Chapter 36
Batman had gotten the call about the Justice Lords and come to Metropolis. Only his interest wasn't in the battle he had seen reported on the news. That he can leave to his teammates. More important to him was where did this battle originate. Satellite surveillance of the area had, by chance, caught the moment the group initially burst onto the surface and he means that literally.
You zoomed in on the footage and what became clear was that there was a substantial underground facility that had been revealed by the gaping hole in the street that had been created when the Justice Lords and their foe emerged. The answer to stopping this superpowered woman most likely lay within Batman reckoned.
On that vein he had been infiltrating the facility. It wasn't hard, considering the destruction and chaos within, on top of his hard trained skills to avoid detection.
In a darkened corner of the facility Batman had hacked directly into some fibre optic cabling and was using a mini computer he had in his utility belt to access the data files.
Batman mostly skims through the files until he gets to the section he wants on genetic research and biological weapons. He's playing a hunch as in regards to what and where the woman the Justice Lords are fighting comes from.
Attempted cloning experiments...harvesting metahuman DNA samples...here's what he thinks he is looking for.
PROJECT DONNA.
Batman read the details with a growing anger. This...this is exactly the kind of situation they should have been avoiding by being more forcibly proactive and they would have been if not for Green Lantern and Flash mostly. J'onn had gone along with them for the most part as well.
"Ah same old Batman. You never change."
Batman spins round and peers into the darkness of this maintenance corridor. That voice sounds...familiar.
The sound of high-heeled boots walking hits his ears as whoever this is draws nearer. Eventually they come close enough for him to make out. Batman's eyes narrow to slits. "Zatanna."
Lord Zatanna mock shivers with fear. "Ooh the Bat-glare. I guess I should surrender in the face of its awesome power," she mocks with a teasing smirk.
Batman knows this is not the Zatanna he knows. It's the one from the other world. "Why are you here?"
"Why are any of us here?" Zatanna quips.
Batman knew he had to be careful. With her magic restored this Zatanna was potentially very dangerous and if the other Justice Lords had their powers once again then he must assume Zatanna has hers. Before it dissolves into the inevitable confrontation he wonders if he can use her ego to get some questions answered. "You're up to something."
"Am I?" Zatanna queries that with an amused grin.
"You're not with the others which means you have your own plans."
"Ah the great detective at work...stating the blindingly obvious," she insults him in a flat tone.
"Where is he?"
"Where is...?"
"Don't play dumb Zatanna. The other Batman."
"Oh him. Dead. Deceased. Pushing up daises. Taking a dirt nap. Is that clear or do you need a few more euphemisms? I've got about a million of them."
"How?"
"Diana. Stuck a knife in his neck when they were trying to arrest her. Sure was messy with all that blood spurting everywhere. They showed it on the news for about a week. Highlight of that week considering I was in prison thanks to you and your Justice League."
Batman notices how flat Zatanna's voice is. Not angry as one might expect.
"So are we doing this little song and dance where I kick your butt in about 5 seconds or what?" Zatanna asks him, full of confidence in her ability to win a fight with him.
"That depends on you," Batman replies. "What are you up to?"
"You want the truth. I just want to go home but I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I have to wait until the alter is created that will reveal the truth," she says mysteriously.
"What truth?"
Zee laughs strangely. It is an odd sounding laugh. "What is truth? What is lie? It's so hard to tell any more or is it simply too easy?"
Batman looks into her eyes. There is something...off about her. He means beyond being a corrupted double from a parallel universe.
"The truth," she suddenly repeats herself in a stronger voice. Zatanna then jerks her hand off to the right, into an alcove and roughly throws a man down in front of Bruce with surprising ease for her petite size. "There's your truth. There's everything you want to know about Donna." Zatanna bends down and grabs the hair of a man and jerks his head up to look at Batman. "Here's the man who created her. Say hi Emil!" Zatanna says, in a creepily cheery tone all of a sudden.
Dr Hamilton says nothing beyond groaning a bit due to how hard he just got thrown.
Zatanna looks up at Batman and smiles cheerfully. "He's a bit shy. Likes to keep things to himself...like how he really made Donna and forgot to include in those little data files you're hacking." Zatanna puts her hand to her mouth and fawns a look of outrage. "Ooh he's so naughty isn't he. Don't ya just want to spank him...or is that just me that wants to be spanked?" she says with a naughty, suggestive grin and waggle of her eyebrows.
Batman wonders what it is Zatanna has to be up to down here, beyond taking possession of Dr Hamilton...and yes he knows who the man in front of him is. How? Because he's Batman.
Batman picks Hamilton up and slams him against the wall, his feet off the ground. "What does she mean? What have you done?" he demands to know from Dr Hamilton, using his most gravelly, most menacing, tone of voice.
Dr Hamilton stutters out of fear. "I-I had to. Don't you understand she was dying. The DNA strands were unravelling. The regenerative ability I found in the other 2 would repair the damage but they were so incompatible. It needed something extra. A morphological factor that would alter itself to allow all the strands to coexist in a single entity."
Batman can take a few guesses at what Hamilton means but needs the bigger picture. "Start at the beginning," he tells Hamilton. "They wanted you to create a weapon?"
Dr Hamilton nods and starts at the beginning as he tells Batman everything he has done.
Luthor Mansion...
Thanks to the Justice Lord version of Black Canary the BoPs had managed to infiltrate the underground levels and were now just cautiously making their way along what, Batgirl would describe as, an escape tunnel. Lex probably added it just in case he finally got exposed for what he truly is and needed an exit route.
"This tunnel is completely off any grid," Lord Dinah says. "I guess Luthor wanted to make sure it wouldn't show up on any kind of power scan," she assumes, once again saying the name 'Luthor' with total hatred.
"No guards," Nightwing observes.
"It's probable none of them know it's here," Lord Dinah reflects.
"How did you find it?" Huntress asks.
"After Diana killed Luthor in our world don't you imagine we searched through his holdings, including the duplicate mansion to this one in our world, where we found all these levels. The layout is not precisely the same so it took me a few days to find the hidden entrance to this tunnel," Lord Dinah explains.
"Then surely the others must know it exists," Starling figures so why is Dinah the only one who used it.
"Diana agreed to a deal with Luthor. They'll uphold it out of respect for her."
"Don't ya respect her?" Lady Blackhawk asks Lord Dinah.
"Course I do. I just have no interest in any of this any longer. Dying remember?"
Batgirl looks at Dinah's double suspiciously. They hadn't confirmed whether that was true or not. "How you doing Zee?" she asks, turning her attention to the brunette sorceress.
"I'm shielding us from Tala for now although if she is what we suspect her to be I can't guarantee she won't be able to see though it eventually," Zatanna tells them.
"That's why Gypsy is here," Batgirl says in reference to the young girl in the traditional gypsy dress. Gypsy's power of illusion is such that she can hide them from plain view which makes sneaking past guards easier. Just doesn't work on cameras since it is psychic in nature.
"That might not work on Tala," Zatanna cautions.
"It won't," Lord Dinah says most assuredly.
"You know her?" Nightwing inquires.
"Oh yeah. One of our most common recurring villains until Diana put an end to her."
"How many people has the princess killed exactly?" Huntress asks, knowing what Lord Dinah means by 'put an end to her'.
"Do you really want to know the answer to that when I stopped counting at 50 and Diana is far more powerful than I?"
Huntress frowns under her mask. She is not enjoying this at all working with a mass murderer who was part of a group of mass murderers. Who knows how many they killed. Hundreds certainly. Maybe thousands. Perhaps that's why Dinah never talks very much about what she witnessed in the other world.
The group come to what appears to be a dead end.
"Fake wall," Lord Dinah ascribes what it is.
"What's on the other side?" Batgirl wants to know.
"It's in the middle of a corridor. About 20 meters from either end. We're on the lowest underground level. There were no guards on this level when I was escaping."
"Gypsy get ready," Batgirl orders the girl to get ready to hide them behind an illusion should Dinah's twin be lying.
Gypsy nods and concentrates.
"How is it opened?"
Lord Dinah shifts to the adjacent wall and her hand skims over it. "Hmm on the outside there was a hidden switch. If Lex is as paranoid as I know he is he, no doubt, put one on this side just in case he wanted to sneak into his mansion unseen." Her hand presses at varying spots on the wall until a section shifts slightly. "Ah ha," she says with a smile. She pushes the block all the way in and the wall pivots open.
"Huntress, Starling," Batgirl commands them to go first and secure the immediate area.
The two woman move forward and take opposite directions along the corridor. A few moments later they signal it is clear and safe as the rest of the group step out.
"There's two accesses to this level at opposite ends," Lord Dinah says as she points in the two opposite directions.
"How much snooping around did you do?" Nightwing asks.
Lord Dinah smiles secretly to herself. "I'm very good at what I do," she praises herself.
Batgirl looks up. "You said your detention area was 2 levels above this," she recalls from what Lord Dinah said earlier.
"Yes. The level above is utilities. Separate power and water systems from the mansion."
"And above the detention area should be the gateway device."
"Assuming Lex hasn't moved it since I escaped yes."
Batgirl looks to Nightwing. "I want you to drop in on the Justice Lords. I'll secure the gateway device. She'll need to go with you," she says in reference to Lord Dinah. "Can you get your colleagues to cooperate?" she asks Lord Dinah.
"They're not any happier to be doing Luthor's dirty work than I am. If Diana is away, which we can assume she is, I should be able to persuade them...but if you're thinking of returning us to our cosy little jail cell, that, they will not agree to. Would you?"
"We can't let them loose...can we?" Nightwing asks.
Batgirl rubs her head. They can't stay here and yet what kind of hero is she if she returns them to run havoc all over another world.
"Didn't bother the Justice League," Lord Dinah points out. "They were just glad to be rid of us as soon as possible."
"We're not them," Batgirl counters that with. She has to think of something. "Ok here's my compromise. We return you to your world but some place remote and isolated where it'll take you a long time to reach civilisation."
"Batgirl," Nightwing begins to protest and finds himself under her gaze...a specific look he is familiar with. She has a plan.
"I'm in charge. I make the decisions. We're getting rid of them. No arguments," Batgirl states for show.
In return Nightwing argues, again for show, "We will be discussing this later."
"No we won't."
"Yes we will...and you're so sleeping on the couch," Nightwing tells her.
Lord Dinah snorts with laughter at that one.
Batgirl shoves her over to Nightwing. "Take her, Gypsy, Blackhawk and Starling and secure her colleagues. Zatanna, Misfit, Huntress and I will secure the gateway device. If necessary Misfit can teleport the damn thing out of here if something goes wrong," she says, still pretending to sound angry.
Misfit looks a little unsure of herself. Sure she can teleport inanimate objects with her. Living things...tend to die...rather horribly if she tries to teleport them. However just how big a thing is this gateway device is the question. She has limits but she will not say she can't do it. For Barbara she would at least try.
Decision made the two teams split up and take the opposite ways to exit this level.
Up above in the mansion Lex had been watching the battle of the Justice Lords versus Cadmus' weapon with a growing sense of unease which had turned into a downright morose feeling. All the death and destruction was as Lex had hoped. In fact the more death and destruction there was the more intense the public backlash against the government and the Justice League would be when he leaked the 'truth' out.
What Lex hadn't counted on was Cadmus' weapon winning. In fact his plan called for the opposite outcome. He wanted Cadmus' weapon destroyed because by the time he found out about it it was beyond his ability to control. As he watched it demolish the Justice Lords how he wished he had found it earlier.
Somehow...Lex is going to go with sheer chance...somehow Cadmus have managed to create, quite possibly, the most powerful being on this planet.
It would have to die.
Lex Luthor will not allow something like that to run around on his world beyond his control.
He needs to start making a plan on how to destroy it. He still had the other Justice Lords. Once Tala had recharged the crystal for his device he could restore their powers and use them and his own Injustice League in his plans.
Patience.
There was no need to charge in with haste.
There was still the Justice League. That, at least, would keep Cadmus' weapon busy for awhile. Lex has next to no faith that the League will succeed where the Justice Lords failed but their deaths will buy him time.
Lex stands up, goes to his liquor cabinet and pours himself a drink. Other people by now would be in a panic but those people aren't him. Panic doesn't get you anywhere but certain defeat and Lex never loses.
Lex downs his drink and returns to his desk. He presses the button that activates the intercom. "Tala," he speaks her name for her to respond.
"Yes Lex," comes Tala's reply with her ever present flirtatious overtones.
"How long will it take to recharge the crystal?"
"A day at least."
"Proceed as quickly as possible."
"What has happened?" Tala asks, getting an inkling something must have for Lex to sound so urgent.
"I'll explain later," Lex fobs her off. "I just need the crystal and you know I trust no-one but you to do the work," he flatters her. Women are so easy to manipulate if you flatter them.
"Of course Lex," Tala says obediently.
The intercom cuts out.
"That man must think I'm a simpleton," Tala mutters to herself. As if a few cheap words work on her. She rules over a domain in Hell after all. She's been alive longer than Lex can possibly imagine. Lex is only a means to an end for her. What end she keeps to herself.
Tala then looks around. For the last while she could swear she has sensed another magical presence and there it is again. A flash of magical energy for a moment before it vanishes. She closes her eyes and concentrates. If someone else is here it has to be a protection ward to hide themselves from her.
Tala chants off a few counter spells for the most common protection wards. There!
For a second...a familiar magical presence. One she has sensed before.
Tala's eyes snap open.
The Magician.
She's here.
Tala wonders why.
Tala debates whether she should inform Lex for a minute.
Nah.
Not yet anyway.
Tala will just keep an eye on things and see how they play out. It might be interesting and she doesn't want to spoil a chance of having some fun by alerting Lex too soon.
Metropolis...
Superman, Black Canary, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Wonder Woman. They all surround Donna in a circle. Her eyes and other senses track their subtlest movements. They were smarter than the Justice Lords Donna would give them credit. They weren't charging in. They were taking time to consider their first move against her.
Donna doesn't have the patience for that. "Whose first?" she asks. "I have a world to reshape so really I would like to finish this sometime today," she goads them.
"No-one is first for we do not have to do this," Superman speaks up.
Donna looks at him and a strange smile comes to her. "Ah the pacifist speaks. Let me guess you think there is some good in me and can be reasoned with. You are hopelessly naïve...farmboy!" she insults him.
The shock on Clark's face is immense at when she says that. How does she know who he is?
"The world is not changed with words but with might and none are mightier than me. I was created to be the League's destroyer and so I shall. I will reshape this world for that is my purpose and I will not be distracted from my goal," Donna decrees.
"There are many ways to reshape the world. This destruction is unnecessary," Superman argues.
Donna snorts. "My sister tried that line and then decreed that she was not here to talk to this creature," she says glancing at Wonder Woman.
Clark looks at Wonder Woman perplexed by the sister comment and...disappointed that she would just dismiss the young woman as a creature.
Donna continues, "My sister is correct. Talk is meaningless. I know my purpose unlike you, who still grasp to find meaning and struggle to even come to terms with your orphaned status. You're still just that poor little lost boy Ma and Pa found in the field," Donna mocks with a bit of a yokel accent thrown in for good measure. "Time to grow up...Kal," she scolds him, using the name Lord Diana used when he arrived.
"We must attack her together," J'onn telepathically sends to all of them. "Superman. Your heat vision first. Force her to raise a telekinetic shield."
Clark had never liked his heat vision. The idea of killing with a look haunted him but if he is going to go on trust he guesses now is as good a time as any. Clark's eyes light up and two beams leave his eyes and as J'onn predicted Donna raises a TK shield to protect herself.
In the next instant J'onn has fired his own Martian vision as two red beams leave his eyes and strike another shield Donna raises. Aquaman leaps into the air and tries to strike her from above. He too hits a field which has become a bubble around Donna.
Flash zooms in and around punching at the shield.
"Canary. Go!" J'onn directs.
Dinah draws a deep breath and screams. The air distorts as does the field as her sonic scream hits it.
Diana leaps off the ground and flies right through the buckling field and slams a punch into Donna's face sending her flying. Before she can recover Flash is there waiting. He grabs an arm and spins her round and round as fast as he can before letting her go, sending her skyward where J'onn is waiting. He clasps his hands together and slams them down into Donna sending her back towards the ground where Wonder Woman is in position waiting. She delivers a perfectly timed spinning kick and Donna literally goes bouncing along the ground.
Donna bounces right to where Aquaman is as he slams his trident into her midsection, rapidly changing her direction until she smashes into a pile of debris.
Superman blurs in front of her, inhales deeply and unleashes his ice breath freezing Donna in a block of ice.
Flash appears next to him. "Is that it?" he asks, not looking very impressed. "That wasn't so tough."
Dinah groans at that. "Never say that," she says and why you never say that becomes apparent that very second as Donna's form flashes red with fire and the ice begins to melt.
Superman blurs forward and smashes through the melting ice, grabbing Donna and throwing her hard into the ground, cratering it even more than it had been by the last battle.
There is a cry of rage and Superman and Flash find themselves flung away as the whole street rips open at the TK wave Donna sends out. She stands there, her face battered but healing, her hands clenched so hard into fists her nails draw blood from the palms. "I'll kill you all!" she swears and her eyes for one brief moment flash ominously red.
"You shall not!" Diana shouts as she plows into her man-made sister shoulder first driving them both into the side of a building. Diana drives punch after punch into Donna's face before Donna grabs the fist. Diana uses her other hand only for Donna to grab that. Donna then slams her head into Diana's own, who goes staggering back, seeing double.
Donna too has to grab her head as she sees stars. "Gods her head is hard," she mutters to herself before she seems to pause and confusion pucker her brow at where that came from. For a moment she sounded just like her sister.
Donna is dazed enough not to see Aquaman come charging in at her and striking across the face with his trident with enough force to rattle her down to her bones. Her head snaps to the right, directly into a blow from the Martian Manhunter snapping her head the other way.
Donna ducks under another blow by letting her momentum take her to the ground. She raises a hand and ice flows from it as she freezes the Martian solid. She'll have to thank Superman for the idea of freezing before she kills him and thank her mother, Ice, whose power this is.
Donna rolls out of the way of a strike down from Aquaman's trident. She gets to her knees and kicks out backward hitting him in the knee before rolling forward and springing to her feet...only to met by the ear splitting power of Dinah's Canary Cry which sends her reeling backward into a right from her sister who proceeds to pummel into her once more.
Unlike the Lords Donna can't seem to get the League as separated or to get a rest. They were definitely doing better than their tyrannical duplicates.
As the two sisters fight it out Superman shakes his head, slightly dazed from what Donna did. He moves to get up only to find his hand grabbed. He looks to see it is the Justice Lord Wonder Woman who has crawled over to him.
"Kal," Lord Diana says, her voice shaking with emotion. "Kal. Don't go. Don't leave me again," she pleads, tears in her eyes.
"I was never with you," he says as gently as he can. "I'm not the man you knew. He died."
"And I made Luthor pay," she says in a hateful hiss. She looks at him, desperation clear in her eyes. "Come home with me," she asks of him. "This world is doomed but I made our world better for you. I brought peace and order all for you. To honour you."
"Honour me?" Clark questions that. "I was told about your world. I can't speak for him," he says in reference to his double. "I can only speak for myself and what you did I would not consider an honour. I would consider it an insult."
"But I..." Lord Diana tries to protest.
"You soaked your hands in blood," Clark says bluntly. "And justified it as being necessary. I've seen death. I saw a little boy I had come to care for murdered by people who said it was necessary. A boy who had done nothing and the man responsible I had him by his throat. All I had to do was squeeze but I didn't because if I had it would not have been justice. It would have been revenge. You took your anger at his death and hatred of Luthor and you just kept hating and hating until you could no longer distinguish the innocent from the guilty. You took your hate and applied it to everyone who you deemed got in your way. I know this because I saw that look you have in your eye in the eye of the man whose neck I had in my grasp. You let yourself become a monster."
Diana gasps at hearing Kal, her beloved Kal, call her that. He looks at her with sadness as he extricates his hand from hers and gets to his feet.
"Very astute," a sultry sounding voice says from the shadows as Zatanna walks out with Batman accompanying her and he carrying another man in a white lab coat over his shoulder. "But it's only really a fraction of the story."
Zatanna steps toward Superman, her every step oozing sexuality. She stands over Lord Diana. "Time for the truth to be told!" Zatanna announces to the sky, as she raises her hands above her head, dark magic crackling between her fingers. In a flash of dark energy Diana, Donna, Black Canary, Aquaman, Flash and Martian Manhunter appear in a circle around them.
"What is going on?" Flash asks. "And when did Zee get the new hot outfit?" he wonders as he gives her the once over.
Zatanna smirks. "Nice to see you too Wallace but wrong Zatanna."
Clark looks from Zatanna to Batman. "Is this..."
"The Zatanna from their world," Batman confirms.
Everyone suddenly understands.
"You are all to be present for this," Zatanna says. "You all need to hear the truth before this event reaches its inevitable folly."
"I do not think..." Diana starts to say only for Zatanna's eyes to turn black and black energy binds, shaped like chains, wrap around Diana's wrists and hold her to the ground while another black energy band covers her mouth silencing her.
"I did not say you could talk and this is not up for debate!" Zatanna yells. "After all don't you want to know why they became like they did. All I ask is a few minutes and you'll learn the truth." She looks to Donna. "As we agreed yes?"
Donna nods. "Yes."
"What's your answer?" Zatanna asks the others.
"You have your few minutes," Dinah decides. That gives the other Leaguers she has seen breathing space to help civilians clear the area. Also there is something wrong about this. What agreement is there between Zatanna and this other woman. Best to be cautious and let this play out for now and see what it is about first.
"Excellent," Zatanna says with a smile as she looks down upon Lord Diana. "Let us start with her. She is the key to all of it. You see she lies there thinking her actions were done out of love for Superman but they were not. They were done out of guilt for her betrayals."
"I never betrayed Kal!" Lord Diana insists. "Never!"
Zatanna bends down and cups Diana's cheek. "Oh Di. You forget who you speak to. I can see the sins on your soul," she says, her voice taking on a disturbing echoing bass sound. Zatanna looks up at Clark and grins slightly amused by what she is about to say next. "And I can see the sins on yours. My, my Dinah's a lucky girl isn't she."
Clark is caught completely out, his cheeks flush red. Dinah too fidgets on the spot a little embarrassed by that...although she is very lucky in that area.
Zatanna laughs huskily.
Lord Dinah struggles to her feet to glare into Zatanna eye to eye. "Lies and betrayals are your forte witch! I do not have to hear more!"
"Ooh," Zatanna mock shivers. "Donna you've been telling on me haven't you," she says in a childish tone of reprimand.
Donna shrugs. "Oops," she says not really meaning that.
Zatanna lets it slide. It is not important. "You're right though Di I did betray you. The moment my powers returned I sensed her, talked to her," she says in reference to Donna. "She's not like any being that has ever existed on either of our worlds. We planned this whole thing just to reach this moment but then again I won't be taking lectures from you!" she spits out venomously into Diana's face.
Lord Diana takes her good arm and prepare to strike Zatanna down only for Clark to grab hold of it.
"No let her go Superman. Let her try to hit me," Zatanna says, challenging Diana.
"Get to the point Zatanna," Batman orders gruffly. "We are only here because you said it was time for the alter of truth to speak. Speak it!" She had said this just before she teleported the 3 of them up here and Bruce feels this needs to be heard...or Zatanna has done something to him. Her powers seem vastly greater than the Zatanna he knows.
"Bossy isn't he. Don't know what you saw in him," Zatanna comments to Lord Diana. "But you must have seen something considering all those night you spent in the cave with him."
It is not hard to gather what Zatanna is implying.
Lord Diana spits furiously in Zatanna's face as Superman is still holding her back. "How dare you! I loved Kal!"
"But you never trusted him. Not ever!" Zatanna accuses. "You see Superman back home was the leader of the Justice League before it all went to hell except he wasn't really the leader. Diana and Bruce never trusted him to make the important calls so they would meet in secret and take decisions behind his back. Isn't that so Di? Or are you going to lie about that as you did to Superman? Oh by the way he knew."
"What?" Lord Diana says, her face paling.
Zatanna chuckles mirthlessly. "Oh come on. He's Superman! And you were his wife. You don't really think he was that dense not to see what was going on do you. He went to his grave knowing that you had betrayed him. He probably welcomed his demise in the end just so it would stop hurting and that is what I mean when I said you did it out of guilt. Guilt you weren't a better wife...although lets face reality you had already gotten what you wanted from him which is why you felt free to spend so much time with Bruce," Zatanna adds with the necessary suggestive tone to get her meaning across.
'Wife!' is the shocked thought going through the Justice League's Wonder Woman's mind since she can't speak nor can she seem to break these bonds and she has tried. The other her was married to Superman? She doesn't even like him...except for those eyes. Those are beautiful.
"Why have you done this?" J'onn asks Zatanna.
"Why?" Zatanna asks back. "Why don't you ask her?" she says, pointing at Lord Diana with a spiteful glare.
"Me?" Lord Diana asks back, truly having no idea what Zatanna thinks she can blame Lord Diana for. "I have done nothing but been your friend," she argues which only make this betrayal even more baffling in Lord Diana's mind.
"Oh some friend," Zatanna says insincerely.
Donna smirks at this. "Come now sister dearest. This the alter of truth I worked so hard to create. Time to spill it...or do I have to borrow your double's lasso."
"I do not lie abomination!" Lord Diana snaps back.
Zatanna shakes her head in a disapproving manner. "Tsk. Tsk. We lie even to ourself now don't we Di. Well if you want me to explain I shall. Does the name Tala mean anything to people here?"
"We've met," Clark says with some disdain.
"Let me guess. 'I hate magic!'" Zatanna says in a mock impression of Clark before bursting into a fit of giggles.
"Zatanna!" Batman orders her to behave.
"Spoilsport!" she childishly retorts.
Flash whistles. "Wow. We're going with all 28 flavours of crazy here aren't we."
"Wallace I'm offended!" Zatanna says only she doesn't sound it. "I'm only 12 flavours of crazy and every single one of them is Diana's fault!"
"You're mad," Lord Diana says as the only explanation she can think of for Zatanna's behaviour.
"Yes. I am," Zatanna admits to her less then sound mental health. "Then again you did it to me the moment you slaughtered Tala."
"What do you mean?" Lord Diana asks, clearly lost.
"Tala. Powerful sorceress. Ruler of her own domain in Hell," Zatanna describes who Tala is. "But here's a less well known fact of the underworld. He who slays its ruler must take their place. There must be order even in Hell. Only you didn't take Tala's place did you Diana. You didn't have the moral fortitude. Instead it fell upon the only other magical person there that day to do so. Myself."
Those standing there can't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Zatanna.
"I hate you Diana," Zatanna states bluntly but in a flat sounding tone. "You turned me into the Mistress of Hell because you were too much of a coward to take the responsibility yourself and you have the nerve to ask why I betrayed you."
Clark once again has to hold Lord Diana back as her face flashes with hurt and anger.
"Let me go Kal! No-one calls me a coward!"
"It's what you are!" Zatanna yells into Diana's face, years of repressed anger and hate bubbling to the surface. "And finally, after all these years, I had the means to make you pay when I sensed the power that lay within Donna."
"Happy to oblige. Revenge is fun!" Donna says with a child-like glee gleaming in her eye.
"That, Brucie dear, is the point of this," Zatanna finally explains why she has done this. "I wanted Diana beaten, on her knees, just so I could revel in it," she says with an almost orgasmic joy at the fact Diana has been beaten so comprehensively. "And I wanted her to know what kind of person she is. Clark is right. You are a monster. You took your friend, me, and look what you did to her. Now I don't deny the terrible things I have done. I made some choices. I can live with that...and thanks to you I'm going to have to live with that for a very, very long time," Zatanna says spitefully, "but unlike you I don't pretend or lie to myself about how it was for some greater good."
"Must we listen to this," Aquaman complains, questioning the wisdom of this pause as he does so.
"I'm almost done," Zatanna says, "and then you may return to killing each other. I have only one last point to make and if you don't want to end up like your dead counterpart Arthur you will listen to me," Zatanna says as a warning not to ignore her. She strides away from Lord Diana and walks around her and Superman. She stops in front of Dinah. "Your double has been wanting to know how she ended up so different from you. It's staggeringly simple."
"Is it?" Dinah questions.
Zatanna nods. "She's human and flawed. We were all flawed back home but whereas a wise person tries to overcome their flaws...their weaknesses, we embraced them. Take Wondy there. Amazons are incredibly arrogant. They believed their way of life is perfect, without sin, superior to what's out here in Man's World. She believed she had a mission to make the world better and that's why I ended up the Ruler of Hell gig. That's why she betrayed Superman with Batman because she arrogantly believed she knew what was best and he didn't. She couldn't maker her better world if she had to stay to rule over Hell even if that meant shirking the responsibility that should have been hers and condemning her so-called friend to an eternity of ruling over the damned," she demeans Lord Diana who holds her head up high as if nothing Zatanna says has any effect, as if she still believes, even now, she did what was simply necessary.
Zatanna addresses Dinah directly. " As for your double Dinah...well I don't need to tell you your flaws really. I can see you know of them. My one piece of advice; learn from our mistakes. Choose not to become like her. For all of you choose not to end up like us and in the end it is all about choice. We could have chosen to be better than we were. In the end we chose to embrace our weaknesses, our sins. I can see them. That's the curse of being a Hell ruler. You get to see into a person's soul. We are all dammed. You are not...yet."
"But you are all dead," Donna promises them. She then points at Batman. "And if you have harmed my father I will reach down your throat and rip out your lungs!" she threatens. "The time for talk is over!" she declares.
"Yes it is," Zatanna agrees. She had said what she wanted to. "I leave you all to your fate which is something I cannot intervene in." She then waves cheerfully at them in a sudden mood swing. "Toodles!" she says with a cheeky wink and vanishes before their eyes.
"I like her," Donna comments. "That's why I'm letting her live. As for you," she says in reference to the others. "I made my offer and your refused. Your last mistake."
"Enough talk!" Aquaman commands as he charges at her, trident ready.
Donna's eyes narrow as the trident swings down at her. She catches it with apparent ease before she slams her foot into Aquaman hard...hard enough for it to be possible to hear bones break as he goes flying away hundreds of feet.
Donna held onto the trident which she twirls in her hands as Flash zooms at her. With a perfectly timed swing she clocks him in the head and he goes bouncing along the street until he crashes into a pile of debris.
J'onn moves to attack and Donna throws the trident at him which he allows to phase through his body but it distracts him for one moment and that is all Donna needs to fly at him and land a flame encased fist into his jaw with enough force to make the ground shake upon impact as J'onn goes spiralling away smashing into already heavily damaged buildings causing one to collapse completely burying him.
All this has given Lord Diana time to heal and she breaks out of Superman's grasp. She may have lost everything but she still has one thing left. The only thing left in 2 worlds that matters to her and to get it she has to get home and to get home she has to go through this abomination...this mockery of her sister and she shall destroy it. She swears.
Lord Diana flies at her. Donna raises her hand and the attack hits a TK shield.
"You just don't know when you're beat do you?" Donna says, as she looks at Lord Diana with some notable confusion about why she is fighting her inevitable death.
"No...and neither do I!"
Donna snaps her head round just in time for a fist to smash into her jaw courtesy of the Justice League Wonder Woman who had been freed the moment Zatanna vanished.
Donna goes staggering back into a nice open shot for the Black Canary who opens her mouth and unleashes her Canary Cry. Donna covers her ears and staggers against the onslaught which allows the two Wonder Women to temporarily put their hatreds for each other aside and slam simultaneous punches into their sister who goes flying back smashing into a building, causing its collapse and temporarily burying her.
Superman would assist except he finds his shoulder grabbed by Batman who spins him round. "What do you want?" Clark asks.
"For you to listen to me. There's something you don't know," Batman tells him in that gravelly, suppose to be intimidating, tone of his.
"Like?"
Batman nods over at Dr Hamilton who he has placed down on the ground and is simply sitting there staring in disbelief at the destruction he sees...the destruction he has caused by his creation.
Batman briefly explains what he has discovered about how Donna was created.
Clark can only think that that is insane. What is with these Cadmus people that they would be so amoral as to attempt to create a living being for the sole purpose of it being a weapon used only to kill and destroy.
Batman gets onto the bit Superman has to know. "It isn't only Metahuman DNA he used to create Donna," he starts to explain only to have to stop as the ground tears up under his feet and Donna bursts out delivering an uppercut to Batman as she does so.
Donna shakes her long hair to rid it of dust caused by her tunnelling under the street from where she was buried. "Annoying rodent," she dismisses Batman, looking at him like something she stepped in as he lies there groaning.
Clark grabs one of Donna's arms and yanks her down from where she was hovering. "Enough!" he roars. "Stop this!"
"Why should I?" Donna asks back like a spoilt child.
"People are dying."
"And?"
"You're not some mindless creation. You can choose."
Donna smiles almost appreciatively at Superman. "You're right. I can choose and I choose to kick your ass!"
Donna yanks her arm free and forms what would be like a TK hammer. You can see it's ghostly echo in her hand as she slams it into Superman's face repeatedly driving him back.
The force of the blows dazes Clark before Donna slams her hammer in an upper arc into his chin sending him flying into the air just moments before another Canary Cry slams into her.
"That's getting annoying!" Donna growls as she rolls through the momentum of the Cry, shaking her head as it rings.
Dinah sucks in another breath in preparation.
"Oh no you don't!" Donna yells. "I was saving this for you...mom!" she adds before she opens her mouth, the air distorts and Donna reveals that Dinah's powers are amongst her repertoire as she unleashes her own Canary Cry. It slams into Dinah sending her tumbling down the street.
The two Wonder Women, who had been caught out by Donna's tunnelling escape trick, fly at her. Donna grabs them in TK grips, her face contorted in effort at holding two such powerful beings in place. "You are starting to annoy me sisters dear," she says coldly. Donna concentrates and starts to strangle them. The two Dianas grasp at the invisible hands around their throats.
As the two Dianas choke towards unconsciousness they are saved by two red beams slamming into Donna, driving her back. The two Dianas drop to the ground gasping for air.
A red/blue blur slams into Donna as Clark returns, his jaw still aching by the way. He punches her in the face. Donna tries to punch him back. Clark avoids it and punches her in the ribs on her open side.
Donna spins round with a kick that Clark ducks under and grabs her leg as it is above him and sweeps her other leg from under her. Donna lets out a TK punch essentially throwing him back. Clark blurs back almost instantly but Donna flips back to her feet as the two exchange blows.
Donna grins. "Dinah's taught you well!"
Clark frowns wondering how she knows this. Zatanna maybe. Clark deflects Donna past him and slams a kick into her back sending her tumbling down to the ground. He picks her up by her collar and slams a punch into her stomach. He can hear his inner mid-western gentlemen criticising him already for hitting a woman but he has no choice. She has to be stopped. He slams a couple of knees into her face sending her crashing down onto her back.
Donna coughs hard as all the air is forced out of her lungs. "You're still going to lose," she croaks out.
Clark picks her up. "Like I said. Enough!" he repeats as he draws his fist back.
"What Batman was saying," Donna says and Clark hesitates for one second. Donna continues, "About not being solely metahuman DNA that made me."
Clark looks at her puzzled.
Donna's eyes fall shut as she coughs a little more. Ooh she really thinks Superman might have broken something there. "My-My father didn't tell his bosses but he also used two non-human blood samples they discovered."
'Non-human?' Clark asks in his head as a crazy idea of what she might mean comes to him.
Donna's lips curl up and her eyes shoot open, glowing red. "Hi daddy!" she greets him before she shoots what is Kryptonian heat vision directly into Superman's eyes.
Clark drops Donna and covers his burning eyes with his hands. It gives Donna all the opening she needs to launch a savage attack upon him, unleashing, what she has been holding back, in its full, the Kryptonian strength Superman's DNA has given her. She returns the favour of breaking something inside him by slamming her knee into his midsection before smashing punch after punch into his face. An uppercut into his jaw makes the air itself split and a sound like thunder fills the area.
Clark goes flying up into the air before several moments later crashing back down. Donna isn't done with him as she blurs forward and slams a kick into his mid-section rolling him over. She stands over him, grabs him by the hair and slams a few more haymakers into his already bloody and beaten face.
Then strangely she stops and moves away a few paces. "Get up!" she yells at him.
Clark coughs painfully and rolls onto his front and pushes himself up to his knees. He can feel his blood streaming down the left side of his face from what is a huge gash Donna has opened up although it is starting to heal and close up already. Clark blinks his eyes and while definitely blurring around the edges he can see Donna.
"It's interesting how not one of you asked how I had so much control over my powers," she says. "After all I am only a few months old." Donna taps on her temple. "It's all up here. I see...them. The memories of my parents...of those whose genetic material was stolen to make me. I'll admit it's a bit blurry and hazy and patchy but the gist of them is inside me. Including you...Clark but not just you. The other non-human. I can feel his hatred for you. It is so strong and this...this scene I remember."
Clark's brain is halfway to a concussion so he really isn't getting what she means.
"I know what I have to do," Donna says calmly as she slips the bracelet off her right wrist. She closes her right hand into a fist and through the top of her forearm a bony spike emerges.
Clark gasps as he recognises where that spike must have come from. "Titan."
Donna's lips curl up into that exact cruel vicious smile Clark remembers from Titan. The same dark gleam comes to her eyes as she strides forward in the exact same manner, to finish what her 'father' could not, as she states coldly, "Time to die...daddy."
Author's Note: I really thought it fun to have Clark mirror the position he was in when Titan tried to kill him for when Donna attempts the same. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; The end of this battle...one way or the other.