Green Red Yellow
Time
Every living being is connected to time in one fashion or another. In many ways what sets humans apart from all the other animal species is our awareness of the passing of time. The earliest people in every civilization were obsessed with the concept of time. They built elaborate monuments and systems to chart its course and measure it's passing. Inevitably they all came to the same conclusion, we are all stuck in time, prisoners to it. For us time is linear, a straight line across the page.
We see time in two dimensions, the past and the future with our own point on the line being the present. It's the flat world of the tabletop, where up and down, left and right have no meaning. The line of time runs through us and traps us like a marionette with its strings. We are creatures of the present, always the present. It may not seem so but this is only because we have imagination. In our minds we can be anywhere along that line with just a thought, from that childhood trip cross-country with our family to breakfast this morning. Each moment along that line is available for us to access at any time it just takes our imagination. We can even project forward into what hasn't happened yet and see it just as clearly as all those other memories.
This is a beautiful illusion that makes us unique and helps mitigate that we are all still trapped on that line. What the Golden Lady or the Goddess of the Second World had done that was unlike any before or after her was figure out a way to step outside of time. Even as her entire universe was being destroyed all around, her genius was finding a way to step out of that straight line that we are all on. Others might be able to make jumps in time, but she had found a way to remove herself entirely from it. That was what made her so dangerous to all the powers of this universe. It is what had the Guardians of Oa on full alert and Darkseid building an army. For once she returned the same laws that applied to everyone else would not govern her.
A side effect of this was currently manifesting itself in the lives of Hippolyta and Superman. When Circe and Morgaine le Fey goaded Mary into unleashing a bit of the power within her, they had no idea what sort of power it was. It should have destroyed Hippolyta, but when it combined with Dinah's sonic scream another part of the Golden Lady's abilities were triggered. The vortex through which they both fell was a time vortex. Hippolyta suddenly became detached from time. In her case it was like falling down a flight of stairs or off the edge of the table. The step she landed on was 1941 and her essence was once again reattached to time. The jumps forward were time's way of correcting itself.
In Superman's case, things were different. He wasn't supposed to be caught up in that vortex, but once again Fates Changed. He not only became detached from time but outside of time. Time stopped being a tabletop or even a series of stairs, but something different, a
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That he plunged down, back through time. Unlike Hippolyta there were no steps to slow his momentum. It was like a smooth tube of glass with only microscopic ripples that his fingers desperately tried to catch like a climber on a rock face. He managed somehow to grab on for brief moments and was almost reattached to time before his handhold failed he plunged further back through time. If he didn't find a way to stop himself, he would eventually end up at the beginning of everything before anything could survive. He would be wiped from all history and instead of being the last Kryptonian, he would be the first to ever die.
Down.
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DOWN.
He plunged, falling out of the Fourth World and through the Third. He caught brief glimpse of thing no living being had ever seen before, yet it all took a backseat to his desperately struggle to stop and reattach to time.
His fingers were bleeding as he tried digging them into the wall with all his might, yet they continued to slide downward. He caught just the lip of something and strained to hold on. He was suddenly in time again, but it was no world he'd ever seen before. He could feel the pull of his momentum, trying to tear him away from time and back outside of it. Straining he held on with all his strength and looked around him.
A wasteland stretched out in front of him. A final glimmer of stars cast a pale glow over everything, as if this world were on the outer reaches of known space, an afterthought from a time before.
A gong sounded in the distance.
Bones.
Bones of the long dead, bones of monsters and unimaginable creatures, but mostly bones of dead warriors were all around. Petrified and crumbling, bones were all that was left. The tribute exacted by this harsh place: bones. The wasteland of bones spread as far as the eye could see, to bleach and crumble under the dim, dying sun. This place spoke of what once was and what is. Bones of a once great empire and great, monumental battles, skeletons of hopes sketched in the dimming furrows which time reclaiming for its own.
This was a graveyard. As Clark hung on, he suddenly understood this wasn't a world of this time, but an echo from the time before. This was a land of desolation and defeat sending echoes out from the past. Forgotten as time marched on.
A gong sounded again.
The world was so still, like a planet wide cemetery. There was no wind, no movement, nothing but bones. Clark's eyes looked upon creatures the likes of which he'd never seen. Great swords and armaments still clutched in the creatures' hands.
The gong sounded a third time.
He was panting, his lungs burning for air. The strain was building on him and he could feel its irresistible pull. As his eyes took in this dead place they finally saw it, the centerpiece of everything.
An altar.
It was circular, with deep groves and strange symbols carved all over it. At its center was a crumbling statue. The statue was of a Golden Goddess, now faded with time and he realized it must have been from before time began. His eyes were finally able to shift and take in the whole altar. Crossed above the statue were two flags. They were intertwined as almost one. Three blue lines on a sea of green and three black circles on a field of red.
Then the pull detached him from the world and time again. Clark continued
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Through Time.
He found another handhold and the strain was less. He reemerged into the world of the tabletop, but it was also into chaos.
Shattered remnants of worlds littered the sky. The last planet torn in half and armored gods holding swords and dying on a fiery battleground were all around him. This was cataclysm, the end of everything. Struggling to hold on he suddenly realized where he was.
Clark was at the end of the Second World.
He was at the point when the Second World ended and the Third World began. That new age could been seen in the distance growing closer ever moment. The Third World was emerging and there was nothing they could do to stop it. By their own hand, the old Gods of the Second World had created their own downfall. New Gods already moved to fill the void, sweeping away everything of the past.
As he struggled to stand he got his first sight of her, the Golden Goddess. She stood triumphant in a field of the dead and dying, an elemental force beyond all the others. Battles still waged all around, but her focus seemed to be off in the distance. Clark realized in that moment she alone understood what was happening. She was glorious, unbowed before the coming end, yet he could see in her eyes an unending sadness. It was as if she understood it was all for nothing.
His movement seemed to catch her attention and pull her away from these bleak thoughts for but a moment. Fury and sorrow like he'd never imagined burned in her eyes. Slowly she began to rise above the fight, yet held his eyes the whole time.
"كنت عائدة هنا. ولا يوجد سوى الموت."
Her words seemed to reverberate through his entire being and Clark could feel his grasp on time slipping away. Even as he felt himself becoming unmoored in this time, he couldn't take his eyes off her. He watched her fly off the planet as the battle continued to rage. She was running, trying to escape the end of her world. Bit by bit he felt himself come unstuck in time and then he was tumbling again. His momentum wasn't nearly as strong this time and he managed to find another crack to grab onto. He pulled with all his might and tumbled into the dirt, back in time.
The air crackled with noise, like a trillion insects all taking off at the same time. As he made it to his feet, Clark saw he was standing on a hilltop overlooking a valley. It was the same world, only years before. Great armies covered the entire planet and he could see the neighboring worlds teamed with battles too. Two huge yellow suns burned so intensely in the sky they were almost white.
A cheer went up all around him and as he turned Clark saw the altar again. It was resplendent in its magnificence, befitting a queen and a Goddess. For the second time he saw her, the Golden Goddess. She was speaking to the warriors, rallying them for the coming battle. Somehow Clark seemed to understand what she was saying and a chill went through him at her words.
"The time is at hand!" She shouted. "This is the final battle and there can be only one outcome! Victory! The other Gods think they can bring this fight to us and we will not respond. They are mistaken! Let the call go forth to every corner of the galaxy, that today the battle for everything has been joined!"
The cheers overwhelmed Clark's senses, but he knew where this was. This was the beginning of the final battle. Just as Ragnarok had ended the Third World, this was the beginning of the final battle that ended the Second. They were all racing towards their own doom but didn't know it and Clark was right in the center of all of it. Before he could move or doing anything, he felt a great blow strike him harder than any he had felt in some time. He went flying back under the force and smashed into the hillside. When he managed to pull himself loose, he found he was surrounded by a legion of Colossus-like beings. They stood thirty feet high and he could feel the power radiating off of them.
"You are not a God, you will be the first to die!" They shouted at Clark. The one closest to him swung a mighty club that threatened to drive Clark into the hillside once again. Two beams of red shout out from his eyes and disintegrated the club in the Colossus' hand. Clark could feel the power of the huge yellow suns coursing through him, as he stood his ground. The legion rushed towards him, but he was floating up off the surface above them. He knew this was like no battle he'd ever been in before. This was to the death and these were Gods he was facing. If he were going to survive, he would not be able to hold anything back. Survival had to be his immediate goal and then he would find some way back to his own time. First he had a fight on his hand.
"Impressive mortal, but it will do you no good,' the Colossus shouted. "You are no match for us and will die today."
"Don't bet on it,' Clark replied.
"Let the battle begin!" The chant went up from all around him.
"Bring it on," Clark said, but it was drowned out in the cacophony of sound.