ISLA DIABLO
September 18, 19:52 UTC-10
BOOOOOM!
Klarion grinned, eyeing the Apokoliptan Boom-Tube with all the avarice of a child on Christmas morning. "Finally!"
Four figures came tumbling out of the hellish maw before it snapped closed behind them; a teen clad in a white bodysuit with blue gloves and boots, a dark-skinned archer, a pink-haired mage, and an eight-foot-tall golden space-Valkyrie wielding a sword of pure light in one hand while holding something bundled in a purple robe with the other.
Catra's heart caught in her throat. "Adora?"
Kara, Bow, Glimmer and She-Ra rolled to a halt at the foot of the Kobra throne.
"Oh, goodie," Klarion rubbed his hands greedily. "Presents."
[-]
BRIGHT MOON
September 18, 02:16 UCT
ONE DAY EARLIER
Far from Earth, in a distant sector of the galaxy, there existed a world where no sun touched, yet was still radiant with life and light. It was a world of magic and mystery, where ancient sorcery coexisted with alien science.
It was called Etheria.
For millennia, Etheria had been defended by She-Ra, Princess of Power. A champion chosen by the very animus of the planet itself to serve as the vessel of its wild magics. A champion whose present incarnation was currently peering at an uncooperative data-pad.
"Hello?" Adora asked, tapping the pad. "You sure this thing is on, Bow?"
Pale moonlight streamed through the balcony of Adora's room at Castle Bright Moon. The data-pad stood affixed to a tripod in front of her bed as she gave it another experimental tap.
"Yes, just please stop hitting it," whispered Bow. The master archer – and Bright Moon's resident tech-whizz – stood just 'off camera', fretting for the safety of his poor data-pad as a hand quietly alighted on his.
Bow glanced over at the smiling pink-haired face of Glimmer, Sorceress-Queen of Bright Moon, Leader of the Princess Alliance of Etheria, and the love of his life.
Catra's face suddenly lit up the screen "Hey, Adora!"
"Oh, hi Catra!" Adora's own face brightened, her warm smile spreading like a new dawn. "I was afraid I missed you!?"
"Not a chance," Catra chortled. "Are you alone or-"
That was their cue. Bow popped in from Adora's right. "Heeey, Catra!"
"Hi, Horde Scum!" Glimmer beamed, her pink-haired head poking in from left.
"Hey, Bow! Hey, Sparkles!" Catra greeted them with a snorty laugh. "You dorks keeping Adora out of trouble without me?"
"Ah you know how it is," Bow answered. "Still cleaning up the mess left over from that big Apokolips invasion. How about you? How's the whole Earth superhero thing going?"
"Ugh, not so super," Catra groaned. "It's all just busy work. 'Probie, file that report', 'Probie, go pick up an extra box of staples', 'Probie, change the filter in the coffee machine'. It's like I'm a cross between a guard and a janitor." Her eyes went wide in sudden horror. "Oh crap, I sound just like Kyle! Am I the Kyle now?!"
"Well, just keep at it," Bow said encouragingly. "I'm sure you'll make it work."
"And if not, you can just run away… like you do from everything," Glimmer muttered darkly.
Catra frowned from the small screen. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Why don't we leave Catra and Adora alone, Glimmer," Bow interjected awkwardly, taking his girlfriend aside. "I'm sure you two have a lot to catch up on?"
Bow waited until the doors of Adora's room were safely shut behind them before turning to Glimmer. "What was that about?"
"What was what about?" Glimmer asked.
"What you said to Catra back there?"
"Oh, that was just a little good-natured ribbing. That's just how me and Catra relate."
Bow looked concerned. "That was a little more than just ribbing, Glimmer. Is everything okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"Seriously, Beau, not everything has to be some big unresolved emotional crisis. I made one insensitive crack. Look, I'll apologize to Catra later, if she even remembers. Okay?"
"Okay."
Glimmer leaned up on tippy-toes to peck his cheek. "But thanks for keeping me honest, Beau."
Bow blushed. "So… you wanna… do anything right now?"
"Go wait in our room," Glimmer smirked knowingly. "I gotta go sign a last-minute proclamation before we head off tomorrow." She traced a finger suggestively down his armored breastplate. "After that, you're all mine."
"I… uh… okay." A grinning Bow staggered off, nearly knocking over a suit of armor.
Glimmer let out a tightly held sigh once Bow was out of earshot. She hated lying to him. There was no last-minute proclamation. She just wanted to be alone for a while and wander through the winding corridors of Castle Bright Moon. Up ahead, she noted an intricate mural depicting a majestically regal angelic figure.
And turned to avoid it.
[-]
"I'm doing good, really," Adora sighed wearily, sinking into her bed. "Bow and Glimmer have been super supportive, and the weekly sub-space sessions with Dr. Quinzel are really helping. I've actually been trying to convince Kara to give it a try but…"
Catra snorted at that.
Adora could hardly blame her. The bull-headed Kryptonian teen that Adora had unofficially 'adopted' was hardly big on sharing her feelings, except maybe with her fists.
"So, any plans for tomorrow?" Catra asked.
"Not much. We're heading off to Seaworthy to check out some weird monster sightings."
Catra frowned. "Monster sightings?"
"You know what sailors are like," Adora shrugged. "It's probably nothing."
[-]
SEAWORTHY
September 18, 12:21 UCT
"THIS IS NOT NOTHING!"
Adora – or rather, She-Ra – squealed as she was dangled upside down over Seaworthy by a gelatinous tendril. The titanic God-O-War had already subsumed the docks of the normally bustling port-town into its vast jellyish bulk. And it was slowly yet inexorably working its way inland. Screaming Sea Elf villagers scattered in all directions, forced to abandon their markets, their shops, their homes.
Atop the mutated jellyfish, stood six ichthyoids clad in Apokoliptan battle-plate. Their leader raised a gauntleted fist to the stormy sky.
"Flee, air-sucking filth! Flee before the might of the Deep Six! We claim this port in the name of Almighty Darkseid!"
"You mean Lord Grayven, Slig!" His Second-In-Command scolded.
"Oh, whatever, Pyra! Just go round up the flotsam before they escape!"
The rest of the 'Deep Six' leaped into the fray. Pyra cackled manically, plumes of flame firing from her trident as she herded the fleeing Sea Elves into dead ends and blind alleys. Another of the Six swooped down on membranous fin-like wings, snatching up stragglers in his briny claws.
The winged Apokoliptan was about to swoop down on a Sea Elf child when a flashbang arrow went off in his face, sending him hurtling into an abandoned fish stall.
Pyra continued to cackle obliviously as the Sea Elves cowered before her flames - heedless of her comrade's struggles – until a wave of violet light passed over her, turning her blazing fire to cool sparkling mist.
"Huh?" She glared at her weapon with unblinking fishy eyes, slapping the side. "C'mon, you stupi-".
She was cut off by a shimmering violet fist impacting with her scaled face.
"Two down, four to go!" Glimmer whooped,
Bow entangled yet another axe wielding Deep Sixer with a net arrow. "Make that three!"
"BOW!?" Glimmer tackled the master-archer to the ground as a giant gelatinous tentacle came crashing down on them.
They winked back into existence atop one of the few undemolished shops.
"BOW!?" Glimmer was on the verge of panic, holding him tight. "Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!"
"I'm fine." Bow rubbed his head. "I'm more worried about Adora."
Across the bay, She-Ra struggled as the God-O-War's tendril brought her within arm's reach of Slig. The Deep Six's commander removed his gauntlet to reveal a scaled hand crackling with mutagenic energy.
"One touch was enough to turn a simple hydrozoan colony into the horror laying waste to this map speck," he rasped salaciously. "Imagine what it will do to you, Despara?"
"That's not my name!" She-Ra practically snarled.
"No matter," Slig chuckled wetly, reaching for her. "Soon, you won't need any name at all."
KRA-THOOOM!
The sound was faint and distant, but near enough to make Slig pause. "Was that a-"
Something suddenly punched straight through the God-O-War with all the speed and force of a blazing comet, sending a geyser of quivery jellying ooze splattering across the town.
Slig slipped as the monster jellyfish began to deflate under his webbed claws, sending him tumbling down its slippery oiled membrane. He screamed as he was sent hurling towards the rocky pavement below, only for something to blur past him a split second before he hit the stone.
Next thing the Apokoliptan knew, he was dangling at least sixteen hundred feet over the streets of Seaworthy. A slip of a girl – not more than fifteen standard years, if that – held him by the gorget of his armor, her fingers leaving indents in the divinely forged metal.
She wore a white Etherian bodysuit, accentuated by powder blue boots and gloves. Her platinum blonde hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, framing an impish smirk.
Slig made to raise his mutagenic hand.
"Yeeeah, I wouldn't," drawled Kara Zor-El - once known as the Supergirl. "Not if you wanna keep that hand."
Slig let the hand fall limp at his side.
"Smart fishie." Kara hung the Apokoliptan from the spire of the townhall like a prize catch.
"KARA ZOR-EL!" She-Ra's voice rang out across the demolished square. "Get down here this instant!"
Kara grumbled as she touched down. She-Ra came stomping up to her, almost slipping on the jelly slick flagstone.
"Hi, 'Dora," Kara deadpanned.
"What are you doing here?! I thought I told you to stay in Bright Moon!"
"Which was clearly the wrong call!" Kara threw her arms wide to take in the surrounding chaos.
"That's not the point! What if you'd gotten hurt? What would I tell your cousin!?"
"He's not my cousin," Kara pouted, folding her arms. "He's not even a real Kryptonian."
"Kara!? That is a very ignorant thing to say! And what about that poor jellyfish?!"
"Seriously!? I gotta care about jellyfish now?!"
The argument was still going back and forth as Glimmer and Bow approached.
"I do not need this right now," sighed Glimmer, wiping jelly from her face.
Bow counted off four fingers. "Hey, aren't we forgetting something?"
The last two remaining members of the Deep Six had almost slipped into a shaded alley, when a blast of violet energy cut off their escaped. The three Etherians and one Kryptonian formed a circle around them.
"So…," She-Ra began, levelling her energy sword as she counted down. "Makes giant monsters, fire powers, flight, axe; what do you two do?"
The two Apokoliptans exchanged a look before throwing their weapons down and their hands up.
"Nothing!"
"We do nothing!"
[-]
BRIGHT MOON
September 18, 13:01 UCT
Glimmer, Bow, Adora and Kara rematerialized with a burst of violet light in Castles Bright Moon's courtyard, shadowed by the glittering pearlescent Moonstone that was the source of Glimmer's magic. The young Sorceress-Queen took a moment to pull yet another oily glob of jelly from her pink hair.
"Ugh, I'm gonna need at least five showers after this."
"On the bright side, we've managed to take down most of the stragglers left behind from the Apokoliptan invasion," Bow said. "That's definitely a win, right?"
As the four entered the castle proper, a guard came running up the hall, their armored boots clanking upon the polished marble floor.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
Glimmer sighed. "Yes?"
"There's someone in the War Room, demanding to speak with you," the guard panted sheepishly. "He just sort of appeared…"
"Alright," Glimmer groaned. "Just let me shower first."
"Who is he?" Adora asked.
"He says his name is… 'Savage'?"
[-]
The four of them came charging through the War Room's doors. Glimmer summoned her mage-staff, Bow knocked an arrow, Adora leveled her energy blade, and Kara balled her steel hard fists. They surrounded the interloper, daring him to make one wrong move.
He stood motionless, hands casually clasped in the small of his back, admiring the abstract mural decorating the War Room's walls. He turned slowly, revealing an impassive scarred visage.
"Not the welcome I had hoped for," rumbled the deep gravel-laced voice of the immortal warlord known on Earth as Vandal Savage.
Glimmer charged her staff. "You have about five seconds to tell us why we shouldn't smack you half way back to Earth!?"
"For one, I am unarmed," he extended his empty hands. "For another, I would have thought the aid I provided during the recent Apokoliptan invasion would have been enough to earn your good will. Without my intervention, I doubt you and your allies would have succeeded in infiltrating Grayven's flagship, or escaping before she… self-destructed."
"Oh, like you acted out of the goodness of your heart?" Adora scoffed. "Tigress told us everything about you and the Light!"
Savage turned his stony gaze on Adora. "I sincerely doubt that. Though I understand your suspicions. Suffering under the depredations of the Horde and Apokolips, it is natural to have a somewhat absolutist view of the universe, to see all actors in the strict binary of 'good' and 'evil'. But I am not your enemy, Adora, and I have no designs on Etheria. Though our methods may differ, like you, I merely seek to secure the future of my world and my people in a hostile cosmos."
Glimmer interjected herself between Adora and Savage. "That still doesn't explain what you're doing here."
Savage met the Sorceress-Queen's glare. "Simply put, Your Majesty, I'm here to collect on a debt. You may not approve of me, you may not even trust me. But that fact remains that if not for me, your world and everyone you love would even now be wailing beneath the Apokoliptan boot."
The four young heroes exchanged uncertain looks.
"Maybe we should hear him out?" Kara offered.
"What exactly do you want for this 'debt'?" Glimmer asked.
"A simple enough task. All I ask is that you retrieve a certain artefact and deliver it to one of my colleagues. I can even provide transportation. Once the artefact is delivered, all debts will be considered settled."
"Why can't you just get it yourself?" Bow asked.
"In a word, politics. Neither I nor any associate of the Light can be seen to be involved in this endeavor."
Glimmer snorted. "Oh, that doesn't sound sketchy at all!"
"I had hoped Royal Honor would be enough to motivate you, but I am willing to 'sweeten the pot' as it were," Savage rumbled low. "Do as I ask, and I will share certain… intelligence that recently fell into my possession."
"What kind of intelligence?" Adora asked skeptically.
Once more the immortal turned his stony gaze on the Princess of Power. "Tell me, Adora, exactly what do you know of your origins?"
Adora froze, her mind abruptly reeling under the implications of his words. Before she could respond, Glimmer pulled her aside.
"Adora, please don't tell me you're actually falling for this?" Glimmer hissed.
"Tigress said he's over fifty thousand years old, Glimmer," Adora whispered back. "Who knows what he knows?"
"Tigress also said he's a manipulative amoral species supremacist. What if he's lying?"
Adora's eyes were pleading. "What if he's not?"
Glimmer groaned low, face hardening before turning back to Savage.
"Where exactly is this 'artefact'?"
[-]
ARMAGETTO
September 19, 01:13 UTC
Far from Etheria, in a desolate sector of the galaxy, there existed a world where no sun touched, lit only by the mammoth fire pits that perpetually consumed it from within. It was a world dominated by factories of war and stark utilitarian temples, where creatures of fury worshipped a fiery creed of destruction.
It was called Apokolips.
BOOOOOM!
The three Etherians – and one Kryptonian – stepped from the hellish maw of the Boom Tube onto the pitted roof of an abandoned hab-block. Adora held back a choking cough as the familiar sting of Apokolip's acrid air filled her lungs.
The squalid slums of Armagetto spread out to every horizon, a hyper-industrialized nightmare that dwarfed even the Fright Zone. The grim skyline was dominated by the raging light of the Central Fire Pit and the cyclopean shadow of the Divine Palace, once more crowned by the Omega that was the sigil of the fortress world's Dread Lord.
Adora glanced to her side, where Kara trembled slightly. She placed a hand on the Krypteen's shoulder.
"You okay?"
"Y-yeah," Kara faltered. "It's just… coming back... I'd forgotten what it was like here."
"I know what you mean."
Adora knew that according to legend, Apokolips had been formed from the dying essence of a wicked sorceress who had fallen in the final Ragnarok of the Old Gods. There were many across the galaxy who believed the planet and all its inhabitants were thus living incarnations of pure evil.
She wished she could believe that. It would make it so much easier if she could tell herself that every soul born into this horror somehow deserved it, that they were all naturally irredeemable. But her own short time as one of Granny's Furies had been enough to show her that simply wasn't true.
Apokolips was far far worse than that.
Everything in Darkseid's regime was consciously designed to bleed his subjects of whatever decency they possessed, to make them accept cruelty and exploitation as simply the natural state of the universe. Darkseid turned love of one's own to hatred of the other, loyalty and devotion to mindless obedience. He stripped life of its sanctity and replaced it with the worship of Anti-Life.
Still, even in the darkest pits of Apokolips, there was some tiny ember of light that even Darkseid's boot could never fully stamp out.
Ting!
Bow held a small glossy black device engraved with red and gold circuitry. "Fatherbox says we should get under cover before a Parademon patrol spots us."
"Can we really trust that thing?" Glimmer asked suspiciously. "It is from here after all."
"He's not an 'it', Glimmer!" Bow cradled the Fatherbox almost protectively. "He's a living being, and I don't think he likes being back here anymore than we do. From what Fatherbox says, Savage is a lot more understanding than his last boss."
"Fatherbox is right," said Adora. "We need to get out of sight."
The four descended into the bowels of the hab-block, only to be suddenly assaulted by a stench like rotting meat and stale urine.
Glimmer almost gagged. "Uuugh… People actually lived here?!"
"Actually, this is one of the nicer civilian habs I've seen," Kara observed.
Bow eyed the empty halls. "Then why did they abandon it?"
"That's why," Adora whispered softly.
She stood before an alien glyph spray painted across the walls in a searing bright yellow that shone garishly against with the rusted grey.
"Oh Rao," Kara swore.
"What does it mean?" Glimmer asked.
"It doesn't really translate…" Adora answered haltingly. "The closest would be something like… 'scapegoat' or 'other'. The people here were marked as an affront to Darksied, for one reason or another."
"What did they do to them?" Bow asked.
Adora was quiet for a long moment, her steel-blue eyes darkening before turning to leave. "We need to keep moving."
[-]
The facility was a long low slab, utilitarian and bunker-like. It would hardly be distinguishable from its dilapidated graffiti covered environs if not for its polished featureless walls.
Glimmer eyed the monolithic edifice warily from the shade of a filth-strewn alley. "So, this is 'Section Zero'?"
Adora nodded. "Desaad's personal R&D center."
"More like private torture dungeon." Kara shuddered, squinting slightly as she scanned the complex. "Granny used to tell us all kinds of horror stories about the place. Threatened to send us here if we 'misbehaved'. I kinda hoped she was making it all up."
"Bow, can Fatherbox get us in?" Adora asked.
Ting!
"No luck," Bow sighed. "The entire facility is shielded against unauthorized Boom-Tubes."
Kara blinked, rubbing her eyes. "I may have something."
[-]
Deep in the pits of Section Zero, Desaad gloated over his latest prize, his pale lips twisting in an avaricious leer.
The Black Diamond – as Desaad had dubbed it – glittered with a preternatural luster despite its abyssal dark facets. The massive gemstone had been picked up by an Apokoliptan scoutship after a freak Boom Tube accident had temporarily stranded it in the interstellar void. A mere chunk of compressed carbon would not have merited the attention of any New God, if not for the faint yet anomalous energy signature seemingly constrained by the gem's molecular bonds.
As God-Scientist and Chief Torturer of Apokolips, Desaad prided himself on a steady hand and an immortal's patience. These qualities had served him well in both aspects of his duel-role. So it was with exquisite care, that he directed the robotic arm. Its adamantine tip hovered over a precisely calculated spot on the black diamond's gleaming surface.
"Careful now…" He muttered softly, hand on the control console affixed to his chest. The adamantine tip darted forward with birdlike swiftness, chipping off a single needle-like shard from the Black Diamond. A second robotic arm quickly retrieved the shard, presenting it before the God of Torment.
"Magnificent," he rasped wetly, examining the hologylphic read-outs that hovered about the shard. The energy matrix encoded within the gem's molecular structure was far more complex and self-organizing than Desaad had first suspected. It was certainly not alive in any biological sense, but was it potentially… self-aware?
"I wonder, do you feel… pain? Oh, what new agonies we could explore together." His pale hand reached slowly for the shard, fingertips bare millimeters from the shimmering black surface.
"Kanto to Desaad."
Desaad grimaced in frustration at the rich velvet voice speaking over the comm. "What is it?"
"'Great Darkseid' requests your immediate presence."
Desaad sneered contemptuously. "Tell 'Great Darkseid' I'm indisposed."
"I'm afraid our 'Dread Lord' is most insistent."
Desaad muttered darkly, taking leave of his laboratory with an imperious sweep of his purple robe.
No sooner had he left than a grate embedded in the ceiling suddenly popped loose; allowing Adora, Glimmer and Bow to shimmy down a length of golden rope while Kara simply hovered to the floor.
"Thank Etheria," Adora rotated her stiff neck gingerly. "I thought he'd never leave."
"Anyone else think it kinda convenient that Desaad got called away while we were hiding in the vent up there?" Bow asked suspiciously.
"Hey, never look a gift zuurt in the mouth," Kara retorted.
"A what?"
"You know, a zuurt? Big furry, four eyes, six nostrils? You don't have those on Etheria?"
"Nooo…"
"Stay on mission," chided Adora. "We need to grab the diamond and get out befo-"
"OW!"
Adora, Bow and Kara spun in the direction of Glimmer. The Sorceress-Queen stood over the diamond shard, sucking her fingertip.
"Sorry," she answered sheepishly. "Pricked myself."
Adora sighed. "Before Desaad gets back."
[-]
Desaad stormed though the cyclopean halls of the Divine Palace. Even the hulking Parademon guards couldn't entirely repress a flinch at the God of Torment's passing as he eventually came before the looming grey-black doors of adamantine that marked the entrance to 'Darkseid's' private chambers.
Just to the side of the great doors stood a figure clad in gold-trimmed sable finery, vaguely reminiscent of Earth's late Renaissance period. His pointed goatee framed dark sensuous lips, curled in what would have struck most observers as a roguishly endearing smile.
Desaad was not most observers.
"This had better be important, Kanto."
The man called Kanto doffed his cap. "All of 'Great Darkseid's' commandments are important, dear Desaad."
"Please don't refer to that… creature as 'Darkseid' while we're alone. It's galling enough that the Earth savage arm-twisted us into this blasphemous farce."
Desaad didn't have to elaborate. Both he and Kanto well remembered how Darkseid's third son, Grayven, had assassinated his father and usurped the throne of Apokolips. Grayven himself had been lost shortly afterwards in the ill-conceived invasion of Etheria, leaving Apokolips bereft of rulership. Into that vacuum had stepped Vandal Savage to propose a 'mutually advantageous solution'.
"You don't care for our guest, do you?" Kanto asked.
"That's why I appointed you as their handler. So, I would have to deal with them as little as possible. Though lately I'm beginning to suspect that you're enjoying your duties a little too much?"
"I must admit, I do find them rather… stimulating."
The adamantine doors slowly ground back, like the gates of some fabled netherworld to reveal the inner sanctum of the acting Lord of Apokolips.
Kanto took a low bow, gesturing to Desaad. "After you."
During Darkseid's reign, these chambers had been grey and spartan. The God of God's had had little appetite for earthly comforts or pleasures. Now they were a medley of color, sound, and sensation. Bright silken banners of vibrant pastels hung from the vaulting roof. Notes of soft sitar music drifted through the heady air, mixing with a pungent sickly-sweet smoke.
At the center of the chamber - surrounded by scantily-clad and highly muscular male attendants – was a plush dark purple divan. Upon the divan a nubile quasi-reptilian figure reclined languidly, taking a long slow drag from a hookah-like device. They blew lazy rings of purple-blue smoke in the air before noticing their guests.
"Kanto!" Double-Trouble trilled. Their yellow eye nictated excitedly as they threw their arms around the Apokoliptan courtier, a slender finger affectionately twining about his pointed beard. "Don't leave me alone for so long."
Desaad repressed the bile rising in his throat. He had no idea where Kanto had originally found the shapeshifting mercenary, but he did not appreciate the obvious flirtation between the two. It was all so disgustingly… consensual.
"Why am I here, changeling?" Desaad rasped irritably.
"I'm so glad you asked, Dezzie," Double-Trouble detangled themself from Kanto, turning to Desaad with a twirl. "I don't really feel my talents are being utilized to their full potential."
Desaad's eyes narrowed. "Really?"
"Oh my, yes," Double-Trouble enveloped themself in glittering shadow, their form shifting and expanding until they had assumed the guise they had used most often these last weeks, the hulking granite visage of the late Lord of Apokolips Himself.
'Darkseid' circled Desaad, looking down on the God of Torment with eyes that burned like hellish coals, though not without a certain sardoninc mirth.
Tʜᴇʏ sᴀʏ ᴠɪʟʟᴀɪɴs ᴀʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴊᴜᴄɪᴇsᴛ ʀᴏʟᴇs, ʙᴜᴛ ᴀʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏ ɪs sᴛᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴᴅ sᴄᴏᴡʟ ᴀᴛ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ.
'Darkseid' pouted uncharacteristically before drawing out a data-pad.
Sᴏ I ᴅʀᴇᴡ ᴜᴘ sᴏᴍᴇ sᴜɢɢᴇsᴛɪᴏɴs.
[-]
"What do you mean it won't fit?!" Adora hissed.
"I mean it won't fit!" Kara hissed back, trying to fit the jagged oversized Black Diamond through the ceiling grate without tearing the whole vent apart.
"Desaad could be back any minute," Glimmer snapped. "We can't stay here forever!"
"Well excuse me, Your Highness!" Kara drawled. "It's not like we can just walk out of here carrying this thing!"
"Maybe we can?" Bow mused, rummaging through an open locker before drawing out a dozen long purple robes.
[-]
Adora sniffed her purple sleeve suspiciously. "I really hope Desaad washes these things."
The four interlopers wandered the halls of Section Zero under their purloined robes, keeping their faces hooded and their eyes downcast. Adora had taken a fifth robe and bundled it about the Black Diamond, holding the darkly faceted gem under her arm. She stopped before an intersection, eyeing the paths before her.
"You have no idea where we're going, do you?" Glimmer asked.
"Nope!" Adora answered sheepishly.
"Uh, guys…" interjected Kara.
Somewhere behind them came the heavy clunking tread of marching Parademons.
Bow pointed out a non-descript chamber. "In here!"
The four swiftly ducked in, sealing the door behind them. They pressed their ears against the cold adamantine doors. Only releasing a tense breath once the clanking tread had receded into the distance.
"Oh my, what sneaky little ducklings?"
Adora froze at the treacle-sweet words, turning slowly.
No, no, no, no!
There, suspended in some bizarre futurist torture device, hung an elderly figure clad in scraps of torn cloth and battered armor. A disheveled sliver-grey mane framed her haggard face. Toadish lips peeling back in an obscenely beatific smile.
"Don't be shy, dearies," she cooed raggedly. "Come give your dear old Granny a kiss."