The Dark Age: Conqueror Wyrm
Why should this work?
Metropolis, home of the famous Daily Planet. I suspect if the renowned Mrs. Lane were to interview me, she'd ask me that question.
Am I not declaring war on the entire world? Am I not making the same tactical error of not knowing my limits, the fallacy that felled the likes of Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler?
Am I not the villain, destined to lose?
Sometimes, I do wonder that.
Then I just look at the world itself.
The world that defines me as in the wrong.
It itself shows why I am going to win.
This world has long lost the right to define anything.
Forget humanity; it's hopeless without even bothering an examination. You can throw all the examples of selflessness and nobility in my face all you want, I can throw a thousand more back. I know your true selves. No matter how much or how well it's hidden behind lies, delusion, or idiocy.
No, why don't I hold up your golden idols, your superheroes? Shining beacons of the best and the brightest, all that's right in the world?
Right.
Superman, your champion, when he died, four beings replaced him. How many embodied the ideals he so intently upheld? One. The rest were a villain in disguise, a racial-purity computer program cloaked in false flesh, and an immature spawn far more interested in self-gratification. One out of four, and the one that truly walked in his steps was the one that did not even bear a link to the Kryptonian. Some would say this shows why Superman protects the world. I know the reality: If even HE, a so-called god of the greatest virtues, of truth, justice, and the American way, could only get it right a quarter of the time, it shows how hopeless the world he protects has become.
Batman is insane. It's controlled, and beneficial to his city, but he's insane. The greatest human being alive is utterly mad, utilizing dressing up as an armored rodent and punching other lunatics in the face for self-medication. Why else would his fellows mind wipe him? Why else would he respond by building Brother Eye? Why else would he, upon suffering grievous injury, choose such a failure for a replacement, and chase out other heroes who dare enter his city? Is this all worth moments of control and kindness? Should he not be in a cell in Arkham rather than at the table of the Justice League? Do they not realize his ability to think and conceive solutions combined with what he is at his core is all building to the day he murders them in their beds?
Wonder Woman, forged in clay, perfect and immaculate, and as much of an abnormality as Superman. She believes she can change the world, she has no right to even TRY. She can't even BEGIN to understand the hopelessness of those she walks among. She was molded by the hands of gods, and she strikes amongst the offal of delusional animals. A failure before she even began, chasing ignus fatuus right off a cliff.
Hal Jordan…feh. You can place all the blame on a giant yellow space bug you want, but what happened was pure human. He thought he could do anything, but when that was exposed as fraud, so was he. His return merely shows an inability to grasp the truth, a factor shared in those with fear and without.
The Martian, living amongst you. Disguised as you, protecting you, serving as a 'man hunter'. Maybe one day he'll realize that no matter what he does, he will never be one of you. Maybe if he spent some time away, he'd see how much of his pain comes not from his own past, but his present and future. From YOU. Maybe that means he is beyond help, like so much of his adopted planet.
I speak of just the vanguard. What of all their so-called fellows?
Are they not the angels? Should they not strike me down?
If they are…then what has become of angels?
How much of recent time is littered with missed chances, false starts, good intentions not even given a chance to pave a road before they ended? How often have shortcuts been taken, how many have decided the weight of morality was simply too much to bear, and strove to find ways to cast off the weight, ease their own burden? How many entered a world for others when all they could think of in the end was themselves?
I am not what is wrong with the world. The world is, was, hopelessly deranged. A slow rot sown in seeds of delusion. A cancer that no longer seems to even pay lip service to itself.
If I am wrong, then why can't these heroes seem to win in any reasonable way? Why has the line become so blurred between good and evil, a murk so deep it seems even beyond capricious fate?
If I am wrong, why does the world empower me so?
Is this not what it wants?
Am I not what is only right to rule?
And if not…why did you let it come to this?
Why did you accommodate what harmed you so?
Were you really so blind?
There is no more time for talk. The time has come to accept what you've made.
If that means your undoing, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Although I suspect as I cast you to oblivion, all the fingers will be pointed anywhere but yourself.
"…I hope I haven't just been made redundant."
There was no answer to her comment, as Marissa Mori lowered the high-tech 'bino-scanners' and turned towards her 'fellow'. Then again, she hadn't been positioned on this large hill several miles outside of Metropolis to have a deep conversation, as she tapped a button on her wrist-mounted computer. Her experimental 'living metal' armor settled on her body as she did so, the black of the protective alloy indistinguishable against the reinforced black textiles of the more traditional thin combat armor beneath it. She was not expected to fight, merely to observe and ensure the Lord's main 'weapon' of this conflict remained in working order, but the Lord considered most everything these days, and prepared accordingly.
It had to be why Marissa was guarding who she was.
Once, she had been magnificently terrifying despite her somewhat small form. Majestic robes had cloaked her, the symbol of the unfathomable power she had commanded: a grasp of magic so fierce and intense even the greatest masters of it on the planet would have given her consideration. But things had changed for the Sorceress, as she sat, almost limp, in the electronic wheelchair/life support system she was now attached to, her opulent vestments replaced by far simpler ones and bandages traced with arcane symbols covered her head, neck, and one eye. The eye that remained exposed didn't show much in the way of recognizing that fact, the pitiless abyss that had once burned there reduced to a dull midnight that may as well have been blankness half the time. She had reigned high, and like many before her, fallen hard. Unlike some, she had not been blessed with fortune or later understanding to lessen it. That should have killed her.
But such a death would have been so…impractical.
In the events she had just watched, Marissa understood why the Lord had saved the Sorceress, placed her in a position to heal, and opened up the possibility that she might rise up against him one day. Because that day was not today, and today the Sorceress' skills, granted to the Lord in return for his care, were more apparent than ever. Magic had been ripped apart, reborn, and was entering a brand new age, and yet she had rode out the waves and re-learned her mastery with a speed that defied comprehension, despite her grievous injuries. Now she sat here, even as she healed, lending that magical mastery to her…benefactor.
The eye, however, was not always blank.
Marissa looked at the smoldering ember within it, pondering what fueled it. Was it being enslaved? It was not that severe a bondage; such an act would surely backfire later. The Master had made sure to demonstrate to the Sorceress the mutually beneficial design of their 'relationship'. Then again, some beings would rankle at any kind of mutual co-existence. Marissa knew that perhaps better then anything.
Maybe it was the fact she was not the one making this glorious stand. Her abilities were being well used, and in truth the Lord tapping her Sorceress powers stood a far better chance than either of them alone, but there was often no words that could go against ambition, or worse, thwarted ambition. If the Sorceress had had a proper voice in the circumstances that had ended with her being here, things likely would have gone quite differently. Then again, she might have formed an alliance with the Lord anyway, for their correlative reasons if nothing else. It was hard to predict the minds of beings who could rewrite time and space with a wave of their hands.
Perhaps it was the chair she was locked in. Even with the fact it was needed to keep her alive, and ensure that she might, one day, resemble her former self in a state beyond the faintest shadow, the Sorceress had never quite lost her loathing of technology.
Marissa wondered if that made the magician queen resent or hate her instead of the situation in general. She did not really care in either case. She had her orders, and she followed.
Though she questioned if one of said orders was still necessary, with the Lord's shadow army descending on the shattered ruin that had once been Metropolis.
"You know, he wouldn't be able to do this without you." Marissa said. "You could look at this as a favor. Even if he doesn't succeed, with how many casualties are going to be inflicted, the next time around will be much easier."
The Sorceress had no reply again: as far as Marissa could tell never she never spoke at all any more. The brilliant tech girl had no idea what her voice actually sounded like.
Speech, however, wasn't needed. Her eye said it all.
Questioning your precious master?
"I know he's having trouble. If he had full strength and was definitely going to destroy the lot of them, he wouldn't need to have summoned that army. He needs it to spread out his strength and eliminate as many as possible without the risk of being attacked by multiple enemies at once. He's getting tired. Even if he DOES manage to kill them all, he'll have to retreat afterwards to rest. I doubt he'll have the energy for…more battles after all this…" Marissa said, as the shadow fell over her. She looked up to see what it was, as it was already fairly dark due to the Lord's protective cloud cover, and something would have to be damn big to further block out the light.
The assessment was correct: it was damn big. Marissa stared at it for a moment.
"…I was wondering when they'd have a Deus Ex Machina come into play." Marissa said, and then began scanning it with her binoculars. In her last moments of non-business thought, she mused that the Lord had considered Prime to be the greatest obstacle, and that if he could overcome him, the world would be a step down.
Watching the gigantic skyship sweep over her and approach the distant battleground, she also remembered a quote by the late musician Frank Zappa.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
BULWARK (The Bureau for Unusual Law Enforcement, Worldwide Strategy, American Command) was a creation of Cold War paranoia. With a rise in the numbers of superhumans noted worldwide, the United States' government had stepped in to begin developing weapons and strategies for the event of a Communist attack involving metahumans. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, BULWARK had (among others) turned its attentions to the so-called Justice League of America. After all, among their numbers were the most powerful beings on Earth, possibly the universe as a whole, and together no threat had ever managed to triumph over them. The danger that they could overthrow any government without credible resistance put fear into the hearts of every politician.
So BULWARK had been given a very large piece of the military budget pie. Every so called "Star Wars" missile defense project was just a cover for BULWARK spending. and it showed.
The head of the program, Roger Candide, cut a trim figure. He seemed to favor his left leg, which was a prosthetic. You would never know it watching him; Roger gave only the slightest hint of a limp. At his command was a massive air force, ready to make a mark on the Battle of Metropolis. The flagship was an Achilles class Hover-carrier, which was the result of reverse engineered alien technology and somebody who was a fan of Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. It commanded entire wings of air superiority fighters, F-18's equipped with alien technology mostly; a pair of smaller Hector Hover-corvettes and several dozen CESTUS-class battle armor suits made up the rest of the fleet. Not a gigantic force, but the CESTUSes were each rated as strong enough to beat an entire tank platoon, and unlike some military units, the pilots had been exposed to actual combat instead of endless simulations that always seemed to bite other organizations like BULWARK in the rear. The Achilles itself was armed with numerous secondary weapons, and its main gun, a massive rail gun, hit with the force of a tactical nuclear weapon. This was an army that could have ended the Cold War in a few minutes of active combat.
Yet, they were still going to be cannon fodder.
Roger had been opposed to the Achilles from the moment he had heard about it. After all, this was a world of Supermen. Any target so obvious would be the first thing hit in the event of a mass metahuman attack. He was much happier about the CESTUSes, since they were made specifically to fight metahumans. He pitied the poor fighter pilots most of all; they would be the first in and the first to die. But he still gave a show of confidence, knowing that morale was an army's most important weapon…
A bridge officer was speaking to him. Roger put his musing away for a later time.
"Sir, we're getting a hail from the Liberty League. They say that they and the other superhuman teams are in position."
"Good. They have their orders." Roger replied. This time they had pulled out all the stops; every combat capable metahuman in the city of Uberton had been brought in, adding a hundred or so men and women to the battle. Based on the scattershot reports he'd gotten, Roger suspected that quantity wouldn't make up the difference between their powers and Superboy-Prime's, but he had no other choice…
The sudden change before him, from controlled to anything but, was so abrupt Roger wondered for a second if he was just dreaming this whole crisis.
All the bridge officers, moments ago the picture of calm efficiency, all suddenly recoiled and began pulling their headsets off, some actually throwing them on the ground. Even as that happened, the monitors they were utilizing lit up like Christmas trees. Which meant nothing good: Roger considered himself a fair judge of quality, and such a reaction should not have been caused by a sudden storm of activity.
Normal activity, that was. Nothing broke detachment and doing one's job then a myriad of voices going from reporting status to screaming in surprise, shock, or worse.
"Sir, we've encountered a whole new enemy force! They just…came out of nowhere! Right on top of our force's heads!" One of the bridge officers managed to get out.
"Sir, I'm reading a magical spike! Someone just cranked the dial up!" Another yelled. Roger didn't have to be in the position he was in to know the two were likely related. With the reports he'd gotten earlier from Athena Jones, he also had a pretty damn good idea where it had come from.
"All units, give them PLENTY of room! Get the Achilles to maximum rail gun range, then hover there. Wait and see what happens." Roger ordered.
"Sir, shouldn't we intervene?"
"It's like the old prayer officer. I accept what I cannot change. Let's just hope that whoever walks away is softened up enough for the rail gun to make a bit of difference."
The officer blanched slightly as her eyes drifted back to her monitors. "The friendlies already in the field are being butchered. It's…it's some sort of shadow army, they're attacking everything! Hero, villain, they're going after them all! I don't know how the Titans are staying alive in the carnage!"
Roger acknowledged her with a nod. He offered a brief prayer, suspecting that the jig was up. Oh well. If my Rob can go in there with that little Gauntlet of his, then I can stay brave with two trillion dollars of military hardware backing me up. "All CESTUS units, move in!"
If Roger Candide only knew the irony of his words, he might have felt as deep a regret as the one that had bloomed in the heart of Virgil Hawkins, aka the electromagnetism controller Static, as he looked at the massive rubble filled crater that had marked the scene of the Titans' massive battle with Doomsday. He'd thought the gang wars of downtown Dakota when each side had the metahuman 'bang babies' had been destructive. Apparently he still had some levels of capacity to learn.
"…damn. We're too late." Static said, floating above the carnage on his levitating metal disc. Even with his best friend Richie, aka the supervenes Gear, seemingly pulling a rocket car out of his rear end, the pair had arrived in the Battle of Metropolis and found that the Titans, who had been the ones to properly summon them, had already fallen. For a moment, Static warred with the idea that he could have been faster somehow, and then dismissed it. Dakota had needed protection during this crisis too. Surely they'd have understood. "Gear, can you…?"
"Trying." Richard 'Gear' Foley said, his see-through green facemask alight with readings as he tried to detect life signs amidst the rubble. "Damn it, can't get anything…the whole world's still off-kilter, it might…"
"Uh Rich, are you getting anything on radar?"
"What? No, why…"
"THEN HEADS UP!" Static yelled as he fired a blast of electrical energy over Gear's head: Gear turned around to watch it strike and rip apart…
Something. Neither Gear's eyes nor his immediate mechanical follow-up scans could properly classify the entity. It seemed to be made of a weird cross between inky black smoke, tar, and a gelatinous body-type that reminded Gear of their old enemy Ebon. Static's electrical blast had tore the thing apart, but it was still writhing on the ground after it had been hit.
It also wasn't alone. More were coming, all composed of the exact same mystery material. Now that he actually could see them approach, Gear could also see they were all carrying weapons of the same strange blackness: swords, claws, axes, spears, halberds and all sorts of other armaments…
And none of them were reading on his radar. Hell, his proper visual computers seemed confused by them, constantly re-calculating under the assessment that it was making some kind of error in its efforts. As if the day wasn't bad enough, with the world falling apart and then getting dragged into some kind of superhero/villain Stalingrad.
"What the heck are THOSE?" Static yelled, as he blew another one apart with another electrical blast, while Gear hurled one of his concussive shock bombs at a third. Unlike Static's attack, his device just briefly disrupted the material of whatever the dark beings were made of, making a small hole at the shoulder for a moment before the entity's body began to reform, the 'injured' creature falling back as more complete versions moved to the attack's front.
"They're not ninja info cards." Gear quipped, pulling out another device, the so-called 'Zap Cap': once envisioned as a battery, it now functioned as a restraining device, as he tossed it at another shadow being. The device went off, wrapping strong metal wires around the creature before it delivered its paralyzing shock.
Which proved to not be paralyzing at all in this situation, as the entity's body seemingly reduced it's cohesion and let the restraint device slip right through it.
"GAH!" Gear yelled, sending a blast of fuel to his jet boots to jerk backwards before one of the entities' spears caught him, Static himself retreating as he sent more destructive lightning bolts into his attackers. His offensive efforts bore more fruit than Gear's, but Gear could see the dark piles of whatever made up the entities reforming on the ground behind the still functioning attackers, slowly but surely.
"Jesus Christ! Now it's Night of the Living Dead! " Static cursed, as more shadow monsters flew, leapt, and lunged to attack, unspeaking and unrelenting in their sole reason for existence.
Perhaps Static and Gear thought they had it bad…
"OH CRAP! BACK! GET BACK!" Athena Jones yelled, as she opened fire with her modified Tommy gun.
…they could have had it worse.
The bullets began ripping into the shadow creatures as they touched down on the roof. They staggered, recoiling somewhat from the assault, but it was clear they did not react to such things as a normal being would.
"God I miss drug runners." Athena said, as she rapid-switched her empty bullet cylinder with a fresh one and gave the two shadow entities on the roof another lead barrage, this time blowing their upper halves apart. Like the T-1000, the creatures stayed on their feet, and as Athena's gun clicked dry again, they began flowing back up to reform themselves, even as another one dropped down on the roof.
"Damn it! Next time Marmot invites me to one of these things, I'm hanging up!" Athena said, as she dropped her empty Tommy gun and pulled out her 44. Magnum. The heavy-bore artillery didn't even slow the new attacker down, as it ran towards her and slashed out with a nodachi sword, cleaving her hat in half as she dodged and finally broke, turning around to run for her life.
She didn't have far to run, as a few steps brought her to the edge of the roof. The Lord's omega-impact against Prime had sent out such waves of force that, despite her distance, had nearly knocked her out cold, and she'd just recovered when the shadow creatures had appeared. She'd completely lost her bearings, and it had cost her: she was cut off.
"…and I never saw France…" Athena said quietly, turning back around and bringing her gun back up, firing the last few shots she had as the shadow creatures closed in…
Before a hand seized onto Athena's jacket, yanking her away from the creature's weapons as she yelped in surprise.
"I'm always pulling you out of trouble, whippersnapper." Her rescuer said, as Athena cranked her head to see who it was. If she'd ever met Amy Erickson, Athena would have noticed the resemblance between the two, save for the more mature figure the grown woman carrying her had, as well as the faintest trace of the beginning of crow's feet on her face. Well that, and the fact that her rescuer wore a star-covered skirt instead of star-covered pants. Even with the fact she hadn't met Amy, Athena knew who this was.
"Old Paragon!"
The grimace on 'Old Paragon's' face was quite obvious.
"I prefer Paragon…"
Without a word of warning, 'Old Paragon' abruptly hurled Athena up into the air. Athena didn't even have time to let out a surprised scream, as the shadow creatures came for 'Old Paragon'…
She met them with thunderous punches, knocking one aside and literally punching another's head off. A third snuck in from her flank, slashing out with claws and slicing a wound across 'Old Paragon's' shoulder, before a thunderous roundhouse blow knocked it into a shattered building. 'Old Paragon' kicked her last attacker away and snapped out her arm to catch Athena once more.
"Classic." Paragon Classic finished.
"Yes, right, Classic Paragon. Please, PLEASE warn me next time." Athena said.
"No time." Paragon Classic said, as she dropped down to a somewhat undamaged street. "You'd better find someplace to hide Athena. I took the best Krupp could put out and shrugged it off…and I still feel this." Paragon Classic said, indicating the wound the shadow creature had made, blood leaking down her arm.
"And you?"
"I plan to give them WHAT FOR!" Paragon Classic yelled, as more shadow creatures dropped down to attack her. She grabbed one's spear and lifted it up and down, smashing the entity down on its fellow like a pile driver before she kicked a third one away.
"Old Para…Classic! This is a bad idea! Too exposed! Don't just plant your feet where you first can! ACK!" Athena yelped, as another shadow creature came for her. She drew her last weapon, a Bowie knife, which she planted in the creature's forehead before running for it, barely avoiding getting cut in half by the creature's retaliatory axe swing. The knife dropped out of the entity's head…as Paragon Classic crashed down on it, stomping it into the ground. Moments later, yet another one attacked her. A moment after THAT, Paragon Classic had seized it and ripped it in half. Vertically.
"We really should be running you know!" Athena yelled.
"Go if you will! I will remain!" Paragon Classic said. "I've heard the sniggers for too long!"
"Yes but…you WHAT?"
"Athena, if you, I, WE, can make it here, we can once again become big players in this business!" Paragon Classic said, grabbing another entity's sword as it swung at her, the blade cutting into her hand but not slowing her down. "Hah! Your weapons lack the fine edge needed, monsters!"
"…WHAT?" Athena repeated, as Paragon Classic knocked her current attacker away.
"Their weapons hurt, but my gifts seem to be able to take them for the most part…"
"NO NO! The players part!"
"Oh come on Athena! Don't you miss the respect?"
"I like LIVING more!"
"Life is grand! But battle is, in its own way, as well!" Paragon Classic said, ducking under another attacking shadow creature and upper-cutting it out of its non-existent boots. "And to the victor go the spoils! Just think! Justice League, personal adventures, the works! Maybe even form a new team!"
"…we're the last line of defense against who knows how many evil forces, and you're worrying about THAT OLD PARAGON?"
"I've been around a while Athena. Everyone thought Hitler was going to end the world. Then Baron Von Ohm. Then Mecha-Reagan. After you've been around a while, you begin to see a pattern." Paragon Classic said.
As another shadow creature came for her.
….while the one she'd earlier ripped in half surged up and merged with its weapon. Athena's eyes widened.
"And for the LAST time, it's not OLD PARAGON, it's Paragon Clas…!"
The shadow creature attacked. Paragon Classic whirled and dodged away. The creature abruptly phased several feet to the side.
Directly behind the long-timer.
The sword tip exploded from Paragon Classic's chest. Blood spattered the ground.
"…sic?" Paragon Classic said in confusion. A moment later she hit the ground, dead.
"…no." Athena said, as the shadow monster looked up from its task…and for a moment, there was something behind the blank mask of its face, as it raised one hand and wagged a finger at Athena like the creature was chastising an errant child.
"…why…you…I AM SICK OF THIS NONSENSE!" Athena screamed, reaching for a gun that was no longer there, then, lacking that, picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it at the shadow monsters.
It bounced off. Paragon Classic's killer looked at it briefly, then started towards her, more of its kind coming to back it up…
All of them were enveloped by the attack, as a cloud of acidic dust combined with a powerful telekinetic blast obliterated the shadow creatures.
"That doesn't work very well." The Manhattan Guardian said, appearing by Athena's side. The magical vigilante Ragman dropped down on her other side, while the heroes behind the attack, Metamorpho and Faith, floated back near them. There was someone else with them, an Italian-looking man in a white suit…that Athena's near-total recall was able to match up to a wanted poster she'd seen once.
"Aren't you a bad guy?" She asked the Angle Man.
"At this stage, only idiots are still fighting each other. I prefer to focus on WHAT'S TRYING TO KILL ALL OF US." The Angle Man said. "And I thought that psychotic copycat running around was bad…"
"SAVE IT BENDY! HERE THEY COME!" The Manhattan Guardian yelled, pulling out a nightstick as more shadow entities surged down the street towards the group. Noticing a gun in the Guardian's waistband, Athena procured it for herself and opened fire, even as the Angle Man used his trademark tool to 'shunt' the first attacking wave into two different places, cutting them in half.
Unlike a normal army, that did not slow them down.
Indeed, the heroes and villains who, but five minutes earlier, been all too eager to rip each other's throats out, were now finding the flimsiest of common ground to stand on as the Lord's shadow army descended on them. It probably helped that around two minutes earlier the Lord had done a massive 'darkness drain' on everyone below, sucking away the negative emotions of the masses beneath them, clearing the heads of the heroes and dampening the 'enthusiasms' of the villains.
Though in truth, some villains were simply incorrigible. Sinestro had taken the new attack as just more targets to blast, alternating between ripping apart the Lord's shadows and attempting to do so with whatever heroes he could find. Likewise, Barbara Minerva, aka the Cheetah, had gotten the killing lust in her blood too amped up to even consider joining forces with the heroes even if she'd wanted to, as she furiously attacked Stargirl and her armored stepfather STRIPE.
"Damn! Someone's on the rag!" Stargirl said, retreating from her attacker, mainly because she saw more shadows coming. She slashed out with her Cosmic Staff, the legacy of the Knight family that had been gifted to her, aiming it at strange entities. Her was true, as the solar energies the weapon commanded blasted apart the shadows. Unlike other heroes, she did not find her foes start to pull themselves back together, the creatures instead vanishing in wispy black tendrils of darkness that reminded Courtney Whitmore of burned paper caught on heat drafts.
"Now don't be crude young lady…" Pat Dugan replied, as he tried to disable the Cheetah with sonic pulses and found that they were either ineffective or being used on a metahuman too crazy to notice. "Augh…getting too old for this…"
"Me NOT listen! But such peace quiet here! Me only involved by accident!" Bizzaro said, plowing through his own shadow attackers. He'd gone to Pluto, as requested (if Bizzaro had anything resembling a rational mind, he would have noticed how much quicker he'd gotten to the tiny planet and back to Earth, far quicker than he should have. It seemed with the destruction of the Speed Force, not to mention the violations done to the universe at the hands of Alexander Luthor, the laws of physics had taken a more vicious pounding than the norm, and the 'speed of light' had been supplanted as the top limit of motion, with the new limit unknown. Perhaps it would readjust itself back to normal later, but for the moment…), and then come back to Metropolis to turn himself in as the request also asked. Except there was a gigantic fight already happening there, and no Superman to be found. And then shadows had attacked him. What was an antipodal clone to do? "WHEEEEE! ME BORED!"
"This isn't working very well Inspector Turpin!" Iron yelled, as he and his fellow Metal Man bashed and sliced with their malleable namesake forms, trying to hold back a legion of shadows from the all too human Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, who aided where they could with what firepower they had left after all the combat they'd already seen.
"Then find SOMETHING THAT DOES!" Turpin snarled back, putting a bullet from his 44. Magnum in the head of the nearest shadow. The fact it kept walking despite that fact just made Turpin angrier. "Damn it, for all the times for the boy scout to take a vacation!"
"The ants go marching one by one…hurrah…hurrah…" The Lord murmured to himself, turning the upbeat child's tune into a sinister dirge, holding his staff up as his shadow army continued to rain down on Metropolis. After a moment of thought, he'd named the horde of clones The Abhorred: no one would like meeting them, and in his own way, the Lord didn't like sending them out. Heroes, with their energies and talents all devoted on such worthless defiance. What glories they could have built in his world, the proper world…what a waste. "The ants go marching…one by one…hurrah…hurrah…"
The plane buzzed him so closely he almost got sucked into the jet engines. The Lord blinked, moments before another one arrived and opened fire on him with its Gatling guns. Bullets that could rip through the strongest of modern tank armors shredded through him.
He barely noticed, as he glanced at the second plane.
"Oh, you wish to raise an objection?"
The Lord pointed at the retreating plane, and the BULWARK pilot within screamed as blackness consumed the cockpit. A moment later said plane got a burst of speed no afterburners could muster, as it plowed into the first plane, both going up in a big ball of fire.
"…your debating skills lack substance." The Lord said, as he turned and looked at the distant Achilles. He'd be aware of it, on a basic level, but the assault on him had put it in the forefront of his mind. "Maybe YOU can raise a credible argument?"
The latest Abhorred stopped their descent on Metropolis, and, in a quick change of direction, promptly swarmed towards the Achilles like a mass of devouring locusts.
"WE HAVE INCOMING!" The bridge officer screamed.
Roger Candide didn't have to be told: he could see the Abhorred coming on the main view screen. For a moment he flashed back a few decades, recalling the massive TIE fighter attack on the Rebel Alliance at the end of Return of the Jedi. That had been his third date with Miho actually…
Which drove the fact home that if he didn't do something, NONE of them were going to be seeing their significant others again.
"Activate the point shields! All anti air guns, fire at will! Call back the Fighters! Full speed ahead!"
Not quite too late, but not prompt enough either, as moments later the Abhorred closed to attack distance and did so with a vengeance, all over the Achilles.
"ARGH!" Nathaniel Peregrine, aka the first Peregrine, yelled as the assault of the Abhorred caused a Star Trek-like burst of chaos across the main bridge, the shadow creatures blasting and tearing into the ship even as its myriad defenses blew them apart. "I signed up to tell you Philistines how to make sure my anti-grav packs didn't explode in your ignorant faces! You mentioned nothing about fighting shadow gods!"
"You would prefer insane supercharged Kryptonians?" Roger said, as he pulled himself back up. "Our weapons are working! Earn your paycheck Perrier and organize the CESTUS units!"
"I swear I am never ordering drunks in public again…" Peregrine muttered, pulling up a mechanical device and placing it against his face, scanning in on the distant Lord. "Curse it!"
"What?" Roger said.
"This mechanism of mine allows me to compile various data as well as instantly formulate various hypotheses to accurately represent the scanned target's combat capacity in numerical fashion!"
"…like…?"
"Batman is 60. Your son's teammates Cyborg is 400, and the alien female is 600. Your son when he's serious is 350 by the way. Wonder Woman is 1500. Hyperion is 1400. Superman in his natural state is 2500. The Martian Manhunter is theorized to be 2600..."
"Fine, fine! What's your device say about our current enemy?"
"Spiking past 4000."
"So you mean to tell me that we don't have anything strong enough to match him."
"Not quite! He has yet to battle a genius!" Peregrine said, lowering his scanning as he snapped his eyes towards the nearest deck hand. "YOU, PEON! STOP NAPPING AND HELP ME STRAP INTO THE MARK IV!"
"…you WANT to go out and fight?" The BULWARK agent said.
"You've seen the Mark IV. I'm better off in that than in this bucket of bolts. It was designed in 1985 based on half understood alien technology. The past. What MY HANDS have wrought…is the future."
"You HAVE no future."
The whisper cut across everyone's minds like a razor, as everyone winced and held their heads.
"Little toy soldiers. You've picked the wrong time to play."
"He's IN OUR HEADS." One of the bridge officers mewed, clearly not liking the experience.
"I should have taken Luthor's offer." Peregrine muttered.
"Ah, the elder Candide. I don't believe we've met."The Lord's voice echoed in Roger's head. "He's dead you know. He stood his ground and it consumed him. I wonder if he died choking on dirt or on his own pulped innards….and you can cut out that distasteful anti-telepathic technique. I've suffered beyond anything your world could throw at me. And I think your pretty little wife would be horrified at what you can churn out."
"…you might be telling the truth or not. Either way, the war goes on." Roger said. "All CESTUS units, move to pure disruption efforts! Break out the red sun radiation weapons, and if anyone still has those anti-vampire ray weapons installed, use them too! Do nothing alone! Stay in your squads! Keep your eyes open, and don't be afraid to fall back! Don't be a hero; we aren't going to win this by attrition."
"Ah, the good soldier, ever marching ahead. Very well then. I'll settle for ripping apart your precious organization and the many men you so carefully nurtured to send off to die, in their last, pointless war, against the inevitability of…"
The Lord's voice abruptly scrambled and cut out. Roger blinked.
"Sorry sir. Took me a touch longer to get up here than I expected." Ermine Chalk, BULWARK Psychic First Class, said as she appeared next to Roger. "The shadow being talks a big game, but his mental abilities are nothing extraordinary."
"Apology accepted." A brief prayer flashed through Roger's mind. Please, let that have been a lie.
"Impressive…" The Lord said, as he found himself shut out. Well, routs could be rather dull, as he redoubled the efforts of the Abhorred. That star-dressed woman had found out the hard way what happened when he personally took control of the reins of his creations. Now these humans would, and their heroes, and as many fools as he had to destroy.
"And they all go marching…down…around…to get out of the…reign, heh, doom, doom, doom, doom…" The Lord murmured.
KER-ZAPPO!
"I'm not THAT bad." The Lord said darkly, the hole burned through his chest hissing black smoke as he turned and looked at the two floating suits of black mechanical armor near him, each nearly nine feet tall, the CESTUS power armor fully incasing the BULWARK agents within.
"Ah, the usual wasted space and excess bulk attempting to project the image of strength. How very YOU."
The second pair of blasts, fired from the CESTUS' right hands, exploded against the Lord's head.
"What the…AGENTS! RETREAT! DO NOT ENGAGE! WHY ARE…!" Roger yelled as he realized two of the CESTUS Units had broken off and attacked the Lord.
"My best friend was in one of those planes, Director. I refuse to cower for this nutcase." Bulwark Captain Sean O'Reilly said, aiming the chain gun on his right shoulder and opening fire, the deep throaty chatter of the weapon underscoring the communication band.
"We're getting somewhere sir! He's definitely feeling it!" Bulwark Lieutenant Cole Boyen added.
"I DON'T GIVE REQUESTS! I GIVE ORDERS! FALL BACK! FALL BACK!"
Roger heard it over the communication band as well, the dark, vicious chuckle. What he didn't see, unlike the twin CESTUS units, was the Lord looking back from the jerk the blast to his face had caused. Half of said face was gone, black smoke rising off an equally obsidian skull, smoke shooting through his exposed teeth.
"Heh heh heh heh…oh, I never tire of this mistake…" The Lord said, as he slowly waved a hand over his face, the damage vanishing like the Lord was wiping it away. He snapped his fingers, as his staff flew up and vanished into the clouds above. "Try again?"
"YOU LOUSY…!" Sean yelled as he charged in, swinging a fist.
"SEAN DON'T…!"
Sean's armored robot fist slammed into the Lord's outstretched finger, stopping the combat suit dead in its tracks.
A moment later, black lines began shooting across his power suit.
"You've heard of the death of a thousand cuts?" The Lord said. "That number's too small for me."
What happened next made Roger glad he didn't have visual on all CESTUS units. He was certain that the noises Sean made as the Lord retaliated would haunt his nightmares the rest of his life. The only blessing was the Lord was so absorbed in Sean's demise that Cole was able to retreat.
"…damn it. If O'Reilley was going to get himself killed, he could have done it without costing us that suit…" Roger said as he briefly studied the floor. "…report! Is it ready yet?"
"Almost sir!"
"ALMOST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!"
"Sir, the enemy isn't getting in but it's not relenting either! We only have so much ammo!" Another Bulwark agent reported.
"What is our current altitude?"
"One thousand feet sir!"
"Let's get some elbow room. All units, fall back to a safe distance. We're doing a Peregrine Gambit."
"Sir, we've never done it under combat conditions before!"
"Then it's time to test it."
"Feh." The Lord said, looking at the piece of CESTUS armor he held, blood and worse covering the robotic battle suit chunk. "What a wretched excuse for combat attire. My aid excretes better blueprints than this."
KER-BLAM!
"WHO SAID I GAVE THOSE BASTARDS MY BEST!?" Peregrine roared, as he aimed the right arm of the three-times-larger-than-the-normal-model Mark IV CESTUS at the Lord and introduced him to a stream of missiles, the Lord vanishing in the explosion.
"Oh no! I know you won't be finished by that!" Peregrine said, several pods launching off his mech suit and positioning themselves around the fading smoke cloud. They fired an interlocking burst of plasma rays at the figure within, and it was consumed in another explosion.
"And now, let me show you the GRAVITY of your mockery!" Peregrine yelled, aiming his suit's other arm. This time, he fired several spinning discs that whirled around, forming a larger grid work around the second smoke cloud.
A burst of wind blew the cloud away.
Peregrine activated the momentum discs, and the personal gravity within their sphere of influence, which centered on the Lord, abruptly shifted rapidly several different ways. At once.
The end result was the Lord abruptly being ripped to pieces, his remains scattering across the sky.
"There!" Peregrine snorted, watching the pieces drift away. "Was that really so hard? Perhaps…who but I could devise such a weapon?"
"Weapon…?"
If Peregrine had not known beforehand Ermine Chalk had a range for her telepathic jamming, he did now, as the torn pieces of the Lord flowed back together and reformed, the shadow god raising his hands and slowly beginning to clap.
"Bravo. What a marvelous success. So well done…just like everything you ever did. Stealing from your company. Being a successful rogue. Even your teaching, hah…Robert Candide. So many plans, all failures…and I kill him without even trying. So tell me birdbrain, just what are you in the end?"
Peregrine glowered at the Lord.
"A man like you. Sorely let down by reality."
"Ah, not bad. But one thing." The Lord said. "I AM NO MAN."
"No, just a Tolkien thief!" Peregrine yelled, slamming his hands together, his robot limbs locking and merging and expanding into a new firearm, as he fired a giant plasma blast at the Lord.
The Lord held up one finger, vertically. The blast split on the digit, going to either side of him and vanishing into the distance.
"Heh…heh heh heh." The Lord said, as he turned his hand around, black power crackling on it, as Peregrine watched the numbers on his scanning device rise to 4800 and beyond. " Ha ha ha HA HA…spears shall be shaken! Shields shall be splintered! A sore day, a red day, 'ere the sun rises! Ride now! RIDE NOW! RIDE! RIDE TO RUIN, AND THE WORLD'S ENDING! DEATH! DEA-!"
"Peregrine Gambit initiated."
The Lord's stolen words were abruptly cut off as the Achilles abruptly and briefly shifted the massive anti-gravity engines keeping them aloft from a combined downward thrust to all directions.
It cost them half their height and left them dead in the water as their engines locked up from the strain. It also sent a massive wave of force shooting from all directions, blowing away and apart all of the attacking Abhorred, smashing into and breaking vital systems in Peregrine's suit as he plummeted towards the ground, and sending the Lord flying heads over heels backwards through the sky and into the distance.
"CURSE MY BRILLIANT BACKUP PLAN!" Peregrine bellowed as he plummeted into the ruins of Metropolis. He'd built his suit too well to be killed or injured in the impact…but it was no longer combat capable at any level that would be effective. Plus he'd never gotten a last word in. Damn it all.
"Ugghhhhh…well that was interesting." The Lord said as he recovered. He floated there, looking at one of his hands for a moment. Roger Candide had no idea what he was doing: he seemed to be contemplating something. Considering what atrocities the shadow god had been able to inflict off the top of his head, Roger really didn't want to let him to get a chance to think.
"Weapon charged! Target locked sir!" The Bulwark gunner said.
"Then I want it fired FIVE MINUTES AGO!"
"Projectile armed."
And in the guns of the Achilles' main gun, the massive length of metal, the size of a nuclear submarine, dropped down into the cannon, as the electromagnetic engines seized it and prepared to fire it at supersonic speeds.
"…hmmmm…mustn't forget that consideration…they may be doomed…" The Lord said, as he looked up at the Achilles again. "…yet they're so stubborn about it…"
"Launch."
"Laugh THIS off, Ubermensch." Roger said.
The projectile fired.
It crossed the distance between the two foes in the blink of an eye.
The Lord cocked his head.
The metal rod stopped dead, one foot from the Lord's black eyes. He hadn't even raised a hand.
"…dear mother of god." The gunner whispered. Roger had no words.
"…ha." The Lord said. "Ha."
Then he backhanded the projectile away, blackness racing up the length of the bullet before it exploded into drifting rust, instigated at a touch as the Lord turned his eyes on the Achilles once more.
"Death." The Lord finished, as he raised up a finger again, pointing at the sky.
A black sphere appeared above the finger, and rapidly began to expand, growing larger and larger with every second.
"You should have taken a knee." The Lord said, as his orb of death stopped at the size of an SUV. "Now I'll take everything else."
"EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" Roger yelled.
"We can't move sir!" A Bulwark agent yelled back, even as the various other men and women inside the bridge furiously tried to prove that a lie.
"THEN FIRE! FIRE EVERYTHING WE HAVE! FIRE…SHOOT…WE…!"
The ball shrank down, falling into the Lord's palm as he cocked back his arm.
"…hold that."
The Lord hurled his sphere of destruction.
Even as the sword of fire slashed down and cleaved the Lord's arm right off.
The orb went wild, spinning off its chosen path and flying wide of the Achilles…which lurched and nearly fell apart anyway when the orb exploded and buffeted the skyship with horrendous shockwaves of force. The Lord didn't even notice, for obvious reasons, as he turned to face his attacker with a confused expression.
Before the fiery blade plunged into his chest, its burning tip exploding out the Lord's back.
"…We might hit a friendly." Roger Candide said as he lifted himself off the ground again.
"…sir, did we just get saved by an ANGEL?" Ermine Chalk said incredulously.
"Remind me to send the Pope a gift basket." Roger replied. "Now look alive! We're not getting paid to gawp!"
"…angel…" The Lord hissed, as he looked at his attacker: Zauriel, of the Eagle Host of the Pax Dei, who was, as far as people knew, exactly what the Lord and Chalk had identified him as.
"Blasphemer." Zauriel said, twisting his blade, the holy flame hissing as it burned into the Lord's form. Though he tried to keep a firm visage, it was quite clear said fire was as agonizing to the Lord as sunlight was, and unlike Prime's power, he couldn't quite shrug it off and work through it.
"…very…nice effort, angel…but I am more…FAR MORE…than your accusation…" The Lord said, as he reached up with his free arm and seized the burning blade. Zauriel redoubled his efforts, driving the sword further into the Lord…before the Lord began to push back, slowly dragging the sword out of his chest.
"I…am void. I am fury. I see all of the world, and lay waste…to what does not belong…!" The Lord said as he yanked the weapon out of him, albeit snarling his words through his teeth as he did so. "And if your…PRESENCE has an objection to that…he granted free will, and HE SHOULD KNOW THE CONSEQUENCES."
The Lord's severed arm reformed, the shadow god seizing Zauriel's flaming sword with the re-grown hand as he twisted his own arm, breaking the holy weapon in half with a dull snap. If anyone had been nearby to hear it, they might have likened the noise to a baby's disappointed whine.
"Such as making your so-called divine weapon abide by the rules of magic of this world, no matter what the state of it." The Lord said, tossed the broken shard away. "Said state due to his own servant, at that. What bitter irony. So much his stock in trade."
Zauriel had no reply.
"So what now angel?" The Lord continued, disliking the silence. "Will you offer me forgiveness? Or am I to be smited for my sins? The sins he is just as responsible for? Where was his grace for ME?"
"…he still loves you." Zauriel said quietly. For a reason that would likely be clear to many people besides the Lord, Zauriel's reply aggravated him even more than his silence had.
"I neither want not desire whatever HE has to offer. And if that means you will stand against me, I would say he has poorly equipped you to do so."
For a moment, the pity in Zauriel's eyes was clear.
Then he flew back and screamed. The Lord took the attack full force, as Zauriel unleashed his sonic flash ability, the Lord was blown backwards again from the vociferation assault. The attack went beyond the auditory, the heaven-granted gift actually striking at the Lord's 'vibrational frequency', his body thrashing and beginning to break apart…
Unfortunately, the process didn't finish before the scream ended, Zauriel unable to keep it up for long. The curse of wearing mortal flesh, as he watched the damage he'd inflicted begin to fade.
"…Or maybe your futility is all your own." The Lord said, as he pulled himself back together, his eyes flashing with retaliatory madness. "Like loving a mortal. Like protecting the worthless trash that makes us this world."
The Lord said held out a hand, black power crackling on it.
"My advice, angel, is once you return to your master, don't come back. This world has no more place for you."
"Nor for you." Zauriel replied quietly.
"I beg to differ." The Lord said, and fired.
Zauriel dashed to the side, his wings carrying him away from the attack.
The same wings that had obscured the metahumans who had come up behind him to join Zauriel's assault on the master of the Abhorred.
"…oh." The Lord said.
Mary Marvel hit the Lord so hard the clouds above her parted from the shockwave, and as the Lord tumbled backwards from the blow her backup joined the fray, heroes and villains alike uniting against their common enemy.
"SHOOT HIM!" Firehawk screamed, as she and regularly-Green Lantern enemy Effigy hit the Lord's recovering form with a massive blast of flame, the heat so intense some of the warriors in the battle below felt it.
"Haley? Have you returned to plague me…ah no." The Lord said.
The second blow came down on him like a wrathful god, as Looker, Striker Z, Sparx, Breach and the villainous Typhoon combined their telekinesis, shock cannons, lightning blast, mysterious destructive energy, and wind blast into one massive attack that sent the Lord plummeting towards the ground.
"Get him Zauriel! I'll charge up your sword!" Firehawk yelled.
"I'll soften him up!" Mary Marvel added as she flew down after the Lord, ramming into his chest and firing repeated punches into his face.
"Wait children, he…!"
Too late. Too late by far, as the Lord rammed his hands into Mary Marvel's sternum.
"Angels and ministers of grace." The Lord said. "FALL WITH ME!"
The Lord blasted Mary Marvel back into the sky with a gigantic black blast, the backlash of his own attack sending him smashing into the ground like a meteor, even as it sent Mary straight into the seething storm clouds above Metropolis…
Where the blast abruptly shattered, sending a gigantic spray of black spears across the sky.
"INCOMI-AUGH!" Firehawk screamed as she was struck by the spear and consumed by its detonation, as the 'Ministers of Grace' tried to block or avoid the attack and found the range was too great, as explosions ripped across the violent sky of Metropolis.
"…report…" Roger Candide said quietly, as the destruction the Lord had unleashed faded away.
"Sir, fighters have taken 90% losses, and only 5% are still battle worthy. The CESTUS suits are holding together better: they've taken 30% casualties. One of the Hector's has been forced to make an emergency landing but the crew on board survived. And those heroes that just attacked the Lord of the Night sir…two dead."
Roger could see that fact, as Looker held the shattered body of Striker Z in her arms. Typhoon did not get the honor, as the Lord's attack had literally blown him into pieces too small to hold.
"…the worst part is, they just gave their lives for the world, and people will probably have to look them up on Wikipedia when they read the casualty list."
"…orders sir."
"Engine status?"
"We're at 25%. We've never done a Peregrine Gambit right before firing the main gun. Apparently the reactor isn't fond of it. AAA guns are at 25% ammo."
"So basically, except the main gun, we're at 25%?"
"Yessir. And that can't fire for another two minutes at least."
"Great. Half speed ahead. Get engineering working on whatever they can fix. Get that main gun ready to fire ASAP. And send someone to find Peregrine; the drive is his monster and we could probably use some help fixing it. And keep an eye on the spot where the Lord went down! No way it hell he isn't still out there!"
"Sir…" Another Bulwark agent said. "I think we may have something else…"
"…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…" Emily Briggs, aka Looker said. She did not know Danny Tsang, aka Striker Z, but her mind was immensely potent, commanding the whole range of mental abilities that existed. Her telepathy had helped coordinate the attack on the Lord, and she'd picked up faint traces of her allies in the process, including Tsang's deep fear. He had never really wanted to be a hero, just famous. In the end, he'd risen to the occasion regardless…and paid the ultimate price.
Quite possibly for nothing.
Because Looker could feel it, like someone drawing a dagger of ice across her mind. The enemy, this 'Lord' was still alive.
"…he's down there." Looker told Firehawk, who seemed to have taken the Lord's assault the best and was rarin' to go: Mary Marvel and Zauriel had taken the worst of the attack, Breach and Sparx had also received nasty shots, and Effigy looked like he wanted to run and hide before tangling with the Lord again. With her own look of rage, Firehawk streaked down to the ground, even as Looker sent out a general telepathy warning of the Lord's presence.
She did not know if she was helping people or sending more to their deaths.
She did know enough to know no matter what she did, the situation hadn't gotten so bad it couldn't get worse.
Agent Liberty hadn't had the easiest life, but he knew that when it came down to a situation where you were fighting an enemy that bullets didn't even seem to bother, then things had REALLY gone FUBAR. He emptied his gun into the attacking Abhorred anyway, and when that didn't stop it, he blocked its axe attack with an energy shield on his arm before reforming the malleable power and slicing his attacker in half.
Which just left six or so Abhorred to deal with.
"All right…who's…"
The blast of fire from the sky obliterated his foes. Agent Liberty blinked. as Firehawk dropped down and fired another blast of flame, taking out two more Abhorred. Her actions seemed to inspire, as other heroes and villains around them went from just fending off their own attackers to standing their ground and pushing back.
This continued for several seconds, before the Abhorred were suddenly gone, like they'd vanished on the wind. Firehawk was savvy enough to know she hadn't caused THAT much inspiration.
"Stay sharp! The guy who's doing all this is around!" Firehawk said, as Breach and Sparx dropped down to join her.
"Who put YOU in charge?" The villainous Lock-Up snapped.
"Save it Bolton. Now's not the time." Came a voice, as John Henry Irons, aka Steel, emerged from some dust with his niece Natasha and the original Doom Patrol. "Considering how hard to smash these blasted shadow things already are…"
"He's here." The hero Argus said, jerking his head around. "My visor's suddenly reading anomalies all over the place…"
A black blade of shadow shot from some rubble: Argus didn't even get another word out before he was impaled through the head. The blade yanked itself free as the heroes and villains recoiled, even as Argus collapsed, dead.
"JESUS CHRIST!" Steel yelled.
"GET THE BASTARD!" Firehawk screamed, shooting a blast of flame at the rubble, even as several other heroes fired their own attacks or weapons after it.
"Did we get him?" Someone asked when the attack stopped.
The ground went black beneath the super heroine Jolt, and she barely had time to gasp before hands reached up and seized her.
"AH! HELP! HELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPP!" Jolt screamed, her gravimagnetic force field seemingly not protecting her as she was dragged under, even as the new Shining Knight, Bulleteer, and Nastasha Irons ran to try and save her. "NO! PLEASE! I JUST GOT HOME I DON'T WANNA DIE HELP PLLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSEEEEE..!!!!!!!"
Jolt disappeared under the consuming shadow, as Natasha seized her arm and tried to yank her out.
All she got was Jolt's arm. She utter a groaning gasp, dropping the limb as she fought to keep her gorge down.
"Oh god…" Bulleteer said, before everyone's attention was drawn by a horrifically wet noise nearby.
A moment later something came flying out of the shadows, bouncing along the ground before stopping near the grouped metas.
Jolt's head gazed with eternally terrified eyes at them. No postmortem technician would ever be able to erase the expression that had been locked in rictus on her face.
"The forces of white." The Lord said, emerging from the shadows. "So pure, so driven…so unaware of the consequences of their road. So pathetic in its end."
"GET-!"
"QUIET." The Lord snarled, slashing out a finger as a black glyph briefly appeared in the air. All the gathered warriors before the Lord suddenly found themselves moving in 'universal quicksand', unable to act or speak at anything but a crawl.
The Lord paused for a moment, touching his chest, a trace of black power coming from his torso to his fingers as he once again examined his hand. Blasted angel. Blasted 'ministers of grace'. He'd pay them back, them and anyone else who joined their ranks. Ten, a hundred, a thousand fold. Their suffering would be legendary in every afterlife he sent them to.
"I could make you the offer to run. To beg for mercy. To do the intelligent thing and let me claim this world before the waste you guard poisons it beyond repair. But your kind never listens. Such is who you are. The heroes. The shining beacons. The white." The Lord said, his eyes briefly flashing with dark rage before they resumed their normal tactical coldness.
The Lord raised one hand, forming his massive bastard sword-esque blade, before raising the other and forming cruel claws in turn. His cloaks shifted, as twin undefined limbs slid out from his body, each ending in curved blades, even as more shadow emerged from his back and formed into two more hands, each holding its own giant sword.
"…black am I. Black is the judgment I bring to bear on you."
The time dilution spell ended, as the Lord looked at his enemies with savage challenge in his eyes.
"Come heroes. I AM YOUR DEATH."
It quickly became obvious why the Lord had used his chrono-altering spell.
If he'd left it up to the heroes, they would have attacked him before he'd gotten four words in.
"This day could have gone better…" Prometheus mused to himself as his supercharged nightstick smashed apart an Abhorred. While the Lord's warrior-clones may have lessened the attack on BULWARK and had left the heroes attacking the Lord himself completely alone, they had redoubled their efforts on the remaining heroes and villains.
Some of whom still hadn't quite grasped that they should reconcile.
"My friends, listen closely." J'onn mentally said, having lost Dr. Psycho long enough when Abhorred had attacked both of them. "These creatures…"
Twin stabbing blades impaled themselves through J'onn's torso: he grunted in pain and blew the Abhorred away with Martian vision, grimacing as the wounds closed up. It wasn't fire, but it wasn't pleasant either. Even metas with 'invulnerability degrees' were 'reporting' that the attacks made by the Abhorred left burning marks on their bodies, which couldn't be considered a good thing under any circumstances.
"These creatures…they are vulnerable to AUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHH!" J'onn screamed, as his mind was suddenly assaulted by violent mental waves once more.
"Now now, it's no fun when you run away in mid-death." Dr. Psycho said drolly, strolling out from behind a corner, hands in the pockets of his suit and an amused look on his face.
"Psycho…don't be a fool…this battle is getting out of control, this cannot…!"
"Oh J'onn. I started the party. Hardly fair I decide where it goes." Dr. Psycho said. "I rather like it! Talk about painting the town red!"
"…if that's how you respond to reason…" J'onn growled, as he renewed his mental war with Dr. Psycho, agony drifting in his heart that he was forced to stalemate with this lunatic's sadism instead of helping his friends.
The pain made Dr. Psycho giggle. The laughter faded when he realized that while it was difficult to rile J'onn, it was also an exceptionally poor idea.
"Thought you gave up on the bows kid." Green Arrow said to Arsenal, as the pair stood back to back and fired arrows into every single attacking Abhorred they could.
"This was going to be a war Olly. I came loaded for bear, not for old grudges." Arsenal replied, as he fired a shock arrow into a scythe-wielding Abhorred.
"Ha. Just like old times, isn't it?"
"We're not putting the band back together old man. If only because you'll poach all my dates." Arsenal said, though his tone was of grim good humor instead of bitterness.
"Actually Roy…I've been thinking…"
"Oh god are you coming out? Why does everyone always come out to ME!?"
"When this is over kid I'm gonna kick your ass!"
"Like you could!" Arsenal retorted, as the arrows continued to fly.
"WHAT IS THIS FATUITY!!!!" Black Adam roared, as he punched apart three Abhorred and kicked the head off of another one. "THERE WILL BE DIRE CONSEQUENCES FOR-GAUUGGGHHHH!"
A blast of shadow had caught Black Adam on the side of the head, and as he recoiled a mass of Abhorred dog piled on him, slashing and stabbing…
Before they were hurled off with another scream, as Black Adam scattered his foes and then brought his battle rage to bear on them, tearing apart the constructs as fast as they could emerge, ignoring the pain of their weapons, refusing to feel anything except the fury that drove him.
"Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang…" Onomatopoeia said in his eternal verbal tic, as he blew apart every Abhorred he could see with his twin guns. For a moment, the Crimson Avenger contemplated putting a bullet in HIS head, and then decided for the moment four guns were better than two.
"Report in! Is anyone even…DAMN IT!" Alexander Luthor said, blowing away an attacking Abhorred with a positive energy blast. If there was any blessing, it was that few of the shadow creatures were going after him. Alexander didn't know if that was because of fortune or if the Lord was purposely toying with him by making him watch the Lord tear down Alexander's plan around his ears.
"This is Crazy Quilt! Uh, everything's going straight…to hell…auugggh, these things are everywhere…!"
"Cluster! Don't get surrounded by them! If you have or know anyone who has UV manifestation talents, use them! The creatures can't stand UV radiation!"
"What's UV radi…oh no! GET AWAY! GET-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIAAAA….!"
Alexander cut off the communicator and the terrible fate that had befallen Crazy Quilt, as he opened up another. "Report in!"
"Yee haw! This is the Duke of Oil! One hell of a party you throw pardner! All I have to do is stomp a mudhole in Green Arrow's guts and my day will be complete!"
Alexander stared at his World View, and for a moment wondered if he should have instigated stricter recruitment standards for his Society.
"I'm gonna ride this filly until…!" The Duke of Oil continued…before his head went flying off as an Abhorred sliced it off with a glaive.
"Thank YOU." Giganta said, as she prompted stomped on the Abhorred, grinding it beneath her massive foot. A nearby Mr. Freeze froze some Abhorred with his gun, even as the Gentleman Ghost fired away at others with flintlock pistols. Said pistols didn't seem to do much, as an Abhorred slashed a sword through the Gentleman Ghost. Quite literally: the weapon passed through him, though he made a hissing noise that indicated some sort of pain was felt. He promptly dematerialized his flintlocks and produced a cane he bashed over the Abhorred's head, a blast of blue fire blowing its upper half apart.
"More coming! RUN!" Siren yelled, as she fled down the street with Punch and Jewelee, Mr. Terrible, and Count Vertigo, a swarm of Abhorred on their tails.
"Werner! Use your powers on them!' Giganta ordered as she picked up a hunk of rubble and hurled it at the Abhorred.
"I CAN'T! THEY DON'T WORK!" Count Vertigo yelled back, as he leapt over a car…
Where an Abhorred surged up, ramming a sword into his stomach.
"…guh." Count Vertigo said. "Colder than…I believed…"
Giganta cursed as Vertigo collapsed, even as she got some air support when Flash rogue Abra Kadabra appeared and began firing bolts of golden energy at the Abhorred, blowing them apart…
In the few seconds he got before he was abruptly plummeting from the sky. Giganta blinked, wondering if the magician had been sneak-attacked, and then suddenly she found her balance completely gone as well. She stumbled and fell, crashing down onto a wrecked building, her massive form finishing the job the battle had started even as her gorge rose in the process; What the hell…!
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Mr. Freeze yelled, as Count Vertigo turned his now obsidian eyes on the ice-master. He had no reply, as Freeze abruptly found his own equilibrium under assault as well, his suit helping him somewhat but not enough.
If he'd had enough observation to spare, he would have noticed the Abhorred that had delivered the mortal wound to Count Vertigo was now nowhere to be found.
"You should have carried more clips!" Athena Jones cursed, finding herself lacking any offensive ability against the Abhorred once the gun she had borrowed from the Manhattan Guardian ran out of bullets.
"Sorry, not really fond of firearms any more." The Manhattan Guardian replied, as he blocked a spear stab and bashed the attacker away with his shield before a Metamorpho hammer arm flattened the Abhorred, while Faith and Angle Man ripped apart their own enemies with their respective talents.
"How many more of these things are there?!" Ragman yelled, his gigantic magical cloaks forming into their own spears and stabbing out, impaling through two more Abhorred. "Ugh, it's like sticking your whole body into cold putrid tissue!"
"Didn't need to know that." Faith said, as she blasted more Abhorred with her telekinesis.
"Can anyone see if they're still coming down from the sky? Maybe if…!" Athena began.
The form lunged from the Abhorred, smashing into the Manhattan Guardian and raining down blows on his shield while he yelled in surprise. Athena's eyes went wide at the sudden attack, and even wider when she saw who was attacking.
"Old Paragon?"
The first Paragon jerked her head towards Athena, a stream of bloody foam issuing from one corner of her mouth and her eyes now as black as pitch, as the Manhattan Guardian took the chance to bash her off him, rolling free as the first Paragon rolled in turn and leapt back up in predatory insect fashion.
"God damn all zombies!" Athena yelled, before pausing for a moment, even as Paragon Classic attacked Faith to be blown away by a telekinetic bolt. "Well, I guess that's redundant…"
"Not a zombie!" Ragman said as he fended off more Abhorred, which were still coming. "It's one of THESE things! In her body, animating her corpse!"
"…I think I'm going to need a bigger gun." Athena said.
"Young lady, I don't think there's a firearm in the world that can solve this problem." The Angle Man said, and then more Abhorred attacked.
"Man, these big-time super villain groups sure now how to throw a party!" Static said, bringing down a storm of electrical bolts on the Abhorred. "Huh, sense of déjà vu…"
"We went through this before? And we agreed to do it again? We need to fire our agents!" Gear yelled, trying and failing to make a joke as he sprayed his own Abhorred with a sealant of his own design, his 'Gear-Crete'. The shadow beings twisted and slipped free of the epoxy before it could harden, and Gear was forced to throw another concussion bomb to try and fend them off.
"I'm not doing so hot here buddy! These things are Amish-like! Because they…tech doesn't…I really…where was I going…?"
"Save it Gear!" Static replied as he zipped over and blew apart the Abhorred that Gear himself could not disable. "Maybe we should make tracks, it's not going so well here!"
"Not sure where to go!" Gear said, as he and his main computer unit Back-Pack began scanning the area. "Hey…the clouds. These things are coming from the clouds. Static, you think you could fly up there, maybe disrupt their…dropping…habit…?"
"I don't know if I can do that, and I really don't want to fly up there to try!" Static said. "Maybe we should…"
A dull thud sounded beneath the pair.
"You hear that?" Static said.
Captain Marvel Jr burst out from beneath the ground, flying up and clutching his head, trying to blink dust out of his eyes.
"…I thought you cape guys came from above, not below." Gear said.
"The Titans, they were buried, have to-GACCCCCCCKKK!" Captain Marvel Jr yelled as Abhorred came flying at him, one shadow creature swinging a barbed whip while the other thrust at him with clawed hands. Marvel Jr punched one, and then yelled as the whip lashed across his skin, leaving a burning line of pain…
Static promptly blew it out of the air with a an electrical ball attack.
"What's going on?" Captain Marvel Jr said.
"We got bad news and worse news. The bad news is whoever beat us here made a shadow army. The worse news is they laugh at just about everything you do to 'em." Static said.
"And he means that literally. And I think one of them said something about my mother."
Static gave Gear a look.
"Okay okay, no time for jokes."
"What? How did…the Lord…The Titans, we…"
"Better save it buddy!" Static yelled as more Abhorred fell from the sky. Static surged forward in turn, blasting multiple electrical arcs, as Captain Marvel Jr finished clearing his eyes and came to Static's aid, punching and kicking, while Gear tossed more of his concussion grenades…
Moments before an Abhorred surged up from the ground behind Static, a kris dagger in its hands.
"VIRGIL!" Gear screamed.
A blast of water blew the Abhorred out of the air even as Static turned around.
"Dude! Codenames!" Static said.
"You're lucky sound doesn't travel as well up here as it does in water." Aqualad said as he limped up. "What was it, Staticclinge or something…?"
"Static. Static Shock. Nice to know Aquaman taught you manners. Just in case, that's Gear, that's Captain Emergency Backup Marvel, and that's INCOMING!" Static yelled as more Abhorred charged in, forcing the odd group back into combat for several more seconds.
"Marvel JUNIOR." Captain Marvel Jr said when it was over.
"Hey, you keep fightin' that well and I'll call you Superman if you want."
"…yeah. I'm sorry about the name, the Titans, this whole place just broke apart and fell, I lost track of everything, nearly got buried alive…we have to help them, we…" Aqualad said.
"Here come more!" Gear yelled, pointing…
A spray of arrows followed his point, as the three Abhorred were dropped in a burst of explosions.
"We didn't all get buried Zen." Speedy II said, approaching with Speedy III.
"Thanks, Girl Speedy and Guy Smiley. Speedy." Static corrected. Speedy II didn't reply.
"We have to get the Titans…" Aqualad said.
"Hey, don't panic yet Aqualad. They have Terra. She's an annoying twit, but she knows her earth stuff. She probably kept them safe enough to…" Speedy II said.
Another impact tremor sounded beneath the teen heroes' feet.
"That might be them n-"
The ground erupted in an explosion of stone and shrapnel…and a furious blood-chilling bellow, as Doomsday ripped himself up from his latest grave and smashed down onto the shattered rock, sending ripping cracks across the battleground.
"NO ONE MENTIONED HIM! SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED HIM!" Static hissed through clenched teeth.
"…maybe if we're real quiet, they'll fight each other?" Gear said.
"RAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!" Doomsday bellowed as he charged at the teenagers.
"SO MUCH FOR THAT!"
Doomsday's fist smashed down onto the ground, sending a storm of rock shards flying into the air as the teenage heroes scattered. Captain Marvel Jr flew in to attack and was effortlessly batted aside, as both Speedys fired arrows and Static fired a gigantic blast of electricity at Doomsday. It did nothing, as Doomsday bellowed once more, pulled his hand free, and charged as the teenage heroes scattered again.
Doomsday charged right through one side of a damaged building, and the whole structure came down in a massive eruption of dust and smoke. Coughing, Static tried to clear his vision and locate his friends.
"Guys? GUYS!" Static said, floating through the dust. "You all right? I really don't want to attract that guy's attention again, and this damn dust is already giving me chapped lips…"
A shadowy form appeared in the dust. After a moment, Static recognized the distinct shape of Gear's Back-Pack.
"Gear! See, you need to remember code names in…" Static said as he flew in.
Before stopping dead, his eyes going wide…as Gear's body crumbled onto the ground, the Abhorred holding a bloody kodachi in its hand. It looked at Static with nonexistent eyes.
"…no…." Static whispered.
Had Virgil Hawkins had a few more seconds, he would have called down a lightning bolt that could have rivaled Zeus himself in his fury, but he didn't.
The Abhorred surged down first, phasing into Gear's body. It jerked, briefly thrashing like an epileptic, and then it rose to its feet in a jagged, boneless fashion. Static stared in horror at his best friend, struck down and now risen once more as something else entirely.
"…ashes to ashes…dust to dust…" 'Gear' said, and then let out a mad cackle. "No one gets out alive."
"…sorry, bro." Static whispered, electricity erupting on his hand.
'Gear' blasted towards at Static in turn, laughing madly all the way.
So it falls, heroes.
The darkness you tolerated has arrived.
And so has your end.