Darkseid stood in the room, a quiet rage building within him. This pathetic creature, this human, had dared to interfere with his plans? His fists clenched tightly, a dark purple, almost black, blood oozing out of wounds his fingers were causing in his own palms.
"You alright over there, stone face?" The figure in red and yellow said, his voice slightly high and extremely irritating "You look a little ticked."
"Quiet, Flash." The man in the cape said in a deep, gravelly voice, subtly reaching to his belt and removing something "Darkseid, you're done here. You can surrender or we can finish this."
"I am Darkseid, a new god. I shall not surrender to the likes of a mere mortal."
"What about me then?" The Green Lantern said, stepping forward, raising his ring "Think you can take me, tough guy?"
Darkseid said nothing, charging at the three figures with immense speed, Flash blurring to a position behind him, only to be swatted away like an insect. He turned on the figure in the cape, attempting to hit him, but having his blow flipped over, feeling a small tingling sensation on his shoulder as the man made contact with it. He turned his attention to the Green Lantern, whose ring was still trained on Darkseid, pulsating with energy as he muttered something. Darkseid grabbed the Lantern by the throat, lifting the man above his head, his eyes pulsating with red energy.
"Any last words, Lantern?" He asked, a sadistic smile on his face.
"Yeah, how about these. In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power." The Lantern said, before ramming his fist with the ring on into Darkseid's gut, firing a blast that released him from Darkseid's grip and sent the new god flying into the wall, a large amount of rubble coming down from the ceiling from the force of the impact "Green Lantern's light!"
Darkseid picked himself up, barely fazed by the attack. After a moment's pause, he began laughing.
"Impressive. Perhaps I misjudged you, Human. However, it is not you I wish to fight." He said, before turning and pointing at the figure in the cape "It's you."
The figure in the cape said nothing, instead pulling several small, sharp objects from his belt and hurling them at Darkseid, who caught them without effort. The man in the cape smirked.
"Exactly to plan." He said, pressing a button on his belt, causing the devices to detonate "You can't win this, Darkseid. You may have all the power, but I have something you don't."
"What's that?" Darkseid asked angrily, charging the man and picking him up in the same way he had the Green Lantern.
"I have Superman." The man said with a smirk, as Darkseid was hit with a powerful blow to the back of the head.
The lord of Apokolips turned to face his assailant; stood in front of him was Superman and the Amazon. Superman took a step forward.
"It's over, Darkseid." Superman said, his eyes glowing with red energy "Give up now."
"Why? You can hurt me no more than I can hurt you. We're perfectly balanced, Kryptonian." Darkseid said, smirking as he pressed a control on his left hand "Until I do this."
As Darkseid pressed a second control, the room began to buzz, as systems came online. A second later, green lights came on, taking Superman to the floor. Darkseid began to advance on the Kryptonian.
"You see, I knew of your people. I studied them. After all, I was allied with one of them; I had to know how to control him." Darkseid said, pulling a small tube from the back of his belt, from which a long, glowing green blade extended "You know how annoying Generals can be."
"Hey, ugly!" Flash yelled, charging into Darkseid and taking him to the floor, going down himself "Bats, if you've got a plan, I'd love to hear it."
Batman said nothing, instead reaching down to his belt. As he did, the Amazon pulled what looked like a large rope from her waist, tying the end into a lasso and throwing it around Darkseid, flying into the air and picking up the new god.
"You killed my mother!" She yelled, pulling hard and tightening her rope "Give me one good reason why I should let you live!"
Before Darkseid got a response out, a black metal object impacted the Amazon, exploding on impact and taking her to the floor. She looked angrily at it's source; Batman.
"What are you doing?!" She yelled at him, angrily "He killed my mother, I will have revenge!"
"Revenge doesn't do anything for you, believe me." He said, walking towards her slowly "All it does is take you over, consume you, until you wake up one day and realise that your quest for vengeance has taken your life over. Is that what you want?"
"What would you know?" She asked, as Lantern projected a bubble around them, expanding it and taking out the Kryptonite lamps "You've not lost anyone to a monster!"
"Yes, I have." Batman replied coldly "My parents were murdered in front of me when I was eight years old!"
"You still can't understand this!" She spat at him "If you're not with me, you're against me."
"I'll do what I have to, Princess." He replied, sardonically.
The Amazon charged at Batman, before impacting a hard, solid object and bouncing to the floor just before she'd reach him; Superman. He held out a hand to help her up, but she refused, just standing and brushing herself down. Darkseid couldn't help but be amused; they expected to defeat him, they couldn't even defeat personal issues between themselves!
He didn't hesitate; his eyes began to glow red again. He couldn't use his omega beams on the Kryptonian, he'd already seen how little of an effect they had on him. But what about his friends. He looked around for a moment, before firing the red beams from his eyes at the Amazon.
...
Bruce stood there, staring down the Amazon. As he did, he could hear Kent trying to reason with the both of them, but something was off. Darkseid hadn't made a move; everything else they'd seen had shown Darkseid to be at least a competent tactician, so why was he being so quiet? As he turned to look at the villain, he saw a pair of red beams hurtling towards the Amazon.
He quickly dived forwards, tackling her to the floor. She looked up at him, looking slightly flustered, before half smirking.
"Thank you, although I usually prefer men buy me dinner before getting me into this position." She said, before rolling them over just before the beam hit them, the beams bouncing off the floor "This one, dinner and a show."
"Not now!" Bruce replied aggressively, flipping the both of them out of the way of the beams for a third time, before the green and black clad figure of Jordan blocked the beams with his own body, letting out a scream as he was eviscerated.
"You shouldn't have done that." Kent said to Darkseid, his eyes glowing red before he fired several blasts of heat at Darkseid from his eyes in quick succession "How does it feel? To be taking on the full force of the sun?!"
"If it were the full force of the sun, I'd be dead, Kryptonian." Darkseid said, slowly advancing towards Kent, before punching him hard enough to embed him in the wall "But I am not facing that, am I?"
Bruce watched as the two figures engaged in battle. If they were mere mortals, the sheer force of their blows would be ripping through one another. And yet, they continued, as if nothing was happening. Then it hit him.
The sun.
"Flash, Princess, get out of here." He said, turning to face Allen and the Amazon.
"What about you?" Allen asked, cocking an eyebrow with a wry grin "What are you planning, Bats?"
"Just go!" Bruce yelled, before quieting down "Please, Bart."
Allen looked at him for a moment before his expression finally became serious. He turned to the Amazon, grabbing her by the arm and beginning to try and drag her out before giving up on the idea, picking her up and running out of the room full speed. Bruce moved back to the console, pulling out his hacking tool once again. He began to work quickly, having the device calculate trajectories and vectors before finally inputting the command to lock the course in.
He turned to where Kent and Darkseid continued fighting; both had taken quite a beating, small cuts and bruises all over the visible portions of their skin. Bruce paused for a second, before reaching into his belt and pulling out a small, glowing rock from his belt. As he did, Kent stopped in his tracks, panting as he fell to the floor. Darkseid smirked, turning to Bruce.
"I see you have a death wish, Human." He said, slowly advancing on Bruce "After all, why else would you disable the only being capable of protecting you?"
"So he can't stop me." Bruce said, pulling a number of small explosives from his belt, hurling them at Darkseid, disorienting the giant as Bruce pulled a metal pole from the wall, ripping it from it's mooring as he charged Darkseid, ramming the pole through Darkseid and into the wall behind him "That was for Carter Hall and Hal Jordan. And all the other innocent people you killed."
Bruce said nothing else, hearing Darkseid screaming at him as he picked Kent up, depositing the Kryptonite back in his belt as he began to make his way back to where the Batwing was.
...
Bart sat in the cockpit of the fighter him and the Amazon had stolen, looking up from the beach. J'onn and Canary were both outside the ship, with the Amazon, all of them waiting to see if Batman and Superman had escaped Apokolips; the planet had stopped being visible over five minutes ago, and the fighter's scanners couldn't pick it up anymore, either.
Bart sighed, standing up. If Batman and Superman had got off the planet, they would've got back down by now. They hadn't. They had to be gone.
After a moment, there was a blinding flash of light from the sun, as if it had suddenly gained more fuel, dazzling the heroes on the beach, who covered their eyes. As Bart slowly uncovered his, he saw it. A silhouette.
A silhouette of a bat.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Bart said, jumping up with a laugh "Knew tall, dark and brooding wasn't going to let us down on bringing back the boy scout!"
"Until five seconds ago, you were thinking he was dead." J'onn corrected "I decided it was best not to tell you otherwise while you thought about someone else for a change. Without being ran by your hormones."
"Gee, thanks." Bart said, rolling his eyes as the silhouette of Batman's plane flew closer "I do think about other people sometimes. It's why I wear this costume."
"Yes, I know." J'onn replied "Frankly, I was hoping for your -"
"Yeah, well, he's gone." Bart quickly cut him off, the jet landing about a hundred meters down the beach from them, the cockpit opening, before the red and blue figure of Superman slowly raised up into the air from it, the motionless figure of Batman in his arms "Oh god..."
Superman said nothing, his expression sombre as he floated towards the group, setting the armour clad figure down on the sand. The four of them looked at J'onn.
"I have been struggling to pick up any kind of mental activity from him at all before now." J'onn said "Apparently, he's very good at keeping his secrets."
"Not always." Superman said, grabbing Batman's cowl with both hands before ripping it apart, revealing the visage of a good looking man in his early to mid twenties "Come on, you're too stubborn to have let that shockwave kill you..."
"Maybe not." The Amazon spoke up as she stood, walking over to them "However, I may have something that could help."
"What are you going to do, spin the Earth backwards?" Superman asked "I considered it. It doesn't work."
"No." She replied simply, subtly smirking as she picked up Batman's body "But a woman has her ways to wake a man."
She didn't say any more, instead leading them towards the temple in the distance.
...
Okay, so this is the penultimate chapter, and I thought that was a good way to end it; does Wonder Woman really have something to bring Batman back from the dead or are we just going to have to have a teenage Batman in the form of Dick Grayson, or someone else entirely? R&R, please, no flames . B.