Chapter 20

Destiny's Heart

Space is the least exciting part of the universe. Not the planets or the comets, asteroid belts, stars, rouge warlord ships, but its pure, distilled form. All it is is the unexplainable emptiness that surmises nearly all of the known, the elephant-sized void that rarely crosses in conversations of astrology. That is a whole lot of emptiness, and that is a whole lot of boring, especially for a teenager anticipating a fight elsewhere.

And yet, it was the universe's most open canvas. All that can be and will be exists within it like the loving embrace of a mother. If one looks and yearns hard enough, they can find the deeper third abstraction: all that may be.

This was what encompassed Superboy as he sifted through the darkness. The Earth's lone blue luminescence shined behind him as his guiding light. The watchtower was still a good distance away, a gray smudge in the black, a minute at the most. So, he resigned to his thoughts.

He thought of home, of the past and all the good that used to be. His first home was in the sterile and stifling rooms brought by Cadmus, one of blood-tests and the impending sense of no future. His real home was the one that Superman brought him to in his Kansas farm, right in the muck of their soil. He remembered his first tilling when he gathered up weeds and plucked up a harvest that his gut screamed would yield bountiful. The first bites of the beets he made (and thank God it wasn't, "vitamin solution paste"), and the prolonged thought as he watched the stars and wondered where Krypton would have been. Yes, no more fighting, no more complacency, only sincerity.

"Troubled?"

Superboy darted left and right and looked for some identifiable threat in the endless horizon.

"Don't be alarmed, young one. I know your pain, your struggles. Now that you have a replacement, you can think about what you really long for in life. You desire peace and tranquillity after living a life with its direction predetermined. You have found that the bars of Cadmus is the same as the ones in the Justice League. An understandable circumstance. I can end your restless nights and bring back your farm of Smallville."

For only a second did Superboy allowed himself to think of the porridge and family. That was all that was needed for the mist to infiltrate, starting from the nose and proliferating into the rest of his body. He let out a grunt and beat his chest, but the black, and the rage that followed, had already consumed him. It ended with a distinctive tinge of crimson that glistened in his eyes. His movements became rushed and directed as he flew towards the entry point into the watchtower.

"Now that we are on the same page, listen carefully."

The explosion rang across the landscape of a warring Gotham. As it began to clear at its epicenter, two lone silhouettes stood and contrasted the grays of the smoke. That was all that Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and Trunks saw as they entered the decayed chasm of that was made of Gotham. Smoke gave way to flesh; when it cleared, it showed two figures that only vaguely resembled the enemies they were given descriptions of.

For a moment, the two sides said nothing, standing solidly on both ends of the street. A wind could whisper and the sound would be well read.

They continued to scope out each other. The toted swirling mists had long dissipated, perhaps never even existing. There was no blue-hulking beast, but a human-looking man with white-long hair, olive slacks held together by suspenders, a bare chest, and an overall far slimmer build. Their expressions ran cold except for his smuggish twinge of vindication. In his hand was a clear jar. Inside was shooting electric spikes on all angles at a center green dot, like a reverse Tesla coil.

For the longest moment, neither side moved an inch. Every calculation was done, every plan etched and trashed in their minds, every theoretical movement accounted and countered for. It was as if the endings of a thousand stalemates played in fast forward.

All the real friction lay on Darkseid, whose presence sucked the room in a churn of caution. Superman's eyes rested solely on his dreamy gaze, which gave him an odd knot. No doom demons, no granny goodness, no monologue, just soulless eyes with a sense of focused patience, like he was waiting on something. What could that thing be if not for Superman? More importantly, what is he even doing here?

"That guy with the long hair... I can't feel his energy." Trunks murmured, the hair prickling on his neck as he scoped about. He extended his blade just outside its sheath.

Just as the tension became thick enough to cut, the stranger's stone face brightened up in a boisterous thrill.

"Well well, looks like we got attention from the big league!" The android greeted with his free hand to the group. "I'd like to clear up a lil' discrepancy with y' 's chit chat a bit." He said, his gleeful expression contrasting the chill of the night.

"Enough!" In a growl, Wonder Woman gathered her sword and booted towards the two with a fire in her heart. Trunks shared in the swelling and walked a few steps too. He stopped short however, leaving Wonder Woman the center stage. The kempt rage of the world seemed to focus its attention on her. "You talk with nicety, but all I see around you is destruction. You who work with Darkseid!" She stopped at the middle ground between the two parties and raised her sword at the duo. "We have seen enough violence! I am tired of it! So, you better have a good reason for being here. And if Hera you give us trouble..." She squeezed Athena's leather end tight. "We have trained for years. We will end you, no questions asked."

"Woah there Amazonian momma! We're on your side! Just calm down a bit." Dr. Nero's creation said with his hands expressively in the air. "Cell must be having y'all on edge. Why don't you say hello to 'im?"

Android 13 placed his jar into everyone's spotlight. "This here's Cell, down to his very nucleus. We beat 'em up for the sake of justice and put him in there. You see, he did an awfully bad thing a while ago. He hurt our benefactor."

"Benefactor?" Superman said with his arms crossed.

"Yeah, benefactor. Cell meddled with the timelines and our benefactor is a victim of this evil. I was informed that not long after, Cell became the literal scourge of this Earth. So, our benefactor did some double justice and recruited us to kick his ass. We did just that, and now we're gonna leave. You ain't gotta worry about him or us anymore." The two turned to the other direction, with the android raising his two fingers to the air. "Peace."

"No, no, there's no way you could've beaten Cell alone! You're not getting away without more questions!" Trunks said. The white-haired man turned back to the voice. Trunks had enough time to stare into the abyss, and the abyss looked back with a playful disinterest, the kind that gnaws at you to try to understand their angle. There was something painfully apparent in it. It was all too the familiar- the same plastic, soulless emptiness he had seen all too often.

"There is a lie in your words, and I can smell it, you android!" Then, Trunks felt a warm weight rest on his shoulder.

Superman's repressed indignant look was clouded by the blue scouter on his ear. A soft voice rang from it from time to time- Trunks was sure it was the new green lantern, probably feeding him info on what transpired earlier.

"What Trunks meant was that we don't really know what's going on here. What we do know is that you two are at the epicenter of this horrible mess. I'm giving you the chance to explain yourself."

"Wha? What more do ya want?" He snorted and spat on the ground.

"The answers, all of it. The 'benefactor', Darkseid, Cell, the other androids we heard about. We don't even know your name."

The android shared a glance with his cinderblock-skinned compadre and then sighed at the caped wonder. "You should be happy with these arrangements. We got no problems with y'all! But we ain't got much time, so don't make this harder than it gotta be."

"You are avoiding my questions."

The air shrieked and ran as far away from them. The unspoken rule of stillness was broke by Superman's eyes, unmoving but stern enough to be as if it did.

"Superman, everyone," A voice simultaneously rang in their heads. Most knew who it was- the little guardians of Oa, though seldom had they ever bore witness to such a directness with them. Only Trunks looked as if a ghost bugged him.

"Time is a slipping luxury. We are informing you and the core of the Justice League simultaneously with a blanketed message."

In the dimly lit and empty hallways of the watchtower, one room was illuminated with artificial blue lights that billowed from the cracks of the door. Inside was the coffee-ridden laboratory that makeshift into the now most important place in the watchtower. With the help of Batman, Bulma completed her latest conundrum: the self-destruct device. It was a simple-looking remote, but all its ingenuity lie in its big red button in the middle. It was the world's lifesaver- if, of course, it even works.

Bulma shared the room with stacks of paper as tall as she was, as Batman had left to, 'tidy league business' elsewhere. Left with nothing to do but monitor, she meandered by glossing over more of Doctor Nero's works. He wrote hundreds of pages of material. She read the more personal and least potentially insightful of his journaling. Through this, she noticed the discrepancies between this Doctor Nero and her timeline's Doctor Gero, two deceptively identical twins. The differences were stark. She read that this timeline's Doctor Nero, before his work with Lex Luthor, was a self-made millionaire and philanthropist who, once upon a time, admonished the rich and fed the weak. It did not appear that he had any self-interested motivations behind it either. Almost, dared she thought, like a hero.

One page caught her analytical eye. There was one written over a decade ago, a day after a successful charity campaign in South America, that read:

These are the times that I get too comfortable with my situation. I must not forget why I am still here. These charities, splendid and… nice, as they are, almost prevented me from learning about a recent and massive event. I returned to my study today to discover that another person has breached this timeline. There is no other explanation for all the anomalies occurring recently. More importantly is the location of these anomalies. Using quantum physics calculations, they technically are occurring on the edge of the universe. What could be out there, I don't know. It may be that this time traveller stepped into the wrong coordinates and perished in a black hole- or, perhaps, this traveller exists to this day, lurking. Whatever the reason, the anomalies coming out of this epicenter are intense, indicated subliminally by the increase in strange and acute diseases on Earth.

Maybe more interesting is why this traveller is here in the first place. If he's anything like me, a trapped soul, then there's a chance that the malfunction in my time machine wasn't an internal issue. That changes everything.

I assumed at first that it must either be another me or Bulma stumbling from a different timeline- no dimwitted Earthling is capable of such a feat. But the more I think about it, this may be no ordinary being. The diseases are traceable, but other events are practically inexplicable. People are becoming angrier, less compassionate, less understanding… and it doesn't make sense. Even my own behaviours have oddly morphed. I find myself sometimes pained to be throwing money to these subsistence farmers and underprivileged students.

These things I say, though they cannot be correlated using the scientific method… I'm sure of it in my heart. Many years ago, though I was not able to track the Z-Fighters after they left Earth, it did alert me to the existence of rather strange beings. Frieza was one of them, who had arrived on his own accordance to my Earth. This Earth is no stranger to the extraterrestrial and bizarre, either. So, such a being can exist. However, for something to have this much influence, whoever it is, whatever it is, it is far too powerful for the heroes of this Earth.

That said, I have been producing designs for a few androids…

"Sweet Kami…" She muttered as she placed the paper on her side.

She felt a breeze that should not be there, considering that they are in space. She turned to its source, the door. Still closed as it was before, she let out the pent-up air in her lungs.

Then the door banged with a macabre of fury, took her by the feet and shook the room and the papers and electronics. She held onto them and then to her desk, pulling out a ki-energy gun from the drawer. The banging only intensified as the metal door began to break open. Her breathing slowed as she gripped the gun's business end like a stone.

Then, silence. The shaking ceased, and the door, battered to mincemeat, fell thunderously flat on the floor. Behind it was Superboy, who stood with piercing eyes and a furrowed brow over the laboratory and into the heart of the scientist Bulma. His body twitched and his face dulled, then closed as he too fell face-first onto the floor.

Behind him was Batman, holding a metallic rod that glowed green. The detective he is, he saw the peculiarity in her face.

"This is kryptonite, the principal weakness for Kryptonians like Superboy." Batman said before checking for the young man of steel's pulse. Once he felt a beat, he placed a collar that snapped shut on his neck. "It's one of the checks I have for them. It comes in handy when events like this happen."

"Think again."

The dark knight looked to his left and right, and then to the kryptonite infused collar.

"Really? I was two seconds away from dying dumbass!"

"Oh- well, of course…" He twirled some papers on a metal desk.

"Jees," She cozied down on her chair and took a deep breath. "All this yelling and tinkering is making me feel young again," She wondered if aspirin was a thing in this universe- or timeline, or whatever.

His head dipped down with a fluster, and then upped and zipped to her.

"We can't stay here any longer. It's not safe."

"No goddamn kidding," Her heart never left the collar stricken Superboy. "But it doesn't make sense. Why would Superboy attack us? Didn't he come to pick up my- err, our device?"

"Well, you specifically." He grabbed their contraption from the trash. "He was in a sort of hypnotic trance, and his intentions were lethal. Until we know what caused it, we and the tower have been compromised."

Batman placed Superboy in the lower level infirmary, where his bed was rigged with kryptonite infused bars to deter any sudden escape. The two went from the laboratory down the cold steps of the watchtower, the way gradually lit by the low-energy lights detecting their presence. The silence was off-put by intermittent beeps from their, 'last-resort device'. They reached a blocked off room, which, after a fingerprint scan, revealed the chambers for transportation. In the darkened space, there were large devices encased in a jungle of wires that bleeped out sequences every so often. They hummed puffs of gas that lingered around their ankles. To the center was a blue standing pad surrounded by mounds upon mounds of gray support machinery.

"Excuse the… unkemptness. The other pads are offline due to cost constraints."

"Yeah, sure," She frowned. "Before you make me step on that mechanical monstrosity, where are we going?"

"We're going to do what I've always done," He had a little grin wider than the statistical chances of their device working. "Hide in plain sight and strike when most needed."

A gray control panel stood beside the launch pad with sections of drab-coloured buttons and visualizer arrays. Another series of Batman button pressing had the launch pad glow blue and brought the room's lights to life. He lingered there. He grabbed on the ends of the panel, his head hovering low.

"I failed Bulma."

She brought herself off her transfixed gaze bent on figuring out how the system worked.

"The watchtower bombardment on Metropolis was the biggest mistake in my life. I didn't have faith in my team members, so I gambled the lives of everyone for a net loss. It's another mistake I won't forget."

Bulma's face cooled.

"Bruce, I'm not even mad at you, just disappointed. Everyone missteps. But a wise man taught me that when we notice and overcome our flaws, we become our greater selves."

He looked into her eyes to see that yes, there was truth in it all. For something so basic, especially to a person who fought gods, immortals, and the super-powerfully insane, it was what he needed.

"Batman, everyone… greetings."

Batman's eyes narrowed and shot to the ceiling.

"Guardians. Again, I would rather you not invade my personal headspace." Batman said, his head still cocked.

"There is no time for such quips as privacy." The guardian spoke clearly, as if he sat on a chair next to the two. "Time is a slipping luxury. Thus, we will be brief. We are blanketing you and the core of the Justice League simultaneously with a premediated message."

There were only a few reasons why the Guardians would speak in such a manner. He took a glance at Bulma, who, though interested, looked in no way shocked by the disembodied voice that just addressed them. It's almost as if it was Tuesday for her.

Trillions of miles away, the guardians were reaching the end of the possible universe. Therein lay the place even the darkness of space started to shrivel into nothingness, and the path for ultimate knowledge cracked open in a guiding white light. Despite having only the sternness of duty and the objective illuminating in their field of view, a dark oud fell upon them.

"Recently, we have been tracking down a corrosion of our timeline that originated on Earth over a decade ago. We know that a time disruptor by the name of Doctor Nero caused this by inadvertently entering our timeline. Recently, a threatening entity arrived and was at once trapped within the source wall. The subsequent arrivals of Trunks and Bulma Briefs, and the infamous Cell, exacerbated the corrosion further, leading to a wave of anomalies that chipped his source wall trap."

The intensity of the voice grew stronger, as if leaning on a chair.

"If that entity breaks through the source wall, there's no telling how powerful he will be. His mere influence had enslaved Darkseid and others to his will, and now they are on your Earth. The one named Android 13 is also not to be trusted. Heed us! You need merely stall long enough for us to seal the cracks of the source wall. You have fought Cell and many other great enemies. We need but five minutes, Justice League. We are counting on you."

"…We need but five minutes, Justice League. We are counting on you."

The tension in the air shifted into a sudden vindictive stance. The members of the Justice League (and Trunks, who still looked spooked) looked to-and-fro from one another, observing to see if they too understood what needed to be done. What they also noticed was a strange new feel to the enemies' presence. There, they eyed each member, at Supergirl, Trunks and the like, in a slow, deliberate manner. The once inexplicably joyous man with white hair grumped like an old tart.

Superman senses sprang to life. The slow realization spread to all of them:

"They know!"

Time etched to a crawl as a surfeit of actions kaput in a single moment. The almost inconspicuous man became a beast, his skin turning blue and his body rising to a monstrous height. He lost his pupils in the same moment of moments Wonder Woman unhooked her sword and advanced, Trunks copying the same in pursuit. Superman yearned for the group's attention. An unsaid message blazed across their minds from the facts they knew. Superman and Trunks, the strongest of the four, will handle Darkseid. Wonder Woman and Supergirl should be able to engage and defeat their now blue adversary. The plan motioned without protest while the distance closed between the two parties, the cold moonlit sky setting the backdrop for what will be a battle they knew will be greater than the one they trained for.

The sound of destruction is a banal mistress. Whether the honor was in the name of defense, glory, anger, or a mixture of the three, its deep, rattling tones echo all the same: Extremely loud. But there are times when this pain is necessary, when life leaves no simple out except for a victim to ball their hands and brings out all their fury.

From the corner of his eye, the burly android caught a bright something that shone from the cracked space of two buildings. The light came to him and ignited in a blinding ball. When it faded into the atmosphere, he dusted himself off, muttered about the scuffs on his shoulder blade, and shot two red streams in the direction of the building, and then more for pleasure.

Wonder Woman dashed from the opposite direction with her sword in toe. Her teeth were mashed and her speed was blinding, fast enough to ripple away from Android 13's vision like the streaks of stars. She slashed a gash in his cheek and another in his shoulder. His body, cut over and over again, quivered in the wake of such a flurry, closing his eyes and putting his knee down on the ground. Her speed, almost uncontrollable, had her flying to the other end of the street. By the time she gathered herself, the android already made a fierce contact with her face, sending her to another wrecked cityscape.

"You heroes," He said, his eyes flashing an overt deadliness, coming back to the hole that was once the surprise attack. "You fight n' bitch about things that don't matter, all to end bundled in the ol' ditch."

He grabbed Supergirl out of the rubbish, upending her by the boot. She did not breathe-adorned with marks and bruises, swollen eyes and legs that look as though they have been chewed on by Lobo.

"Humans aren't designed for your work."

She spat chunks of rock onto his face, the sediment muddling his vision. The girl-wonder lugged her torso in a forwards-motion, hurling an energy ball that blasted over his face. Boom! The impact was enough to shake the lights out of the android and loosen his grip, giving her the chance to slip back and charge another.

"We're definitely not perfect, but really? Aren't you the guy that used his own friends like spare car parts?"

She threw the blast at him, shielding herself from the onslaught of dust that came her way. Still, from the ashes, a diluted figure formed and stalked the distance towards her.

She let out a barrage of yellow ki. Each blast tore apart the foundations of the very street they were on, leaving bare ground unearthed for centuries. Smoke billowed noisily out in every direction, blocking up her vision. To compensate, she uncovered through the aftermath with her x-ray vision.

She took a knee to pant, never having used that much ki before.

It took only a moment longer then it should have for the android to catch up, standing as the silhouette that loomed over her.

"It was a calculated sacrifice, just like how I'm going to kill you all and be Earth's only defender."

He held out his palm over his head and a red ding lit out of it, all before he was blown back by the force of the Green Lantern's green constructed punch.

"Crazy bastard…"

The force reeled back the lantern's body from the shock. He looked and reeked of sweat and old grit, testaments of his earlier battles with the androids.

"Thanks, but leave it to us John. You're in no shape to fight."

John, locked onto the depth of the abyss they left the Android in, stumbled curiously, as if he had something to say.

"Looks like you got a fancy new technique- and attitude at that."

"Yeah, Trunks taught me."

"That time guy you keep gazing at? Oh boy, we are definitely gonna get you two dating after this."

Supergirl, glowing rose, found his face in the thickness and found not an officer, not a space patroller, but a smiling, giggling man. Behind them came Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl, all staggering but, in their own way, all the same. They flew towards the Android, their battlements ready and their spirits hungry for the showdown.

On the eastern side of Gotham, one can be forgiven for thinking that it was a one-on-one battle.

They fought in the cold skies, where the wind, free as a bird, howled at them chills. With every blow and its laceration that befell as a consequence, there were only two making such an exchange. Trunks, the odd third, was hardly a hair away from the battle, catching every blow and reverberation in his chest. It was a confusingly remarkable sight.

The heat trapped within Superman rushed out of him. He lashed blow after blow at speeds his eyes couldn't- or shouldn't keep up with. His eyes, blinded as they were, could not keep up with Darkseid either.

The tyrant slithered just out of reach and laid his position loosely. He watched for the calm in the onslaught. And in that drag, he pushed his fist forward until he can hear a crack in the man of steel's bones.

"Superman!" Trunks yelled, releasing his sword and rushing towards him.

He raced forward and held his free hand into a fist, but was pushed back by Superman, himself holding onto his ribcage.

Trunks eyed daggers at him, assertively and ruefully. "Don't be stupid! We can beat him if you go to the sun to regain your strength- I can handle him!"

"I've got it, boy," He flushed a paler color, his voice shriveled from the lack of breath. "You're backup."

Again, Superman ran his gauntlet of blows. Two for Lois, one for Cyborg, one for Hal, and everything for the thumping in his chest. Darkseid, though able to match the blows, brought himself a foot back. He could feel his head begin to pound and his heart burn, a sensation like looking at the enemy with his back turned. But it was for nought. Darkseid dodged a fist that glanced over his shoulder and burrowed Omega beams onto Superman's chest, squeezing his air dry and sending him towards Gotham. His heartbeat, too fast, caused him to miss such minute details. His vision fluttered from the night sky to blackness. It would have ended there had it not been for Trunks blasting the beams away. Still, the man of steel crashed into the Earth and lay buried within a pile of rubble.

"Damn it!"

Trunks looked into the rubble and felt for Superman's energy like a pulse before cutting to Darkseid. His eyes, beaded red on a body sculpted with concrete, towered far taller than him. Something in Trunks stirred. Maybe it was his pulsating sense of dread or his lack of so much as a scratch from his last reprisal. Nevertheless, the time traveller held his sword to his face and bellowed a cry that protected him in a bright golden hue.

The world rested on his shoulders, and it is in these moments that Trunks could see them. Sometimes they're dim in a vague haze in the afternoons. Other times, their faces, bold and formidable, shone at him in the deepest of tribulations and the darkest of times. They were born from the stories told to him before he could walk. Now, there they stood, Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Vegeta, ghosts of the past, all alongside him as he stared down his next great enemy.

This day will be different. Trunks breathed, the ghosts faded into him, and then his power burst open in an explosion of golden vindictive flames. The light touched the sky and turned the city back to a bright-blue day. So brilliant a light that the darkness of Gotham and that of the world itself felt insecure. At that moment, the Joker thought twice to rob a bank in the American west coast. Luthor brooded in his wheelchair at his bunker and had the wildest thought- that he could walk again after what Cell did to him. Aquaman healed faster in the oceans, and Android 13's aura lightened just a tad.

Trunks's muscles expanded twice its size, to the point that it stretched his Saiyan armor to a new height. His eyes flashed and disappeared all at once. His hair, banded to tidy its long unkemptness, was spiked and wild across his head in a strong gold. All the while his power rose, and for a while, yes, he was Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Gohan.

He quieted his body and soul to a rough tandem, and the Earth, rocked by his display, crawled back to as it was.

"I'm actually glad Superman isn't here to see this. But, while I know you well tyrant, I'd rather have fought Cell." Trunks's aura shimmered back into him and his eyes returned. He pulled his arm close and stretched it across his chest. Maybe he just wanted to show his gains. "I now have the power to beat him. Since you did defeat him though, I'm not too out of luck for a fight."

Darkseid said nothing. In the long silence, Trunks lurched at him, and the two bounced blows off each other all throughout Gotham. No one could see their movements. Every parry, block, and impact mattered. The world shook and went from colorful streaks to a muddled nothingness. It was an open canvas, where the sole color was in the man that stood in front of the other. Even picoseconds were the difference that kept sudden death from tapping them. They flew higher into the darkness and traded blow after blow, separating the clouds that enveloped the horizon.

With every passing moment, Trunks's aura flared stronger, and so did Darkseid's. Buildings tore apart from the fierce winds and districts folded whole into nothing. In Batman's eyes, tucked away with Bulma in the undisturbed outreaches of Gotham, in his Batcave, sipping tea while observing in his supercomputer, every blow was a few million worth in property damage.

Trunks took a few punches to the chest and then uppercut Darkseid smack-down through the tip of a skyscraper. From the sky, he zig-zagged his hands and stretched them towards to the ground.

"You're mine! Burning attack!"

The blast blanketed the surrounding area in a dome of explosive energy. He flew right after it with the look of a madman turned hero.

Still, did Darkseid remain. His aura flared higher, this time beyond the power of Trunks. The Saiyan pushed beyond his limits too, and his muscles bulged like an animated pipe swelling with water. They raced towards the other and clawed at the hands, locking themselves in a struggle surrounded by mounds of piled concrete. Trunks grit his teeth as their auras flared up high. Their intense energies mixed and clashed, his golden aura and his dark-purplish one. He can feel the rough texture of his hands, the obedient but raw eyes that moved to burrow him in fear, the domineering force and intent of his power. Everything beyond them crumbled by the wayside, but neither gained any ground. Any thought, any subsiding aside, would end the struggle in a moment. Trunks mused that if nothing, the enemy was perfect, an undistracted conduit that kills- mindless, an obsequious machine without will.

Unfortunately for him, this is where Trunks earned his title.

He used Darkseid's arms as a counterweight and planted his feet deep into his face, forcing him a distance away. The time traveller lumbered for his balance, each step quaking the ground. He sensed a familiar but distracting something in the somewhere away and then flew towards his target.

Left in a dark and airy quiet, a clenched fist waded its way through the trappings of rubble. It billowed debris sky high, and a hollow man rose to the top of his grave.

Superman's eyes paused before lingering into the landscape. He scanned for the two figures dancing in the moonlight, Trunks and Darkseid. A pang of anger beset him; the ground tremored. He peered further with his vision and saw even the minutiae take place. In that moment, fraught in moonlight, he opened himself in a way he had not for a long time. His shoulders relaxed, but his eyes might as well pack-up for vacation for such a vision. The boy was winning. Trunks was winning!

It took him far longer then he would admit to believe it wasn't deception, but when he was sure, he fell to the ground and let his hands mix into the cold gravel.

When he looked up, he couldn't help but think of the same struggling boy he met a year ago. The same frightened boy bathed by fire, that would have met the same end as Cyborg without his intervention. The same one who ran without a plan. And yet, he always had with him a passionate will- more than all of them combined. His past made him wise beyond his years, he did not let the frivolousness get to him. He went from the curious oddity of the League, to a legend among them all. And his name is Trunks.

Superman opened his palms and let the gravel sizzle back into the ground. Never has he felt that, in this crazy world, there can be another superman.

Trunks bounced off a deep crater and flew to launch a fist towards the tryant. Darkseid sidestepped, and the wind between the two violently dispersed in whiplashed swaths. He continued forward, unleashing his fury, his fists with the same style and finesse as jackhammers; each one dodged in ample time and undisturbedly so. Trunks flew back and heaved.

"Stand still!"

To compensate for the battle inadequacy, Trunks raised his power even further beyond, rushing forward in a blaze of confirmation turned to strength. He crashed into striking distance and thrashed about, each violent assault a miss. Darkseid became slipper and slippier, his tactics receding in aggressiveness. He glided seamlessly like the shadow under the moon. Finally, the Saiyan thrust in the air with fatigue in his eyes and exasperation in his heart. His aura managed to exceed Darkseid's, and yet, he is even farther away than he was before.

Darkseid crept closer after his tactical retreat. Trunks fired back into a combative stance, but his position stayed as it were, albeit his breath rattling, threatening to shatter him underneath a stiff form.

A soft, coarse change beset the new God Darkseid. For his own goals, he stomached his soldiery position in defeating Cell and the other gnats that stood in the way, but Trunks- this Trunks required his attention.

"Trunks the time-traveller, is it not?"

"What?" His face twisted and his body geared for a surprise. For him to go from muteness to such a foreboding voice itself was odd enough.

Darkseid fixated closer. He liked what he saw. Not in the alien or time travelling sense- far stranger entities he has vanquished. It was the fury in his eyes fueled by so much passion, embers that whickered so purely. Not even Superman comes to face him without a shred of doubt in his quest. It reminded him of the old days of war with the new Gods.

The aura that surrounded Darkseid lightened in its opacity. Darkseid began to take a step forward and at once rescinded his movment. He instead peered into the night sky, all the way until Superman boomed to the time traveller's side. His hero uniform was tattered and its blue and red drained of its lusciousness- but his skin never looked brighter. His look refracted sorrow.

Darkseid passively edged on with a slight awe across his face. He was certain he didn't end Kal-El. This Trunks has even managed to revitalize the spirits of others.

"Trunks," Superman grappled with his words, his eyes both focused on Darkseid and avoiding Trunks's gaze. "I'm sorry, I'm so goddamn sorry for everything. You and Bulma have given us nothing but kindness and we- I, squandered it pointlessly. I was so fixated on losing the people I love that I thought… I was the only one here."

He found the courage to look for Trunks, for the heart he remembered so well, and there it was, enflamed even more, with a smile that lifted many years off of the first hero's face.

A swooshing noise came before them. Their senses shot forward as Darkseid flew into the darkened skies. He took brevity to notice the lack of activity in the east; the battle there was already decided, but both the android and those others are still alive, he felt.

"What are you doing? I am running out of patience… Kill them all- kill the world we don't have much time!"

He still took his minute to feel the situation before focusing himself and his energy on the world below. Gotham lit once more in a fiery haze. The air in the world grew rigid, its people looked longed, sensing a disparate something they don't understand, and Trunks and Superman braced themselves. Two large orbs flooded outward from his eyes to what they assumed to be superpowered versions of the omega beams. Encompassing it was a din of red spirit turned into waves of overflowing energy. Everything left of the downtown, every undisturbed crevice and destructively neglected building, was swept up in the spiraling gravitational pull of the energy. All of Gotham floated transcendently into the air.

Trunks, now deformed into his regular Super Saiyan form, with expanded eyes, watched the world around him vehemently erupt in change, and said, "Can we even block that?"

Superman too watched as the energy coalesced into twin burgeoning strains of red light, hovering right above Darkseid's eye, yearning to strike.

"Look right into the eye of it Trunks, open your palms, and believe in yourself."

Fin!

Hey guys, new chapter and it didn't take that long this time! I will be brief. This is the second-to-last chapter of the book. I'm proud that I've gone this far and that my writing changed so much! Once again, I am grateful for everyone who has stuck around for this long, there's not much longer to go!

STAY TUNED! Keep checking back every weekend! This last chapter's gonna be the biggest doozey I've ever pulled off!