Two months had passed since the last chapter, the narrator related. Diana had spent many days training, and raised her weights to five kilotons apiece. Darkseid had joined her for a week and otherwise indulged in their spoils. Apokolips was now meeting a new day.
Silence reigned in their bedroom. Darkseid was sitting up, his gaze pensive and set upon the sleeping goddess.
"In hindsight, I was shortsighted. I acknowledged only the Kryptonian as an opponent when Diana was in truth Earth's greatest warrior. She alone is worthy to rule with me, in all the universe."
Diana awoke eventually, slow to open her eyes. She smiled up at him before her eyelids dropped.
A moment flew by before she opened her eyes and sat up. "Have you any ideas for today?"
"A few come to mind," he answered. "We can go on a trip. Perhaps to the Vega system."
Diana listened, indifferently. "The empire seems stable, so I think I can take a week off. It has been ages."
Darkseid returned a stony look. "Feeling bored again, are we?"
She gave a simple answer. "A little. Boredom is a small price to pay, though." She got an idea. "Maybe that lagoon on Oridia?" Darkseid looked pensive. "I am not hearing a no."
"And you will not. I would enjoy visiting Oridia again. Perhaps we can sojourn in the Vega system first?"
Diana answered promptly. "Gladly."
Silence returned, and he soon continued to study his wife. The god's gaze rested on her chest and Amazonian arms for a moment, before he looked up at her warm blue eyes and ebony hair.
"Diana, your beauty alone is beyond even the finest poets," he praised her. "Your other glorious qualities surpass it still."
"Thank you," she replied with amusement laced in her voice. "Such warm words from the lord of Apokolips. What might the universe say?"
Darkseid gave her a smirk.
Diana's smile grew. "Care to play?" Her hand reached below the bed sheets. Darkseid's face remained unflappable despite her grip.
"How would you like me to pleasure you first, husband?" she asked playfully. "My mouth? My chest? Or perhaps we can skip to the main course?"
Darkseid silently shifted position to kiss his goddess, slow to break away.
A few hours had passed. Diana was currently flying leisurely across Apokolips and gazing down at the city of Armagetto. She saw many buildings and her subjects out and about, but nothing caught her interest.
She soon saw a plaza where two statues occupied the center, herself and Darkseid back to back. Some of their subjects seemed to be praying to them.
Diana saw only more of the same while flying onwards - houses, streets, firepits, food stores. Eventually, she saw their palace on the horizon once again.
"Another peaceful day, it seems," she thought, pleased, while she descended towards the second floor terrace.
She looked up towards the red skies, and the invisible stars beyond, deciding quickly to let her mind unwind.
"How can I grow beyond this point?" she pondered eventually. "come to think of it, do I even need to, as the strongest in the universe?"
She dismissed the thought and took a few steps left, absently inspecting the greenery while she strolled.
Eventually, Darkseid stepped into her sight. Welcome silence passed between them for a few minutes.
"How goes your search for amusement?" he asked idly.
She considered it, "I suppose it simply continues for now," and slipped back into silence.
Darkseid eventually spoke. "And how long do you expect this mood to list? Another year like last time?"
Diana gave a small smile. "History really does repeat often, doesn't it?" While she spoke, she recalled the theory of cyclical time, developed in countless cultures.
Four days later, Diana had been alerted to a rebel movement on Thanagar against their local regent. Naturally, she'd gone to pacify it.
"I am Diana, Queen of Apokolips. I won't be denied," she said forcefully.
Her hand tightened around the Thanagarian's throat. The other woman groaned, desperately clawing at Diana's steely grip.
"When I command peace, it will be so. Is that understood?" Diana told her, to which the woman coughed out a 'yes'.
She released her, getting a vengeful glare. "I will return in the near future, and I hope to see this settled."
The woman stood up and silently turned away from Diana, walking quietly toward the city guards. A trio of them escorted her away.
Diana turned to the local regent. "Is there anything you need to help you keep everything quiet?"
"No, no," he assured her with a warm smile. "I trust the men and women in my service to keep the peace, Queen Diana."
Diana smiled back. "Glad to hear it. Just in case, though, I'll like to pay weekly visits in the immediate future."
"You'd be welcome," the regent said. "Perhaps I might treat you and King Darkseid to the local foods."
"I'll like that," Diana said, and silence ensued.
A moment later, she took her Mother Box out of its belt box. She asked it to take her to Desaad's laboratory, and was soon there.
She saw Desaad look up from some blueprints, and give her an exaggerated smile. "Welcome to my humble station, Mistress. How can I serve you?"
"Tell me more of your multiversal studies," Diana instructed.
"I'm afraid we've learned only more of the same since you last asked," Desaad answered. "We have identified two-hundred parallel timelines and recorded their differences from ours. Some seem to have branched from other timelines."
"Show me," Diana told him.
Desaad promptly started to find files for her on the hall's main computer. To her mild dismay, they were basic text files with no images or visual effects.
"What I've labeled Universe 14 is a world where you stayed on Earth," Desaad exposited. "That incarnation of you has spent two centuries with the Justice League group."
Diana looked pensive. "I see. And how many other worlds sees me stay a hero of Earth?"
"Many of them," Desaad answered. "To skip over those, Universe 58 is a world where you became a vampire, of all things."
Diana smiled at that idea. "Quite the turn, although I'm not one to speak. Which is next?"
"Universe 82 seems to have branched from our world," he exposited. "You are the Queen of Apokolips, and Princess Gaia rules the Earth."
"Unsurprising," Diana commented. "If anything, I would expect more of such worlds in the multiverse." A thought soon hit her. "In this world, Darkseid changed me. Is there one where I changed him?"
"Yes, at least two," Desaad said, and switched to another text file. "In Universe 121, you are also his queen and helped him grow into a less authoritarian and more generous god."
Diana looked pensive about that idea. "A world where Darkseid is a so-called 'noble' man... I see. What about the other?"
"In Universe 146, those versions of you two fell in love," Desaad recounted while finding the text file. "However, his devotion to his goals led to her demise and the ruin of Apokolips. Today, he now walks a lifeless planet."
Diana listened curiously. "I see." Her voice was laced with dismay. A brief silence followed. "Is there anything else?"
"No, Mistress," he replied. "Only dull trivia about your Earthling activities, which I doubt would interest you."
"You presume right," she agreed, and turned to leave.
Silence reigned while she walked outside. She took flight, and soon took a look out at her world, a smile forming.
