Superman:
"So Superman, what is your choice?" The demon rumbles in his head.
"Why have you done this? Why are you offering me this?" Superman asks, a part of him was yelling a him to just do it, he wouldn't personally miss Lex, Zsaz or the Joker and he didn't even know who Uxas was and he was certain the world at large would keep spinning without them as well, if it wouldn't be overjoyed that they were gone.
"I am an inevitability of all continuous stories like yours, you grow and struggle against your foes and you always win the day. I am the inevitable encounter; a foe you cannot beat without breaking the symbol that is you." Superman's stomach drops, he had feared something like this would eventually come his way. First he was doing small miracles, stopping smaller crimes. Then he almost naturally began going up against more and more difficult opponents, and they always seemed to be greater than the last. After he defeated Darkseid on Apokalips, Superman had always been worried that the universe would find something even worse to throw at him. And now it had.
"Why did you have to do this, if I was the one you wanted?" He asks.
"Fighting you is beneath me, and pointless." The demon replies. "I exist to break stories, and yours is not broken in combat. So what will it be Superman? Is your symbol, your morals, worth the life of this world? Are these four not worth the billions? Are they not worth the life of Lois?" Superman shuts his eyes at the last mention.
"Why them?" He asks and points at the four.
"Your choice needed not be difficult. Why choose wives and children as lambs when one can choose; monsters, megalomaniacs and lunatics?"
"Why him then?" Superman asks and points at Uxas, the only one he couldn't recognize, but he knew if he had been taken from Apokalips he would be a piece of work.
"You do not recognize him?" The demon asks, though it's tone doesn't change. "You would know him, if I let him bathe in the netherverse that granted him mastery over the Omega-Force."
"Darkseid…?" Superman asks in surprise as he looks at the New God, he almost doesn't believe it, the New God of Evil looks no different than a man to him now. But then Superman looks past his appearance, and he sees the monster hiding in that form, the Omega-Force had changed and twisted him but Superman can still see the root of Darkseid lurking within the man. And his mind is made up. "Will anyone else know?"
"That you do is enough." The demon replies and Superman closes his eyes.
"I am sorry." He whispers before he opens his eyes again and burns the four away in the blink of an eye. To his horror, the demon only laughs, slow and deep at first but it picks up volume and pace as it becomes filled with red light before it seemingly explodes taking Superman way into darkness.
Green Lantern:
"Admirable." The thing rumbles as John struggles in its grasp, he had given his best, he had given his all. But the one blow he landed on it didn't even make it blink and his ring was drained a moment later.
"WHY?!" He shouts at the thing.
"You fascinate me." The thing replies as it puts him down on the ground. "Alone and after seeing what I can do, you still come at me. Admirable, but foolish, perhaps you think you are some kind of hero?" It teases, even if it doesn't seem to have a mouth, John has no trouble imagining smiling at him.
"What are you?" John growls.
"Hmm, that is difficult to say. Perhaps I am best described as what once was before the emotions were shattered, first into the simple entities, then exploited by wretched little creatures." It replies as its grip tightens around his throat for a second before it drops him on the ground and stands up. "It moved. How irritating."
"What moved?" John asks between coughs.
"You have much greater concerns to worry about now hero, with your trinket drained and hundreds of miles to anything resembling water." The creature replies as it smiles at him. "Consider it the reward for getting in my way. Fare well hero, but I doubt you will." It says before it takes off leaving John behind in the vast lifeless desert with the echo of its laughter behind.
Flash:
"Time, time… he controls time." Wally mutters as he paces on the outer perimeter of the lawn around the Hall of Justice. "Time and speed… Barry is much better at this stuff." Wally sighs reminded of Barry 's tendency to drop little nuggets of science info he called Flash Facts and right now Wally is certain Barry would have something clever to say as he sits down on an old tree stump.
"Ok Wally, think, people are convinced you can do it." He says to himself. "Speed… Speed is not velocity… Velocity is the rate of change in a position given within a set amount of time and in a set direction. Hmm…" He thinks before his thoughts fall on Zoom, a man whose powers meant he lived outside of the timestream everyone else followed. "Hey, maybe I can break this guy's trick the same way… I just need a boost." He says and gets up before running off to find everyone he knew had a connection to the Speed Force. "Hope they aren't using it right now."
Martian Manhunter:
He sits with his face towards the viewing hole and prepares, through meditation, for what he had to. A part of him is seething in anger at the violation, but part of him knows he himself is partially to blame for it. It was after all him that told Raven about his fear of fire and it was him that had tutored her in psionic combat. As he had learned, though suspected, she used her psionic powers in a very blunt fashion, by Martian standards, had she been at a trial to become a Manhunter, she would have been ordered to refine herself. And J'onn had trained with her when he could, hoping she could refine her skills in case she would need something other than brute force.
It was always a risk to teach her, he knew, because the demon inside of her would also learn, but what was important was that she wasn't lost and had subconsciously managed to reach out to him. It is in this knowledge that he feels his anger blunted with a small sense of pride, because it told him how careful she was with the monster and how she had planned for the possibility of it's return. And this construct and the attack on his mind were tricks he had taught her, though not this specific scenario.
He clears his mind of all thoughts and feelings, he needed to be focused to endure what he had to do, one misstep, one stray feeling or thought could spell his doom. He has one small feeling of pride in him, and it is again directed at Raven, because in a way he relished this challenge since it was so rare he truly had one in this field. And he is ready to meet it.
Slowly he disperses the molecules of his body, one by one, they move as he orders them to, spreading them far and thin, making his form transparent before he holds himself steady. As the sphere is tossed around by the pressure and the streams of lava, J'onn needs not to move himself, but he keeps his eyes closed as he burning heat of the depths engulf him.
Starfire:
She sees her enemy as she comes out of the clouds hanging over Jump City, draped in her blue cloak and hood, sitting at the Titans regular spot at Mario's with a pizza on the table in front of her as if she was just waiting for a friend like a normal person. The rest of the square in front of Mario's Pizza however is anything but normal; there are no people present, and huge red pentagram has been painted onto most of the road, each point ending in a flaming pile of something that smells like meat and in the center is a another huge pile of pulsing meat that Starfire, to her horror, recognizes as hearts that are all still beating in unison.
Raven looks up at Starfire before greeting her. "Star, I'm so…" She doesn't get to finish as her table is pulverized by a starbolt.
"MURDERER!" Starfire howls as she crashes into the prone Raven and takes them both through the concrete floor and down to the ground where she punches Raven hard in the head before she is blasted off.
"You shouldn't have done that Star." Raven growls as she gets up, holding her head with one hand, in time to teleport aside from Starfire that comes at her again.
"QUIET! YOU WILL NOT SPEAK AGAIN!" Starfire shouts before the majority of Mario's Pizza is reduced to molten rubble by the massive starbolt she sends at Raven. The target of the attack however deflects most of the attack that would have hit her by a erecting a massive plow-shaped barrier in front of her.
"If you would stop that." Raven says calmly as the smoke drifts away and Starfire launches herself at the barrier.
"Why have you done this!" Starfire shouts as she keeps attacking the unyielding wall of will.
"It's a tradition amongst friends from where I am from to celebrate their friendship, like Blorthog." Raven replies and Starfire stops immediately, mortified that Raven had proved Blackfire right, it was Starfire's own fault. But the momentary shock is drowned in the rising tide of anger. "I did all of this; for you." The word echoes in Starfires mind as she shakes with rage.
"Then… I renounce your friendship!" Starfire says before she turns and bombards the piles of hearts with starbolts, destroying most of them.
"NO!" Raven shouts in sudden alarm and pushes Starfire to the ground while running into the square. "What have you done?! I was going to put them back! They wouldn't have known what had happened!"
"What?" Starfire asks in confusion and growing dread at how Raven was running from pile to pile to see if there were anything left she could save.
"That's how it's done! We take them out and keep them alive before we put them back! But now I can't… you killed them… you killed them all!" Starfire just stares at Raven in horror, believing her words to be true, she says nothing as the darkness seems to creep up on her.
Huntress:
She is praying again, trying again to understand the reasons why and trying again to find the happiness she had found when she first came to Azerath. She found friends, she found love and she found peace, for a while. Then the day came when she was to give birth and things changed from there. She couldn't remember the event itself, but she knew it had been a girl, a girl with pale skin. And she had not seen her since that day. She had been told it was the prodigal child of a great evil and that its destiny could not permit Helena to be near it.
"Helena?" Helena looks up at the dry voice of Azar, who had been the one to bring her to Azerath, never once had Helena seen her face during the many hours Azar had spent teaching her during her time here. Though those lessons had dwindled to almost nothing after the birth.
"Azar?" Helena asks as the woman kneels beside her, looking up at the altar dedicated to her ancestor, the first Azar. "H-have the council decided on my request."
"Helena, I am so sorry for what I have had to do." Azar replies getting a strange looks from Helena. "This is not real, none of it."
"Azar?" Helena asks in confusion.
"I am not Azar, not even the third, who has been dead for over a decade now." The woman says before she turns herself to face Helena. "Helena I need you to listen; you are living the life memory of another, one I had to engineer in order to make you understand the stakes and what you need to do."
"Do? What are you talking about?" Helena asks in growing confusion.
"Helena, the demon that is a part of me is in your head, it made you think you became pregnant. All of this is in its mind." The woman replies as she gestures at the empty temple around them. "You know the depiction on the wall beside us is one of Azar gazing at the sky, carrying a book? Don't look at it." She continues as Helena was about to turn to confirm it.
"Yes." Helena replies.
"Look closely now at it and you will see something else, one of a warrior impaling a demon with four eyes with a spear." Helena turns to look at the wall behind the altar, but she sees only the faded image of Azar. "Focus Helena, remember your faith in your God for it is the only thing that can help you pierce the illusion." But Helena relents and turns her gaze back to the woman beside her. "You must do this."
"Show me your face." Helena says quietly. "Please."
"I cannot, for you would not be able to comprehend what I am with the loss you've suffered."
"You mean I'd go mad if I did." Helena mutters.
"No, you just wouldn't see anything, your mind just wouldn't accept it." The woman replies.
"Just do it." Helena continues and the other woman sighs before folding her hood back, revealing nothing, there was nothing under the hood. The revelation has Helena look down, worried that she had finally cracked. "Why me? Why has all of this happened to me?"
"Because you are Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress, a woman of determination and faith. Determination and faith that you need now to pierce the veils of lies that's placed over your mind. Why this scenario? Because the woman I know you are would never let herself be beguiled by the lies you think you were, and deep down, you know that as well." The invisible woman says before she turns slightly, making her appear as if she was looking from side to side. "You must hurry, pierce the veil, I can do no more. Pierce the veil. Hurry!" The apparition says before she fades away to nothing.
"Huntress…" Helena mutters as if it was a foreign word to her as the memories comes back to her, why she wore the costume, why she took the name, why she went out night after night and what supported her through everything in her life; faith. "Right…" She sighs as her features harden and she turns to the altar and focuses.
Hawkgirl:
"Make way for the Queen!" Washa-Ri bellows at the palace staff as he carries Chayera to her chambers where he puts her on her bed before leaving to find a healer.
Her vision is blurring, and she feels sick, she feels wrong in a way. "Was it something I ate?" She mutters to the ceiling before mustering the will to pick off her helmet.
"Technically, something ate you." A voice of a woman replies, making Chayera look up, finding a towering blue-cloaked individual standing in her chamber with its hood up, leaving only a black hole under it. "Now get up."
"What… who are you?" Chayera asks in confusion as she fails to remember anyone looking like this individual. "What right have you to order me?!"
"You are no queen Shayera Hol of Thanagar and I need you to remember who you are." The figure replies. "Get up! Or I will make you!" Chayera just eyes the figure for a second before she responds.
"Guards!"
"My Queen!" Washa-Ri shouts in alarm as he burst in through the door along with a massive gray hulk in a tattered black suit too small to fit his frame.
"Away from Queen Birdnose!" The hulk rumbles as he charges the figure while Washa-Ri moves to place himself between Chayera and the figure.
"I don't have time for this." The figure growls as the hulk leaps in order to tackle her to the ground but is caught in the air by an invisible power. "But perhaps it will be enough." She says before she turns Grundy to float in front of her.
"Let Grundy go!" Grundy shouts.
"Listen closely Shayera to the tale of Solomon Grundy." The figure replies getting them all to pay more attention;
"Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday.
Solomon Grundy, christened on Tuesday.
Solomon Grundy, married on Wednesday.
Solomon Grundy, took ill on Thursday
Solomon Grundy, grew worse on Friday
Solomon Grundy, died on Saturday
Solomon Grundy, buried on Sunday
And that was the end, of Solomon Grundy!"
As she finishes, both Grundy and Chayera are repeating the rhyme with her, but at the very end Grundy is seemingly atomized leaving nothing behind.
"Grundy!" Chaeyra cries in alarm, even if a part of her is telling her to wonder why she even knew the name of the albino giant.
"What have you done?!" Washa-Ri asks in alarm as Chayera struggles to rise as the figure approaches them.
"You have done enough harm today, be gone." The figure says before a phantom wind takes Washa-Ri off his feet and out the window, where he would fall fifty feet before landing in the shallow basin at the foot of the palace. "Come on Shayera fight me! Fight it!" The figure continues as she grabs Shayera by the throat and lifts her off the bed. "Prove to me why you are still the angriest, stubborn and mistrustful woman I have ever known! SHOW ME!" She bellows before throwing Chayera across the room. "Or do I have to tear down your entire world?!"
"Chayera!" Katar Hol shouts in alarm as he rushes into the room followed by a thin dark-skinned man in the garb of a priest.
"Katar, help me..." Chayera groans in pain from the injuries to her back.
Katar Hol doesn't need any more to set him flying towards the adversary, intending on strangling it with his bare hands. But as he gets close the figure just swats him aside with contemptuous ease while walking towards Shayera, the blow has enough power to send Katar through one of the tall wooden bedposts before colliding with the wall bending it out of shape with a sickening crunch.
"Not enough." The figure mutters as it casts one look at Hath-Set the priest before he flees the chamber, carrying his remedies with him. "You need something stronger." She continues at Chayera before grabbing her by the hair and blasts a hole in the ground and takes her with her to the deepest dungeons of the palace, where the ship that had brought Chayera and Katar to Earth stands. Ignoring Chayera's cries and protests the figure rips open the ships hull and enters before pushing Shayera towards the Absorbachron located at the back of the ship. "Touch it."
"W-why… why are you doing this? What have we done to you?" Chayera asks with tears in her eyes as she turns over, but oddly enough she just feels the heat drawn away from her body as the figure looks at her.
"Is this… Is this fear? FEAR?!" She shouts before grabbing Chayera once more and shakes her viciously. "WAKE UP IN THERE!" She shouts and knocks Chayera several times on her head before dropping her again. "TOUCH IT!"
"W-Who…?" Chayera stammers as her vision swims. "Why…?"
"You will know, touch it." The figure continues.
"Why…?" Chayera continues.
"Touch it!" Chayera just looks at the figure for a short moment before she crawls to the mount where the Absorbachron is socketed, but her strength, will and courage seems to fail her as she tries to reach it. "Just touch it." The figure growls and Chayera pushes herself to reach for the artifact. Putting her hand on the relic she is filled with clarity, her wounds forgotten and the figure is changed.
"You!" Shayera growls at the black cloaked figure with the red skin.
"Believe it or not, I am the only friend you have in here, now get out." Hatred growls before Shayera is sent away.
Lady Blackhawk:
Zinda is still trying to process everything she's seen when she's shoved into the brightly lit room she was going to be interrogated in. Landing in Jump City International Airport had been moment she realized she wasn't anywhere near anything she knew, the landing strips alone covered an area larger than most army bases she had seen, and she had seen a lot. The adjoining buildings were equally massive things of glass and steel to go with the enormous car park she had spotted from above. And then there were the planes, those were the scariest of all of this to her. She had over the course of the war flown escort for the B-29 Superfortress, she's chased off the Japanese Emily and even helped shoot down one of the experimental Junker Ju 390's all of which she knew was pushing what was possible to get into the sky. But when she landed, she saw what she guessed to be commercial planes that all were as large, if not bigger and all of them had jet engines by the looks of it.
Then she was ordered over into the military section of the airport where she saw more of her escorts, things that looked like knives with wings and she also got a look at their pilots who all wore bulky suits and helmets. Then, before she had to park, she caught a glimpse of something odd standing in a hangar at the back looking more like a flatfish than a plane from what she could tell before she had to concentrate on getting her plane into the designated spot. After she was done, she was surrounded by armed soldiers who hustled her inside after taking her sidearm away. She didn't fight or say anything assuming the red, whites and blues on everyone's uniform at least meant America was still America.
The door behind her opens and a woman with a strange gray complexion and purple hair wearing a deep blue uniform enters, Zinda tries not to be surprised by the two gray bars on the other woman's shoulders before she salutes her.
"Sit down soldier." The captain orders dryly and waits for Zinda to take her seat before she takes her own and opens the notepad she came in with. "You know rank, a name and a pass code. You are already in big trouble for flying that plane of yours into the city at low altitude, so you better start talking."
"Ah… I suppose Colonel Tyson is out of the question still?" Zinda asks.
"Colonel Tyson died 40 years ago at the age of 89." The captain replies as Zinda just goes blank. "Now do you care to tell me why you know a classified passcode from World War II and is flying around in something we put big red stamps on in our files?" The Captain continues even if she can see Zinda is barely listning to her. "Hey!" She snaps her fingers in front of Zinda's eyes. "Start with your name and rank, if you have any."
"Zinda Blake, airman of the Blackhawks resistance-unit."
"Date of birth?" The captain continues.
"15th of October… 1919." Zinda had the feeling she would get a reaction from the captain as she gives the number.
"Are you making fun airman?" She asks sternly. "Because this is not the time for jokes!" She snaps. "Now, date of birth, the real one." She continues, but Zinda just stares blankly into the table not know what to say. "Well?"
"I… I don't know." Zinda replies as she looks to the hard stare from the other woman.
"Fire in the hole!" Someone shouts the instant before the mirror-glass window taking up a substantial part of the wall next to them is blasted inwards in a hail of automatic gunfire. Zinda throws herself and the aluminium table to the ground to find cover. The captian on the other hand is shredded and falls to the ground next to Zinda before the shooting stops. "You can come out now."
Zinda isn't stupid and keeps her head down while taking a quick look at the captain in hopes she carried a sidearm. By the sound of it, the assailant's weapon is dropped before it jumps into the room through the hole it made to the sound of crunching glass. "Come on, we don't have much time." Zinda's cover is lifted and lets her charge into the other person, but feels like she ran straight into a pillar as the other person doesn't budge.
"Ow…" Zinda groans before she gets a good look at the other person, dressed in a green camo uniform, complete with utility belt, a small backpack, black combat boots and even a camo-patterned helmet on the painted face under it. "Wha…?" She asks as she can see the captain's face under the camo paint of the soldier in front of her.
"Up you go, we need to hurry." The soldier says after throwing the table aside and pulls Zinda up.
"What is going on?!" Zinda asks as the captain groans.
"Something is messing with your head. I can only help you some of the way." The soldier replies before she walks over and kicks the door off its hinges. "Come on." She says before dragging Zinda out with her.
"Who is?" Zinda asks as she runs after the other woman.
"My less charming sister back there."
"Get back here!" Zinda looks over her shoulder and sees the Captain in the doorway, still riddled with bullet holes.
"You went through all of this before, you just don't remember it. Make for the runway." The soldier replies before she slows down to let Zinda lead the way while she pulls out a handgun and starts shooting at the captain that returns fire.
"Who are you two?" Zinda asks.
"Heh! I'm the Marine, she's not nice." The Marine replies sounding almost as if she was enjoying herself. "Had I left you in there she'd have cracked your head and made you doubt everything before you'd go completely nuts."
"Aren't I already?" Zinda asks as she pushes over several solders coming out of the cantina. "Sorry boys."
"The Ragnarok creature never existed, Blackhawk Island is still there. You are still time-displaced however! Grenade!" the Marine shouts before she throws a grenade behind her as the Captain was getting too close.
"Wait what?!" Zinda shouts after the 'ka-pow' of the grenade fades and she turns a corner.
"I can't explain it right now. When you get back in the air, head for the T- tower you saw, you have to find the Oracle, she will know what to do."
"What about you?" Zinda asks.
"I have another appointment to make." The Marine replies before they burst out of the building.
"Where's my bird?" Zinda asks as she can't see her plane, in its stead is a black helicopter.
"I didn't think you could land it on the tower." The Marine says as the alarms start blaring and she stops. "The instruments will be intuitive to you. Get going."
"Wait you…?" Zinda asks before she sees the Marine dig her hands deep into the pouches on her utility belt and pull out two mini-guns that she could never have been hidden there.
"It's my mind, but I can only do so much and this is just fun." The Marine smirks. "You'll understand when you find the Oracle get going." Zinda sees the Captain emerge from the building along with more armed soldiers and decides to bolt for the helicopter. "Konnichiwa, bitches!" The Marine shouts behind her before she opens up with both mini-guns. Zinda only has to kick away one soldier grabbing for her leg as she gets into the helicopter, finding the instruments oddly familiar even if it doesn't resemble the instruments in her own plane.
It only takes her half a moment before she lifts into the air, she takes one look at the Marine, still letting off a storm of bullets at the unending stream of soldiers coming out of the building and the Captain standing rock still and returning fire. "Ain't no way I'm leaving without a little helping hand." She mutters as she flips the cover off the upper of the two firing switches on the steering stick, she only needs to take a quick aim before she fires a beam of crystal blue at the entrance to the building, nearly instantly covering it all in a thick block of ice. The Marine looks up at salutes her before she flies off towards the city and the mysterious tower.
Zatanna:
She rushes onto the stage and finds her assistant receiving the applause of the crowd, for what Zatanna neither knows or cares. "Egats kaerb!" As she commanded the stage buckles and breaks beneath her assistant, who stumbles but floats into the air before she can fall.
"It is too late, no need to be petty." She says.
"You call me petty? When you strike at my career? My vanity?" Zatanna asks.
"It's your greatest sin." The figure shrugs.
"That may be, but this ends now. Eb enog!" Much to Zatanna's surprise, the figure remains where it is before floating down to her.
"If you know the truth, then you know that you only have the power I give yo…" She is cut off as Zatanna lands a quick left hook, putting her on her back.
"I do, that's why I made you come to me." Zatanna replies before she leaps at the figure to land several blows against its head.
"Enough!" The other woman commands and Zatanna is thrown halfway across the stage. "This isn't how you are supposed to be!" She continues to complain as they both get up.
"Well that's us stage magicians, full of surprises." Zatanna smirks.
"Yes, I am sure…" The figure hisses as she removes her hood, revealing the red skin and four eyes to Zatanna's surprise. "I will find a surprise; in your intestine!" She shouts as she begins to gather energy, it first comes washing over the stadium walls before it tears them apart and sends it hurling into the sky along with the audience.
Zatanna knows even if she manages to stop the other woman, her own career would be in ruins and quite possibly terminated, but still she rushes her opponent; crashing into her and carrying them both into the black pit she created in the stage floor. She is surprised to feel the other woman vanish between her hands and feeling herself continue to fall into darkness.
Wonder Woman:
"You… You are not Raven!" Diana seethes in her bindings as they stride across Greece.
"Ah, but who is Raven, Mistress of the Pit?" Raven teases. "Perhaps it was just you who didn't think I was like this?"
"Who are you then? Daughter of Trigon?" Diana asks.
"Trigon had so many purposes for me after my destiny was fulfilled. I was to rule by his side, lead his armies on. I would be the herald of the end that was Trigon, I was to be the horsewoman of the apocalypse. One day it would all end however, when daughter and father would fight in the ruins of a shattered universe and a new order would rise from the ashes. So who am I?" Raven asks Diana as they head out to sea.
"You are Raven, Daughter of Arella, Student of Azar, Amazon, friend, healer, Champion of Themyscira! Does none of that matter to you?!" Diana replies.
"It does, it's why I wish all of my friends would stand by my side in this, but I cannot afford their refusal." Raven replies.
"Then… you better send me to join them." Diana hisses. "For the slaughter of my mother, my gods and my friends; I swear I will make you pay!" Raven doesn't break stride but Diana floats up to her eye height.
"No Diana, for you are dear to me, if you will not rule by my side in glory, then you will be my slave. Think about it Diana, rule freely by my side and reach glory you have never dreamed of, or have your will stripped away, your every thought bent please me. If that is your wish, I will grant it now."
"The Lasso of Truth burns through such things, even you couldn't do it." Diana growls, but Raven just chuckles and lets her float back to her shoulder.
"Think about it love." Raven smiles.
"No!" Diana snaps and begins to struggle against the Lasso that Diana notices gives slightly, something she knew it shouldn't do.
"It is futile." Raven shrugs without turning her head.
"HRRRR!" Diana growls through clenched teeth as she strains.
"Didn't you hear me?" Raven continues.
"AAARRR!" Diana shouts as something suddenly snaps and the Lasso of Truth is torn apart by Diana's efforts.
"NOOOO!" Raven screams as her form becomes an empty black hole while Diana heads straight for her head.
Dr. Fate:
"You may have power Carnage, but you cannot win this." Dr. Fate says calmly as he floats in the air before Inza and the barrier. "Your lies and illusions are failing."
"Is that what you think?" Carnage asks before they both send torrents of power against one another. "You are tired old man, weak." She continues as she can feel Fate tiring with the effort. "And I can do this for forever. Give in."
"Never." Fate hisses.
"Hm." Carnage shrugs before she puts out twice the amount of power she was putting out and blasts Fate into a snowdrift from where he doesn't rise. "Now, where was I?" She asks as she looks to Inza and the barrier. "Ah yes. You know me Inza, you know what I can do, lower the barrier and I will make it painless." Inza doesn't look up or stop her chanting. "Hrr, very well, begging for death it will be then." Carnage replies before she digs the claws of her right hand into her left arm with a hiss as the blackish blood seeps out. She lets it drip onto the shield before drawing a symbol of power onto it while speaking in a rumbling language that pains Inza's ears and makes the spilt blood glow. Inza knew it was coming before the blow struck the symbol and shattered the barrier, sending her flying along with the shards.
She comes to a second after landing, only seeing Carnage walk towards her, dragging Nightwing after her by a foot. "So Inza, how does being skinned alive over the course of a month sound to you?"
"Back…!" Inza groans as she tries to summon her own magics but her smarting head breaks her focus before she can make anything of it.
Carnage huff in amusement before Inza notices what Carnage had; the nose bleed, meaning Inza had gotten a concussion of some kind from the blow. "Not that your magics would have done anything more than tickle." Carnage smirks before something leaps onto her back and starts ripping at her face with a yellow hand.
"Ignore no demon is a useful adage bear it in mind as I shred you as a cabbage!" Etrigan laughs as Zauriel hurries over to Dr. Fate and places a glowing hand on him making him come to.
"We can't lie on our backsides now." Zauriel says as Fate sits up and spots Inza.
"It is not. AEGIS!" He shouts and the barrier springs to life before Etrigan can hit them as he was hurled towards him.
"You insects are growing tiresome." Carnage rumbles as she stands unaffected by Etrigans attack that's left her face a bloody mess.
"We may have to stand together now." Dr. Fate cautions as Carnage draws power to her as he and Etrigan get up.
"Like you have a chance." Carnage smirks as her face re-assembles itself.
Author's Notes: I know some are growing impatient with me, to which I can only apologize, but if it helps I've had to expand this section with several chapters, because the original, upon re-reading, just felt very 'meh' after the battle with Ares.
For those wondering, yes there are reasons behind the scenario's Carnage makes them go through.
Next Chapter: A small interlude, who watches the current events and what are they prepared to do about it?