Bruce regained consciousness on a street bathed in scarlet. It smelled like vomit and blood. Bruce's armor had protected him after the long fall; from what he now knew to be a tower attached to a monstrosity shaped like a cathedral. He felt like shit but just hoped that there was no internal damage.
"Fell from grace" Someone nearby muttered
"A gift from our Lord!" cried another
"Looks tasty, I stake my claim on an eye" said yet another, how many were they?
Bruce tried to move but that proved fruitless very fast as twelve or more starving people bore down on him. Three pinned him to the ground, one ran a knife across his cheek, teasing Bruce before tearing off a strip of his flesh and consuming it.
Bruce held in screams, not wanting to give the flesh eater the satisfaction.
"STOP!" came a powerful and familiar voice
The flesh eaters smartly dispersed as Clark landed before them.
"How does it feel, Bruce? To have fallen so far"
Clark lifted Bruce up with a single hand, smiled and threw him into a nearby building. The weak brick and mortar gave way to Bruce's velocity, his back felt like it was on fire, his armor bending and piercing his skin.
Bruce tried to get up, take stock of where he was. The building he had landed in felt like a furnace, the heat was so intense it made him feel physically sick.
Clark sped into the building, delivering a blow that sent Bruce to his knees. Clark picked him up once more.
"I'm sorry" Bruce tried, hoping to reach him like he did days ago
"You said" Clark replied, coldly, before taking them through the building's roof and up into the dark crimson sky
Fragments of Bruce's cowl were cutting into his head, making him growl in pain. Clark ceased his ascent, content now to simply hover and dangle Bruce over the city of twisted metal and high flames.
o-o-o-o-o
Lucifer found the strength to make it back to his feet. Maze was facing a green sword at her neck, Diana had cut Darkseid's skin several times but failed to draw blood, and a swarm of Parademons were descending on them all.
Grid and the Barry that survived, held back the hoarde as best they could however a few kept breaking through. Lucifer grabbed one, twisting into his own demonic form and addressing the army.
"CEASE THIS TREACHERY!" he bellowed, breaking the Parademon's back across his knee to grab the attention of its colleagues
They all stopped their swarming, long enough for Grid and Barry to dispatch a chunk of them with dual cannons and lightning bolts. Lucifer found that he had a way with most demons, terrestrial or not.
Curry exhausted Kalibak's weapon on Darkseid's body, hitting him with devastating rays that tore holes in Darkseid's skin, but for each hole he made another healed itself completely. Darkseid took an ancient looking axe from his throne and with one confident swipe, sliced through Curry's arm. The bone splintered in two, Curry hollered in pain but not missing a beat, drove the sharp splinter in his stump into Darkseid's eye.
Diana wrapped her lasso around Darkseid, he struggled and screamed a guttural cry, there was no use though, the Amazonian Parademon wasn't letting go. The glow of the lasso grew brighter, more intense, Darkseid's skin cracked under its pressure and from inside the cracks seeped out a dark ooze.
"What the fuck is going on?" Maze yelled
Lucifer looked back at Maze, the symbols were gone from her eyes and she seemed more angry at Darkseid than at Mala
o-o-o-o-o
Still hovering in the sky, Bruce could see that something had stopped Clark from splattering him like a bug.
Clark looked at him with sad, tired eyes.
"We don't have long..." he told Bruce, pulling the blade of Athena from his belt and putting it into Bruce's hands
"No" Bruce replied, firmly
"You have no other choice, when the signal takes over again, I will snap you like a twig and then I'll go back to serving Darkseid"
"You don't have to... we can find a way to help you"
"You don't understand" Clark shook his head "the signal clouds your mind, amplifies the hurt and pain and suffering inside you, it enslaves you to that darkness inside, it enslaves you to him"
"Then we'll end him, if we have to"
Clark laughed the saddest laugh Bruce had ever heard.
"Tell me something before I go, what happened to Lois Lane on your Earth?"
Bruce told him how his Clark and Lois found each other again, how they picked up where they left off and had recently set a date for the wedding.
Tears streamed from Clark's eyes, Bruce fought off the urge to hug him.
"Do it. Now!" Clark demanded his death
Bruce let the blade fall, he wouldn't do this, he couldn't.
"I killed you once" Bruce admitted "Not again"
Clark said something to him but Bruce couldn't hear it. His ears rang, pain shot through his whole body, his gloves ripped apart at the seams, now too small for his expanding hands. The formula was taking effect.
o-o-o-o-o
The lasso couldn't kill Darkseid, no matter how many times Diana tried. It took a being born of a God to kill a God, and apparently in her current condition Diana no longer counted as such.
Thankfully Lucifer was born of God and Goddess, however he couldn't touch the lasso without it burning his flesh.
Darkseid's remaining eye glowed bright red, he was charging for another attack and this time someone would die. Lucifer broke the habit of a lifetime, put his hands together and prayed to his father for help.
Something landed on the balcony, it sounded metallic. Barry rushed over and sped it to the group, who were desperately trying to restrain Darkseid.
"Is this what I think it is?" Barry asked
It was a double sided blade, bound in the middle by wood. The same blade Bruce tried to use on Kalibak, days ago.
"Fitting..." Diana noted, before looking to Lucifer "If you are truly of divine birth, end this nightmare"
Lucifer took the blade, careful not to poke himself with it. Darkseid's eye looked ready to go, there was no more time to waste without getting someone killed. Lucifer plunged the blade into Darkseid's heart.
Immediately the New God's eye lost its built up power. His breathing became shallow and he fell backward onto the ground.
o-o-o-o-o
Despite the pain he was going through, Bruce did not pass out. The same couldn't be said for Clark, however, who dropped out of the sky for seemingly no reason at all.
Bruce tore off his own armor and shed his cape, he wouldn't need them now. Grabbing Clark with a clawed hand, Bruce spread his wings. Bruce had finally become a Bat.
The formula was developed by a Wayne Labs scientist called Langstrom, Bruce hoped that it would come in handy one day. It also terrified him, the idea of possibly losing control, becoming more Bat than Man.
o-o-o-o-o
Lucifer knelt down by Darkseid, the monster's eyes had completely lost their crimson blaze, under it all he had pale blue eyes.
"I bet you're wishing that you'd left Earth alone now" Lucifer taunted
Darkseid coughed up some blood before chuckling.
"Your hands are as bloodsoaked as mine, Angel"
"I think not"
"How do you think I slayed your siblings?"
Lucifer fell silent, the grin falling from his face.
"In this universe you were my right hand, you led my armies across your stinking Earth"
This couldn't be true, regardless of alternatives, Lucifer could never be cruel enough to help create a world like that Earth. Lucifer would never betray Chloe like that.
"Then your bitch died" Darkseid continued "and you grew a conscience, returned to your humans with lies on your lips and made a deal"
Who did the Lucifer of this universe think he was? What kind of deal did he make? Darkseid mumbled something, Lucifer got closer to hear it.
With one last rush of strength, Darkseid pulled Lucifer onto the second side of the blade, he hocked out a blood filled chortle, and then finally fell silent.
Lucifer chastised himself for letting the monster manipulate him so masterfully. He wondered if there was any truth to the story at all.
o-o-o-o-o
Bruce dragged Clark back into the throne room. Being a human-bat hybrid, his vision was very different, a strange mix of sonar and actual sight. He saw Darkseid laying dead on the ground, a massive demonic body laying on top of him. He heard no heartbeat.
Bruce silenced the voice inside his head, the one that kept telling him that the scarred body was the Devil. He knew who it truly was and that man was no Devil.
While the team tried to help Lucifer, Kalibak fought his way back to consciousness and caught a look at his father, and then Clark.
"Deserter!" he yelled at the top of his lungs
Bruce knew he couldn't let Kalibak near the still recovering Kryptonian. Bruce did the only thing he could think of, he flew, dug his claws into Kalibak's shoulders and while the New God howelled a number of strange curses at him, Bruce took him for a trip over the balcony, dropping Kalibak into the same street that had greeted Bruce earlier, the flesh eaters sounded delighted.
Upon returning to the throne room, Bruce rested his wings beside the sleeping Clark. Grid and Barry were talking, Bruce couldn't help but overhear.
"I remember you..." Grid told Barry, his voice now Vic Stone's "You... get upset when people give you Christmas presents, you never tell them but you do, because you're Jewish and they should respect that"
Barry smiled, sweetly and Bruce made a mental note to give his Barry Hanukkah gifts next winter.
Diana and Mala were holding hands and talking about a ring calling Mala away.
Curry sat in a corner on his own, applying pressure to a very fresh wound. Bruce decided to make his way over to him but before he could, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You've done well, Bruce" said the powerful voice of the Monitor