June 13th 2016 The Street of Gods 9:30 PM EDT

Darkseid was suffocating. Just being in his presence was like standing in front of a tidal wave or staring up at a tornado. Well, for other people. I'd probably be fine in either of those situations, but his presence was what those things would have felt like for me before I got my powers. Something about him just scared a part of my brain, he was pure unmitigated evil, a predator, entropy made flesh, and looking up at his brutally chiseled gray face filled me with a sense of hopeless despair unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

Of course, I didn't let that show, but I did focus on him completely to the exclusion of everyone else, knowing I couldn't afford to ignore this monster. I pasted a smile on my face. "Oh, well speak of the devil. Wait, no, that would be me. Speak of the evil god maybe. Whichever, it's nice to see you Darkseid. You certainly came a long way for little old me. Is there some reason you wanted to chat? Maybe trade recipes for seven layer dip? I'm told mine is out of this world." I admit, I might have been babbling a bit, but I kept my tone light and breezy, which was an accomplishment for the moment.

There was no motion on Darkseid's face. He didn't smile, or raise an eyebrow. Considering his face looked like literal carven stone I didn't even know if he could, but those dull, burning eyes bore into me like flickering coals from the deepest pits of hell before his voice boomed out again. "I find myself...underwhelmed. Given all you've accomplished, I expected more of a threat. Something more impressive than a whimpering child with a bit of power. This trip was a waste of my time."

I smiled charmingly. "Ah, well I don't suppose you could just go back the way you came? No need to hang around if you aren't enjoying the trip. We can catch up later. Though you might want to check out some of the local sights before you go. The food here is pretty great." I tried to keep my tone casual even after his disdain, but the longer I was in his presence the more terrible it became. I felt like I was swimming through jello, except instead of fruit flavoring it was made of pure hatred. The air was almost congealed with malice around me.

The massive head shook, and I realized that Darkseid was about eight feet tall. I hadn't even registered it before that, it had been such a small part of his intimidating presence it hadn't mattered. Now though, I could appreciate the sheer size of him as he sneered down at me. Oh, so he could make expressions. Fun. "You are a gnat, child. Return my Fury to me. Your paltry attempts to obscure her from me were in vain. None can steal from Darkseid. If you present her to me I may give you a quick death."

I took a deep breath, focused my demonic power into my armor, and pushed my ability to shift the reality of this aura, to give truth to the lie in my voice that said I was unaffected as I straightened up and glared at the huge god. "How about go fuck yourself chief? You think just because you're scary I'm going to be your bitch? I don't get why someone as badass as Black Adam was so scared of you. Once you get past the imposing manner you're just a big melodramatic poser. God of tyranny? More like god of little bitches."

It wasn't my best attempt at shit talking, but I was kind of getting over a bout of knee knocking fear from his appearance, so sure me. His eyes flared a deeper red, and he seemed to grow in size without moving a damn muscle. "You dare? I rescind my generous offer. You will suffer, as will your people. I will break this planet over my knee and butcher the inhabitants. I will invent such cruelties that the most terrible monsters in the history of your pathetic race would vomit at their mention, and when at last all of earth is under my thrall, when they beg and plead for mercy, I will tel them that it was you who caused their torment before I finally take their lives."

His voice was smoother now, like rich red velvet cake, like talking about unspeakable horror made him some equivalent of happy. His eyes pulsed along with what I quickly realized was my heartbeat, and they were pulsing faster every second. So I did what any reasonable person would have done in my place. I teleported into close range and I fucking belted him in the face with every ounce of force and demonic power I could summon. I really put my fucking back into it too, planting my foot and making sure my body was behind the blow.

My first landed against his face with a roaring crash, the sheer speed and force tearing the air and unleashing a near gale force wind as it split the night, my black metal coated knuckles smashing into his face with fifty times the speed of a supersonic jet. I had never unleashed a blow this titanic on anyone, and I needed to reinforce the ground with darkness under my feet so the actual motion didn't turn the ground to powder as I made it.

For all the impact and force though, nothing happened. The fist made contact, but it didn't matter. His face stopped my blow head on, absorbing so much of the force that it seemed like his neck hadn't even received and pressure. He just glared down at me, eyes pulsing rapidly, and his face began to change. His lips shifted, his granite grey teeth were revealed, and I learned the answer to my earlier pondering. Darkseid COULD smile. And it was absolutely horrible.

A sound rumbled up from his chest, like the churning of a volcanic eruption before it was unleashed, and I realized it was laughter. "This? This is what defeated my son? I am deeply disappointed in Kalibak. You're nothing but a squalling infant.. You're hardly fit to stand in my presence, boy. But since you dared to raise your hand, allow me to instruct you on the finer points of violence from the perspective of a master." There was a small blur and I felt a crashing impact against my chest.

It took me a few seconds to realize the bastard had hit me, and I was already smashing into one of the nearby temples when I processed it. Luckily the pain of my impact was overshadowed by the shattering of my sternum and ribs as his fist slammed into me like a freight train, completely ignoring the defenses of my armor, or simply overwhelming them to such an extent that they didn't even come into play. I just... lay there. Trying my best to stay conscious as I twitched in pain and defeat.

I felt my body knitting itself back together, my entire form reshaping itself as my ectoplasmic nature helped my bones reconnect with each other. I lay there for what felt like an hour, but was probably more accurately a minute or two, before slowly and painfully rolling to my side, then to my knees, and forcing myself up onto my feet, ignoring some of the worst pain I had ever experienced as I turned to face that massive god.

He hadn't attacked, not me or my friends, just stood there, waiting. I didn't need to wonder why though. He didn't need to hit me unprepared, and doing so would be a mercy. All he needed was to swing his hand again casually and he could crush me just as easily as he had a minute ago. He was playing with me. Because it was fun. My earlier cat and mouse analogy was even more accurate not as he batted me around gleefully trying to see if I could show him anything new. I snarled internally.

Fuck this guy. I shifted into shadows, then expanded my shadowy form, regaining my physical presence at a whopping twelve feet tall. It wasn't quite as big as I'd gone on the moon, but it was fucking huge, and I felt a pang of pain through my head just doing that much.

I unfurled my wings and flashed forward, putting every ounce of magic, power, and my now MUCH larger mass behind this attack as I vanished and reappeared in front of Darkseid in a flash of blackness. Between my wings, my ghost flight, my demonic empowerment, and every ounce of skill I had, when my now much larger fist hit Darkseid this time, there was a give as he actually took a step back. I grinned, following up the momentum with a rain of powerful blows to capitalize on the moment of weakness.

I met a fist. One fist, right to my jaw. He hadn't been phased by any blow past the first, and only used that to set his footing. The one small bright side was that my now much larger and more powerful form was strong enough to keep my fucking head from collapsing like a smashed watermelon when he hit me in the face, even if my brain was screaming at me in pain from the effort of holding it all and my head was spinning from disorientation. I fell on my ass, looking up at his towering form.

He reached up and rubbed his face casually. "I admit. That was...adequate. Few if any have managed to elicit pain from my form. In this state, I doubt anyone save Kal-el could have managed it on this planet. You have succeeded in mildly amusing me. Very well, a reward is in order. I was going to torment you for eternity, but now I suppose I can kill you. Of course, I'll still beat you to death slowly in front of everyone you care for, but it will only last days, not centuries. I hope you appreciate my mercy."

Then he kicked me. I'd say he kicked me in the ribs, but that would imply the blow didn't harm the rest of my side, which it very much did. He pretty much collapsed half of my torso. Pain flooded me, and a small part of me hoped I might die, but I didn't. Darkseid had taken my measure, and he knew how much I could stand. Until he was finished with me, he wouldn't do anything as merciful as kill me. I thought back to his mention of this taking days, and I felt my will begin to waver.

Zee and Drea were crying in the background, I could hear them, though I couldn't turn my head to look as Darkseid continued to beat me. I wanted to change this, to turn the tables, to beat him back, but some fights are just too much, and you can't win them no matter what. This was one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. Still, I wasn't going to lie here and get beaten like an animal. I reached through the dark and called my gun. I had to use my pinky to fire it given the size difference, but I managed to point and shoot.

I emptied the clip into Darkseid, and he grunted lightly and stepped back with each impact, giving me some breathing room. I saw a dark liquid leak from several holes, and I smiled through the pain. I might be about to die, but at least I made the bastard bleed. The gun clicked empty and I slumped back to the ground, drained by even that much effort. I melted back to normal size, something I hadn't known I could do automatically, and waited for the end.

Before Darkseid could hurt me again though, I heard a new voice. It was familiar, but despite me having heard it many times before, it took me a few seconds to process who it was because I'd never heard such emotion in the tone before. "Exactly what the fuck do you think you're doing to my kid?"

Even with the clue, I had trouble recognizing Gojo's voice, and not just because he'd never really called me that before, but because of the white hot rage in the words. I forced my head to loll sideways to take in the sight of my stepdad standing over me, tourist clothes gone and replaced by a strange purple jumpsuit, fractured blue eyes burning with anger. I smiled wider. I didn't know how he was here, but I wouldn't turn down some help.

June 13th 2016 The Street of Gods 10:00 PM EDT

I stared up at Gojo in awe, barely able to lever my head sideways to look at him. He radiated power, anger, and genuine malice. Looking at him like this, standing between me and Darkseid, one of the most terrifying monsters in the known universe, a million thoughts flickered through my head. Questions, comments, a thousand possible responses to this situation. But despite all that, one single comment bubbled to the surface, one absurd question probably induced by pain and distress. "What the fuck are you wearing?"

Those shatterglass blue eyes flicked to me and then rolled up into the sky. "Yes, because that is clearly the important part of this situation. We're standing in some sort of conceptual pocket dimension populated by strange and horrible deities attached to a fragmented reality jammed into the void through the bottom of one of earth's largest cities, where some kind of titanic being of unknowable evil is attempting to beat you to death, but my choice of outfit is definitely the priority." His voice was dripping so much sarcasm I could have mopped it up with a towel.

I coughed in embarrassment, then again in pain as that aggravated my ribs, but dragged myself up to a sitting position. "Right. Sorry. Glad to see you Gojo. Sorry to drag you down here. How did you know that I was in trouble? More importantly how did you even find this place?" I chose not to address the 'my kid' comment. It was...confusing. I could understand his protectiveness, given how much I meant to Hana and Mom, but it was still something I wasn't really equipped to deal with right now.

Another eye roll. "Please, you actually bother to call and check in and you're not about to risk your fool neck for something? You have more than a few decent qualities kid, but you are not considerate. Marie spends half her time worried about you and the other half distracting herself so she doesn't have to be. As soon as she hung up with you she called me and asked me to come find you. I had to drag that asshat demon puppet to London to make him show me how to get in. Sadly I wasn't able to bring him with me. He got jumped by a bunch of guys in plate mail outside the subway station."

That didn't answer how he'd found us here, but there were people who could have told him. Julian for one. It was staggering he'd done it so quickly, but then, Gojo was pretty fucking powerful. With the questions answered he turned away, dismissing me to focus back on Darkseid. "Alright you ugly bastard. The boy picked up a few tricks, but I have more to teach him about using his powers. I figured I'd leave him his own devices but he's clearly not growing fast enough. His mother would go kill me if I did any actual damage to him so I had to hold back a lot. It'll be easier to teach him with a practice dummy."

Darkseid sneered at Gojo lazily. "Practice? What a pathetic excuse. If you wish to aid him in his battle simply declare it. There is no reason to hide behind shields of teaching to save face. I sense a small feeling of pressure from you. You may even pose some sort of a challenge. If I'd known that attacking the boy would draw such an interesting opponent I'd have done so after the invasion failed." He smiled again, this one bloodthirsty and sadistic as opposed to the predatory baring of teeth from earlier. This was the smile of someone who didn't just want to hurt me, he was looking forward to it.

"Aid him?" Gojo actually laughed at that. "Buddy, aid implies we'll both be fighting you. You've got a pretty beefy aura, but its stagnant and sluggish. I don't need the kid to help with a big clumsy brute like you." Gojo turned to me, and I saw something new on his face. Kindness. "Lie back down kid. You're hurt. Don't worry too much about the backlash, as long as I'm here you'll be fine." He pushed on his chin with a palm, cracking his neck. "Just watch close. I'll show you the next step in your path."

He turned back to look at Darkseid, just in time for a pair of red beams from the New God's eyes to smash into his face with a rumbling boom, the explosion filling the entire alley with dust and debris from the force. My eyes widened in horror as I stared at the cloud of dirt, trying to see Gojo through the obfuscation. Darkseid's voice drawled lazily. "Another pathetic braggart. How disappointing. I was half expecting you to be a small challenge. Pity. It's so much more fun to see their hearts break once they get their hopes up."

An exasperated sigh echoed through the cloud. "I was TRYING to do the cool step dad thing. Marie tells me I need to be more reassuring with him. But you just had to ruin my awesome moment with your stupid face lasers. Rude." There was a quick flash of blue energy and the dirt was blown away, revealing an annoyed Gojo standing completely unharmed, still between me and Darkseid. "Alright kid, listen up, because this is an important lesson about the next steps you can take to get stronger."

Gojo rolled his arms in their sockets one at a time as if limbering up as he continued speaking, ignoring the shocked and outraged Darkseid. "Applying your concept directly is an important and powerful application of our gifts, but it's ultimately limited. Reaching out to affect the world is important, but using that aspect of your power on one item at a time is an inherently incomplete technique. The more holistic way of utilizing that energy is called a domain. Domain expansion is when you imprint your concept on the entirety of the space around you in a limited area."

I reached into myself and, using my ability did the same trick as in Griffin Hall, where I partially obscured my aura sight, letting me activate it without driving myself insane. I knew I needed to see this with more than my normal vision, even if seeing the whole thing would drive me insane. As Gojo's powerful energy leaked out an infused the area around us I watched in awe as reality itself began to change within a limited space. "Spreading out your domain always consumes a ton of energy, but the advantages are worth it."

Darkseid's aura, which I could barely look at despite the obscuring protection, tried to seep into that area, but is seemed much less dense, even if there was way more of it. Like mud dumped on mercury. "When you imprint your concept on the world and someone else does the same it becomes a battle of depth. The more refined one will dominate that space, though compatibility and the amount of energy can factor in." He shook his head with a chuckle. "Here, I'll just show you." He raised a hand lazily. "Domain expansion: Infinite Void."

Gojo snapped his fingers and everything...stopped. Sound, power, light, motion, everything just...ceased. I could still see, but other than me and Gojo, it was just Darkseid, floating a little ways away from us. He was suspended in the nothingness of space, and behind us loomed a massive swirling pupil, staring at him with the intensity of the most terrifying predator, pinning him where he stood.

Despite the insane change, that wasn't what was scary though. The scary part was what had happened when Gojo snapped. His energy, the stuff inundating the space around us, had melded with the world, and then separated again, and taken the space around is with it. Gojo had basically carved out a section of the universe and made a NEW universe in a limited area, one that he controlled with his concept.

I stared at my stepfather in awe. This was...insane. I'd known he was powerful, but this went beyond even my concept of power. The thought of trying to do this with my own ability was staggering. I didn't even know where to start. Though knowing there WAS something to start would certainly help. Gojo grinned back at me, and the small amount of aura sight I had leaking through could see him easier in here, inside his aura where the concept of infinity was both omnipresent and muted.

He was excited. He'd given up on teaching, on passing on his skills. He'd taught me before grudgingly because he knew my mom would be sad if I got hurt, but being around Hana, seeing her grow and learn and seeing how alike to his her power was, he realized that ignoring the next generation wasn't really an option. This was his attempt to make up for that, to excuse how bitter and detached he'd been before. He did care about me, even if he was a bit more draconian and laissez-faire about how he showed it. It was a strange thing to realize.

He noticed me looking and I saw the huge pupil contract before he frowned slightly and my view of his emotions just...stopped. Apparently he'd noticed me looking. He glanced away, obviously planning to ignore my discovery, and then froze. "Oh. Well. That's not a good sign." His voice was casual and cheerful as always, but my eyes snapped up to stare in the direction he was looking anyway and I froze too.

Darkseid was moving. Now, I didn't know what this thing was supposed to do, but I was pretty sure he was supposed to be pinned. Now his form was shifting. It started with a strange sort of vibration, his body blurring in fits and starts, first one limb, then another, then his head. Finally his entire body started to shake and he began to move slowly,his form dragging through the void around us like a bug through molasses as he started to slowly walk forward toward us.

Gojo looked...disturbed. His usual cocky grin was gone, as was the rage from earlier, and in its place was a sense of grim determination. He addressed me, his eyes never leaving Darkseid. "Kid. You healed up yet?" He kept his voice quiet, muttering aloud but obviously hoping it wouldn't carry, which seemed strange in this echoing void. I croaked out an affirmative,m my vitality was insane, especially in my armor, and my ribs had healed up during the conversation, though they were still a bit tender. I could move at the very least, which was a damn sight better than I'd been doing earlier. I even stood up slowly, barely groaning at all.

He let out a relieved sigh. "Alright. I need you to step back a bit. This is going to be a crazier fight than I expected. He's resisting my domain, which means this will be head on engagement. It might get rough, so just stay out of range. You can't go too far sadly, the domain will restrict it, but try to put some distance between us while I fight him." I agreed, conjuring my wings and flying as far as I could within this separated space before turning back to watch what I was sure was going to be an amazing fight.

Even from a distance I could see the wide grin on Gojo's face as he raised a hand on either side of his body. "You're pretty annoying, but since you're still having trouble moving I might as well give you a hello punch like you gave me." He held up his left hand. "Technique amplification: blue." His right came up. "Technique reversal: red." He smashed the two balls of glowing light of each color that had formed in his hands together, forcing them to combine. "Hollow purple." Then he flicked the ball of now purple light at Darkseid.

It ripped through the void, growing into a massive sphere the size of a car, and the New God's eyes widened. He gave a roar of anger and tore himself free of the restraining space, hauling back and punching the orb as hard as he possible could. There was a blinding flash of purple light, and the glow faded, leaving behind a furious Darkseid, now missing an arm and a decent chunk of chest, glaring at my stepfather. Gojo just gave an annoyed sigh, raising his fists. "Ugh, somehow I knew you would survive that. Fine. We do this the hard way." Then he blurred forward, and the real battle began.

June 13th 2016 The Street of Gods 10:30 PM EDT

I had, at our last meeting, been slightly annoyed at Gojo for his teaching methods. I'd been pretty sure he hit me harder than necessary to get his point across, just to be a bully. Granted, looking back, it was probably at least partially an attempt to scare me off this path of power so I wouldn't get mixed up in things pretty much exactly like the situation I was currently in, but I hadn't had my insight or my powers telling me the lies within others are the time, so I wasn't sure.

What I was sure about, watching Satoru Gojo fight fucking Darkseid, was that while he might have hit me slightly harder than necessary, he'd also been holding back A LOT. Gojo crossed the void of space in a single blink, appearing in front of Darkseid, and when his fist lashed out, it did so with the force and inevitability of a fucking world destroying meteor. I could see small flickers blue and red along his form, in a way that made me pretty sure they were only visible because of the similarity in our powers, but the raw force of the punch was what really shocked me.

Darkseid, one arm still missing, threw his own punch, and his fist slammed into Gojo like a freight train, only to stop an inch or so away from my stepfather, much to the shock of the giant New God. Despite the failure to connect though, Gojo jerked like he'd taken a real hit, even as his own punch smashed into Darkseid's jaw, driving the massive god back on his heels with the force of the blow.

Gojo reached down and touched his ribs with a grimace. "Damn, you're actually tougher than you look, and you look like an overcooked steak. Still, let's not pretend you're in top form here. The domain cut off your connection to the entity that puppets this body and that arm isn't growing back after getting it erased from existence. Why don't you let me take your head off with a hollow purple and you can just write off this meat suit as a loss. The original won't know, and we both know the process of getting beaten down will be long and agonizing."

The massive god sneered. "I am no mere imitation, clown. I am Darkseid, ever present, inevitable. All Darkseids are me and I am all. Managing to isolate this body from the whole temporarily is impressive for a gnat, but I will not bite my own hand. That would be foolishness. In any case, it hardly matters." He grinned nastily. "For while I may not be capable of killing you in this form, I can surely tax you. There are more forces than I attempting to destroy your ward, and denying him your aid will serve the purpose of the whole as surely as ending him by my own hand. Even if it will be less entertaining."

"Fuck off." Gojo snarled. "I can finish you in record time. You're a useless brute with too much muscle and no finesse. You think having a bit more muscle to swing around is going to matter when I get serious?" I silently cursed my power as I heard the discordant twang of a lie under his words. As if a second identical voice spoke beneath the first, admitting aloud, even if only to my ears, that Darkseid was right. That he could hold him pretty much indefinitely, but he wouldn't be able to get free quickly, and that the others might be in danger with me stuck in here.

Gojo had pulled me into the domain to let me heal up, confident he could protect me from anything, and while that might be true, especially in here, he couldn't leave anytime soon. Darkseid was going to need to be pinned down, especially since as long as we were in the street of gods, even if Gojo DID kill this vessel, Darkseid would be able to send another through from the sphere using that damn temple. I was going to have to leave him here to fight if I wanted a shot at saving Kit.

Not that Gojo himself would be in any danger. Especially in the domain, Darkseid had no chance of turning the tables in peak condition, much less down an arm. But Gojo was going to need to open the domain to let me out, and Darkseid would use that moment of distraction to attack me with everything he had. I had to heal up before that came, and I had to make damn sure I was as prepared as possible to tank whatever attack he was going to use. Once I was out Gojo could just smack him around for a few days until we were clear of the street of gods and then go home, but that presumed I could survive the attack.

In our favor though, was the fact that I needed to heal some more still, which gave Gojo time to work the New God over for a while and soften him up. With another flash he was back on Darkseid, obviously done talking, and he started to fight, this time moving with even more speed and ferocity. I watched closely as the two of them battled, memorizing this so I could use my Outer Body meditation to learn from the exchange.

And what an exchange it was. Darkseid, despite having only one arm, was managing to keep pace with my stepfather. Not easily, but he was pulling it off. His arm seemed to be everywhere, somehow imposing itself into every gap and blow. Darkseid's combat style was brutal and dominating, but it was surprisingly unrefined. Darkseid wasn't a skillful or crafting fighter. He was a beast on two legs, overpowering everything in his path.

Not that he was sloppy or left openings, he managed to cover any gaps with pure animal instinct, but there was no craftiness or cunning in his battle style, just pure, overwhelming force. As he rained down blows though, Gojo still managed to counter every punch. I focused on gathering my energy as best I could, healing the damage still present in my body. The blows to my ribs were taking longer to heal completely than expected.

Through my obscured aura sight, I could see remnants of a disgusting, corrupt energy in my bones I hadn't noticed until I looked carefully. I was thankful I'd ended up having to stop for this, because I wasn't sure what that would have done if I missed it. I started grinding away at the energy with my own concept, though it was both less powerful and less condensed.

Almost immediately I felt the tenderness and slight pain in my ribs start to fade away, albeit slowly, and I sighed in relief as I handled the fallout from Darkseid's attacks. I wondered if Gojo had noticed the energy and that was why he had me wait before leaving. It seemed likely, and that just made me marvel at how powerful his eyes were, and how the hell he wasn't insane from walking around with them uncovered in the street of gods.

While I worked though, I kept memorizing the battle. Either Gojo had an absurdly diverse and spontaneous fighting style (which was highly possible knowing him) or he was purposefully drawing out as much of Darkseid's battle ability as possible for me to remember. Either way I was learning quite a bit from watching the fight, from both of them. I couldn't wait to work this into my combat style later. It had been ages since I'd come across anyone with a combat standard worth incorporating into my own style.

Finally though, I managed to grind down the energy in my ribs enough to disperse it, and my body finished knitting together the damage, a feat made much easier by my ectoplasmic form. Once I was done, I stood up and focused on my physical form in a different way as Gojo held Darkseid back. Specifically, my durability. My armor was extremely durable and could take blows like no one's business, but my augmentations tended to amplify its physical capabilities rather than its defensive ones.

This time I was going to use my demonic energy to augment the defense instead of the strength and go full tank. Demonic energy should be capable of doing basically anything I needed it too, but on the off chance it couldn't my power would be able to bridge the gap anyway. I closed my eyes, focused on my body, and began to lie. I pushed with the part of my mind and soul that altered the world, drawing demonic energy from my power directly in a way I wouldn't have ever been capable of I didn't know that it came from my power to start with.

It was mostly the same as using my power to enhance my strength, but with an added layer of complexity as I lied to the energy just that little bit more, shifting its purpose to suit my current needs. Once I had it finished, I stepped forward, and, lacking another way to communicate my needs, I shouted to Gojo. "I'm ready! Do it!" I focused as hard as possible on reinforcing and bolstering my defense as Gojo nodded with out looking away from Darkseid. He waved a hand and a hole opened in the domain, a tear in the fabric of space showing me the street of gods where we had just been standing.

I bolted for the gap, pushing myself forward with my wings and my ghostly flight. Luckily neither of those abilities required concentration of use of my actual power, they were just inherent abilities, so they didn't distract from my brain-melting concentration on keeping up my defenses at this level. I was hoping to get out before Darkseid had a chance to attack, but looking back over my shoulder disabused me of that notion as I saw those same eye lasers he'd attacked Gojo with spearing toward me.

Being an absolute badass with insane triple reaction time even within the context of my armor, I actually managed to see the attack coming and dodged it, hoping to avoid needing to test my new defensive technique at all. To my shock though, as I dipped to one side to avoid the beams, the fucking things TURNED. Not subtly either, they literally jerked into a right angle and changed directions to adjust to my evasion. My eyes went wide and I jerked a few times to either side, trying to shake it, but it just kept getting closer and closer even as I blurred toward the gap Gojo had made.

I was so close to getting out when it finally reached me, only a few inches from escaping completely. I turned in midair as it approached, calling Tartarus and crossing my arms in front of myself as I fell backwards the last little bit. I gritted my teeth as the beams SLAMMED into my like a fucking freight train, and I mentally praised Gojo for being able to take this attack as I was hurled backwards. I reached out with my powers, brain spasming in pain as I lied to the universe to make sure the blast hit me at exactly the right angle to drive me out of the hole.

I hit the pavement on the other side as the gap in reality closed behind me, and I skipped like a stone as I did, smashing holes on the road until I hit the side of Darkseid's temple and left a nice big Morgan shaped crater in the wall. I groaned as I let the defensive charge drop, my brain relieved to be out from under the crushing pressure or a new technique as I pulled myself out of the wall.

When I stepped free, I noticed DeSaad nearby, staring at me in horror, and I grinned back at him, ignoring the dead and dying parademons my friends had finished off. Only one more target to deal with and we could be on our way. I was a bit sore, but without worrying about Darkseid I was pretty sure he wouldn't be too tough to deal with. I cracked my neck and stepped toward him. I was glad he was nearby. I had some frustrations to work out.

June 13th 2016 The Street of Gods 11:00 PM EDT

DeSaad did the first thing I should have expected when he saw me stand up. He fucking booked it. The illusions scattered like bowling pins, barreling in every single direction to try to confuse me. Of course, that didn't work, but it distracted several of the Parademons around us and he used that confusion to slip into the chaos of the admittedly mostly wiped out force of Apokaliptan soldiers.

I stepped through darkness to catch up, and appeared right in front of him so fast he didn't even notice. I held out an arm and let myself revel in satisfaction as the ugly god smashed into it moving a at least eighty miles per hour, clotheslining himself as his feet were jerked out from under him. I didn't even wait for him to hit the floor, I brought my fists down in a clasped hand swing to smash him into the cobblestone as he came down on the street. I grinned down at him in smug mockery. "Wow, an escape attempt? From you? How shocking. Isn't Darkseid coming to save you? What are you even worried about buddy? You're going to be fine right?"

My voice was dripping in venom as I spoke, twisting the knife of his abandonment even deeper. Our conceptual battle from earlier was over, but I still didn't like the asshole. I wanted him to suffer as much as possible. He sneered back. "Pathetic. I don't know how you've delayed lord Darkseid, but will dispatch your champion and return to destroy you momentarily. Enjoy your hollow victory while you can. It'll be the last enjoyment you ever get from the destroyed remains of what will be left of your mind and sanity when my lord is done with you."

Despite the severity of the threat and the poisonous tone, I noticed DeSaad sounded...worried. He was putting on a brave front, but nothing too convincing. I smelled blood in the water and pounced. Cackling maliciously, I stood up, jamming my foot into his chest and grinding it down roughly. The bones in his chest cracked slightly, though I eased up so he could respond. Then I continued talking. "You're DeSaad aren't you? The lord high rimjob master of Darkseid's unholiest of holies? Aren't you supposed to be a better liar than that? Because I didn't believe you for a second. Or is it harder to lie to yourself than it is to manipulate scared humans?"

DeSaad's face was turning purple, though whether that was from rage, fear, of pain and suffocation as I slowly ground the breath from his chest with my heel, it was hard to say. I saw his power start to crack just like his bones were, and I had an idea. It was a crazy idea, and one I wouldn't have ever tried on anyone else. DeSaad wasn't actually here though. This was a meat puppet like Darkseid had used, and one that was created from a domain very similar to my own power.

I drew my gun, checking it casually to make sure it was loaded and ready to be fired. DeSaad stared at it in horror, seemingly able to sense what it could do, or possibly having heard about it from Kalibak. Then I called Tartarus to my other hand and leveled it at him. I focused my power through the keyblade and focused on the idea I'd had. I focused on locking DeSaad's physical form to his consciousness. Binding the meat and mind together, but making sure to bind only the flesh and mind, and not the spirit. Not the power.

The keyblade glowed with a dark light, and a torrent of black force slammed into DeSaad through a keyhold shaped gap, binding him to his flesh. Then I leveled the gun at him, smiled grimly, and pulled the trigger. What happened next was impossible to replicate for a variety of reasons. Aside from needing the keyblade, a conceptual death weapon like the gun (specifically like the gun because of the nature of the witch bound into it) and the similarity between our powers, there was one more unique element that only I could supply.

As the bullet punched through DeSaad's skull and splattered his brains across the ground behind him the body dissolved, taking the mind with it, and for a split second there was only the pure, unrefined power of the piece of DeSaad's mantle that had been used to craft that vessel. Only a single fragment of a larger whole, but it was completely untainted by his psyche or ego. Before anything could happen to derail my plan I shifted form to embody the void, tapping into my Hole bloodline as I surged forward, a spot of unbelievable blackness like a hungry maw consuming the shard of divinity.

It felt like I'd just eaten a supernova. Not like I'd felt when I ate Black Adam's power. This wasn't converted into points, it, didn't have to be. It was already too much like my base power to be changed. It just...smashed into me, and I felt myself GROW. I resumed my solid form, collapsing to the ground, body locking up inside my armor as I felt myself change. I was a ghost-devil, a hybrid of beings that shouldn't exist, and I drew a great amount of power from that fact, but at the end of the day, I was the ghost of a human, a devil human hybrid. Human was my base, was my origin.

Now it wasn't. I felt my nature fundamentally shift. The mortality was burned away by that dark spark as it was subsumed into my power, replacing my humanity with something more fluid, more divine, something made of lies and falsehoods that was far more in tune with my nature. I understood now why Del had forced us to escape from New Genesis through the Sphere of the Gods instead of taking the mother box. It had been for this. For this one moment, to pave the way for this ascension. It had been to allow me to become a god.

A minor god, granted. This was a small fraction of DeSaad, and he was a little bitch boy anyway. But that wasn't the point. Changing my nature in this way would align me with my power. I was still a being with an ability for now, but the more attuned to it I grew, the more fully I could merge with it. I was a minor god right now, but soon, I would become something else. Something new. Something probably a lot like Del if I didn't miss my guess.

That was all in the future though. For now, I just groaned and got to my feet. I was already recovering from the strain of the conversion, but it HAD been a strain. Having the mortality burned out of you is a rough experience. It was necessary though. I knew without knowing how that this was the EXACT path I needed to take to become what my power was guiding me toward. Using the fruits or an ability I bought wouldn't have worked. I needed to be ready to accept the power on a base level, even outside of the changes it made to me.

In the meantime DeSaad wasn't going to be coming back soon. Between getting capped by the mortal gun and having a chunk of his essence nommed by a void mouth the ugly god of never shutting the fuck up was going to be out of play for quite some time, which was just one more big fuck you to Darkseid, so win-win. That said, we needed to get the fuck out of this place. I was positive Gojo could hold him for a few days, but there was no telling if more New Gods might show up from that temple.

I turned to check on the others, and froze. They were all just standing there, looking at me. Zee rolled her eyes, hands on her hips. "We're fighting demon slave soldiers for our lives and you stop to have a snack and take a nap? This is next level laziness even for you Morgan." Despite the arch tone, I could feel the relief through our bond, and it occurred to me she might have noticed me violently burning the humanity from my very soul. I winced as I thought about how distracted she might have gotten.

She was alright though, so I just gave her an apologetic smile. "Well, you know me, always sitting on my ass and ignoring everyone else. Seriously though, I'm glad you're ok baby. Gojo is holding big grey and ugly for a while, but I'm feeling rough. We can't afford to engage Neron with me in the condition, and the rest of you seem a bit run down on top of that. We need somewhere to hole up for a while and recharge before the fight. Just a few hours. I'm anxious to find Kit, but we won't do her any good if we get brutally murdered as soon as we arrive."

I was stronger now than I had ever been. My ghost half was multiplicative, and got way more powerful with a stronger base, and while my devil half wasn't, it was still pretty intertwined. That said though, I needed the strength to actually use those abilities. I could use my powers more freely, but I wasn't one with them yet, and I'd been abusing my abilities for what felt like hours.

Eddie, somehow NOT splattered with Parademon blood despite the butchery I'd seen him engaged in, raised a helpful hand, seemingly as serene as ever. "I have a place we could go." He said calmly. I got the impression the Parademons weren't the first gang or army Eddie had butchered, and probably wouldn't be the last. I chose not to bring that up in front of Wally though, as the redhead didn't seem to have bucked as hard at the Parademon's death as I expected. I doubted he would be as calm about Eddie potentially killing people.

I raised an eyebrow at the other god. I could feel him more viscerally now that I was divine, a vague impression of something sharp but mostly untarnished by anything but age. "Where are you going to take us? I thought you lived at that smaller house we visited earlier?" I did NOT use the word shack, because that seemed rude, but I was pretty sure it had been his temple, so it begged the question of where he would be bringing us next.

"The temple of Dagon." Said Eddie breezily. "Dagon grants sanctuary to anyone who requires it. It used to be pretty flimsy protection, but I've done my best to steer the desperate there for years now. Dagon has a decent sized following these days, and his temple is one of the safest places on the street to lie low for a while." He smiled over at Sindella warmly. "Sindy knows about it. I've taken her there before."

I looked quizically at my mother-in-law, who nodded firmly. "The temple of Dagon is a safe place. I don't know how close we are, but Eddie will be able to bring us there if nothing else." She looked around uneasily. "We should go anyway. Even if the other members of Darkseid's pantheon don't show up, the street is like an ocean. Blood on the cobblestones draws in the sharks, and I'd rather be gone when they arrive."

So we set off, heading for the temple of Dagon. I needed a few hours to rest and recover physically, but more than that, I had an idea of how to develop my power a bit more before we reached Neron. My instincts told me this would be a hell of a fight, no pun intended, and I'd need to be as strong as possible. The only real immediate chance I had to improve was to figure out my domain. Luckily, I had access to the Outer Body method, and it would let me train without wasting any resources or energy. Time to try to figure out more of the secrets of the universe. Hopefully that would be enough to fight the devil.

June 14th 2016 The Street of Gods 12:00 AM EDT

The temple of Dagon was surprisingly homey. Sure, it was huge, but it was somehow still down to earth. The walls were made of rough stone, all a warm brown color that gave the feeling of earth and growing things. The floors were comfortable black carpets, and at random spots crystals stuck out of the walls, glowing a soft white that filled the hallways with a dim glow without seeming to actually emanate from anywhere in particular.

The man who met us at the entrance, Avery, was a friendly old hippy in a roughspun brown robe, with long grey hair intertwined with what looked like ivy and wildflowers, and a braided beard that surrounded a welcoming, caring smile as he greeted us and ushered us inside. He gave Eddie a warm hug, and then gave one to Sindella as well, welcoming them both back and enthusiastically recounting their visits before as he led the group into a receiving room where he offered us all herbal tea served in handmade clay mugs and sweetened with honey.

After the meeting he led us all to our own rooms, small but comfortable square spaces with a single comfortable cot set on one side, wishing us all goodnight and informing us we were welcome to join him for breakfast. Once he left the girls headed to sleep and I retreated into the Outer Body state, to finally begin my training. Once again, I found myself standing in an endless black expanse inside my own mind.

I sat down, closing my eyes even in here as I let myself decompress. I needed a minute to relax, to recover mentally. I had access to my full power in here at all times, but the events of the past few hours had been stressful and emotionally draining, so I decided to let myself calm down before I started the obviously difficult task of forming a domain.

Domain expansion. It was an...interesting concept. I hadn't considered it before really. Why would I? Gojo hadn't even needed to use it in front of me, and the idea of claiming a section of the world for myself was kind of nuts without the context. Thinking about it though, it did make sense. The world was made up of so many concepts, but some were more important or powerful than others. The universe as a whole had different amounts of each type of power in it, especially in different places.

My concept, lies and falsehoods, existed everywhere, but it wasn't supreme. It was just part of the world as a whole. A single thread in the tapestry of life and magic and power. Domain expansion was something different. It was creating a pocket of the world that belonged to you. Not a place without any other concepts, but one where yours stands above all others. It would enable someone to do things with their concept they couldn't normally, because the other concepts in the world would be working against them.

You could use the concept of heat to light a fire, but the fire would eventually go out, because other concepts worked against it. Inside a domain though, fire wouldn't be hampered by anything else, only enhanced. Wood would cause it to burn faster, but wouldn't be consumed, oxygen would act as fuel, but never run out. Those were inexact examples, because they were physical, but conceptual power was such an inexact thing that I struggled to actively describe it. I just had to do the best I could. As long as it made sense to me it was fine anyway.

In some ways, my current state was actually ideal for forming a domain, because due to the recent change from my ascension to godhood, several things about me were technically untrue. I'd become the very lies that I told, and those were factors that could play into what I could do, but it didn't change the fact that I was missing one very important factor of Domain Expansion. I didn't know what the fuck I wanted it to DO.

Domains were important and personal things, and they had to be relevant to who you were as a person. I wasn't sure how I knew that, but I did, in the same way that I knew that a rose was red or a sunflower yellow. It was just...obvious. I needed to make my power exert itself in a way that complimented my fighting style and my very essence. The issue with that was my power being so fucking generic.

Not in its essence really, but in its execution. I just...changed shit. That wasn't unique or special. It was powerful sure, but there was no real way to make that more potent other than just doing it better, and that was the wrong direction to go, I could feel it. Just trying to create a field where I could warp reality better wouldn't work, and would in fact be counterintuitive to my goals. So I needed to create a path that would work for me, something that made sense with my combat style and the abilities I had.

I began to think back over who I was. I was a shadow, first and foremost. Edgy or not, I was something hard to see, something that avoided detection. I was invisible, and intangible, and empty as the void itself. I was a lie, in so many ways, so much of the time. I focused on that aspect of myself, because it was important. That had always been a factor of what I could do. When I was seemingly there I really wasn't and when I wasn't there, I seemed to be. Deception was baked into every cell of me.

But how could that be something unique, something powerful? I reached out with my concept, and instead of trying to lie to the world, I tried to make the world a lie. It was an odd experience. There was very little theoretical difference between what I was doing and what I usually did, but the practical was worlds apart. It just FELT different, and I felt like that was good, like it was the right path.

It occurred to me that I hadn't lasted very long in my downtime, but I wasn't throwing away an epiphany for the sake of a break I could always take later. It was important to chase this revelation while I could, and try to learn as much from my moment of clarity as possible. I was sure that these sorts of periods of growth were far from common.

So I tried to distill the nature of my powers, of myself, down to one aspect. Misdirection and trickery was obvious, but there had to be other elements I could draw inspiration from. Then I considered my most used abilities. Aside from my armor, which wasn't really more than a weapon, I'd always enjoyed mobility and multiplication. Creating copies and avoiding conflict until I could land a decisive strike.

I closed my eyes, reaching out to the world around me and telling it a lie. When I opened them, I saw...me. Multiple versions of me, standing there with me. I glanced around at them in consternation. They were illusions. Not particularly impressive, even if they were nearly seamless. I needed more. I attacked one of them, and as expected, my blow passed right through it, but I wasn't completely helpless on my next step. I focused on the lie of the illusion, and made it just that little bit more convincing as I pushed it to attack me back.

I spun and intercepted the attack, grinning ear to ear as the attack legitimately caused an impact. That wasn't some knockoff like my clones. It was me. Another me. It could only work for a moment, but I could do it more than once. Within my domain there could be a second me, ready to attack at any time from an angle my enemy would have previously considered to be impossible.

Falling back a step, I considered my new trick. It was powerful, especially since I was pretty sure I could muster almost any attack from a copy without actually using any energy, which was huge. But that wasn't enough. A domain was a game changer, it was my own personal world. I needed more than just the ability to make fiction truth, my epiphany from earlier was that my combat style was pure deception. Truth was lie, and lie was truth. That balance is what made it more than just a conjuration or a convincing trick.

I pushed the copy to attack me again, changing the lie to make it real as it did so, but instead of blocking, I reached out with my power again. As I lied to the world to tell it the copy was really me, I lied to it again to tell it I was an illusion. I grinned in triumph as the attack passed right through me, unable to do any damage at all to a simple image that had no physical form.

This wasn't intangibility like I had as a ghost, though it was similar in some ways. Some people could attack the intangible. No, for just a second, I made myself a lie. A pure fiction that couldn't be touched. No one I'd heard of had developed a method of attacking an illusion. Even if they could, what the hell was the point of creating something like that? Illusions were just false images made by magic, hurting them accomplished nothing.

I could feel in my bones that this was the right direction. This was my power at its purest. This was my domain. But it wasn't done yet. This was the path I needed, but it wasn't the finished product. I knew HOW I wanted my domain to work, but I still needed to make the domain itself. A technique wasn't a world. I extended my power, letting the lie seep into the world around me, and created a dozen images of me. Then I conjured up an enemy I could go all out against. Darkseid.

I fought Darkseid with my copies and got crushed. Then I did it again. And again. And again. Gojo had been right, he had a LOT of conceptual weight. I wasn't like Gojo, who had honed my concept and domain to the point where that aura would part around it like water around a stone, but trying to create my domain in that environment helped me immensely. It was like resistance training, and I knew if I could manage to create my domain in here like this, it would be infinitely more stable.

I spent hours repeating the fight. Darkseid killed me dozens of times, hundreds. No matter what I did I couldn't beat him, even as a god I wasn't a match for that bastard, and it made me even more awed at Gojo's power to see that, and even more determined to follow this path like he did. I tried a dozen different methods, changing the number of copies, the distribution, the timing, I tried a dozen different strategies to beat him, but every time I came up short. The only real benefit was that between Darkseid's pressure and my unlimited energy and resources, I had more than enough time to get it right.

Finally, it clicked. Some ineffable, indefinable change in the sphere of my influence that let it become a true domain, something that was always there inside me to be expanded rather than something I did. I could feel the change almost instantly. The copies were me and I was them. I wasn't just switching places or manifesting attacks, I was a dozen illusions at the same time, both real and unreal. I was everywhere and nowhere.

I dismissed Darkseid's image, still unable to beat him, though I'd gotten much closer. Once I was in the empty void alone I banished my copies before reaching into myself for my real domain for the first time. I grinned widely as I said the words outside I'd been feeling in my soul. "Domain Expansion: Schrodinger's Subterfuge." And suddenly, the world belonged to me.

Ok, this one has been building for literally ages. To clarify this is NOT his final state, just a step on the path, but there have been lots of hints about what he is and how this will end if you look back. Regardless, I'm having tons of fun with the changes and it's going to be huge in the new arc, which btw has officially started in that advance chapters. I'm, betting nobody is going to predict what happens, despite me having done a decent amount of foreshadowing. To clarify, I believe this will be the final arc, though it'll be a relatively long one. I'm aiming for at least 750k total, unless inspiration strikes and extends it. Hope everyone enjoys!