Darkseid Attacks

There are days when the threat is a tidal wave or a scheme. And then there are the other days — the days when the sky above Metropolis simply tears open.

A Boom Tube looks like a circle of burning orange light, crackling at the edges, the size of a house. It appears without warning. And through it, stepping slowly, came Darkseid.

He is the ruler of Apokolips, a world of fire pits and gray stone. He is enormous and armored and ancient, his eyes burning red. What he wants — the one thing he has spent centuries searching for — is the Anti-Life Equation: a mathematical truth so powerful that if he finds and speaks it, free will would vanish from every mind on Earth. He believed it was hiding in the city's data networks.

The League scrambled. Four minutes from alert to formation.

Victor Stone's eyes lit blue before the Boom Tube had fully closed. He released a wave of digital static into every network in Metropolis — every server, every connection, drowned in noise. Darkseid's scanners reached out and found nothing useful. Victor had hidden all of it.

Batman was in the hover-vehicle before anyone asked. He had built a specific signal — a tuned frequency — that could disrupt Darkseid's Omega Beams by fractions of a second. Not much. In this fight, a fraction was everything. He climbed to altitude, watching everything at once.

Superman arrived in Centennial Park first.

The collision between Clark and Darkseid was not elegant. It was the meeting of two mountains. The earth shook for six blocks in every direction and windows rattled in their frames. Clark was as strong as anyone alive. Darkseid matched him stride for stride, then one stride further, and with one hand he drove Clark into the earth up to his knees.

Green Lantern's beam hit Darkseid from behind — CRAACK — a concentrated lance of emerald light that did not knock the tyrant down but bought Clark two seconds to recover. In this fight, two seconds was time.

Wonder Woman was already there. Her golden Lasso of Truth snapped around Darkseid's left arm, and Diana planted her feet and pulled with everything she had. The grass beneath her heels tore in two straight lines. Darkseid turned to look at her, and in his ancient, iron expression she saw something she had not expected: something like respect.

Barry Allen went into his deepest speed. He ran 200 laps around a single point in the park — so fast that the air itself began to spin, building a vortex from nothing, and Darkseid's targeting systems wobbled in the confusion. The Flash is not just fast. In the right hands, speed is a force of nature.

J'onn J'onzz moved like a ghost and slid his telepathic mind into the iron architecture of Darkseid's thoughts. At the very center he found a tiny crack of uncertainty. He noted it and sent its location to Batman.

Batman broadcast a single quiet word.

Aquaman arrived from the east. The Potomac River came with him — a wall of moving water that slammed into Darkseid's armor in rolling columns, and all that moving water grounded his energy weapons — just long enough, just a heartbeat — for Batman's signal to say now.

All seven struck at the same instant. Every power, every strength, every skill the Justice League possessed — directed at a single purpose.

Darkseid took one step back.

One step. In a city park on a Tuesday morning. One step backward from eight heroes who had chosen, together, to stand.

The scanner connection broke. The Anti-Life Equation stayed hidden, safe behind Victor's static. Darkseid's red eyes swept across each of them, measuring, reading, understanding.

His voice, when he spoke, came from somewhere deep and old. "This is not finished."

A Boom Tube opened behind him. He stepped through. It sealed shut.

The park was quiet. A car alarm had been going off for a while and nobody had noticed until now.

Superman floated down from above and landed with a slight stumble. There was a cut on his lip — not serious, but it was there, and it meant something about how hard he had fought. Diana was at his side before he could decide whether to pretend it didn't hurt.

She said nothing. She steadied him. That was enough.

They all stood in the damaged park together, the churned grass and the September air and the distant sound of the city beginning to return to itself. Darkseid was right. It was not finished.

But today they had held. And holding — when the weight you are holding is everything that makes tomorrow possible — is one of the bravest things there is.

Sleep safe tonight. The League is watching.