Gotham, Earth -11
What is a hunter without prey?
Demia Wayne sat crouched at the edge of a rooftop. She looked down at the street below, knowing she would find no one there. The hunt was a matter of habit at this point. The alleys were vacant, the public spaces were empty and dead. Gotham was a graveyard. She lurked atop skyscrapers stalking nothing but the shadow of a life she once knew. A life that ended when her mother flooded the world.
Bryce Wayne, The Batwoman. Driven to madness by the death of her lover. She blamed the Atlanteans. She killed their Queen and took the crown for herself. She altered her body to be like them, to survive in the crushing tide the Altlanteans unleashed on the city. Apocalyptic waves rushed inland without relent, sweeping away the masses in a wake of devastation. Gotham was submerged in under an hour.
Even after surpassing the tallest building in the city, the waters still rose. The sky became lost beyond the rippling surface and the sunlight scattered into the upper fathoms. The depths of Gotham were left cold and dark. Batwoman came to Demia when the flood first began, offering to transform her as she had transformed herself. Demia refused. She did not need the League of Shadows to survive Gotham's corruption. She did not need Batwoman to survive Gotham's criminal underworld. She did not need the body of an Atlantean to survive the ocean Gotham had become.
Under her tunic and hooded cape, Demia wore a pressurized Waynetech environment suit. This is what kept the wretched waters at bay. Leathery and black, fitting tight to her form, it was her skin now. She was bound to it, trapped inside her pride, unwilling to lessen herself with the features of another species. Success or failure did not matter. Only that she did so via her own merits.
Though, in the watery grave of Gotham, for whom was this staunch performance? Who would know if she compromised herself in the face of extreme circumstance? Not the million drowned corpses across this new ocean floor. Certainly not the Dead Water army of fish-faced ghouls which followed every swipe of her mother's stolen trident. Perhaps it was only for herself, to know she did as she wished until the end.
Demia looked out over the water-crushed skyline. Gothic architecture was overtaken by a wrecked fleet of Atlantean battleships and a dark horizon which grew more black with each depth. These elements were oddly fitting for Gotham; its darkness made literal, its ruin made manifest. Nothing remained of this terrible place. Once the waters reached the far corners of the world, the same would be said of the entire Earth.
Maybe, somewhere in this damned seascape, there was someone out there who could appreciate her resolve.
Only the Bat-Signal went on as the last shred of normalcy in the city. It shone a glowering beam through the blue-green murk, painting a corrupted bat symbol on the shimmering surface-sky. However, this was no call for Batwoman's aid. This was a lure for anyone foolish enough to draw near. Anyone still living beneath the liquid atmosphere was either a threat to be destroyed, or an asset to be used. Demia watched the signal from a distance. Waiting. Wishing.
A shape seemed to disturb the light. Did her eyes deceive? This could have been a random fish or piece of debris. However, when the light then flickered off completely, Demia knew something was afoot. Batwoman wouldn't turn off her own signal. This was a deliberate act by an outside party. A challenge.
Prey.
Demia stood and pulled up the hood of her cape. Afterward, she used her grappling hook to swiftly traverse the city. She moved as fast as the liquid drag of the ocean would allow. This was the first encounter Demia would have in weeks. Batwoman would want to mold whoever this was into a soldier in her army. Demia only wanted a good fight.
She retracted her cable once she was near the signal, a massive floodlight, rusted around the edges, twice her height in diameter. There was a figure sitting on the edge of the device, resting atop a platform surrounded by Atlantean wreckage. Demia swam towards the figure and finally glided through the water the rest of the way. She touched down and scanned the figure, only a few yards away from him at this point.
A long black trenchcoat, sickly grey skin, a spiked metal visor covering the top half of his head. He was smiling, yellowed teeth spilling from a grin so wide it threatened to crawl off his face. And, perhaps most worrying of all, he wasn't wearing any form of breathing gear. This creature was not of this world. He dropped from the signal and took a few steps towards Demia.
"Hello, little girl. Is your mother home?"
"What do you want with her?"
"I have for her a terrible truth. Not for your ears."
"If you would tell her, you will tell me," Demia said, punctuating with the point of her sword.
The freakish man chuckled, a haunting sound which pierced the depths. "I seek the dark knight, child, not the dark squire."
Demia's lips curled. "Screw you."
She leaped forward and slashed at the stranger. He twisted to evade her strikes, bending into a series of odd contortions. Demia responded to his unorthodox maneuvers with her own acrobatics. She flipped over end and spun her katana, her blade dicing even the ocean itself. One of her strikes landed, causing her foe to cry out. He stumbled backward, clutching his arm. Though, Demia noticed there was no blood, possibly not even a wound at all.
"Was it something I said?" he asked between fits of giggling.
"Shut up!" Demia charged again. "Stop laughing!"
The figure released his arm as Demia approached. His hands fell to his sides and a pair of chains spilled forth, one from each sleeve. He lashed at Demia. She angled her sword to defend herself. Of course, despite Demia's demand, the man still laughed. His screeching laughter split the sea as they battled. The sound wasn't drowned by the water. It wasn't muffled by the helmet of her suit. It was in her mind.
Her precision blade clashed with his chains, wild and erratic. Each strike slashed the water between them, their duel whipping up a swirl of waves. But Demia was an assassin. She was a hunter. All she needed was a single killing blow. This oddity she faced afforded her no such opportunity. He was a mess of madness, elusive and esoteric. A frustration like no other.
Her focus was her undoing. She reached too far for something she would never grasp. In doing so, she fell into his trap. One of his chains wrapped around her arm and the other around her neck. He was now the hunter and Demia struggled against the metal that bound her. The stranger drew her close, reeling in his hold on her until there were only inches of water between them. Demia averted her eyes, searching for an escape.
"Don't you know ignorance is bliss?"
"Speak your truth or don't speak at all."
The man in black scoffed at her defiance. Demia seized the moment, twisting her arm for just enough leverage to stab at him. The blade sang through his chest. The freak did not screech this time, only grinned more widely. His terrible smile may as well have been his whole face, there were no other features. Only wicked amusement.
"You're a smart kid, surely you can tell..." he began, leering at her. His voice was the ghost of a snake. "Your world is broken, twisted, doomed to unravel. When it does, everything here will be lost to oblivion," the laughing one said. "Including you."
He yanked the chain at Demia's neck and drove a knee into her face. Demia's head cracked back. Her helmet shattered. An explosion of air spewed from the breach and Demia clapped a hand over the splintered glass. She fell to her knees. Demia stared with wide, reddened eyes as water spilled into her mask.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice gurgled by water and blood. "How do you know this?"
The freak pulled the chain again, this time lifting Demia upward. He raised her up until her feet no longer touched the ground. Then he began walking.
"I am the one who laughs."
His face was plain now, the unnerving laugh was gone. He moved to the end of the rock formation which held up the Bat-Signal. Demia thrashed in vain as she dangled over the edge, a thousand leagues waiting beneath her.
"I serve the dark lord Barbatos."
In his outstretched grasp, Demia hung over the infinite black shadow below Gotham's depths. The last of her air supply bled out of the ruptured mask. She was blinded by blooded water and splintered glass. Her chest bore the weight of the ocean.
"And the dark knows all..."
The stranger opened his hand. Demia fell. The clear blue sea fled away from her as she plummeted. Heavy chains at her neck sped her descent into the abyss. The ocean worsened as it deepened, worse than Demia could have imagined. It became cold and dusky. Then it became black and freezing. Then it became nothingness as the void swallowed her.
The stranger laughed.
Forge of Worlds, Dark Multiverse
She was lost in the dark for what seemed an eternity. The chill of the depths was gone, the currents of an ocean no longer stirred around her. Instead of fathoms of pressure weighing upon her, she felt nothing. Likewise, she saw and heard nothing. Demia was confused at first, fully expecting to be dead at the bottom of the ocean by now. Perhaps she was dead. Drifting in an endless black expanse, her senses registering no stimuli, completely alone with only her own dire thoughts. She soon came to a haunting realization. He sent her here.
The one who laughs. She had been bested by that wicked man. He could have killed her if he wanted. However, her heart was still beating. She still felt the wetsuit on her skin and the chains on her neck. Demia Wayne still existed in some regard. The only question was for what purpose? According to the one who laughs, the dark knew all things. Demia glared into the gloom, searching for this supposed knowledge the darkness had for her.
Her feet met solid ground. Demia corrected her gait to remain upright as a dusky sky appeared overhead. She looked up and noticed a city skyline, black skyscrapers silhouetted against the clouds. They were adorned with gargoyles, windows of dark stained glass, and steeples that stabbed the sky. The shadows of Gotham bore rueful familiarity. Rain followed and Demia lowered her hood before pulling off the helmet of her wetsuit. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, embracing the quiet storm. She breathed easy for the first time in months. The light rainfall and calm air was a welcome reprieve.
A stroke of lightning. The searing white flash and thunderous boom that followed broke Demia from her melancholic daze. Her eyes shot open and fixed on the sky, which had begun to swirl. A second stroke left behind a black shape in the blistering light. A cloaked figure, pointed ears sticking out of its hood, towering as high as some of the surrounding shadows. It was quickly lost in the blackness. Demia reached back for her sword. When the next bolt met the ground in front of her, the figure was revealed in full. It approached from the shadow, bringing with it a storm of darkness.
Demia craned her neck to glare at this creature, scanning it as a hunter would scan its prey. Or, more aptly, as a cornered animal might assess its attacker if flight was not an option. The being before her was impossible to read, faceless, its only feature a pair of glowing eyes. It resembled a bat with its ghastly wings and pointed ears, fitting adaptations to the darkness it inhabited. It was horrid, dripping with a vile energy much like the one who laughs, only many times worse. It shared the same sickly skin as that freak as well, but darker and torn with the signs of many battles over many years.
Demia stepped backward as the entity loomed closer. She gritted her teeth and her brow was tight. There was a name in her thoughts that she dared not speak.
Barbatos.
The dark god roared and raised his hands to the churning sky. His wings unfurled, loosing a storm of purple lightning and a massive gale which sent Demia tumbling to the ground. The soft rain from before became a torrent pouring down on the black city. Demia returned to her feet as the storm raged in the dark. Heavy mists rolled into the streets of shadow Gotham as Demia wiped black streaks of hair away from her face. Barbatos had heard her thoughts.
"I hear all. I see all. I know of all things which transpire across all worlds." The dark god fixed on her and pointed a mangled finger. "You, however, are born of my dark worlds, those which will soon cease to be."
Demia took another step back, a wicked chill on her skin. It was not the rain, it was this creature's terrible gaze that felt so very wrong. She drew her sword.
"If you are so powerful, why are your worlds fated to die?"
"There is power in death, my nightmare child. My worlds must end so I may harvest their ruin."
Demia's lips curled inward, anger seething between her teeth. "Is that what I am to you?" she hissed. "Is that why you brought me here?" A tortured soul from a broken world. Like an animal raised for slaughter. A tool. A weapon.
She was sprinting. In the next moment, she leaped and was sailing through the dark. Barbatos swiped at her. Demia met his grasp with a stroke of her blade which ran black with the god's foul blood. She produced a grappling hook from her belt and reeled back, prepared to throw. Darkness crushed her.
"Daughter of shadows, born of terror, you are blind with defiance."
Demia thrashed as Barbatos raised his gnarled hands to either side of her. Between them, a storm of his immense power poured into Demia, invading her, destroying her. She barely heard Barbatos over the nightmares and illusions and the foreign thoughts that flooded her mind. She was drowning again, suffocating under a storm of bristling lightning and shredding winds.
"I can make you as you wish to be. I have all the power that haunts your dreams."
Demia screamed refusal. The two masters she had served in her past were already too many. Now this dreadful entity wished to use her as well? She did not understand, nor did she care to. Barbatos seemed to be making an offer, a gift even. Still, Demia fought in vain to free herself, flailing with indignation. All that mattered was her agency, even if such was only a fleeting illusion.
"You are destined to give that which you have received. Pain, loss, sorrow. Darkness and the storms therein."
Was that his proposal? An indirect arrangement? Demia lessened her strain against the storm, allowing herself to hear Barbatos' words. Once she relaxed for a moment, she became aware of his true intentions. He did not want a tool at all. She would not be his weapon. She would be his masterpiece. A herald, to use his power and spread his influence however she wished.
"Resistance is oblivion. Acceptance is the power of the void."
Demia was calm now. She welcomed the shadow and bathed in the storm. A tirade of tainted visions coursed through her mind. Each surge brought with it a new horror to witness. A horde of ghastly heroes with suits of shadow and black rings of death. A burning hellscape planet, it's atmosphere alive with cosmic fire. A grim vigilante and optimistic hero clashing over and over again across multiple realities. The universes were full of strife and Demia welcomed the deathly chaos with open arms.
She had chosen.
"All roads lead to darkness…"
Metropolis, Earth +5
From shadows, Demia emerged. She was dusk incarnate, crafted anew from the cloth of the dark. She wore the marks of Barbatos all about her figure, the hood, the pointed ears, the haunting eyes. They fit her well. This is what had plagued she dreams and robbed her of sleep. Not a nightmare, but a premonition. The dark was her refuge and the storm was her weapon.
And the light was her bane.
The dawn of this world burned like silver, brighter than the brightest day she had ever seen. Wispy shadows dripped away from Demia as she melted in the light, recoiling. She hissed and pulled her hood over her head. A brief abatement. Insufficient. This world was much too luminous for her liking. This world needed a storm.
Demia raised a hand to the clouds above, which began to blacken. Winds quickened in the area and set the sky swirling. Rain soon followed and the oppressive light was a thing of the past. Once the environment was more to her liking, Demia appraised her immediate surroundings. She was in a city, pristine and jovial, a utopia dotted with gleaming skyscrapers. Metropolis.
Though, certainly not the one she had once known. Her version of this city was drowned beneath miles of ocean. In this instance, the storm had only begun. Citizens around her began to take notice of the sudden gloom that spread over the city. She was standing in the road, hooded and dark, still as a statue. To her right, a lane of traffic was blocked. The first car in the line honked their horn. Demia turned to the driver, her face lost in the void. Her eyes flared.
A cascade of lightning bombarded the street. Everything around her was blasted by fierce bolts, arcs of purple energy burning all in her presence. Cars exploded, the street was cracked and smoldering, innocents were stricken down by the dozens. Her winds were a gale now, whipping up debris and shattering windows in the towers above. The storm grew worse as Demia stood there in the street, listening, waiting. She was beginning to think, as the rain poured around her, that there were no heroes here at all. Then, she sensed them. Six of them, approaching in unison, all giving off differing energies.
"You, stop!" a female voice called. "We are the Justice Council." Demia probed her mind and felt the immense strength of both her body and her mind. A name as well. Miss Amazon.
Demia smiled. Now she understood why that freak had been laughing so much. Now she understood why Barbatos roared at the thought of his name. Seeing someone's first reaction to the dark was a true delight. To know they will resist... To know they will fail...
"Release your magic from this city at once." A male voice. Demanding, but reasoned. A smattering of powers sustained by sunlight. Solarman.
These two landed in front of her while two others approached from the side. Hyperman, who drew power from the concept of speed, and Synth, whose mind was too technical to draw any meaning from. She appeared to be made of some kind of transforming technology. Finally, two more of this so-called Justice Council arrived behind her. One was a female alien who had the most powers and the strangest name. The others knew her as Venusian Vicar. The other was a human male who materialized from a haze of black smoke. The Shroud.
"We will fight you if we must."
Demia found herself amused. She had expected as much. It was a matter of course, the heroes who rise to stop villainy wherever it may tread. However, she was a force like they had never seen. She was a daughter of shadows several times dark. She was the wolf and they were the sheep, naïve, duty bound, undeserving of the terror she would soon inflict. And if she appeared as a wolf then she harbored a demon. Demia flexed her fingers and her sword appeared in her hand. She flourished with the blade, bearing her fangs. They charged and Demia was overjoyed that her prey would leap headfirst into her hungry maw.
Hyperman struck first. Demia dispersed into shadow, causing him to blitz through her. Demia reformed and blasted him in the back with lightning. Electric purple spilled over him as Solarman barreled towards her. Demia opened a void between the hero and herself which swallowed him and spat him out a few blocks away.
Behind her, The Shroud spawned two black daggers. He was joined by Miss Amazon, who called forth a sword and shield in a flash of golden light. Together they converged on her as Synth kneeled down next to Hyperman. Synth seemed to be helping Hyperman recover. Demia clashed with Miss Amazon and The Shroud. She managed to duel both of them until a crushing blow from Miss Amazon's shield threw her to the ground.
Demia screamed and the rainfall responded, focusing into a tidal wave which sent her opponents reeling. Only Venusian Vicar remained standing. She reached out and began chanting, her hands aglow with runic magic. Her words summoned a series of concentric sigils above Demia. The alien woman then clenched her fists, causing countless silvery threads to spill out of the rune and entangle Demia.
They wrapped around her neck and waist and every limb, pulling her deeper into a hold of submission. Demia shrieked at her enemy, straining against the magic bonds with her physical strength before peering into her attacker's mind. Vicar harbored a great many connections to a great many deities and entities of the cosmic variety. She was able to channel their magic.
When Solarman reappeared he was flying at high speed. Demia watched the caped hero swoop down at her, his eyes blazing orange. Demia could not break free of the ghostly binds in order to escape Solarman's heat vision. So instead, she dove into Vicar's mind.
Demia vanished from the trap, followed by the sigils and threads that once held her. Solarman's lasers struck the ground, resulting in an explosion of molten tar. Venusian Vicar turned to Solarman and raised her hands towards him.
"Where did she go?" Solarman asked.
"Right here," Vicar said, possessed by Demia.
Solarman's eyes went wide as Venusian Vicar took on Demia's glowing purple eyes and her wry grin. Demia rooted through Vicar's mind and began to fling any spell that seemed remotely useful. A verdant growth of vegetation, a plume of maddening red smoke, a barrage of cosmic particle rays. Solarman navigated the onslaught with a blur of speed, only taking a few glancing blows as he flew down to his possessed teammate. He clapped one hand around her neck and pulled back with the other, closing into a fist.
"Let her go."
"You first."
Demia commanded her victim to chant another spell. This one loosed a jet of spectral blue fire that blasted Solarman and left him cowering. This otherworldly flame spread and burned over Solarman's body, seeming to surpass any invulnerability he may have had. He screamed agony. Demia laughed. She reveled in the pain of a man who thought himself beyond such things.
She thought of all the terrible tragedies Barbatos had shown her, all the wretched happenings which took place across the multiverse. She had a morbid wish to be the impetus of such an event. These are the thoughts Demia left Venusian Vicar with once she finally exited her mind.
Demia returned to physical form and watched the alien woman look around in confusion, shock and horror on her face. She ran over to Solarman, knowing that she had done this to him. But how? Demia raised her hand to the sky once more. The storm clouds became charged with lightning, boiling and churning in the dark. Venusian Vicar looked up from the burned Solarman, glaring at the wicked being that took over her body, forced her to commit this act. Vicar flung out her hand, and runes flared alight. However, before she could speak, Demia waved her hand overhead.
The sky became a void. Black and deeply infinite. An ungodly force began sucking everything upward into the abyss. Cars and corpses, buildings and debris, all of it was cast skyward. Even her own lightning curled wickedly and struck back into the portal. Demia stood still amidst the chaotic upheaval, rains spilling upward, winds spiraling into the dark.
The defeated Justice Council was swept into the storm. Darkness dragged them away just as it had done to everything else. Where they would end up, Demia did not know. All that mattered was the black stain which marred this once bright world.
In the end, when the void closed and the winds calmed, Demia Wayne stood alone among the ruins of this Metropolis. She was pleased. A quiet peace, melancholic at its heart. She knew that her own world was likely gone by now. Truly, it did not bother her in the slightest. All she had known was misery there. All that remained was the memory of her mother, a memory carried only by her name. But the dark was her family now. The storm was her only companion. The rain was her only solace.
There was a new name in her thoughts, and this time she did speak.
"Wrayne."
Demia will return in Bright Son of Krypton
The Justice Council next appears in Last Daughter of Apokolips