Prologue

It hurt to breathe. Even with all of the power that still flowed through him, all of the rage, it still… hurt.

Bruce removed his helm, wincing as the shards of Tīmōríā sliced through his cheek. He gazed up at her, teeth bared. "Do it."

"No," she snarled.

"Do it," he repeated, voice low, "or else he-" -Bruce squeezed the remnants of the Colonel's throat that was still in his grip- "won't be the first. Etta, Donna, Hippolyta, Clark, Jason. Bru-"

And suddenly, he couldn't breathe. At all.

She hefted him up, hand gripped around his throat. The winds howling from the portal Barbatos' tower had formed whipped her hair about her face, but he could see the tears streaming down her face.

Lifting a shaking hand, he flitted his fingers over her cheek, and gave a faint smile.

"He'll need you, and you him," he managed to choke out.

She paused.

Dropping his hand, he dipped his head.

She pulled her fist back, and then-

Daniel looked up at the ever-shifting skyscape of rich violet-tinged stars, and was afraid.

The dark nights of the Dragon of the Forge were over, yes, and he indeed felt a twinge of satisfaction and pride in the knowledge that he had assisted in casting the infernal horror back into the forge from whence it came, but as he looked westward over the Ghost Castle's eastern ramparts and eyed the growing void ringed by violent sparks and spurts of crimson-orange flame, his realm, and his own being, felt like a speck of dirt in a cosmic whirlpool of black.

"Daniel, do not dwell on such things. All shall be as the One wills it."

His eyes flicked over to the brown-hooded and hook-nosed man, who he knew was no man, and his milk-blue eyes, which flickered over his Log at a significantly slower rate than normal.

"And what has He willed?" he said, in a voice so soft it might as well have been a shout rebounding through the near-eternal silence in his halls.

"For everything in Deus' Cosmos," Destiny began, "there is an Age: a timeless Age of gilded heroes; a striking Age of metal and galvanizing motion; a blighted Age of infinite conflict and ever-growing crises. The Age of Iron and Shade is now past, and the Age of Salt, of Desecration and Restoration, has begun."

Daniel nearly shivered at the twinge of fear in the Endless' voice, but remained composed.

"His Hand has sent one who knows of war to your shores, for he is to be the means by which we halt what has now befallen us."

Daniel closed his eyes, extending his senses to the shore, and stopping as he touched something…dark.

"No." He looked at Destiny with wide eyes. "Surely, He did not mean him?"

The brown hood dipped.

"But- but-"

Something rested on his shoulder, and he twisted his neck to see a hand, scarred yet strong. A feeling of hope rushed over him, and his lips turned upwards as a raven with feathers of the purest white settled on him. The corvid turned its head to look at him straight on, blinked, then let out a caw and took off, heading towards the Shore.

Daniel let out a heavy sigh, then, with a nod and slight smile towards Destiny, snapped his fingers and stepped forward, onto the burnt orange sands of the Shore of Dreams. Approaching the prone figure sprawled near the shoreline, he ran a hand over the man's wild tangle of grey-white hair and whispered, "Remember, and be renewed."

Translations:

Tīmōríā - Vengeance, Torture

Author's Note: So, if you're already a reader of this story: yeah, I'm revising this already.

See, the thing is, when I started this story, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do with it. That's not to say I'm just throwing darts blindly and seeing what sticks, but I have noticed that the quality of the storytelling is rather lacking compared to what I can do. It's part of the reason why writing PkK (and yes, I'm working on Chapter 4/Issue 3) has been easier to write and much more of a coherent story when held up against this: I'm working off of a framework (the BatB: BM & WW miniseries, to be precise) that has been somewhat set in place for me.

With this story, however, I'm attempting something much more grandiose and ambitious: "fixing"/tweaking the landscape of the DC multiverse just enough so that it's somewhat of a wholly different beast from, say, Marvel's stuff. DC has such a rich mythos to draw on, yet they've confined themselves to just one world for most of the stories they're telling. My question is: why not bring back the wonder of the '70s and '80s earlier? Why not expand your multiverse to infinity? The landscape of the DC multiverse can have so many variations, so why hold yourself back?

So, I'm putting together a plan to fix that landscape, at least in my eyes, and the first thing to do, as any good storyteller would tell you, is to flesh out who's taking you on this journey. Hopefully, I can do a sufficient job with them.

-Nate