Chapter 12
A century. One hundred years. Thirty-six thousand five hundred days. Eight hundred and seventy-six thousand six hundred hours. A long stretch of time by any standards, including that of an immortal.
It was how long Tezcatlipoca spent within the Phantom Zone before he was ready to emerge. Time moved differently in the Zone. Sometimes more quickly and sometimes more slowly. This time, it moved more quickly.
Tezcatlipoca shuffled along in the shadow of his Mistress, the Warden. When he had first come to the Zone, it had looked much like what he had seen from the nightmare of Kal-El. No doubt the Kryptonian had been able to so perfectly visualize the dread and blasted landscape of the prison due to the writings and images of his ancestors.
That ancient race had well known what lived or lingered within the Zone. The Kryptonians hadn't created the place, but they had been the first to learn of its existence. After entering the Zone, they quickly came to learn of the Croatoans and the Warden, the fearful denizens of that hellish place. The Croatoans had offered a challenge, but the technology of the Kryptonians had been up to the task. They couldn't contain or control the Croatoans, but they could defeat them or at least achieve a rough stalemate.
The Warden, however, was another matter. She was the Illuminated Darkenss, and the Kryptonians should have understood not to trifle with Her. After all, the Croatoans gave Her fortress a very wide berth. In fact the few times the Kryptonians had captured a Croatoan, it had trembled in fear when questioned about Her. The Kryptonians had always been an overly proud people, though. They couldn't imagine anything in the Universe that they couldn't conquer.
She had viciously and brutally disabused them of their arrogance. It took but an hour of torture.
The one encounter between the Kryptonians and the Warden had begun with the former marching on the latter's fortress and demanding entrance. Her answer had left all but a single member of the one thousand strong Kryptonian expeditionary force standing frozen on the hard ground as they lifted their faces to the sky and screamed out their life; their skin gangrened and falling from their bones in wet and dead clumps.
The one who had lived had been left alive on purpose. Someone had to take back word of what had happened. He stood helplessly and watched his fellows die before him. After all his men had finally been killed, in less than a blink, he had found himself back on Scylona, the capital of Krypton.
She had transported him there, without need for a temporal key to open a portal out of the Zone. He had told all who would listen of the horror he had witnessed. He had even remarked upon his great luck to not be amongst those who died. At that point, the Warden had driven home the rusty nail of his punishment by driving him utterly mad. He had shouted away his remaining years, further cursed with a great and lengthy life.
Tezcatlipoca had learned all of this during his time with the Mistress. He had come to Zone, not to make an alliance – She allied with no one – but to offer service. She could have either annihilated him on the spot, or She could have accepted his servitude.
As far as Tezcatlipoca was concerned, better to serve the Darkness than to live and die in the light. And that would have been his fate given what Darkseid and the Kryptonian were likely to do to him. Besides which, was She not also called the Night Hag? Who better for the Obsidian Mirror, the Lord of Dreams to serve than the one who was the ultimate inspiration of nightmares?
Tezcatlipoca smiled as he thought of the oddity of life. Kal-El likely wanted to kill him, and if not for the Kryptonian, Tezcatlipoca would probably already be dead. Instead, Tezcatlipoca lived, and it had all been thanks to the Kryptonian. It was from within Kal-El's nightmare that Tezcatlipoca had first come upon the kernel of an idea that had led him to the Zone. Strange, that the Aztec's pseudo-salvation came from one who wished him harm.
Certainly, the Warden would likely have blasted him into atoms – after first dealing out the appropriate torture, of course – if not for the offer Tezcatlipoca had made: freedom from the Zone.
She was an ancient and puissant power, older than anything Tezcatlipoca had ever encountered, and in all that time, She had forever been locked away within the Zone, unable to exit the temporal prison. It wasn't because She lacked the temporal key, either. Clearly that wasn't the case given what She had done to the single Kryptonian She had left alive and shifted to Scylona to bear witness to Her power. She had even touched the Kryptonian from across the great and wide void that separated the Zone from the rest of the Universe.
It was something else.
The Warden, the Illuminated Darkness, was much like the Croatoans, Her children: She was sentient energy. But She could only live within the confines of the Zone. In the rest of the Universe, she couldn't hold together her cohesion. She would fly apart, Her essence shredded into photons and waves of energy, lost in the limitless reaches of space. The Universe was death for Her.
Until now.
Kal-El's dream had been the key. In his dreamscape, the Kryptonian had imagined using the power of the Croatoans, themselves, to fuel his escape. In essence, Kal-El had thought to store the energy of a Croatoan within his body.
What if the same could be done for the Warden?
Tezcatlipoca had long pondered the idea. He had put the scientists of Apokolips to work on the premise of trapping the sentient energy of a Croatoan in a field that would sustain them. He then told them to increase the field strength by a factor of a thousand. A few days prior to knowing that he had failed with all three that he had trapped in nightmares, the scientists brought him success.
Tezcatlipoca now had a means by which the Warden could escape the Zone.
Should he do so, though? That was the question. He had considered all other avenues and finally decided he had no reason not to serve Her.
Death or life? Not a hard choice for the Aztec, even if the life would be one of servitude to the Illuminated Darkness.
He shrugged. Fatalism. The die was cast. It was too late for regrets now.
It had taken some effort, but after the theory had been proven, he had funded and promoted the production of a tachyon-emitting suit –a TES – and had it linked to a built-in computer system that would be able to instantly and constantly remodulate the tachyon field based upon the input parameters of the suit itself.
Crash production over three days had allowed him to leave Apokolips with a functioning TES. And bring it to the Warden.
Once in the Zone, he had used the computer over the past one hundred years to closely study the waves and patterns that made up the Warden's sentience, patiently waiting until he was certain that he had Her energy signature down.
It was time. Soundlessly, he handed the suit to her.
The Warden, ancient beyond reckoning, was not a being of gross physical construction. Truthfully, the idea of flesh disgusted Her. So wet and full of moist, grotesque fluids. How did the mortals stand such filth? It was yet another reason to bring this corrupt and decadent Universe to heel.
She was not like her pale and sniveling brother, Lucius. He wanted the Universe to love and worship Him. She had no desires for such. Darkseid was another with grand visions. He wished the Universe to be as Apokolips: a cold, joyless place given over to fear of the Master and shaped in his obdurate image. She could almost respect that, but Darkseid was just as much a creature of the flesh as all else who existed. He was unwilling to make the final leap to what was truly needed.
If She had a head, the Warden would have shaken it. No. Domination, either through fear or worship inspired not the Illuminated Darkness. What foolishness? To have such gaudy theatrics thrown at Her as though it were a prize? Folly indeed, but worse considering the source of those emotions: the filthy fleshlings.
She wanted nothing from them but their deaths. Ultimately, Her desires would lead to a type of purity. She wanted to bring an end to the Universe itself. Bring an end to her Father's repugnant experiment. Return all to as it once was: a still and silent emptiness.
And the foolish godling standing behind her had been the key.
Lucius chose to rule in Hell. The Warden had chosen Rikta – the Empty. Within its confines, She could be almost as She had once been: a being of celestial majesty and beauty; without flesh or form, but pure intellect. In this deeply flawed Universe, it was the closest one such as Her could be to Her original state. There were those, once Her brothers and sisters, who could be in their Heavenly selves in the Universe, but that was only through the grace of their Father.
The Warden had long ago lost her grace. How long had been since Lucius had convinced Her to rebel? Too long to remember, but She could still recall the moment when it occurred. Lucius had come to Her, His sister and mate, with sweet words of reason, but truthfully She had not needed them. Once She had learned of the Lamb, of the flesh, the idea of rebellion had already taken root in Her mind. Lucius' imploring sentiments had simply allowed Her to reach a decision; one She had never regretted in the eternal years of Her existence. Could She do so, the Warden would have rebelled even yet again.
All because of the Lamb. Had She teeth, She would have gnashed them. Why the Lamb? Why take fleshly form? Disgusting and revolting. Her Father loved an abomination and worse had made of Himself one. He reveled in it.
It was shameful. From that shame had had arisen Her anger. From anger came hatred.
This was ultimately Father's fault. Had He not created such a filthy place as this fleshly Universe, all would have been as it always had been. She would still be His second, standing with her husband and brother, in worshipful service to their Father.
Why had He chosen the meat-suits over the angels?
Even now, so many millennia and eons later, the memory still brought Her pain. Why couldn't Father have loved Her more?
She shuddered, or at least her energy fields shuddered. She disdainfully inspected the suit built by the godling – she smirked at the conceit; he was no more an equal to Father as a fleshling would be to the Warden. Truthfully, he was as far below Her as one of his so-called followers were below him.
But, he had served Her well. The suit, though tawdry and of the flesh, would allow Her to emerge from Rikta. With the suit, she would be able to maintain Herself in the Universe at large and act with impunity. At last, She could teach these meat-suited marionettes the truth of their existence: their worlds should have never been. She would be the ones to pull the strings.
The fleshlings and the Universe would be less than nothing.
It was time.
She donned the TES, squeezing Her immensity within its constricting confines. She struggled, swearing as She was unable to fold Herself tightly enough to be bound within the suit. Again and again, She tried, failing each time. She grew angry, growling her frustration as She bent to the task at hand. It wasn't working.
She screamed, a roar of pure rage. The fool Aztec! He had misjudged. She could no more enclose Herself within the suit than a sun could within a planet. She turned and glared at Tezcatlipoca. She was prepared to end him, permanently and painfully when She became aware of an opportunity.
She studied the Aztec closely before finding satisfaction. Yes, he would do.
If he wore the suit, the combination of his so-called godly flesh and the TES would be more than ample to contain Her fallen majesty.
The Warden held out the suit, flashing a command to Tezcatlipoca. He froze, aware of what disobedience would bring. What She was commanding was essentially his death, however. She would live within his body, and that which made him Tezcatlipoca would either die or exist as a spectator to Her rule.
For the first time, he realized his folly. He should have gone back to the sarcophagus, the one from which Zeus had awoken him. Better to be safe and asleep than dead. He cursed his ambition. It had always lead him to foolishness, none more so than now.
The Warden flashed Her command once more.
He flinched but slowly pulled on the TES. He could see no other alternative. Once he was encased in its wiry embrace, the Warden stepped forward and entered him.
Tezcatlipoca screamed as his consciousness was invaded by a being that saw him as less than an insect; a creature without mercy; one who had once held such power and grace that the words themselves weren't adequate to describe it. She was Lilith, the Illuminated Darkness. She saw Herself as holy, but was far from it. Morality flowed from the Creator. That was a fact that Tezcatlipoca had learned many years earlier, and this creature was in direct rebellion to the Father. Such a state was, by its very definition, evil.
He shuddered as She regarded him, dispassionately. Every touch of Her mind to his was revolting.
*You disgust me* She said. *Sleep and bother me no more*
With that, Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of war; the Obsidian Mirror; the Lord of the North Wind, the Master of Dreams, found himself lost in a nightmare world of Her making.
She was the Night Hag.
She smiled at the silence within Her. The Aztec was lost and would never be found.
Good.
She stetched Her consciousness, filling every cell and molecule of Tezcatlipoca's body. It would do. The suit was maintaining Her energy fields.
Finally. She stepped forth, exiting Her fortress, if moving from one location to another with a thought could be called walking.
The Croatoans fled.
Let them. In the end, the last thing She would destroy would be Rikta itself. Her mewling children, so disappointing in their weakness, would know terror in their last few moments.
She had no sympathy for them.
She ripped open a hole in the fields of energy that made up Rikta.
Here came the first and possibly final test if She and the Aztec had miscalculated. She inhaled deeply, immediately disgusted by Her fleshly reaction.
She leapt to the opening in the sky.
Once through, She paused immediately and waited to see what would happen.
She laughed. She lived. It had worked. It would work.
The Universe, so grotesque, would be ended. Her long exile would be ended. All would be restored.
With a grim smile, she closed the breach leading to Ritka and decided to kill all the remaining so-called gods of the Aztecs world.
A fitting first step to the eventual annihilation of the Universe. The fleshlings would fear Her.
They would know her as the Corrosive.
It had taken weeks to accomplish, but Apokolips was tamed once more. The time his world had gone without her tyrant king had nearly led to anarchy. Rule had only been restored when Darkseid had exited the palace, parademon legions at his side and decimated all who quarreled for freedom or some such inanity.
Every person in such districts that had arisen against his returned rule had been rounded up. Darkseid began killing one person out of every ten until the fomenters of the rebellion were shoved forward. Immediate execution of those individuals quickly dissuaded all the others to stifle themselves and return to whatever occupation they held.
The rebellion was ended. All was returning to as it should be.
All except Desaad.
Darkseid frowned as he gave thought to his chamberlain. Betrayal from that quarter had been completely unexpected. He was still trying to understand what signs he might have missed. What could he have done differently? More importantly, what secrets was Desaad whispering to All-Father? Any future contact and conflict between Apokolips and New Genesis would have to be carefully studied beforehand. The imbecile pacifists were already skilled at war, and with Desaad's knowledge, they might have an unbeatable advantage.
Darkseid had already ordered a top-down review of all military procedures, from code phrases of spies to the organization and disposition of the legions. Command structure; parademon training and control; composition and specs of all warships – all of it would have to change. It would be the work of years, but it was necessary.
Yet another reason to find the Aztec and send him to the Pit. How long would a god be able to resist Goodness, Darkseid wondered.
The Master stiffened. He felt a ripple in the fabric of the Universe. He didn't know what it meant, but it filled him with unquiet.
A moment later, understanding came to him: the Phantom Zone had been breached. He hissed, an unaccustomed sound of fear, of which he was grateful none of his subjects were present to witness. Something of immense power had emerged.
Just then, a parademon general, Denigrate, hustled into the throne room. He bowed and waited for the Master's acknowledgment so he could deliver his message.
"What has occurred?" Darkseid asked.
The general straightened. "A breach has been ripped in the Phantom Zone," Denigrate said. "The breach is thought to have come from within the Zone itself."
His words confirmed Darkseid's impressions. The Master simply nodded. He frowned and considered the words of his general.
Denigrate cleared his throat. "There is more, Master," he said. "An energy field, all of interlocking tachyon fields emerged from the Zone. It looked as though it were arranged in a distinct pattern, like that of a well-ordered mind."
"A Croatoan?" Darkseid asked, hating the almost hopeful tone in his voice. He already knew the answer even before Denigrate spoke. It was Her.
"We don't believe so," Denigrate said. "The energy levels in the tachyon fields exceeded our ability to measure. We think it may be the Warden."
Darkseid sat down heavily. Not all wars or battles were won with brute force. In fact, very few. It was all decided on will and cunning. An enemy that was more powerful could still be defeated.
Darkseid wasn't sure if that applied to the Warden. Her power was a mystery, but rumor intimated that the Warden's power was as far above Darkseid's as the Master's was above the lowliest of his subjects.
Likely, that was simple exaggeration, but Darkseid hadn't maintained his rule by being foolhardy and reckless. He needed to know his opponent; understand just how powerful She really was. Unfortunately, knowledge – the most desirable of all coin – was scarce when it came to the Warden. In this matter, Darkseid was impoverished.
He needed to go to find the Warden and judge Her for himself. Was She truly so powerful that She couldn't be beguiled into loss, or tripped up by Her own power?
He didn't know, but it was important to find out. His rule depended on it.
"Arrange for a holocaust cloak," Darkseid ordered. "I will bring Her to her knees," he said, lying to Denigrate. The parademon visibly brightened.
"It will be ready forthwith," Denigrate said, bowing low.
Darkseid smirked.
Let the general spread word that the Lord feared no one, even a being whose power couldn't be measured, even if it wasn't true. Never show weakness in front of the troops. It was a lesson that had served Darkseid well over the years.
Darkseid pondered his next move. Of course, the Lord had no intention of testing the Warden. He would simply observe Her and decide what could be done. Hence, the holocaust cloak. Before approaching Her, he needed a better guage of her strength. If She was too powerful to directly defeat, then it might be that Darkseid would have to swallow his pride and find a way to assuage Her; reach an accomodation. He could bury Her later, once he'd determined her weaknesses.
Right now, the Master could not afford another powerful enemy.
Zeus stood up straight within the vaulted throne hall of Olympus. A gasp left his mouth and his face held a look of fear. "She comes," he whispered.
The remaining gods of Olympus gazed at their Lord in varying degrees of alarm and speculation. What could possibly cause Zeus, their father and most powerful of the gods to show fear?
Zeus turned to the remaining Olympians: Athena, Apollo, Hera, and Aphrodite. "The Aztec, Tezcatlipoca has found a way to free the Warden."
That got through to them.
Zeus was still in shock. When he had mentioned the possibility to Hera, he had said it almost in jest. He had never expected the Aztec to actually attempt, much less carry through such a fantastically impossible strategy. What could Tezcatlipoca have been thinking? The Warden was a power of which very little was known. Her few interactions with the outside Universe had convinced all, mortals and gods alike, to step carefully around Her. Especially the gods. They, more than most, could sense Her power, and they had no desire to see Her unleashed.
Now, Tezcatlipoca had accomplished the unthinkable. She was free.
Zeus had sensed the tear in the fabric of the Universe when She broke free. He sensed the ripping apart of the walls that separated the realm of the tachyon prison from that of the rest of the Universe, but he had no idea what it meant.
She had emerged from that hole. He could sense Her movement through the space of Sol's system. She was out past Neptune but heading to Earth and taking Her time. At her present speed, She would arrive within the week.
Something immense brushed his mind. *I come to slay thee and thine, godling," the voice spoke. Zeus shivered in fear. He'd only once before felt such unmasked power. Lucius. That one had been beautiful but needy for approval and worship. This one, though, she was all cold malevolence; harsher than the bleakness of the space through which she was travelling.
She wanted nothing of them but their ending.
He shuddered one last time as the Warden snapped apart the connection between their minds. "Contact all the remaining gods of Earth," Zeus pronounced to Apollo. "Many may know of the disruption of the Zone, but they may not know what it means. The Warden has broken her bonds. She is free and is coming to us. She contacted me just now, over the far distance between Olympus and Neptune." He nodded grimly. "She promises war. All the gods will be needed in this battle," he said.
"She is so powerful?" Athena asked, unsure whether to believe in her father's fear.
"When she touched me, it was like nothing I've felt since Lucius threw me down."
Athena blinked, startled. Lucius. He had been the lover of all the goddesses, and she hadn't been an exception. The man had held a power like no other, almost beyond imagining.
And Zeus claimed one was coming with a similar potency. One bringing war. She wondered – and doubted – whether even all the remaining gods would be enough to defeat such a one.
Since Hermes' death, it had fallen to Apollo to become the messenger of the gods, a role he detested but did with minimal agitation.
Apollo stood and bowed before taking his leave.
Hera stood. "We should ask Diana and her friends for their help as well."
"See to it," Zeus ordered.
He surveyed the remaining gods of Olympus. So sad, and so few. Once there had been many more. This might be the last ride of the gods. Would anyone weep at their passing?
Diana lay on a chaise lounge with eyes closed and hidden behind large, dark sunglasses; basking in the warmth of the sun. She peaked at her husband, lying nearby on a similar chaise.
What was it about his naked torso that so entranced her? He was broad and thick through the chest, but somehow still retained a sense of lean and coiled and fluid movement. Maybe it was his abdominal region. She definitely liked the way his muscles rippled and slid over his stomach. Or maybe it was lower than that. His swim trunks – black and baggy – were worn a bit low, revealing the arch of muscle over his hips. She wondered…just about a bit lower, and even more…interesting anatomy would be revealed.
She sighed. Why had she so foolishly turned him down this morning? She recalled it was something about wanting to make a point. She wanted him to respect her mind as much as he desired her body.
What an idiot she was sometimes. Of course Kal respected her mind. It was why she loved him so much. Most men couldn't lift their gaze away from her legs, or bottom, or breasts, but Kal always looked her in the eyes.
Although, Diana didn't mind at all when he looked at other regions.
It all seemed so silly in hindsight. She savored another glance. She sighed. She must have been watching too much Oprah.
After all, simply desiring his body was how she was thinking about him right now.
She almost groaned. He had such a beautiful body. She schooled her face to stillness as she thought furiously about how to walk back the words she had spoken to him this morning: you'll have to be more than simply lustful to prove your love.
Idiot!
How could she get out of that stupid statement without sounding needy? Diana flicked another glance at her husband. Right now, she wanted nothing more than for Kal to show his lust.
Kal hid a smile and kept his eyes closed.
Something was going on in his wife's lovely mind, and he doubted it had anything to do with high and noble aspirations. This morning she had greeted his desire with a frown of discontent. "We're creatures of flesh, but it need not limit who we are or our creativity," she had said.
He understood the sentiment, but with Diana – he glanced at her – half the time, all he could think about was her luscious flesh.
She lay on her lounge chair, wearing a blue bikini top, from which hung a sheer white fabric that did nothing to hide her taut abdomen so much as accentuate it. Around her hips, she wore a white wrap that hugged her long curves and hung open along the side, revealing a very tempting expanse of thigh.
He had noticed when she had cracked an eye and gave him a very thorough once over. He had also noticed when she did it the second and third times as well. He said nothing, though. He didn't have to. While her features gave nothing away, her breathing did. So did the acceleration of her heart whenever she looked at him. As did the slight the flush to her face. No one else would have noticed it but him.
He waited, immersing himself in his Kryptonian rationality – without it, she would no doubt have deduced his less than righteous sentiments. His trunks weren't that baggy.
Diana sighed. "You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"
"Ask what?" Kal's voice was smooth and innocent.
"You've heard my heart and my breathing. I'm sure you've seen me look at you. And, of course, there is the flush that only you can see."
Kal opened his eyes and glanced at Diana. She had rolled over and had her head propped on a crooked arm. He barely kept hold off his coolness. Her breasts looked ready to tumble free of the bikini. More leg was showing as the fabric of her wrap pooled enticingly where her legs came together. He swallowed. "Why, umm, yes. Now that you mention it, I did notice…"
His voice trailed off as Diana stood. She discarded the wrap in a smooth motion and took the short step to his chaise. She straddled him and somehow managed to rid him off his shorts as well as her own bikini top. He found his hands suddenly full of her soft breasts. She kissed him hard, taking his breath away as her tongue teased him. She sat up with a challenging smile. "Now, I believe I mentioned something about creativity and the flesh. Show my how creative you can be, Kal-El," she purred.
He grinned. "As you command," he replied, pulling her back into his arms.
Kal heard a distant ringing. No! Not now. He leaned back from her with a frustrated sigh. "Take a raincheck?" he asked. Diana looked at him with confusion. "We're being paged by Watchtower."
Diana blinked, still not understanding until his words finally penetrated the haze of her desire. "Hades and fornication! This better be important," she growled, swinging off of Kal.
Kal completely agreed with her sentiment. It could have been such a wonderful afternoon.
He sighed again as he stood and looked for his shorts. Oh. There they were. Diana had flung them a half-mile into the ocean in her haste to get them off of him. She'd really wanted him naked. He watched for a moment as they went floating away on the tide. He shook his head in pleased bemusement.
Time to go get them.
A quick dash, and he was clothed once more. When he returned to the beach, Diana was still getting dressed. He alighted almost directly behind her, just as she was bending over to pick up her wrap. He cursed. Whatever Watchtower needed, it had better be very important.
