APOKOLIPS
Twin beams of brilliantly crimson light zigged and zagged against the
backdrop of darkness before striking His intended victim in her
belly. The night-skinned Talokian, Tasmia Mallor, cried out as
her body shined with an outline of violent-red energy and then crumpled
to the ash stained ground. When she collapsed so too did the veil
of shadow and the battle resumed once more.
They had arrived here in force, ready to investigate the apparent loss
of their teammates, Laurel Kent, Wildfire, Tellus and Quislet.
What they found was a darkened pit, ripped from the fruit of evil
itself, tossed out into space without a care for the innocence it would
convert or corrupt. Apokolips. Almost instantly the evil
was upon them. Lesser servants of darkness than those He had
summoned at first, but more than enough for these heroes to handle.
Only their silhouettes betrayed their features. They bore no face
or insignia, no brandished color or fanfare. They moved with
dusk's silence but struck with dangerous finality. Already His
forces had claimed first blood and if the Legion of Super-Heroes were
going to win the day, they knew they had best get on with it.
“Are these the heroes I have awakened to? For a thousand
years I have sat, waiting, contemplating and when the misguided finally
appear, they are but babes? Earth has sent to me its children...
Do not think for a moment, that I will hesitate to send them back...
Earth's perished youth.” Dust and caked ash fell away from
Him now, as He spoke and breathed. The years were caked on Him
like dried mud and with every passing moment, the ages peeled away to
reveal the terrible, old evil within:
Darkseid...
 |
The
30th Century's Greatest Superheroes.....
|
| Legion Worlds
#4- April, Year Four |
by Matthew
J. Pierce |
On their way to Apokolips, the message from the reserve Legion
headquarters on Pluto had been clear. Even as half the Legion
battled the Blight on Earth, time was breaking down in the past.
An anomaly in the past, meant to divert the Legion's present from the
one that was meant to be, was breaking down with a frightening
quickness. As a result, the present that was supposed to be in
place was slowly overwriting the one the Legion lived and fought in
today. Already the signs were clear. Legionnaires that
never were, fought among them while Legionnaires they had known for
years were suddenly different, altered in ways both drastic and
minuscule with no rhyme nor reason.
Rond Vidar, a representative of the United Planets' Time Institute, had
learned of the anomaly and had since been able to see beyond it; to the
past that was real despite what the Legion's own history archives told
them. The past was a foreboding place, devoid of hope, almost as
grim as the face of Apokolips itself and how appropriate a description
since it was Darkseid that had caused it to be so.
“This would suggest a paradox,” Vidar claimed.
“Our own history, as false as the anomaly suggests, is very clear
about the final fate of Darkseid. He's on Apokolips, the tyrant
of a dead world, bathed in the ashes of his fallen empire. If
he's still alive, he's remained dormant and in self-exile since the end
of the twentieth century. How it's possible that Darkseid is
responsible for the events we're now seeing in the past, or how he's
been able to keep a stony grip on the galaxy for hundreds of years, as
we're now seeing, doesn't seem possible. One past is true and, I
fear, so is one Darkseid. But which one?”
Which one indeed. The vessel that had carried this small team of
Legionnaires was already a burst wreck in space thanks to Darkseid's
servants. It was clear that the teammates they were searching for
had met a similar fate but the priority now was to stall
Darkseid. Though he had yet to rise from his throne of gray,
Invisible Kid believed he might yet. The remaining number of
Legionnaires were mounting a last stand against the Blight, who had
taken over Earth. The Blight, as it was discovered, were born
from the B13 virus, created by a descendant of the 20th century villain
known as Brainiac. Brainiac of course having been a servant of
Darkseid. Would the Legionnaire's efforts against the Blight
rouse Darkseid's attention? Were the Blight doing his will?
Perhaps cultivating Earth to become a new throne world for Darkseid and
his intentions? The acting chairman of the Legion of Super-Heroes
wouldn't wait for answers, they would hold Darkseid to Apokolips if
they could and maybe, if they were fortunate, they'd learn how he had
conquered their past without ever leaving his seat.
First they would have to subdue Darkseid's Servants of Darkness or they
would find themselves too preoccupied to stop him should he decide to
act. It was proving to be far more difficult than hoped.
Lyle Norg was invisible and had been so since the hull of their ship
had been splintered and torn off into space.
XS was moving in a blur, dodging the attempts by a great, shadowed
beast to grab a hold of her. She skidded to a stop beside her
fallen teammate, Umbra, and used her speed to try and pull the
Legionnaire to safety before the beast had a chance to react. The
beast shifted in size and mass like a Durlan, its bulk falling off it
like black mist while it rearranged itself into something with four
legs and a spiked tail and shell. Jenni Ognat's face twisted with
panic as the monster readied its deadly tail, meaning to impale both
legionnaires in one strike. Were she to speed off alone, it would
be Umbra that would take the brunt. Were she to stay, they might
both die. Her hesitation should have been costly if not for the
timely intervention of a descending Legionnaire.
Val Armorr, the Karate Kid, leaped into the tail's path and parried the
blow with an open handed strike, while twisting his body backward so
that he too would remain unharmed. The whipping force of the
tail's attack sent shock waves of pain through Val's body but it was
far less effective than the servant had intended. The beast
transformed again, rising off four legs onto two while keeping its
tail. Like an upright scorpioped it lunged for Val but was easily
kicked aside. It was then that Karate Kid locked eyes with his
shadowy opponent and saw what appeared to be the dark face of a boy no
older than himself.
Kinetix was having her own problems, trying to use her telekinetic
powers to foil another of Darkseid's servants who equally, had the
power to animate matter. The servant proved far too determined to
cause harm, however, and summoned an entire wall of Darkseid's Keep to
buckle and splinter into several separate projectiles. Kinetix
tried to slow them all, sweat raining down the red-haired girl's face
but it was clear that soon, her concentration would fail and the
Legionnaires would find themselves buried in tons of Apokoliptan stone.
Invisible Kid was moving as fast as he could toward the throne of
Darkseid while trying not to gain the despot's attention. It was
a painful process as he realized the Legionnaires present were
seriously under powered to handle the current threat. Closer and
closer still he approached, meaning to use the device in his hands to
confine Darkseid and prevent him from interrupting the other half of
the Legion's mission on Earth. He stopped suddenly when he heard
Zoe Saugin's cry of help and knew that Kinetix hadn't the power to hold
her own for much longer. Luckily, she wouldn't have to.
Blasts of intense energy rocketed through the space overhead and
denigrated the wall given life by the servant below. Wildfire, in
a restored containment suit, flew over Kinetix as wisps of released
energy drifted away from his gloved hands. It was clear to Lyle
what Wildfire intended to do. Cocky and headstrong, the
Legionnaire would want payback and meant to give it to Darkseid
directly. It was a stupid move. He arced upwards, nearly
missing an attempt from another servant, this one seemingly evolved
only to the point of Neanderthal, and opened his palms to a place
behind Lyle. Invisible Kid looked down from the sky and turned
back to where Darkseid sat. Wildfire's attack would certainly
cause the tyrant to enter the battle and then it would be done before
it truly began. Lyle had only moments... or so he believed.
He turned and met Darkseid face to face and felt a vice like grip
around his throat. He was picked up off the ground, his feet
dangling helplessly, and the projector he had brought with him to stop
Darkseid's advance, fell to the ground. Somehow he had been found
out, despite his invisibility, and now the evil was upon him. For
his own safety, he let his veil of secrecy fall away and Wildfire
rocketed away without firing. Unfortunately he flew
directly into the path of a gaseous cloud, one that clung to his suit
and immediately began to eat away it like a dangerous acid.
Wildfire shouted something in protest as he struggled against the
vaporous servant to Darkseid but Invisible Kid couldn't hear him.
He pulled at the hand around his throat to no avail and waited to see
his life, his false past, begin to flash past his eyes.
Darkseid looked up into the boy's frightened eyes and contemplated his
fate. He was taken aback when the boy's appearance changed and he
was suddenly dark skinned, with a yellow costume and black hair with a
pre-mature silver stripe. Darkseid frowned and watched as the
boy's appearance shimmered and changed again, back to the brown haired
Caucasian dressed in black.
“That'll be enough, Darkseid! Let the boy go... or by Rao,
you'll be sorry.” The voice was quick to gain all of
Darkseid's attention but he did not let go of Invisible Kid. And
at long last, Darkseid spoke and all those around him swore that it was
out of pure surprise.
“Kryptonian? What trickery is this?”
Assembled throughout the great, shattered hall of Apokolips, was the
Justice League itself. Members from every era and every
incarnation. Such an assemblage should have been impossible if,
for no other reason, that history had shown some of these members to
never have fought side by side. Yet here they were, and it was
the legendary Superman himself who led them, hovering in flight several
inches off the ground to bear angry, red eyes at his long time
foe. Then, without warning because all their senses had been
denied to them, a massive craft of broken and splintered metal broke
through the ranks of the Justice League, scattering them like the
ghostly images they were. The League was no more, replaced by the
very real appearance of Laurel Kent in the driver's seat of a
near-destroyed Legion spacecraft.
Lyle reached with haste down to his belt with what seemed like a
heartbeat to spare. Laurel would survive ramming her vessel into
Darkseid's Keep and so would the others were they lucky and able to
hear the discreet communiqué warning of them of what was about
to happen.
The false image of the Justice League vanished into nothing as the
Legionnaire, Sensor, restored normal perception to those within the
range of her powers. Once more they could see and hear everything
that was real and that included the thundering impact of the Legion
ship into the Keep around them. There was a brief fireball as
what remained of the oxygen inside the craft was burnt off or vented
off into space. Metal, ruined rock and the ash of centuries
formed a massive plume that stretched out for miles. It was as if
Laurel had punched a hole into Apokolips in what seemed like a
desperate maneuver. In truth, it was.
When the dust settled and dispersed into the black of space, movement
finally came to the rubble as each Legionnaire stood one by one.
In the ashen light, the force field each wore was apparent. Lyle
Norg wordlessly tanked Brainiac 5 for his invention and ingenuity and
very much wished he could have been there. The air was still for
several moments as each of the Legionnaires collected themselves.
Even Wildfire stood among them, though the suit containing his
disembodied energies looked frail and paper-thin.
“Well, I guess that's the end of that,” Wildfire
announced. “He wasn't so bad.”
“No,” Invisible Kid replied, looking to where Darkseid had
sat for so many hundreds of years, “he's worse.”
A hand grasped the arm of his throne and soon His body followed.
“Smoke and mirrors. Is this what you have come to fight
Darkseid with? Parlor tricks and sharp tongues?” He
stood once more, seemingly unhurt by the collision of Laurel's ship
with the Keep but all the more aggravated. “Come at me now,
children, and let this folly be done with. The black abyss calls
to me and soon my most trusted servants will bring word of its
origins. I will not be delayed with games of children trying to
be heroes.”
“That's Super-Heroes to you, Darkseid,” Wildfire continued.
“As in the Legion of,” XS added. All of them were
injured and bleeding and now they faced their greatest challenge yet,
one they could not hope to win.
Karate Kid attacked first but it was XS that reached Darkseid before
the rest. Wildfire took to space and laid down a blanket of
energy to suppress their foe. Effortlessly, Darkseid was able to
deduce where XS would arrive and succeeded in grasping her. He
tossed her into the path of the beam before her body even slowed, her
speed aura protecting both her and Darkseid from Wildfire's
barrage. Karate Kid's jump kick was a mere fraction of a second
from landing but Darkseid had seen this too and grabbed Val Armorr by
the ankle. He swung the Legionnaire around behind him and smashed
him without mercy into his throne. The force of the blow
splintered the face of the great chair and Karate Kid slumped to the
floor.
XS, Laurel, Wildfire, even Umbra pressed their attack. In between
moments, more Legionnaires arrived and departed. The disruptions
in time delivered more hope, only to take them away every few
minutes. Lightning Lad was there, but as an adult. XS could
have sworn she saw Cosmic Boy, but somehow missing an arm. There
was a Legionnaire with the image of a giant tooth on his shirt and
another whose body was comprised totally of stone. One
Legionnaire, shaped like a blue and white balloon, bounced off walls
and into Darkseid's back while another, dressed in yellow and orange,
pounded Darkseid as if he were a teen-aged Superman. As quick and
random as they arrived, they departed, both given life and sent away by
the destabilizing timeline. They attacked Darkseid as they would
any foe; as a team instead of one by one. Sadly, every
well-practiced tactic was as meaningless as the one prior. Before
them stood a being that had gone toe to toe with the greatest of
Earth's champions, a being who had it within himself to subjugate
entire star systems. What could a handful of Legionnaires do but
slow him down?
The battle seemed to last for hours but the Legionnaires knew it had
not and soon it would be over, with their broken bodies at His
feet. Already, many had fallen, such as the Legionnaire who
seemed to command color, the red-haired girl with a bee's wings, and
the one who looked like a younger Rokk Krinn but who wore pink and
white instead of purple.
There was but one ploy left in Invisible Kid's mind. Together with
Sensor he gambled and the battle was interrupted by a mosaic of images
playing out all around them. Pieces of history were given life,
generated by Sensor based on what Invisible Kid displayed on an
Omnicom. Beings from the past, the true past, moved and acted in
a rotating menagerie so that Darkseid could see what the Legion already
knew.
“More pranks and antics!”
“Not this time, Darkseid,” Lyle Norg called out. It
hurt to speak, his throat injured by the monster's grip but he pressed
on. “This is why we sought you out. Not to fight you
or your shadows but to learn the truth.”
“What truth? There is only one truth, child. Darkseid
is!”
“Exactly what I'm counting on.” Invisible Kid stepped
forward, Omnicom in hand as Sensor continued to project the scenes of
history sent to them by Rond Vidar from their headquarters on
Pluto. Oddly, Sensor was now dressed in a red and white costume,
with a mask and cape and shoulder-length blond hair instead of the
reptile form the others were accustomed to. Darkseid seemed
irritated but looked at the images anyway. “Tell me then,
if Darkseid is... is this
Darkseid?” Lyle motioned to the scenes around them.
“Keep approaching, boy. I tire of this and would like to be
done with you pestering insects.” Darkseid motioned Lyle
closer, sheer contempt in his voice and crimson eyes.
“What you see around you, Darkseid, is what we've seen of the
past. A thousand years past. We've seen you return to the
21st Century, to wreak havoc and enact such a terrible change that it's
being felt here and now. You spoke of something awakening you,
something on the fringes gathering your attention. Well I believe
this might be it. You sense the end of our present, as time
rewrites itself because of what you did in the past.”
“Lies!” Darkseid bellowed. “I have
remained upon my throne for a millennia, contemplating, waiting.
It was not until now that I stood and only until recently when I
pressed orders to my servants. Since breaking free of the Source
have I sat among the wastes of Apokolips, so breathe no more fairy
tales to me, boy, or else you shall find yourself, breathing not
a'tall!”
The other Legionnaires were collecting themselves, taking positions to
renew the battle if need be. Only Karate Kid remained still,
fallen before the throne. Kinetix was at his side now, trying to
rouse him from unconsciousness when something caught her eye.
Something emerald. Something... powerful. Reassured that
Val Armorr was yet alive, she reached out for the glimmering beneath
the crusted ash covering Darkseid's throne.
“Surely, Darkseid possesses an intellect far more superior to
that of a boy,” Lyle played. “Surely he can
appreciate science and the facts were it right before hi very
eyes.” Invisible Kid was close now and he reached out to
hand Darkseid the Omnicom.
Crimson eyes beheld the Legionnaire and the pad of data waiting in the
dead space between them. He considered the boy's words and,
finally, the possibilities. He rose his chin and looked down his
crag-like nose at the Legionnaire. Sharp lances of energy erupted
from those dimly lit sockets and destroyed the Omnicom. For a
moment, Lyle thought himself dead.
“I have no need for science, or for your reports of what is true
or not, child. As always, Darkseid possess greater power at his
fingertips.” He raised a hand into the air, palm facing the
black heavens.
Kinetix yelped and fell backward onto her bottom as the throne itself
shuddered and then tore free of its stony mooring. Light erupted
from inside the cracks of dust, ash and rock and the decay fell into
nothingness beneath its brilliance. The throne floated over the
ground to meet the beckoning of its master and Darkseid allowed himself
to grin.
“Know this. No measure of word or fact uttered by a whelp
playing champion will move Darkseid to concern. I shall see these
events for myself. Should I find them as you have shown me, I
will rend its architect asunder. However, if these images and
words are more of your foolery then I shall return within a heart's
beat... and when I do, I will deliver that wrath upon you before
reducing the population of your planets into slaves and fodder. I
will relight the Fire Pits of Apokolips with the flesh of your dead
fellowship, Legion of Super-Heroes. Know this and be warned. Pray
to your gods that Darkseid finds another to dispense his wrath
upon!” He reached behind him, massive hands resting upon
the shimmering arms of his Mobius chair.
Defiantly the Legionnaires watched as the chair rose above them.
Space itself split apart with a thunderous
BOOOOOOOOOOOM
and time faltered and failed. The chair slowly floated forward,
into the mouth of the mighty, circular tear and once it had engulfed
Darkseid and his throne, it closed as mightily as it opened.
There was a silence. Some of them expected Darkseid to return as
he said, not having found a past irrevocably changed by his own hand or
by that of a doppelganger. Others expected some terrible end to
their lives as time erased them entirely. What actually happened
next, however, no one was expecting.
To be continued in DARK GENESIS and
AFTERMATH...
Next
Issue: A New Beginning!
Story © 2006 Matthew J. Pierce,
and
may not be reproduced without permission.