THE WATCHTOWER
June 21, 08:16 EDT
"RELEASE ME, MORTALS!"
Desaad clawed at the emerald forcefield of the Oan Sciencell like a rabid weasel. The cell was a holdover from the Watchtower's previous existence as a Green Lantern outpost, capable of holding even a New God, no matter how irate.
"When Dread Darkseid learns of this affront, your world will suffer beyond all imagination! Your skies will burn, your sun will blacken, and your seas will turn red with the blood of-"
"Computer: mute," Black Lightning spoke, leaving Desaad silently raving to himself. The Justice League Chairman's dark eyes were hard as flint. "Anyone want to explain what Darkseid's Chief Scientist and a shapeshifting alien mercenary are doing on my space station."
Double Trouble waved from the cell across.
"We thought the old Sciencells would be the best place to hold them," Tigress answered. "At least for now."
"Not remotely what I meant."
"Well then, you'll have to ask them." Tigress cast a stern eye on Halo, who was standing at a respectful distance.
"I'm sorry, this is all my fault," they said, stepping forward. "It's just… Catra was in so much pain and I thought…"
"You'd let her talk you into some hair-brained scheme to trade a holographic version of yourself to Intergang?!" Tigress scolded. "Without even telling us!?"
"What was your plan if Beast Boy hadn't tracked you down in time?" Lightning demanded. "Did you even have one?"
Halo winced wordlessly under Lightning's calm yet withering tones. Sometimes they forgot he used to be a schoolteacher.
"I'm disappointed, Violet. I thought better of you." Lightning's voice softened slightly. "I still do."
"We both do," Tigress added.
"We'll discuss disciplinary action later," Lightning said. "Right now, I need to speak with our other 'guests'."
[-]
Glimmer paced the length of the conference room, rapidly wearing the carpet down to bare threads.
"Glimmer, hun," Bow said gently. "Do you maybe want to sit down for a bit?"
"How can I sit down?! It's bad enough Adora's missing, but now Catra's only gone and thrown herself through a Boom-Tube to who knows where!" Glimmer collapsed into a chair, utterly exasperated. "That's so typical of her."
The door whooshed open to admit Black Lightning, Tigress and…
"Halo?!" Glimmer embraced the young hero, reading their face. "That bad, huh?"
Halo shrugged. "I've had worse."
Glimmer quickly recomposed herself, all business as she turned to Black Lightning. "What now?"
"Now, we interrogate the prisoners," Lightning answered. "Try to figure out where that Boom-Tube took your friend."
"And then?"
"Then we contact Oa to arrange some more long-term accommodation for Desaad," Tigress answered. "He's right about one thing, Darkseid's not going to stand for this."
"We'll cross that fire pit when we come to it," Lightning said.
"What about Double Trouble?" Bow asked.
"Oh, that part's simple," Lightning said, tone level. "You'll be taking them with you back to Etheria when you leave. I suggest you start packing."
"What?!" Glimmer blurted.
"You... You can't do that!?" Bow sputtered. "What about Catra and Adora?!"
"The League will do everything in our power to locate and bring back your missing friends safely," Lightning said. "But we'll be doing it without any further 'assistance'."
Glimmer's voice turned to ice. "As Queen of Bright Moon and Leader of the Princess Alliance of Etheria, I demand-"
"Respectfully, Your Majesty, you're in no position to demand anything. I'm willing to accept you had no foreknowledge of this little stunt, but clearly our two worlds have very different standards of trustworthiness." Lightning's eyes narrowed, his voice cool. "I gather Catra has something of a history of… lapses in judgement?"
Glimmer was stone-faced, saying nothing.
"I thought so," Lightning said. "Tigress, would you kindly escort our guests to the Zeta-Tube?"
"Don't bother," Glimmer huffed. "We know the way."
She stormed past Black Lightning with Bow in tow, projecting what she hoped was an air of regal defiance. Yet one damning thought wormed through her mind…
Adora would have handled that better.
[-]
TRIAX STAR SYSTEM
June 21, 12:32 UTC
Despara's eyes flickered open. She found herself adrift in a sea of stars dominated by three blazing suns; sapphire, jade, and amber jewels set in a tapestry of sparkling black velvet. She tried to turn in her seat, only for a nerve at the back of her neck the scream in protest. The cockpit of this old troop transport was hardly built for comfort. But then, few things on Apokolips were.
"Report?"
"We dropped out of sub-space about sixteen dendaro ago," Kara answered from the pilot's seat. "We should be in visual range any moment now."
"Good." Despara stamped the feeling back into her leg.
"So… pleasant dreams?"
"Hmm?"
"You were mumbling in your sleep. Like, a lot."
"I was?" Despara tried to think. She never remembered her dreams. She'd started suspecting she simply never had any. "I think I was in… a forest? There were all these weird trees and… this girl?"
The younger Fury's face lit up with adolescent interest. "A girl?"
Despara's eyes nearly rolled back in her head. "Mind out of the gutter, cadet."
She tried to recall her dream before the memory slipped completely into oblivion. She remembered an unkempt shaggy brown mane framing a sly cooked grin and eyes of sapphire blue… or where they yellow?
"Hey, isn't this your first time off Apokolips?" Kara probed, trying to sound casual. "How do you even know what a tree is?"
"Huh…? Must have read about them somewhere. Did you have trees on Krypton?"
Kara flinched, drawing into herself. "Yeah… yeah, we did?"
Despara winced. Dammit. Her only real friend on Apokolips and she'd probably just alienated her forever. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"
"No, it's fine. Krypton's just… hard to talk about sometimes."
"I understand."
Kara was quiet for a long moment. "Back on Krypton, I was a bit of a delinquent."
"I can't imagine," Despara deadpanned.
"I know, right?" Kara snorted. "Guess it was a teen rebellion thing; my dad was a big law and order type. He used to joke he'd send me to the Phantom Zone if I didn't shape up." The mirth drained from her voice. "And then one day… he stopped joking."
"Kara, I… I had no idea."
The Kryptonian shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. After forty years of Zone sickness, my brain's scrambled as all Hell."
Despara's curiosity piqued. It was rare enough for Kara to mention her homeworld, but she almost never spoke of her decades in the Kryptonian shadow dimension.
"You can't imagine what it's like in the Zone, Dez…" Kara's voice was faint, as though speaking from the bottom of some fathomless abyss. "It's just endless nothing that goes on forever. Nothing ever changes, nothing even really lives. It just... exists. There's no warmth, no planets, no…"
"No stars," Despara finished without thinking.
Kara stared at her. "How did you-"
The aft hatch hissed as Black Mary came storming into the cockpit, brusquely interposing herself between the other Furies. "How much longer?"
"Well, hello to you too, starshine," Kara grumbled.
Despara bit back the first response to leap to mind, double-checking Kara's telemetry, more to give her a moment to compose herself than anything. "We should already be within visual range."
"Where is it?" Mary demanded.
"It's right there!" Despara pointed, sounding more irritable than she'd intended.
Mary squinted. "That's a smudge."
"Fatherbox, full magnification on the 'smudge'," Despara commanded the living computer currently interfaced with ship's main console.
Ting!
A dull brown ball filled the viewscreen. Denebria was the only remaining habitable planet in the Triax Star System, though calling Denebria 'habitable' was overly generous. A millennium ago, Denebria's sister planet of Primus had been the capital of an empire that stretched across most of this sector of the galaxy. Naturally, Denebria had been its first conquest.
Over the centuries, Primus had ruthlessly exploited Denebria's natural resources and indigenous population until the planet was reduced to an over-industrialized wasteland; its people mutated beyond recognition by generations of rad-exposure and chemical saturation.
Like all mortal empires, the Primans' hubris inevitably outpaced their might; they dared to challenge the Gods themselves. Little over one thousand years ago, Lord Grayven Himself lead a great armada to humble the upstarts. The fleet cut a swathed of destruction across the petty empire's outlying colonies before arriving in orbit over Primus itself.
For sixteen days and sixteen nights the Gods of Apokolips poured out their wrath upon Primus, scouring it of all life until nought was left of the once proud civilization but charred ruins. Only a handful of survivors had managed to flee into the wilds of deep space. In the aftermath, the newly 'liberated' Denebria had been left to fend for itself, becoming a haven for outlaws and pirates from across the known galaxy.
Denebria itself wasn't the Furies' destination. Their real objective was the sickly world's singular satellite, an irregular calcified mass of grey-purple bone. Entire fleets of lean predatory raiders and heavily armed merchant ships darted in and out of twin crater-like abbesses that stared emptily into infinity.
"Holy moly," Mary swore softly. "What kind of moon is that?"
"That's no moon," Kara answered.
"Then what the heck is it, Obi-Wan?"
"It's a skull," Despara's voice almost died in her throat. "The skull of an Old God."
[-]
NORDOR
June 21, 13:48 UTC
None remembered the true name of the Promethean Giant whose hollowed skull now formed Denebria's lone satellite. The Old God had perished long before life had crawled out of the planet's seas, back when it still had seas. Across Denebria's millennia long history, it had been ascribed a thousand names in a thousand creation myths. It was the skull of the Giant King who dared to steal the gift of thought from the Gods and been beheaded for his hubris. It was the last remains of the Creator who had carved up Her own divine flesh to construct the cosmos.
Nowadays, most simply called it Nordor.
The three Furies disembarked from the main thoroughfare that led from the docks lining Nordor's left eye-socket. Despara was momentarily disoriented by the mass of multi-colored constellations far above. For one mad moment she thought they had mistakenly stepped out into hard vacuum, only to realize that the lights above were from the far side of the vast city lining the interior of the not-so-immortal's brain cavity. The bustling street stretched out before her, arcing upward to join the 'sky', where dozens of needle-like towers 'rose' to converge on a central point.
"Whoa! Easy, Dez!" Kara caught her before she completely tumbled over. "First time in an orbital habitat, huh?"
Despara tried to shake off the vertigo. "That obvious?"
"Horizons, ya never appreciate them 'til they're gone," Kara chuckled, steadying Despara. "Just don't look up and you'll be fine."
"Down isn't much of an improvement," Mary grumbled, side-stepping something suspiciously like a body lying in the middle of the thronging street. "This place makes Rimbor look upmarket. Where are we supposed to meet this 'contact' anyway?"
Ting!
"Fatherbox says it's about half a klick this way," Despara tilted her head. "In the Ethmoid District."
"Let's get on with it then," Mary said, about to wade into the teaming crowd.
"Hold up." Despara restrained the Earth Fury. "We need to stay close!"
Mary brushed her off. "I don't need my hand held!"
Despara watched her bluster off. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with her?"
"You want my advice, Dez? Let her go," Kara said. "She's not worth the headache."
Despara grimaced at Kara's uncharacteristic callousness. The thought of just writing-off someone under her command didn't sit well as the trio made their way through the intracranial metropolis.
They passed an opulent establishment where ethereal jellyfish-like beings danced hypnotically behind tinted glass, shifting rainbow tendrils forming patterns like alien sunsets. Kara stood transfixed by the unearthly display until Mary whispered something in the younger Fury's ear, pointing out the small line of furtive patrons filing into the establishment while trying not to draw too much attention to themselves. A red-faced Kara quickly moved on as Mary failed to supress a wicked snicker.
"Hey, kids," hissed a blue-skinned woman with a crimson Mohawk, accosting the trio with a vial of yellowish liquid. "Wanna buy some spinal fluid?"
"What?! No!" Despara blurted in confusion. "What would we even do with that?"
"That's your business, hun." The blue woman winked. "Crita don't judge."
Despara shook her head. "We're looking for Madame Brakk's. You know it?"
"Hmmm… Brakk… Brakk…?" Crita mused thoughtfully, tapping her chin with the vial. "You know, it sounds vaguely familiar but..."
Despara sighed before tossing the dealer a coin in the local currency.
Crita snatched the spinning disc in mid-air, palming it like a street magician. "Take the next left, third door on the right, big gold and purple sign. Oh, and tell the old lizard she still owes me fifty stem."
[-]
The three Furies stalked cautiously into the smoky curio shop, perusing the dimly lit shelves. Despara tensed, ready to summon her energy blade at a moment's notice.
"Hello?"
No sooner had the word passed her lips than two shadowy figures dropped from the rafters above, cutting off the trio's retreat. The first was a gaunt six-limbed insectoid with elephantine ears and giant yellow saucer eyes perched atop undulating stalks like streetlamps. He was backed up by a bald Thanagarian woman wielding an Nth metal whip.
Despara puffed out her chest, trying to look more intimidating than she felt. "We're here to see Madame Brakk!"
"M-m-madame Brakk doesn't accept walk-ins! M-m-make an appointment, then com-m-me back," the insectoid slurred in a high-pitched whine, chittering mandibles crudely emulating humanoid speech. "Or m-m-maybe you don't com-m-me back at all!"
The insectoid and the Thanagarian closed in on the Furies, pincers grinding like sharpening knives, whip coiled to strike. The trio immediately formed a defensive ring, back-to-back, as Despara summoned twin energy scimitars.
"Mantanna! Vultak!"
The insectoid and the Thanagarian froze, immediately backing off to make way for a voluptuous, purple-scaled lizard-toad in a faintly lascivious golden gown, fanning herself languidly.
"We don't want to make our guests feel unwelcome."
"Yeah, great customer service," Mary snorted.
"You simply must forgive poor sweet Mantenna," the lizard-woman cooed, scratching the insectoid beneath his contentedly chittering mandibles. "He's devoted but none too bright."
Mantenna's eyestalks drooped a tad. "M-m-m…"
"Madame Brakk, I presume?" Despara asked.
"Guilty as charged," the lizard-woman drawled with an air that suggested she'd never felt a twinge of guilt in her life. "And what brings three strapping young soldier girls such as yourselves to my humble establishment? Old Desaad already broke the last plaything we sold him?"
Despara stiffened, not liking to dwell on the God of Torment. "We were sent by Lord Grayven."
"Oooh," Madame Brakk trilled as she leaned closer, filling Despara's nostrils with cloying perfume. "Then you must be here for… the artefact?"
"Figures," Kara whispered. "Everything here looks like it belongs in a museum."
"Don't be vulgar, child," Brakk chided. Her lidless eyes paused for a sec over the scarlet crest adorning Kara's uniform. "The shop is just for the tourists. I keep the real goodies downstairs."
[-]
The rickety lift's doors rattled open to reveal a cavernous vault hollowed out of petrified bone. Madame Brakk took point, leading her three young 'customers' through of winding maze of dusty crates. Mantenna and Vultak brought up the rear, alien eyes boring into the Furies' backs.
"What are we buying, the Ark of the Covenant?" Mary muttered.
Kara stared blankly. "Arc of the whatnow?"
"Nevermind."
Brakk paused in front of a large metallic cylinder, emblazoned with the symbol of a stylized elongated skull. She threw a wink over her shoulder. "No peeking." She entered a short pin into her pad, causing the cylinder to unfold like a steel flower.
Despara's breath caught in her throat, nameless emotions stirred by the sight of the object within the cylinder. "It's a sword?"
More than that, it was the most beautiful sword Despara had ever seen. Its golden crossguard was cast in the image of twin ram-horns, runes on its broad crystalline blade shimmering with every color of the rainbow. The mere sight struck her as both oddly alien yet achingly familiar.
"A beaut, isn't she?" Brakk cooed. "I 'acquired' her from a New Genesisian explorer who claimed she'd once been used to slay the wickedest of the Old Gods."
"Wait," Kara interjected. "You're telling me that little thing killed something the size of…" She gestured wildly, taking in the entire bone cave.
"It's not the size, sweetling," Brakk leered salaciously. "It's how you use it."
Despara unhooked Fatherbox from her belt, scanning the celestial blade.
Ting!
"Fatherbox confirms it's a genuine Old God artefact," Despara spoke.
"I'm wounded that you ever doubted me," Brakk pouted, clutching her heart. "Now… regarding your end of the bargain?"
Despara gave Kara the nod. The Kryptonian produced a small black case, barely bigger than her palm. She opened it to reveal a bevy of blue-white crystals.
"Pure uncut Radion!" Brakk practically salivated, picking out a single crystal. "You don't mind if we authenticate this, naturally?"
Despara's nose crinkled. The crystals had been supplied by Lord Grayven Himself. To her mind, the word of a Son of Darkseid should be authentication enough for any mortal.
"Naturally."
"Mantenna, dear, would you be so kind?" Brakk handed off the crystal.
The insectoid placed the crystal gently on a small table, his slit-like pupils dilating until his eyes became solid black orbs. Mantenna stared intently at the tiny blue-white shard, almost entranced as he delved into its microscopic structure until…
"FAKE!" Mantenna shrieked, pupils narrowing back into stiletto slits. "The m-m-merchandise is fake!"
"Vicious little harpies!" Brakk rounded on the Furies, lips peeled back to bare rows of needle-like teeth. "You think you can take advantage of a poor old woman!?"
"What?! No!" Despara flustered. "There must be some mistake! Lord Grayven said-"
"Oh, there's been a mistake alright, the last mistake of your miserable little lives!" Brakk hissed. "Mantanna, Vultak!"
Mantenna leaped atop the table as Vultak took to the air, both unslinging weapons like high-tech crossbows before raking the cavern with blazing energy-bolts. Despara had only a moment to summon her energy shield, deflecting the oncoming bolts from her fellow Furies.
"Fall back!"
"Sorry, Dez! You know I don't do 'fall back'!" Kara smirked, taking flight.
"Kara, wait!"
The Kryptonian zipped past Brakk's minions like a gust of wind, making straight for the lizard-toad herself. Kara slammed Brakk into a bone wall, pinning her like a butterfly. "Call off your goons or I-"
Kara was cut-off by Brakk blowing a cloud of glittering green dust in her face. The girl from Krypton staggered back, choking, and retching uncontrollably as her vision began to blur.
"What… what did you…?" Kara collapsed to the floor, convulsing violently.
"You think I didn't recognize that crest, girlie?" Brakk snarled, delivering one vicious kick after another to the prone Fury's side. "You think you're the first Kryptonian lout to roll in here and try to bully poor defenceless Brakk!?"
"KARA!?"
Despara's blood flash boiled as she unleashed a wave of scarlet energy, momentarily knocking Brakk and her goons back while shorting out their weapons. Despara's crimson shield morphed into a jagged sword as she raised it above her head, summoning the five words that would transform her into a true Fury of Apokolips…
"BY THE POWER OF DARKSEID!"
Her form was suddenly engulfed in a pillar of flame, as though drawn from the Fire Pits themselves. From the blazing maelstrom a giant stepped forward, eight-foot tall and armored in ebon and crimson, her helm a bone white death's head.
Mantenna lunged at the skull-helmed Fury, only to be swatted aside by a crimson energy mace. The hapless insectoid went flailing into a stack of crates as they came crashing down atop him. Despara did not stop to check if he was still intact.
Vultak tried to make a break for it. But Despara's mace morphed into a spiked chain that wrapped around the Thanagarian's ankles, slamming her back into the ground. Despara felt a pang of guilt as she brought an armored boot down on Vultak's wing, hollow bones cracking beneath her heel like glass, but it passed soon enough.
Despara scanned the room, Brakk had already taken advantage of the chaos to scamper off into some hole. But that didn't matter. Despara knelt by the fallen Kara, removing her grimly impassive skull-helm to reveal a face knotted with panic.
"Kara!? Kara, can you hear me?!"
The Kryptonian lay deathly still, flesh gangrenous green.
"She… she's not breathing! Mary, help me!?"
Mary grabbed the cylinder containing the crystal sword. "We got what we came for, leave her!"
"That's not an option!"
"She just inhaled a face full of Green K! She's already dead! Let her go!"
"I am not giving up on her."
Despara's voice was calm. She had to be calm. If she panicked now, Kara really was dead. She cleared her mind, letting the fear pass over her like water over a stone. Golden light suffused her, surging through her from somewhere deep within. She looked down to see the golden aura dancing about her fingers. She instinctively placed her hands on Kara's still form, the golden light flowing from her into the younger Fury.
Kara bolted upright, gasping for air like a drowning girl, her flesh pale but no longer gangreen.
"Holy molee," Mary whispered.
"Kara!?" Despara trilled, hugging her squad mate. "Are you okay?
"Dez… I… I think I was dead?" Kara slow-blinked. "How did you…?"
"I-I don't know." Despara stared down at her own hands. "I just saw you lying there and I-"
"Huzah, it's a miracle!" Mary snapped. "Can we go now?!"
The Furies burst from the doors of the curio shop, out into the grimy streets of Nordor. They were instantly surrounded by a mob of heavily armed pirates, rogues, and cutthroats. Each of the mob had their weapons trained directly on the trio.
"Form up!" Despara ordered, raising her sword as Kara and Mary flanked her.
Mary held the cylinder close to her chest. "Where did these creeps all come from?"
"Well, I always was a popular broad," Madame Brakk fanned herself as she elbowed her way through the mob. "Now, are you sweetlings going the hand over what's mine, or do I have my friends here gut you all like little fishies?"
"Dez, I think we're waaay past 'inconspicuous'," Kara whispered.
"Agreed." Despara reached for her belt. "Fatherbox!"
[-]
APOKOLIPS
June 21, 16:52 UTC
BOOOOOM!
Despara, Kara and Mary came tumbling out of the thundering vortex and onto the landing platform, followed by an onslaught of blaster fire.
"Fatherbox, now!" Despara roared, before the Boom-Tube blinked out of existence. She collapsed on the pad alongside her squad mates, her armored god-form dissipating. She panted heavily as a shadow fell over her.
"Back early?" Granny Goodness cooed.
"Granny!" Despara bolted to her feet with a stiff salute. "Mission accomplished… more or less."
Goodness cast an appraising glance on the cylinder still held tight in Mary's grip. "Then this…?"
Mary stepped forward, ready to offer up her prize before…
"I will be taking that," Colonel Vundabar snapped, snatching the cylinder right out of Mary's hands. He opened the cylinder just a crack, peering greedily at the crystal blade. "It's even more beautiful than I had imagined!"
"You're welcome," Mary muttered.
Vundabar snapped the cylinder shut. "Well done, mein fräuleins, you have done Great Darkseid proud this day."
"Darkseid is," Despara intoned solemnly.
"Indeed. On that note, Frau Despara, Herr Grayven requests your presence in his private audience chamber…" Vundabar cast a disdainful glance over the dishevelled Fury. "Once you've cleaned up, of course."
Despara's voice caught in her throat, trembling at the prospect of standing in the presence of the Son of Draksied. "Lord Grayven asked to see me?"
"By name," Vundabar answered, peering over his monocle.
"At once, sir!" Despara turned back to Goodness. "With your permission of course, Granny?"
"By all means, dearie." Granny gave Despara's shoulder a squeeze. "You deserve this."
"Thank you, Granny!" Despara saluted again before marching off past the landing pad's com-tower, totally oblivious to the shadowed figure watching her from a hidden perch.
[-]
The towering doors drew back soundlessly, allowing Despara egress into the cool sepulchral chamber beyond. She strode across the wide walkway that spanned a yawning abyss; the chamber's upper reaches likewise lost in the darkness above. Pale grey buttresses stretched between the voids above and below.
Upon a raised dais at the central axis, loomed a lone throne, flanked by two white robed attendants. Upon it reclined a titan with skin of polished purple marble and a flowing silver mane, like a living idol enshrined within His temple.
"Welcome, Despara," He spoke, a cold smile playing about His thin lips.
Despara fell prostrate before her God. "Lord Grayven."
"Please, rise," Grayven intoned, His voice a low rasp. "I would look the warrior who has served Apokolips with such distinction in the eye."
Despara did as she was bidden. Even at her full height, she barely reached the reclining God's eyeline. "I've done only as commanded of me, my Lord."
"Humble as well," Grayven chuckled softly, rising from His throne to tower over her like a colossus. "I have such plans for you, Despara."
"For me, my Lord?"
"Oh yes, child," Grayven answered, reaching out to cup her chin with a single massive fingertip, tilting it upward. "I have been watching you for so very long, and you have pleased me. And you shall soon have further opportunities to please me."
Despara's entire frame went ridged, willing herself not to recoil from His cold touch. She knew well the penalties for spurning the advances of a God. "I-I serve Darkseid in all things."
"Of course." Grayven's eyes narrowed at His father's name as He withdrew His hand. "We will discuss your future at a later date, cadet. You are dismissed… for now."
[-]
Despara had managed to maintain her composure as she took her leave from Lord Grayven's audience chamber. It was only after she'd heard the vaulting doors close behind her and was well out of sight of the white robed attendants that she'd finally broken into a mad dash through the winding corridors of the Divine Palace, trembling all the while.
Now she walked through the filth-choked streets of Armagetto, slowly making her way back to her barracks. The occasional Hunger Dog cast her the odd leering glance. But the sight of her Fury uniform always sent them scurrying back into the flickering shadows cast by the fire pit's undying glow.
It was rare to see uniformed officers in these slums, save for the Protectors on their nightly rounds. Despara had already passed a squad of them on her way back from the Palace, administering a beating to a crumpled form that had barely whimpered in protest. The officer in charge had taken a moment to wipe his knuckles and offer Despara a wordless salute before returning to his work.
She'd fought down a mad impulse to intervene on the wretch's behalf, but Granny's lessons held her in check. All suffering was a test from Darkseid; those too degenerate to endure deserved no pity.
Normally she would have taken a flyer directly to her destination, but she needed time to think, away from the typical raucousness of the Fury barracks. Unfortunately, the ceaseless sound and heat of Armagetto was no better.
Apokolips was a world without silence or music, only ceaseless noise. Apokolips was the plaintive cries of starving children curled in the gutters. Apokolips was the wild preaching of the Justifiers from their barren chapels, an endless litany of hate and fear and futility that hammered down on her skull forever without end or escape.
Die for Darkseid and He will live for you!
Die for Darkseid!
Die…
Die…
DIE!
Despara darted down an inky black alley, sobbing softly in the relative peace of the cool blackness. Is this what she was fighting for, just to oil the cogs of this vast ever ravening machine with even more blood?
Her spiral into total despair was broken by a hand falling on her shoulder.
Instinct immediately took over as Despara flung her assailant over her shoulder, pinning them against the alley's far wall where a patch of flickering firelight illuminated their face.
"No…" Despara gasped, doubting her sanity. "You… You're not real!?"
But she was real. Standing before Despara, with the same unruly brown hair and strangely contrasting blue/yellow eyes, was the flesh and blood image of the girl from her dream.
The dream girl squirmed nervously under the weight of Despara's unblinking stare, flashing a nervous fanged grin. "H-hey, Adora?"