2014.03.11 - Grounded: Requiem

It has been hours.
Shortly after Superman took the unconscious Darkseid to Metropolis to let the world know that he had been defeated, he took him to the Moon. The few questions that have reached him about why he’s there have gone unanswered. This is between him and the God of Evil.
Far from anywhere at the bottom of a crater somewhere in the Sea of Tranquility, Superman looms over Darkseid. He lunges forward, driving his fist across his jaw with a resounding crack.
“I want them back.”
Again and again, Superman has struck the titanic God of Evil. He lays within a dent upon the lunar soil, wafts of dust kicked up and floating in a growing veil. His body remains broken and cracked, scarcely any energy now glowing within him. But Clark realized when leaving him once for a couple hours the fact that such is temporary. He was nearly able to stand, and had to be put back down ruthlessly. His Omega force is not allowed to return, the strikes causing dents.
But also, it's likely those Kryptonian knuckles are bloody and raw. If he doesn't keep up the attack, Darkseid will recover. If he does not strike hard enough, it will be insufficient to stall his rise. This brutal endurance game is no sadism from the Man of Steel, but a neccesity.
How long has this been going on, the God of Evil wonders? Barely a heartbeat, with his perception of time. In a listless blink, cities have bloomed with sentient life on distant and been eradicated shortly after.
"You are poor at torture, Kal-El."
*CRACK*
"Do you really think this desperation and demanding... does anything but make me pleased?"
*CRACK*.
"You would do better to beg. Fall to your knees, and ask me as a God. And I will tell you their true fates..."
“Not a chance.”
Superman rears back to punch Darkseid again. The grim work is indeed not something he’s enjoying at all but it is a necessity.
“You like to call yourself a god,” the Man of Steel says, stepping back a moment to crack his knuckles, “And you’re not afraid to die.”
He pauses.
“How would you feel about being powerless forever? What do you think about being left with absolutely nothing? Like the deal you offered me? The one you forced me into?”
He takes another swing, this one harder than the others have been. THAT one might have been for his own satisfaction.
That blow strikes harder, and causes a heavy grunt from Darkseid. Blood is drawn forth. If he's hit TOO hard, his form will break, the energy within consume him, and he will truly die. A fine line, but Superman has had a lot of time to practice. This is the first time Darkseid has bothered talking. He had stoicly laid there prior, wearing a smirk no amount of blows could erase from his face.
"Define powerless." Darkseid suddenly eyes, expression grim. "Do you mean standing beneath a tyrant King on a throne, with a manipulating Queen of a mother? Discarded as the disfavored, watching my brother and Heir grow ever higher in favor? I was not always what I am, Superman. I was born into this world, as any other. The power I have, I had to reach out and take. Take at the cost of my sibling. The throne to Apokolips is a hierarchy carved by blood, and in the end, I sat alone."
There's no sense of melancholy or unhappiness with the whole thing. Instead, a sense of boredom. Boredom that Kal-El might be unable to fathom.
"Dispense with these threats. I am the God of Apokolips. By rights, I have a treaty with New Genesis. And my world cannot function without me. It would fall to chaos, and the frenzy of the void from my loss would destroy a million, million lives across the universe. And perhaps even your Earth. Would you risk that...?"
"That's a good threat, Darkseid, but you've got a son. I met him, remember? Excuse me if I don't believe you're quite as essential as you like to think."
Superman throws another punch, carefully toeing the line as he's gotten used to.
"And you want me to define powerless? How about right now. You might be sitting there with that grin on your face but something tells me this isn't how you'd like to spend your time. Bring back the people you stole and you can go back to Apokolips."
Another resounding strike at the New God's face.
"I don't get tired. Even this far from the sun I'm still being replenished. I could do this for a long, long time. It mightn't seem like much to you but you saw what we were capable of doing to stop you in a couple of weeks. What if we devote years to it?"
And another.
"I stopped you. What's to say I can't stop whoever decides to fill your shoes?"
Another crack sends Darkseid's face twisting aside, but he's laughing "Kalibak...?! He would last a week. Grayven, he would be ripped apart by Mantis. It would be that parasite who ruled. He would send the armies out to feed, and lay down a genocide you cannot imagine."
Another heavy blow knocks Darkseid's face aside, with a hiss. "Years? Now you play the fool. You cannot remain here for years. You were unwilling to abandon your planet before. Why would you now, to strike me? People would come. What would they say, finding their icon up here, brutalizing a helpless opponent for such a time? But you intrigue me... that threat. It wasn't empty, was it? If you knew it would work... would you do it?"
Another blow. And then a snort. "Stopped me. Yes, you did. At great sacrifice and with the blood of others. But fine. Let us speak in earnest, Kal-El. We've never done such, have we? We have only stood on opposite sides of the battlefield, and nothing more. Perhaps we can reach an understanding..."
"I would do it. If they knew it meant keeping you from ever threatening them again then they'd understand. I do what I do for their good, not for my own edification. Why else would you think I'd put on a suit and fight when you'd given me my father back? Don't you think I'd rather spend time with him after I thought he was dead than watch you kill and demolish?"
Superman throws another punch. Not aimed to do any more harm than he has to do in order to keep the Omega Effect in check.
"Alright, let's talk."
A slow lick of the lips follows. "Is that the justification you have? Tell me this. What savageness and war did I bring? Were my armies and parademons and war machines sent out, the moment you put down your cape? No. I made no promise that I would cease hostilities on Earth. And you were the one who said others were strong enough to rise and stop me."
Darkseid's eyes narrow slightly. "Jon-El and I had a link. Did you not realize that? He came to this world through a Boom Tube. Fleeing me like a wounded dog. He was mine to take and do with as I saw fit. He is not of your true family, or even of this timestream. And for that, and nothing else... an event that resulted in no casualties... you feel justified in waging your war?"
A slow chuckle leaves him. "I think what happened is you realized you made a mistake. And you felt because I was somehow evil, that it justified throwing it back in my face. I attacked your Fortress only when you once more became the Man of Steel. You are the one who provoked /ME./"
But then Darkseid calms. "Let us take a step backwards. Do you know why this happened? Why I came, to make that offer?"
Superman takes another swing, this one a little harder now. He’s annoyed at the insinuation that all this is somehow his fault and it shows.
“Don’t talk to me like this wasn’t part of a plan. You’re the one who took my father away. You set the ball rolling. Everything that happened is because of you. I didn’t make a mistake in bringing him back and I didn’t make a mistake in throwing the deal back in your face.”
He grits his teeth, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Yes. I manipulated a weakness within you. A weakness of the heart. I wished to see whether someone of your power and station would choose one over everyone. It was the ultimate decision. A single person you care for more than anyone, or an entire planet that had grown dependant on you. And it does not matter how this ended, Superman. I know for a fact, when you went home and embraced your father, this vendetta to strike back and return your powers was not in your mind. Tell your colleagues that. Tell yourself that. But I know."
"In the end, you chose yourself. And why should that be wrong?"
A slow spit to the side follows. More blood. "You are immortal, Kryptonian. Every human you meet you will watch waste away and fall to dust. Even many aliens will be like a whisper in the wind. You do not know it yet, being so young... but slowly and surely, the life you have will fall apart. It will take decades, but everyone who made you who you are will be dead and gone. Replaced by strangers around you."
"What kind of man will you be then, Kal-El? Can you do this forever? Fighting an endless tide for a small speck of a planet? Will that obsessed you, like the Batman? Become everything you are and ever will be? Your heart is what will twist you into a monster. You are not one of them. They raised you to be, but it is a mask of paint that will melt away as eons pass. A forsaken orphan with no true kin and a destroyed planet. A man who cannot save everyone, no matter how much he tries."
A slow crack of the neck follows. "That is why love is foolish. Affection a weakness. In the end, everything you care about is lost, and those memories you cherish a dagger to twist in your heart. It is better to cast it all away, and live only for yourself... even if you must sit alone, until the end of existance."
Immortal? That strikes him as a shock. He had hypothesized as much while reading into the effects of yellow sunlight on Kryptonian physiology. He didn’t have any reason to doubt his findings but he’d still put it from his mind. For all his malicious qualities, Darkseid isn’t a liar. He believes him.
“You chose your way and I’ve chosen mine,” Superman answers flatly, “Regardless of what you say here, I stand with them and not alone. In a thousand years? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be different. But I don’t stand up for these people because I feel like I should. I want to do it. It’s who I am.”
He holds up a hand, as though to silence any potential argument.
“I don’t want to hear how that’s not true. I know who I am more than you are, omniscient or not.”
He throws another punch. The required amount of punishment. Nothing more.
“Will you bring back those you killed? In case you haven’t seen the news, people are rallying around them. They’re not hopeless. You didn’t kill their hope. Are you so petty you’d keep them because you didn’t get what you wanted?”
"Yes. You think with the mind of a human, still. In days, weeks, months, years. That will change. And it shall be amusing to watch." Darkseid slowly licks his lips however, allowing one more smile. "Yet do you truly know who you are? Did you ever make a choice? Or are you the result of the Kents' brainwashing ideals. What if you had been intercepted coming to Apokolips? Would you have been true and noble, rejecting the rules and philosophy and fleeing? I suppose you will hope to say you would."
Another heavy punch adds a degree of finality to discussions.
"Hope is a curious thing. A flame that is hard to extinguish. But there is always a way. If a brutal, fell sweep does not do the trick, there are countless others. But I see no reason to torture you with information you will find out anyway. The female white martian who emulates you so is still alive. She had stored a piece of her body before facing me upfront, and through it will revive. I anticipate she is already whole again, after how long you have spent attacking me in the heavens. That man in the futuristic suit was similarly not annihilated. His attempt to survive my Omega Beams sent him spiraling through time, although it will destroy him if not saved. And the other... the peculiar individual with Kryptonian DNA... he commited suicide before disintegration, and his essence escaped. I believe he survived as well."
One name is left out, however.
Superman is relieved. He doesn’t show it, or tries his best not to, but he is certainly so. But there’s still a heavy weight on his mind. To punctuate his annoyance at how long the whole affair has been dragged out, he strikes Darkseid in the nose with his fist. Keeping that Omega Effect in check is still his top priority.
“And Tony Stark? What about him?”
"Nngh!" Not his precious nose. Aggravating. Just as he feels a kindle of his power returning, a blow dismisses it into the air. He lacks even the strength to lift an arm at the moment. A pathetic state of affairs he truly thought he would never be in. But damage to his own pride is well-hidden for now. Darkseid is a patient man. Patient beyond what most can comprehend. "I erased his body from existance. You were there." Darkseid offers. "Just like your father."
"And if I wished it, I could return him."
“Then return him,” Superman answers, his own patience nothing to sneeze at, “And I’ll take you back to Apokolips.”
It’s a simple offer. No strings attached to it.
"Even if I wanted to, I cannot." Darkseid offers, smiling now. "I need full access to my Omega powers. But if I had that... there would be no reason to. It is quite the quandry, you see. As such, we would have to come to an agreement of sort... Tell me, Kal-El. You said you would go as far as to beat me for years to bring back Tony Stark. ...How much further would you go? Would you break your ultimate code? The very code that cost him his life?" A feeble flick of the fingers follows. "Kill me. Do it, and I will bring him back. You have my word." Although from the expression on the God of Evil, he seems certain this caveat will not be accepted.
"I could."
Superman says this flatly, as though it is simply a statement of fact and not a complete reversal of the ethical code he's come to live by.
"Nobody would know. As far as they're all concerned you died on the sun. They don't blame me for it and they don't question me."
He pauses, giving Darkseid another thoughtful blow to the head. Not yet distracted enough to give him time to recuperate.
"And if I have blood on my hands it's so Tony wouldn't have to. You won't be around to say what happened, will you."
He takes an almost menacing step closer.
"I could. But that's what you want. I won't give you what you want."
"No."
Darkseid glares towards Clark Kent, shuddering slowly as he manages to push himself to his elbows. Only a few minutes, and he's no longer utterly motionless. But the new strike floors him with a grunt anew.
 
"You don't need to kill me, Kal-El. I want you to prove to me you WOULD. ...show me that, deep within your human heart, you are a being willing to do what must be done... for the ultimate good. That you learned a lesson from this, on the foibles of mercy. Do that, and I will grant you your wish."
For now, it doesn't appear that the God of Evil is quite buying it. "Do it. Show me your will. Show me the alien within you, and what you could become if you unshackled your chains."
"That's a tall order," Superman answers, driving his fist across Darkseid's jaw as he stands up, "How would you know? I could be willing to kill you right now but because I haven't there's no way for you to tell."
He curls his lip, disgusted.
"No. You yourself said you struggled for your power. So you weren't born with it. If you can obtain it then it's quantifiable. If it's quantifiable then there's a way to find it and use it to bring him back."
His father was a scientist. Kal-El himself is a scientist as well. These sort of mysteries are the ones his people strove to solve.
He strikes Darkseid again.
"Threaten all you want. Try to corrupt me to be like you. Like you did to Jon-El. I won't. I won't break. I won't satisfy your perverse curiosity. Tony died because he didn't kill you. I won't kill you. I won't even intend to kill you. That cheapens his memory."
He brings up a foot to drive it heavily down on Darkseid.
"I'm taking you back."
"...Taking me back where? To taunt me before Earth? All they will do is demand you kill me. Or some would-be hero will. Then you will lose. If you jail me, it will not last. Your planet does not have the technology, does not have a being, capable of stopping my Omega Force from regenerating in time. Even someone like you, keeping my body too broken to hold the energies... it cannot be forever. Someday, somewhere, you would have to leave. The death of your father. A global crisis. I will wait. I will endure. And I will rise again." He growls beneath Superman, and allows a smile.
And it's then, both realize something about each other. They have each been in this decision. And neither of them broke. Darkseid is not a man of no conviction. He is not a man of doubt. A well-founded arrogance, from an eternity of success. He can be broken and tamed no more than Superman's spirit -- he would die first, and even that would not succeed. The solitary difference... is that Superman had love, and he did not. A mild chink in the armor, which exploded into the catastrophe of the last few weeks...
Superman shakes his head, reaching into the pocket of his belt at the small of his back and producing a handheld device. Not ornate and seemingly very utilitarian considering its bizarre function. He looks it over for a moment, considering something before looking to Darkseid.
"No. I don't want you here. I don't even want you in this dimension. I'm not foolish enough to think we can hold you or that you won't get your powers back somehow. Or even that one of your lackeys won't come looking for you."
He activates the device, opening a wormhole to an orbit around Apokolips. The hellish world can be seen in the distance.
Superman turns, kicking at Darkseid again before he scoops to grab him up by his tattered tunic once more and fly him through the portal.
"..." Darkseid says nothing to that. It's true. But he can think of nowhere else to put him. In some dimensional seal? Pointless. At full strength, he could rend such asunder and return home But then... "What?" offers the God of Evil, before a brutal kick makes him grunt. He's hefted up with ease, and in a whirl the pair shift through reality to land upon the warm steel of Apokolips. Much of the endless metal is mildly burnt and scorched from the ruthless Genocide Protocol. At the moment, Superman is upon a narrow bridge in the midst of a damaged section. Down below, hundreds of Lowlies, maybe five hundred meters, are going through ashes of what was once their meager possessions, looking broken and destitute. A bald race of dark skin, Superman can tell they are blessed and cursed. Blessed, to be made immortal by the Source. And cursed... to forever toil in the ashes of this mechanical planet. A large door is open with a silent red light whirling, and more of them are carefully coming out.
Eyes lift up at the portal and the grasped God of Evil, as he growls deeply. "What... do you think you are doing...?" He stares down at the Lowlies with complete and utter contempt.
“Bringing you home.”
Superman holds Darkseid in one hand by the tunic, looking down at the lowlies who mill about far below. He raises his voice, the voice that brings hope to the hopeless.
“People of Apokolips,” he calls, hefting Darkseid over his head for them all to see, “I bring you your god!”
Dozens, hundreds of people are pooling beneath the bridge, looking up with the wide, shocked eyes of sheep. It's hard to tell what might be going through their minds, dressed in rags scarcely keeping modesty. A number hug children to their chests. Above, probes whirl and flicker, casting spotlights upon Superman and the broken Darkseid. "Intruder confirmed." It appears the city will be awaking soon. But that still gives him time to do what is next. "You're... a stupid fool..." Limpseid manages, twitching once and trying to feebly grasp.
"Come on, Darkseid," Superman mutters to the New God, "Don't you think a king should walk amongst his people from time to time?"
That said, he looks for a space below not full of people. Quietly hoping that none will get in the way, he heaves Darkseid down from the bridge to the ground far below. That said, he steps off to hover above them all.
"Darkseid is defeated. Know that it can be done. Know that this man who calls himself god is not so. You don't need to follow him anymore.
Many of the lowlies scatter away from Darkside when he lands upon his stomach, face-down on the hard, sooty steel of Apokolips. A feeble attempt to rise ends in failure. Slowly, the lowlies begin to congregate further, expressions dim and not understanding. Before many kneel, gently placing hands upon him. "God..." "God Darkseid..." "He is hurt...!" the lowlies begin to mumble. Working in tandem then manage to flip him on his back and, with the gentleness of innocents, heft his massive frame up. "Come. We must bring him to rest." "Don't worry, God... we will watch over you..."
As the throne of people begin to carry the broken Darkseid away, not a single one of the hundreds looks anything but horrified and worried. Of them, there isn't a single soul that seems pleased he just broke, shattered, and hurled their dictator to the most oppressed in his world.
"Once more, you are wrong..." Darkseid offers. "I am indeed many things... but to this world, I am truly a God..."
In short order they vanish from sight, hauling him around a huge pillar. The portal opened begins to wave and shimmer, as a number of parademons and attack forces start to converge on Superman's location, defenses in the buildings shinking back and exposing huge lasers. There's likely no further time to watch this unexpected show. He has little choice but to leave...!
Superman turns, taking to the air back towards the portal. He can scarcely believe that these people would be so willingly subjugated. Their reaction far from what he had hoped and even thought it would be. It’s just another riddle that will need solving in the long run.
As he flies, he passes a monolithic statue of Darkseid and pauses just for a moment to look at it. Then, the fury that has been boiling inside him since the final battle finally breaches the surface.
“ARGH!”
He drives his fist into the statue’s face, causing the head to crack and then topple to the ground far below. With nothing more to say or do, he flies through the portal and leaves Apokolips far behind.
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