48 Good Night, Sweet Prince
I know I promised to be a good hero, and even came up with my own heroic schtick, but as I cleaned Arthur Light's brains off my boots I felt a level of catharsis not encountered since I beat the shit out of Mark Prime.
There were so many emotion purging reasons to murder Arthur Light. I could be an avenger balancing the scales between the man and his victims. I could even be correcting the meta, as Arthur is at the heart of the climax of DC Comics' increasingly grimdark run through the nineties and early 2000's.
Identity Crisis is a soulless and meaningless seven issue release. Several shocking scenes in an ultimately worthless arc that ended without ever coming full circle when the Specter snuffed Arthur after he finally recovered from the magical lobotomy given to him by the Justice League and bounced back to the height of his powers and villainy. Snuffed him before any kind of narrative pay off.
Identity Crisis was the bottom of DC's nihilism trench that finished with a smack head Roy Harper holding a dead cat thinking it's his dead baby, but I take the most offense with that run because of how it spit on all the good natured idealism of past comics. Like that hokey but uplifting message was something to be ashamed of. Fuck that.
But I was neither an avenger nor meta. I just stomped Arthur Light because he was so fucking annoying. After he raped Sue Dibny that was all he ever talked about, how much he loved rape. He was just the rape guy after that when he wasn't being a loser punching bag for sidekicks.
I did him a favor by stomping his skull in.
After I stepped away from the scene and arrived back at my undersea palace my communicator went off.
"This Mark." I answered.
"It's Kara. Mark, we need you down at Mt. Justice." Power Girl stated on the other end of the line in a near panic.
"I'm already here." I said as I took another step and arrived at the conference room at Mt. Justice.
Kara was at the head of the triangular table with Green Arrow, Black Canary, Mister Terrific, and Atom Smasher in the room with her.
"Jesus! That was so creepy." Oliver complained about my sudden appearance.
"What's happening?" I ignored the man and Kara pulled up a film clip on the hologram projector in the center of the room showing the failed launch of the Watchtower and the subsequent invasion from Apokolips that ended with many members of the Justice League, including all the big time aliens on the team, getting swallowed by a Fatherbox and disappearing.
"What a missed opportunity." I sighed as a red circle sparked into existence and Calliope stepped through.
"Darksied kidnapped my boytoys." she growled as she white knuckle gripped her warhammer, "Send me to Apokolips."
"They might not even be there." I told her, "he could have boom tubed them into a black hole.
"Granddad, please." Calliope scoffed, "Darkseid would have to be intelligent to do something like that. He probably has them in some kind of arena or death trap that they'll get out of, but I want a ride to Apokolips no matter where they are. Someone needs to put the boot to that dried up ballsack."
The five of us looked at her with frowns on our faces.
I'd been keeping up with the comings and goings of Apokolips via godvision and it was obvious that Darkseid wasn't fucking around. He wasn't building all or nothing broadcasting stations for the anti life equation. He wasn't burning though his strength beefing with NPCs. He had his weird volcano planet moving through the universe strip mining uninhabitable worlds for resources while he sought the limits of New God technology and sorcery. He had his whole world on a diet of pure pain and gain, and the results showed.
The dude grew hair… and tusks.
While I held little back from my descendents, I still kept a fair bit in reserve, and while the girl could have run through the Apokolips from several years prior, that place was transforming in power every several months these days. Darkseid boiled everything down to him versus me, Apokolips versus the Klyntar, and he was doing a damn fine job of it.
I'd shared this information with the League which is why our Batman looks more like the Beyond version these days despite the man being a solid advocate of the Theory of Escalation, that for every raise in a hero's power so too shall his associated villains rise up to match and overcome him. It sounds like some illogical bullshit, but when you factor in the psychotic dependency the man's rogues have for him, it holds water.
Apparently Calliope never read the memo.
"This is why you lost the Empire." I stated and the woman made a face like I shot her and she just couldn't believe it, "Any way, give me a minute or two. I'll find them."
Using the powers taken from Nth and 10th metal I peered across the ever expanding cosmos and associated dimensions for the kidnapped heroes of the Justice League.
And I didn't find them.
Rather than reveal this surprise occurrence I called in the Energy to run the same scan but on the astral plane to find their spirits. He too failed to locate them, but we found a consistent blindspot in our vision and together with input from the machine we overcame the forces occluding our sight and revealed a hidden prison world the size of Pluto.
"Would you look at that?" I murmured as my vision failed to pierce the shell of the prison world but I felt the weight of the missing heroes' souls pressing down on the fabric of the astral plane.
I took a step and arrived as close to the prison planet as I could manage, placing me a few handfuls of miles over the surface before the resistance became too much. The surface below lit up like a lantern festival as I began dodging and shielding from heavy enemy fire, my armor symbiote pulling the latest design from the Machine to cover me in while pulling from the infinite energy of the Secret Forces to launch my counter attack of dueling lasers and missiles. The All-Black became an arm cannon that blasted vast swaths of the prison planet's defenses away.
We battled for a time, but I am inevitable, touching down on the wreckage of the surface defenses and willing the prison planet to open up and release the kidnapped Justice League members.
Nothing happened.
I considered the failure of my literal infinite reality warping powers as a holographic projection of Darkseid appeared next to me.
"Your response time has been noted." the gravelly being announced, "Trading in my capacity to warp all around me to my will was well worth the trade off for the capacity to resist the capricious power of those beings born above me on the dimensional hierarchy."
"It's all smart atoms." I analyzed the metals used in the creation of this prison planet.
"Indeed." Darkseid replied with his holographic hands clasped behind his back, "No force of hand waving nor will can destroy my Apokolips. We shall endure. We shall conquer."
"You've come a long way. I'm impressed." I grinned at my rival as the All-Black formed a spiraling drill over my arm, "That was almost a workout for me, let's see what else you have."
The All-Black tore into the surface of the prison planet and turned into endless drilling tendrils all the way down to the microscopic level. After all, Smart Atoms may resist non-beneficial external manipulation, and are a bitch and a half to work with physically, but I am more than capable of a bitch and a half's worth of effort.
And in truth, nothing is ever immutable or invulnerable, just beyond feasible power output. As such, I fought against the resistance of the Smart Atom technology with my reality warping power while the All-Black muscled through it. The two pronged attack cut down the time it took to take over the prison planet, but it still took many hours for me to finish the work of freeing the imprisoned heroes without exposing the more vulnerable members to lethal environments.
The whole plan felt like a half effort from my craggy rival, and I appreciated that. Of course this distraction was only half the battle, so… do two half efforts make a full effort, or just a complete half assed effort?
After unlocking the prison complex I sent the Justice League home and Darkseid nodded before the hologram cut out. My step back across the universe brought me to the Heart of Mount Justice where the very frazzled and depleted members of the team arrived.
"Alright, let's see what zaniness happened while we were gone." I stated as I used my vision to sweep over the earth and found a group of humans hosting Apokolips nanotech holding hands in a floating circle over Cape Canaveral. Together they formed a portal for the hordes of Parademons to pour through.
"Alright alright alright. Anyone with any fight left in the tank is welcome to join me through the portal opening to my left." I told everyone as a red spiral pushed open, "We have Apokolips forces coming though a man-made portal to the Fourth World."
Rather than wait I stepped through to Florida where Klyntar and Atlantean forces already engaged the tide of Parademons and set up defense batteries against the incoming ships. At the heart of the conflict stood the towering unlaunched Watchtower of the Justice League illuminated by flashes of energy cannon fire and detonating missiles as my forces turned that half a city wide portal as a killzone.
The flow of demons and enemy ships shifted slowly to piles of ash and burning wreckage, but before the tide shifted completely a single hammer flew through the portal at such a speed that the air it passed through exploded and it struck the largest of the Atlantean anti ship cannons. The explosion would have annihilated everything for a half dozen miles around had I not contained it, but I could not contain the being that teleported into the center of the crater with his hand on the haft of the sunken hammer.
Darkseid lifted his weapon out of the earth and our powers clashed. Had I not contained him, just stepping on the planet could have destroyed it, such was the incredible increase in might between this invasion and his last.
My armor Klyntar formed a shield as the All-Black became my sword and the two of us closed the distance without saying a word. Darkseid parried a center mass thrust with the haft of his hammer and sent out a sneaky pommel strike before loading up the head from his shoulder and sending down a blow that I had to intercept lest it crack open the earth like an egg.
The All-Black cleaved through immense telekinetic repulsion and into the armor of Darkseid's leg, failing to bite into the stone flesh beneath. Not reacting to the strike the ruler of Apokolips launched an overhand punch that came down with a explosive pile driver on top of his wrist that plowed through the Klyntar shield and nearly through my forearm, leaving behind the spike that exploded after Darkseid pulled his hand away.
Not to be outdone I sent a rising slash at the giant as he stepped back that preceded a Symbiote tentacle covered in Adamantine razor spines that whipped around his hammer block and tore through his telekinetic shielding as they laughed at him. The razor spines chewed up the surface layers of his heavy armor before they too exploded.
The god of tyranny charged through the explosions and forced me to block another massive overhead hammer strike that started my powerful armor Klyntar to screaming. While my attention was on the hammer he sneaked in a nasty oblique kick just above my knee. What's more he drove a series of vicious metal slivers into my leg via a shotgun hidden in his greave.
His leg didn't get away though as the All-Black became a clawed vice over my arm and we caught his ankle. Darksied screamed as we applied all our world shattering power to his ankle, the powerful armor squealing under the pressure as we crushed through it. He batted my upper body with his hammer, but the many parried blows lacked the core of the evil giant's might.
The man tried not to collapse when we returned his leg to him and it failed to carry his weight, and in this awkward transition the All-Black transformed into a single vicious spike that I hid under a shield bash. In a copy of his prior attack, the spike drove forward with all our might and pierced through Darkseid's breastplate deep into his stoney man meat. His ribs pried apart and like a thousand needles the All-Black drove itself into him.
"Your combat has been noted." Darkseid spoke with no apparent trouble from his completely wrecked body.
His armor and flesh turned to dust and fell to the ground, revealing the skewered form of Orion, his son. The man's expression was of complete agony as I laid him down, something that didn't change when I closed his eyes. Fortunately his blood red suit didn't show all the blood leaking from the gaping hole in his chest. It almost looked like he was just sleeping through a nightmare of Doomsday and his dad docking.
Good night, sweet prince. I'm going to have a real fucking fun time explaining how you died.
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I'd hoped to get this out on my son's birthday. I'd worked on it over many small sessions but didn't finish it till today.
Big chapter were Darkseid shows off that Mark isn't the only guy around who can exploit the shit out of comic book nonsense. I don't think anyone has ever used what I have Darkseid pulling from before, so this climactic arc should actually have some wonder to it. I don't normally pull for powering up a villain to match what ever bullshit powers you have given your MC but this action is happening at the highest level of comic books. If Darkseid can't figure out how to power up then no one can. Chances are I am going to find out that someone actually has done what I am having him do before. Comics feel like they've done everything at some point. We'll just have to see.
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