CXIV
The Barbara Gordon Gambit, Part Two
With Barbara's willing help, Raven had managed to ease the Kryptonian's pain, at least as much as she would be able to. The incredible amount of injury Clark had sustained should have vaporized his molecular structure, scattering his atoms throughout the atmosphere around them.
But Clark was unbelievably resilient... even now, he was slowly healing with the dawn's light… although Raven knew it would still be considerable time before he would be whole again, time they may not have…
Her worries suddenly disappeared as familiar emotions filled her external senses once again, making Raven suddenly look up from her patient - as she saw the figure of the one she had been praying for materialize in front of her, driving her heart into wild palpitations…
Bruce!
Never would she have dared to believe that she could ever feel this way about someone. For the first twenty-one years of her life, she had been taught to conceal and control her emotions - to deny feelings like these. The scholars had taught her that her lust, her hate, her anger, her passions - all were the tools that her father used to control her. Such impulses were to be consistently denied if the light of her soul were to shine and Azarath was to survive.
After years of study, she had learned to control her feelings, her desires, her urges, but never to exorcise them entirely. To the elders of Azarath, she had failed, her soul had remained tainted. She was the half-demon who could never free herself of the base instincts that all others had so easily divested from their psyche.
For Raven, this kind of love was shown as a temptation, a slope to corruption, into a doorway that hid the dark powers that she struggled to contain.
And then, on the dawn of her twenty-first birthday, it was a battle the elders had conceded that she would lose…
And she had been banished.
Sent to the land of her mother… How strange it had been that Bruce had been waiting for her…
On that cold night more than one year past, she had appeared in black smoke onto the barren streets of Gotham. She knew nothing of this new world, only that her mother had been born in this city, a thing Arella would not discuss.
But how tall these massive structures were! And how strange the glow of a million little lights shining against the stars in the sky. Different smells bombarded her, the cold humidity in the night air. And in the distance like a swarm of ants, she began to sense strange emotions from more souls than she ever believed possible!
But one man's emotions were more powerful than any others…
In the wonder of this new world, she saw him, felt him - felt his conflicted emotions as though his tortured soul mirrored her own. From across the courtyard, a war of beliefs raged within him, uncertainty, despair, regret, anger - all reflecting upon his troubled face.
He was larger than the men of her world… muscular, strong, powerful… his dark features were pleasing to behold. He projected an intensity she had never felt in her young life that caused a sudden chemical reaction with her body… bold new feelings exploded within her as she drew a sudden breath to her quickening heart.
He gazed up at her then, carefully approached… his own emotions reaching out to her, questioning, yearning – so similar to the ones inside her that coursed with her own nervous energy. In the language of her mother, this man spoke to her…
"Are you the angel sent to guide me?"
"… I am Raven." She had considered herself the opposite of an angel.
"… Have you been here long, Raven?"
"For a moment only… What is your name?"
"I'm sorry. It's Bruce. Bruce Wayne... I didn't mean to startle you. Where did you just come from, Raven?"
"A gentle place beyond the realms of this land. It was my home, but I am no longer… welcome there."
She hadn't meant to weep, to be weak in this world, but the pain of being cast out from the land of her birth so unexpectedly, the only home she had ever known, overwhelmed her.
"If you would like, you can stay with me, Raven. For as long as you need. My house is rather… large."
"I.. cannot. I carry the taint of darkness in my soul, Bruce Wayne. I am a half-demon, a terrible danger to those who would shelter me."
"Then you are my fallen angel, Raven. I had prayed for a miracle… a sign to show me the path I must take… I too carry a darkness within me. Perhaps Fate has put us together to guide one another… "
"Yes, I believe it has. I would like to… stay with you, Bruce Wayne."
And that was how they had met. Two lost souls on a cold night in Gotham coupled by Fate. But she had always doubted her worthiness to be loved. He had taken her in, sheltered her, provided all that he had, and he had been the first man to ever call her beautiful…
Even after their marriage, she had provided herself countless, ridiculous reasons why this man could never truly love her. For surely she was unworthy of such love. Perhaps it was only compassion he felt, perhaps he held a misplaced belief she was an angel sent to save his soul, that he loved the idea but not the woman, or perhaps he had been the puppet of her father sent to break her heart, an elaborate trap…
Those insecurities were now crushed by an ocean of love, destroyed forver.
That he appeared before her now answered all questions, all doubts…
She had willingly placed her eternal soul into her husband's hands to purchase whatever life he desired. And now, he had given it back to her to buy the one thing he had already possessed.
Raven.
Her omnipotent father had offered Bruce Wayne anything his heart could ever wish. And he had returned to her! Her beautiful husband had withstood the schemes and temptations of her father, declined the pleasures of a thousand worlds… and returned to her!
She almost knocked him over.
Bruce held his wife as she hit him with a flying embrace, showering him with a thousand kisses, weeping tears of joy onto his shoulder and placing her hands all over his body - all in the span of four seconds.
"I missed you too."
"I love you, I love you, I love you… I am yours until the end of time, my love."
"And I am yours even longer, Raven… The only world I ever wanted is the one I have with you." She kissed him so that he would never forget that.
"…I've found his weakness."
"Who, my love?"
"Your father… He's the God of Revenge. He can't harm you unless you attempt to harm him first."
It was Barbara who broke in…
"But what about what he was able to do to me, Bruce... I never touched him."
"You did, Barbara. Trigon had possessed Talia in the server room. When you pushed her finger from your mouth, it opened the possibility of retribution. I'm not sure about the exact rules, but basically he can't attack unless attacked."
"Damn… That sort of makes sense... But why was he able to destroy entire nations when only a few people actually carried out the assault?"
"Because those people were acting on behalf of their nation."
"… Then Clark?!"
"Acted on his own accord. No one ever told him to attack Trigon. You can't beat this guy by conventional means. He's more of a concept…"
"I AM BEYOND ANY CONCEPT YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE, MORTAL!"
Trigon the Terrible had returned to Earth.
His harsh words echoed all around them as the three looked up at his full, gigantic height - towering far above them once again. The demon continued…
"Shall I show you the ease at which I will destroy the Guardians of your Galaxy now? How one weak champion shall doom the entire Green Lantern Corps? Despair as I douse the flames of emerald hope, children. But watch closely my daughter, it is a brighter shade of your destiny…"
They watched as a figure - enclosed in a green glow - flew in front of Trigon's four eyes. From what Bruce could see, this 'Green Lantern' was an alien, very similar to a human in shape, but red and hairless. The words the Green Lantern spoke with Trigon were in a language Bruce did not understand, but he had to get the message across. Frantically, he began waving his arms at the doomed hero…
"Do Not Attack Him!"
Raven and Barbara joined in - until they were suddenly encased once more in a crimson orb - through which no sound could penetrate.
"Raven, can you teleport to him? He has to be warned!"
The familiar black smoke appeared, making Bruce and Barbara cough within the confines of the sphere. But Raven still remained…
"You can't teleport out of here?!"
"I did, my love. He put me back inside. He can teleport me at will."
They watched the struggle between the Green Lantern and Trigon in silent horror as the alien seemed forced to take his own life, struggling with all his might against Trigon's will into a foregone conclusion of tragedy.
Without a sound, they watched the red-skinned Green Lantern fall from the sky, landing with a terrible imagined thud only five feet from them. The crimson sphere then disappeared, leaving the three horrified observers in stunned silence.
"Behold my daughter, the futility of resistance. It is by my will alone that this cursed Universe shall end. Embrace that lesson well. And as for you Bruce Wayne… shall I show you the futility of your resistance? The flaws of your clever revelations?"
"Trigon… why?! Why would you destroy the Universe?!"
"Because I have seen the future, mortal. Let me show you how it ends…"
Trigon reached down to pick up the horribly beaten body of Clark into his enormous hand - causing the muscles surrounding Bruce's midsection to suddenly clench, forcing all air from his lungs in a nascent terror. Oh dear God, no… He wouldn't, he couldn't!
Scooping up the Kryptonian as though he were a child's toy, Trigon raised Clark one hundred and twenty feet into the air, continuing the lecture of iniquity…
"This… was the greatest hope of your world. This man from another world that may have been your greatest champion. You must learn that the lie of HOPE is a terrible thing Bruce Wayne… a poison spread by dreams, fraying the threads of predestined Fate. It is not for mortals to hope for a better future… Simply, we must deal with what is… and what isn't…"
Bruce felt the bile rise in his throat as the demon squeezed… bearing the full might of a God against the defenceless Kryptonian. He saw Clark's blood begin to trickle, then spill from the base of the monstrous, crimson fist high above him down to the ground below as it pooled on an invisible floor.
From the corner of his eye, he had witnessed Barbara fall to the ground. Raven was screaming for her father to stop. It was the sickening crack that sounded from the inside of Trigon's fist followed by the gleeful smile on Trigon's lips that made Bruce do it. Without a second thought, the acting President willingly gave up the one single advantage he had over Trigon…
He had not attacked the God of Revenge.
Until now.
Six hundred miles above the Earth, the weapon that had been the crowning glory of Fritz Hollmann's brilliant career, the LexCorp Tachyon Cannon Number One received the signal only a quarter-of-a-second after Bruce had depressed the button on his cufflink. Bruce sincerely hoped Fritz was watching to see his creation fire.
Particles accelerated faster than light erupted from the massive cannon in space, following the path the doomed Kryptonian had flown around the sun, but much faster than ever Clark could fly, outpacing even the laws of quantum mechanics. The space-time continuum fractured beneath a speed no other mortal had ever harnessed, smashing energy forwards through space yet backwards through time…
And then, it was 3.7 seconds ago...
"…Simply, we must deal with what is… and what isn't…"
A blinding light struck Trigon's eyes, immersing the scenery in pure white light. Reality shifted as close to four seconds of time was rewritten, the thread of Fate unraveled to be weaved again. The sound of the beam through the atmosphere and the painful roar Trigon bellowed shook the very land of this alternate reality Bruce had created. He had wounded his father-in-law severely.
The demon had seen Clark's attack coming. His damned all-seeing eyes had watched the Kryptonian fly across the solar system and the monster had patiently waited. But even Trigon couldn't see an impromptu attack that occurred 3.7 seconds into the past.
Bruce desperately gazed to see if Clark were still alive… in his anguish, the demon had dropped the battered champion, letting him tumble to the invisible floor. He hoped that a fall like that shouldn't hurt Clark and he should still be alive. But Clark's welfare would have to wait…
Slowly… his eyes turned to Trigon to witness the devastation that the Tachyon Cannon had wrought upon the most evil father-in-law.
There was a blackened hole where the demon's upper left eye had been. Red Omega energy now spilled freely from the dark socket, crackling into the air. With the cannon strike, pain, anger and wrath had originally buffeted Bruce like a tidal wave of projected emotion from Trigon, but now… only the tension of a death sentence hung in the still air. The God of Revenge glared at Bruce with hatred in its three remaining yellow eyes…
"You shall suffer like no other mortal has ever suffered before... the eternal plaything of the five dread Lords of Ysmault, a gift of flesh and soul to my benefactors. You will be broken in ways that madness will come only as a welcome reprieve. And for all of this, for the Eternity of grief you will suffer, I will allow you to gaze upon the precious thing you have achieved… you have allowed me to kill the last son of Krypton twice…"
As Trigon grinned and reached down once more to retrieve the adopted Champion of Earth into his deadly clutches, Bruce knew his gamble had failed. His last desperate attempt at redemption had not been enough… the single, greatest weapon humanity had ever constructed,could not stop the terror of Trigon…
But in his final moment of deepest despair, Bruce Wayne bore witness to a miracle. Thousands of green lightning bolts twisted and crackled around one another in a chaotic conduit of arcane power from behind him. Emerald energy exploded like a cataclysm into the heart of the demon. Power continued to pour into and electrified Trigon, changing his skin from crimson to viridian, bones shadowed against glowing flesh, green energy sparking from all points, disintegrating the demon into millions of tiny sparks… until he was gone...
Was Trigon truly dead?...
Had they really won?...
Had the first alien only been the first to arrive of the entire Green Lantern Corps? Had a thousand more Green Lanterns only now just arrived from distant galaxies to stop the greatest threat the Universe had ever known? If Bruce were to turn around, would he see alien races from other planets he had never dreamed of, standing triumphantly in victory, their power rings blazing in glory?
For all the shocks and surprises that had assailed him over the past week, the one that appeared behind him now was the greatest of them all…
Her scarlet hair charged with emerald power – her entire, tightly uniformed body bathed in the pure light of an iron will, standing tall and defiant… was Barbara Gordon.
Her pale blue eyes blazed with cold fire, unflinching, fixed where Trigon had stood. The origin of the emerald wrath of destruction was attached to her right hand - still pointed at where the demon had been - the Power Ring of a Green Lantern.
"You will NOT harm him!"
Author's Note: Oh, it's on…