Chapter Text
Many Years Ago, Granny Goodness’ Orphanage
“Training her here seems odd to you, does it not Granny Goodness?”
THWACK!
“AHHHHHHHHHH!”
A horrific, pained scream escapes from Kara’s throat as the lashes attached to the cat o’nine tails strikes out across her bare back, leaving a series of jagged red lines that criss-cross over many others that are already there.
The strike causes her body to go rigid, straight, and as soon as the quick burst of agony passes she falls limp again. But not enough to go falling to the bloodied and dirtied ground beneath her. No, such a mercy as unconscious and an escape from the pain was not to be hers. She was held aloft, chained by her wrists into the ceiling by strange manacles.
They glowed consistently, a green light rimming around them, constantly flashing so as to allow everyone around to understand that they were working. They were clasped tightly around Kara’s hands, keeping her bound. Her feet were similarly useless, being inserted and then surrounded by a steel cover that had closed right over her feet as soon as Granny Goodness had forced her into them.
Around her neck was a collar which had a glowing green light upon it as well.
“Gaaaah…”
She goes limp, dangling there in the air with every bit of her exposed, every scrap of clothing having been pulled from her as soon as she’d entered this room. When was that? Hours? Days? Weeks ago? She couldn’t tell you. Her world didn’t have such things as time in it any longer.
All she felt was pain. Sharp, ceaseless and constant pain.
Her head lolls down a bit, trying to rest upon her chest as she fades in and out of complete consciousness, prevented from doing so by the collar around her neck. She didn’t understand what it was, but if she had to hazard a guess it had something to do with what had happened with the lowlies on the avenue.
She’d shot fire from her eyes.
She didn’t remember much after that as the one called Darkseid had reacted quickly enough. He came down from his perch with the speed of a bullet train, his fist raised and aimed directly at Kara’s face.
All she could’ve done at that moment was brace and prepare for death.
Impact had come, earth shattering, painful impact, but not death. To her surprise her head hadn’t caved apart like a melon right then and there. Instead she was left to the further depredations of Darkseid, who rained blow after blow upon her body until she was beaten into submission.
When she awoke? She was here, strapped up this position. Darkseid was gone, and in his place was a man who wore a purple cloak that hid his features only slightly. But Kara could see him perfectly.
His eyes were full of lust then, that old, grizzled face stained with the residual of countless years of torture and the pleasure he derived from it. He’d told her two things. The first being that his name was Desaad and the second was that she was to serve Darkseid.
After that?
She didn’t know much.
THWACK!
“AHHHHHH!”
She howls in agony again as yet another strike is placed upon her back, streams of bright red crimson blood seeping down her once pale and now reddish hued flesh. Fat droplets raced like rain down the valleys and curves of the woman, dripping down to the floor.
“Hail Lord Darkseid!” Desaad shouts, not even taking notice of the fact that the very man whose name he had just uttered was in the room that very moment. “Say it! Say it!” He raises the whip again, and this time aims for another target.
Her buttocks. The man had often struck it as well as the back of her thighs painfully, massive, awful welts having already formed there as a result, but he focused the majority of his efforts upon her back. He’d kept saying that, demanding it of her, and yet, for some reason the massive pain she felt was not enough to make her give in.
“N-no…n-no…pl-please-”
She was crying, turning her head this and that way back and forth rapidly, as if desperately trying to force herself away from where she was at that moment. But it wasn’t working. She was still trapped and in pain.
“That isn’t what you were told to say!”
THWACK!
Once again the whip comes down, and Kara’s body is jolted forward, her cheeks now bleeding fresh wounds as the prior ones had scabbed over, preventing further blood flow. But now? Now they are back. She wanted to die.
With an uncaring eye Lord Darkseid watches this, standing at the side of a smiling Granny Goodness who had been present throughout most of the woman’s ordeal. The woman was enjoying this clearly. She hadn’t let the smile drop from her face once throughout this whole process.
“Lord Darkseid, I do believe that Desaad and I can achieve the best results if we are on…familiar territory” the white haired woman answers with a smirk, turning to look up at the god who literally and figuratively towered over every single man, woman and child on Apokolips. He stood there, his arms folded behind his back while his eyes traced over every cut and welt on Kara’s back and rear.
Desaad brings the whip down again and this time Kara only has the energy for a little whine, a pained murmur that seemed to take a massive amount of effort to even escape her lips. “Say it! Say Hail Darkseid!” She remains silent, crying to herself, not taking the path forward that would allow her to escape the punishment.
Darkseid couldn’t help himself.
He was impressed.
“She is a Kryptonian” he says aloud, speaking of information that they all already knew, though none would dare to utter such sentiments aloud. “Yes my lord. She is”.
“And yet she has power to rival even the strongest warriors of Apokolips” he continues on, his deep baritone voice penetrating into the room above even Kara’s pained shouts. “Kryptonians have not had such abilities as her for thousands of years”.
“Yes my lord” Desaad says, taking a break after a particularly vicious swing that allowed bone to be visible at the uppermost portion of Kara’s back. The whip had cut so viciously, so deeply and so consistently in this one spot that it had torn through the entirety of the flesh and muscle beneath.
And now? Bone. Bone was visible.
“It is true”.
Desaad wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead with a sinister smile, one that doesn’t drop even as he looks at the god king of this world. “Then why have they returned?” Darkseid booms out questioningly. “Why has a pathetic race of pacifists suddenly issued forth a girl of such raw potential?” It was expected of Desaad for the man to have an answer, and he blanched when he realized that he didn’t.
He didn’t have a thing to say to his master. Not right then.
“Because, Lord Darkseid” Granny Goodness says, interjecting with a smirk of her own, glad to have one upped one of her rivals. “The sun of the Kryptonians has changed. Once it was a yellow star, imbued with the energy particular to that kind. But, other years it became red, and the natural abilities of the Kryptonians were dulled, and then done away with altogether. They barely even had memories of a time before being so pathetic and weak”.
She spits those last words contemptuously at Kara who heard them but responded with nothing. Her back was to the woman regardless, and she was far, far too hurt to do anything about it even if she could.
“Pl-please…” she begs once more, the others in the room expecting her once more to beg to be let go. They were content with carrying on with their conversation, ignoring her, and would’ve had something different not issued forth from her throat.
“K-kill me…please…just…kill me”.
All went silent for a moment, with all eyes glued to the woman in curiosity. But that curiosity quickly turned to rage in Desaad, the man raising his whip once again, ready to strike. “You bitch! You won’t die until-,”
“Enough Desaad”.
Instantly the man’s arm, so intent upon another strike, falls to the side, the attack abandoned as he looks upon Darkseid. “Let her rest for a few more moments. I believe after such a rest she will be more…amenable”.
“Yes. Of course my lord”.
The head torturer shuffles forward after bowing in an obviously obedient way, heading towards the bound and suspended Kara. Slowly he reaches up for her neck, or specifically the steel power cancellation collar that had been placed around it. He slides his finger across a panel and as soon as he does the woman goes completely limp, her eyes fluttering closed and unconscious.
“How many cycles has it put her through?”
“Forty sire”.
“Forty”.
Darkseid says this word with some degree of surprise, as if he was unable to believe it. The system that Kara Zor-El had been hooked into was known as the advanced torture simulation. Simulation was a misleading word. The torture was real enough, the red welts on Kara’s back being proof positive of that.
But what wasn’t quite so open was what it did to her mind. The power cancellation collar was enough to subdue gods, Desaad having created them so as to be able to imprison the gods of New Genesis when it came time. It worked too on Kara Zor-El, and while it did that it interfered with her body’s healing process and her perception of time.
The blonde had only been in the room, a dingy dungeon at the bottom of Granny Goodness’ Orphanage, for an hour. And yet to her mind? She’d been here forty days, though it was doubtful she could put such a number on it. Right before Darkseid’s eyes the wounds upon her back heal up, the device tapping into an innate healing ability the woman possessed, closing the wound.
Like a sandy beach being washed away with the tide the bone and muscle are once more hidden away under at first mottled, reddened skin and then, finally, pale, unblemished replacement. It was as if she hadn’t been struck at all in a matter of seconds.
Desaad had done this forty times already, only to subject her to the horror once she was awoken by the collar, her body made ready to weather even more agony.
“Impossible” Darkseid growls angrily at Desaad, causing the man to squirm. Even Granny Goodness seemed discomforted, afraid, though she didn’t at all mind if Desaad was turned to ash. “Nobody has lasted more than five days. None”.
“M-m-my lord! I swear it is so! I promise you!”
Darkseid was still unhappy, and he continued to glare at his underling, trying to draw out the truth he was sure was being hidden from him with a glare. But all Desaad did was shiver and cower, fearful beyond words at what his king would do to him. Quickly Darkseid realizes what that meant. The truth.
Desaad was telling the truth.
He backs off and turns his attention once more to Kara, eyeing the strange but rather beautiful specimen up with open curiosity. “Forty days…she is much, much stronger than she looks. Our yellow sun has returned her to her people’s true power. Yes. Even now I see it. Her body is shifting, changing underneath and yet right before our very eyes. She hasn’t even reached a fraction of her full potential yet”.
He reaches forward, forcing the tendrils of his consciousness into her mind, needing to know more about her. With each second that passed she became more intriguing, and Darkseid perhaps began to wonder….
“My lord, we must invade Krypton then” Goodness supplies, tentatively making her case. “Before they all reach their maximum pow-,”
“They are all dead”.
“What?”
This quick proclamation from Darkseid drew surprise both from Desaad and Goodness, who hadn’t been expecting it. But Darkseid? He just smiles and turns back to them once more. His highest ranking subordinates. Those who owed everything to him. Their very existence.
“Their sun, the one which took from them their power, has now taken from them their lives. This one…Kara Zor-El…she is the last of her kind. There are none like her”. He’d seen all of this from her mind, taking it without her knowing or agreeing to it. He knew everything about her now. Every smile she’d shared with friends. Every thought and desire.
And he sensed something…more.
A certain capacity. Darkness dwelling deep within her very core, hidden under many layers of shame and guilt.
It was a desire he knew well.
A desire for power above all else. To rule with an iron fist and be the final word upon every decision. To punish those who had mocked her, derided her or believed her to not be a threat. Of course it was a childish darkness. A desire for power to redress something as petty as schoolyard bullying, or taking the affections of a young man she fancied.
But, even still, that darkness was there.
‘All it needs is to be fed’.
“I have decided what is to be done with her” he says, coming to a quick, and in his mind, utterly rational conclusion. In fact it was probably the only possible conclusion that he could come to with all the information presented to him as it was.
“Is she to be relegated to my care my lord?” Goodness asks hopefully, already imagining what she could do if Kara were to become a Fury. The power and prestige she would wield within the ranks of Darkseid’s army. A greater power than she already had.
“That would be folly” Desaad says, desperate to make his case as well. “She will prove much more useful to me my lord…I mean, she will prove more useful to your cause by being entrusted to m-,”
“You just want to fondle and fuck her you disgusting man” Goodness seethes, though not out of any concern for the girl. Simply for herself. She gets right up into Desaad’s face, and to his credit he doesn’t back off, returning the glare with equal hatred and desire to kill her.
Before the argument could pick up any further steam though, Darkseid speaks, issuing his proclamation.
“Neither of you shall be her master” he explains, keeping his voice surprisingly neutral and stopping the two squabbling Apokoliptians right in their tracks. Darkseid smiles, a truly menacing sight to be seen upon the face of the universe’s most powerful man. He was looking not at them, but at Kara. “I will mold her into the perfect wife”.
It was settled then. Right there.
Darkseid had made his choice, his decision, and neither Desaad nor Granny Goodness would dare to waylay or question his words.
But, even still, they were disappointed, and in part? Slightly confused.
“Yes Lord Darkseid”.
“Such power. Such raw potential. It calls to me. And she is rather beautiful” he continues on, walking around to the front of the woman so as to get a look at her face. When he was standing before her finally, he reaches out and grasps her chin, raising her unconscious visage up to face his own. She was unseeing, lost in a world of pain, dried and wet tears still moving down her cheeks.
“Yes…she will only grow more beautiful and more powerful, and when she does she will sire me strong sons and daughters. When it comes time to invade New Genesis, she shall prove an invaluable weapon. Awaken her and keep her memory fresh Desaad. I would hate for us to lose our progress once she is so close”.
“Yes my lord”.
Desaad scampers forward, and once more rubs his finger across the device, causing it to send out small voltages into Kara’s brain, awakening her while also keeping up the illusion of time in regards to how she had suffered.
“Uggh…gah…ugggh…”
“Awaken Kara Zor-El of Krypton” Darkseid says, his voice still gravelly and strong, refusing to bend to anyone or anything in the galaxy. Slowly Kara’s eyes flutter open, and when they do she finds herself looking right into Darkseid’s face.
Her eyes instantly widen and fear overtakes her, her body weakly struggling against his grasp, trying to get away in vain, something that causes Darkseid to tighten his grip, almost crushing her jaw. A crack is heard and Kara winces, forced to remain still lest further pain be doled out upon her, and through no choice of her own she is forced to listen to Darkseid.
“You will not be killed, Kara Zor-El” he says. “I will not allow it. You shall not escape the torture for as long as I live, and I assure you that that will be until the end of time itself. Do you feel it?” he asks, drawing the naked girl’s attention back to the sharp pain that had felt like it was still there being doled out upon her constantly.
“The pain? The anguish? It will only get worse. It will never end. Not even when your mind is broken. Not even when you believe there is nothing else left that we can do to you. You will never escape it. You will never escape me”.
She cries as she shakes and quivers, closing her eyes in an attempt to drown out the world around her, a world that was nothing more than pain.
Months it felt like…months of…of…pain.
She just wanted it to stop. She just wanted…it…to..STOP!
Slowly the woman opens her eyes again and looks up towards her captor, both Granny Goodness and Desaad coming into view as well, the latter still clutching his whip, the very same which had caused her nothing but agony so far. He palms it, sliding his hands up and down its gore slicked strands, eager to keep up the assault.
“Now…tell me what I wish to hear”.
She knew what it was. How could she not? There was only one thing, and one thing alone, that had been repeated to her. One sentence that could save her. And yet, even now? Part of her resisted. Why? Out of fear? Or disgust?
She hated this man, but she was weak. She’d already tried to bring forth the lasers from her eyes that had burnt the lowlies away to nothing, and she’d failed. All her newfound powers had seemingly deserted her, and she was left alone with a weak and battered body, a body that would, again and again, be subjected to horrendous torture.
She was afraid, and because of that fear she lost control of her bowels.
A trickle of water could be heard and the duo behind Darkseid looked down in disgust, watching as trails of urine make their way down the girl’s thighs and then onto the floor. “She’s pissed herself in fear”.
“Disgusting”.
“It is wise to be afraid, Kara Zor-El” Darkseid growls. “For I am running out of patience. If another second passes without you doing as you-,”
“H-ha-hail-”
She stops abruptly, feeling herself to be on the edge of some great precipice, some darkness below her that threatened to swallow her, and everything she was, up without any remorse.
And when she tossed herself over the side of that cliff, when she allowed the darkness to envelop her…she would be gone. Forever. Everything she was, everything she was meant to be, would disappear, and the Kara Zor-El that everyone on Krypton knew would be dead.
There would be no smiling amongst friends or flirting in her ever so naive way with boys.
There would be no more sitting atop the roof of her home, peering through the telescope her father had built for her. No, there would be none of that. She would be surrendering everything of herself. Everything that remained of Krypton.
But Krypton was gone, and she? She was here. Here in pain.
She’d lost everything and now was seemingly being further punished for it, and in Kara’s mind what was the sacrifice of her soul against the backdrop of an entire planet. The ghosts of Alura and Zor-El were there, bowing their heads in shame. She could see her uncle and aunt as well, Jor-El and Lara-El.
She could see little Kal, held in her aunt’s arms, crying out to add a somber, mournful tune to what Kara felt was a funeral march. They looked away in shame, and Kara did so as well, allowing their spirits to descend back into the shadows.
She was alone and in pain, and she just wanted to make it stop.
Darkseid and the others meanwhile, had gone silent as she began to speak, trying and failing, her body wracked with anguish and trauma over what had been done to her and the pain she was still feeling. That was promising to come again.
“Out with it”.
“Hail…Hail Lord Darkseid”.
She wanted to sob, saying those words being almost as bad as the pain she’d endured. Almost. Realistically nothing could beat that but, even still every fiber of her being was recoiling at what she was doing. At the betrayal she felt like she was committing. This was agony. Death of a different kind.
She’d given in.
She lowers her head as soon as Darkseid releases his grasp upon her cheek, and tears come again, though this time they weren’t brought forth by pain. Instead they were brought forth by sorrow of a different kind.
“Good. Very good. I do believe we shall be able to move forward at a much brisker pace now, don’t you think Desaad?”
“She does show potential my lord” the man says, angered at the fact that he was now going to be missing out on prime torture material and further pleasure, both sadistic and traditional. Or perhaps both at the same time.
“And you Granny Goodness. What do you think?”
“I think that we shall commit to whatever it is you wish to do Lord Darkseid” the woman says, her arms crossed over her chest and a murderous gleam in her eye that she directs at Kara who was only looking at the now blood and urine soiled ground.
“Good. Very good. Very good. Hehmmmhemmmhemmm”.
He laughs lowly and darkly, not really a laugh or a chortle but something somehow even less. Something darker that fit with what and who he was. Who he truly was. “Your training will begin in earnest now, and regardless of your submission, you have not escaped pain. Not yet. You shall become its mistress. Its commander. Desaad shall continue to instruct you”.
“It would be my pleasure, my lord”.
Truly it would be.
Now, The Palace of Woe, Personal Quarters of Lady Darkseid, Today
“Ugggh…ugggh…”
Her head tosses and turns her head to either side of the bed, luckily finding soft and warm coverings. Her eyes remained closed, though her mind was anything other than restful. Her body reflected that too, tossing and writhing beneath the sheets as her hands and legs shift, like serpents beneath the coverings.
“No…no…please…don’t…no”.
She was whimpering, and her face scrunched up with her eyes clenched tightly, trying to escape the nightmares that were overtaking her mind and finding it utterly impossible to do. What could the most powerful woman in the galaxy possibly do against her own mind?
And even less, what could the two frightened Korugaran servants standing beside her bed do to assist her?
There was fear in their eyes, and both looked directly at one another, hopeful that the other somehow would have an answer. But they found that that was not the case in the slightest, and neither one of them knew what to do.
“No…no…please…”
“My queen”.
That was the tepid response, testing the water so to speak so as to try and rouse the woman out of her terror with simply a few words. But nothing came of it, and the begging, the near groveling actually, continued. Despite the fact that this was Lady Darkseid, a woman over whom pity itself did not hold much sway, they were moved to it.
Perhaps it was seeing her in such a…mortal position. One not unlike something that they themselves had experienced.
It was jarring to see her this way. So powerful and yet so injured, so broken by scars and afflictions of the mind. Perhaps that is why one had the bravery to step forward and reach for the woman, grasping at her arm which slammed down on the bed with great force.
“Lady Darkseid? Are you-”
Her eyes shoot open almost as soon as the servant touches her flesh, and she rises in the bed, her own arm twisting and turning to shoot out and latch onto the Korugaran’s wrist with such force that it was almost snapped. A howl of pain echoes out from the woman’s throat, and she falls to her knees, averting her face in fear. And the fear was well founded for the two as her bright blue eyes were now red, glowing intensely with the brightness of her Omega Vision, ready to be set loose on the servant.
“Lady Darkseid please!” the other shouts, risking her own life just as much as her sister had, her hands coming up in an open show of supplication in the hopes that such a show of obedience would call off her rage. “Please! Please! I beg of you! Do not hurt her!”
Kara’s nostrils were flaring with such rage that it almost seemed like a wasted attempt at saving a life. As if it was useless to try and would end only with her own life being taken.
But instead the woman seems to calm, the rising and falling of her shoulders lessening and finally stopping as her breathing becomes less ragged and far more controlled. The red in her eyes begins to fade away and soon the blue returns.
“Gaaah!”
She releases her grasp upon her servant girl’s arm and as soon as she does the slave brings her wounded appendage into her chest, rocking back and forth as she kneels upon the ground, crying and rocking back and forth. Her sister, heedless of the goddess sitting up in the bed, rushes to her, falling to her knees and grasping her up in her arms.
“Shhh, shhhhh, shhhhhh”.
Kara was befuddled at what had happened, and was only slowly coming down from the nightmare that had seized her. She brings her hand up to her face and leans in, shaking it back and forth. A deep breath is taken, the oxygen coming into her lungs and swirling about, calming her even further.
‘It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare’.
It wasn’t. Not to her. It was her life, things she’d actually experienced. Memories that came again and again every single night. Some were worse than others, and last night? It had apparently been bad. She looks up, pulling her hand away from her face and seated in her bed, naked with her bare breasts exposed due to how the blankets had fallen from her. She turns her eyes towards the two servant girls, both frightened and scared as nothing like this had ever happened to them.
They were new, and as such unseasoned to the night terrors that seized her all too often.
‘You hurt her’.
She felt guilt well up within her at that, knowing the woman had just wanted to help her, and she’d repaid it by nearly crushing her arm. But, even still, she hardens her expression, and calls out to them in a firm voice. “Is she okay?”
The woman’s sister, the one cradling her into her chest, looks up and makes eye contact with the presumably angry goddess, and still prepares herself for death, believing that there was nothing that could be done.
They’d disturbed her slumber, as horrid as it might’ve been, and now would have to pay for it. But that wasn’t an excuse not to answer. “I-I d-d-d-on’t believe ve-ve-very mu-” Kara sighs and rolls her eyes, getting tired very quickly of the stuttering and the fear.
“Just…shut up”.
The woman instantly went quiet while the sniffling of the other continued, a sound that grates on Kara’s heart strings and further arouses her guilt. ‘Dammit…Rao help me’. She comes up with a solution quickly enough, though she realizes she would have to season it. The Korugarans did not deserve her hatred, her loathing. The slaves and the lowlies weren’t like the others of Apokolips and Kara felt no joy in their pain or torture.
“Shut up with your crying!” she seethes, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and in the process fully exposing her body. At her shouts the woman’s sobbing instantly stops, and both look up in fear as the goddess rises. “Let me see it”.
The woman shuffles a bit, as if trying to hide her arm in case Kara decided to finish the job. But Lady Darkseid was in no mood for such antics.
“Let me see it”.
She repeats the sentiment once more, firmly, but not cruelly. There was a limit to her patience after all. Slowly, the woman complies, and she brings her wounded appendage outwards and offers it to the queen who reaches out once more, causing the woman the appendage was attached to to flinch. Kara ignores that, and instead looks in upon the arm, past the flesh and muscle to the bone, gazing over each layer with ease.
“You’re fine. It’s just a bruise so stop your sobbing”.
She was underselling it a bit. It wasn’t just a bruise. It was a massive bruise but at the very least there was no major damage. Some of her veins had been compressed and her muscle injured, but it would heal and it would do so quickly.
Kara releases her arm, shoving it away and allowing the still frightened girl to cradle it once again, her sister helping her rise to her feet while keeping her arm over her shoulder.
“Take her to my baths and let her soak it in warm water. It should be fine in like an hour or two”.
“M-my queen. Do you need assistance getting re-,”
“No. Just get out”.
That was enough for the senior servant who bowed her head quickly and turned, leading her sister away, back towards the door that led into the room. Kara waited until they exited, the door closing behind her with a loud clang, once more leaving her along, standing at the side of her massive bed, naked and ready to get dressed.
But she doesn’t move. She remains still, stock still, unmoving and slowly she brings her hands to her face. She knew she should get ready. Combat would be commencing soon, very soon, and while it wasn’t necessary for her to be there, she still wished to be.
‘Watching Batman die will make me feel better’.
She wasn’t sure of that even as she thought it, her hands raising up to her face again, covering her eyes as her body was wracked by sobs. She turns, and sets herself down upon the bed, hunched over as she does the seemingly impossible.
Lady Darkseid begins to sob.
Half an Hour Later, Personal Viewing Box of Lady Darkseid
“Hey…where’s Lashina?”
Jason asks that question of the other Furies assembled within the confines of the box, all of them spread out over a wide enough area surrounding a large, throne-like seat. Jason, of course, was placed on what was essentially a glorified stool, set as it was at the foot of the massive seat. Like a pet.
‘I’m ecstatic about that’ he thinks sarcastically, absolutely hating how Lady Darkseid had been treating him. ‘It’s like she actually thinks I’m a dog or something’. By contrast all the Furies were standing around, and nearest to him were Bernadeth and Harriet, who flanked him on either side.
Stompa and Barda remained off to the side, their arms crossed over their chests with the latter sporting a particularly pouting expression. His question seemed to put them all on edge, and all eyes turned to him as he asked it.
“She’s in the infirmary”.
“Ohh…why, what happened?” he asks, playing it cool even now. He’d wanted to ask right as soon as they awoke him and forced him to dress, each of them watching as he did so, before escorting him here but he knew that that would be far, far too obvious.
“Stompa tried to kill her. Apparently she took offense to the fact that Lashina had told you that she was a man”. Stompa blushes and looks away pointedly as this is once again brought up, a sour expression playing out over her face.
“Ohh…hey, sorry. I didn’t realize Lashina was pulling my leg. I thought she was being serious” he says with a shrug.
“Hehehehehe probably just did it to get under her skin. Sabotage her chances”.
“As if Lashina needed to lie to do that” Bernadeth says lowly, mocking Stompa who practically starts shaking at what was being said. Barda looked at Jason with an odd expression upon her face though, one of searching curiosity. She remembered the fight, if it could be called that, between Stompa and Lashina. And she also noted how Lashina seemed genuinely confused as to what the bigger woman was saying.
‘She had no idea what Stompa was talking about. That kind of surprise can’t be faked’.
She looks at Jason, and he looks back at her, getting something from her look. She knew. And now? He knew that she knew. Such a fact should’ve caused discomfort within the man, who was now made aware of the fact that a very powerful woman was aware of the shenanigans he had only started to play.
But instead of fear, cowering, begging fear she expected to see in his eyes, instead? He smiles. And beyond that he actually winks, sending Barda into a state of shock. He was acting like…like they were co-conspirators, the both of them let in on some dirty little secret together. Jason turns away and looks forward, once more at the stands which were filled with people, ringing the entire cityscape below.
But even with him looking away, Barda still felt his eyes upon her. Lingering, almost touching her, seemingly able to see beneath her clothing and flesh to her heart. She blushes and forces herself to look away as well, no longer wanting to dwell upon this. She wouldn’t share what she knew with her sisters.
It gained her nothing to do so, and besides that…she wanted to see where Jason would take this.
‘He’s a tactician. Dangerous. We should just kill him’.
She wouldn’t do that though. No. Especially not without Lady Darkseid’s approval.
Barda wasn’t the only one that was rather fixated on Jason at the moment though, as both Bernadeth and Harriet looked down on the man, each one of them racking their brains for something to say. Harriet bit her lip, chuckling lightly to herself as she turned this way and that, kicking her feet against the ground.
Bernadeth instead kept looking forward, struggling inwardly with what she really wanted to do.
‘It will be…odd…but try it’ she chides herself. ‘Be kind. Show him that you can do so. And especially to him. Offer him something. But what? Hmm…that stool. It looks very uncomfortable’ the torturer thinks to herself, watching as the man shuffles upon it, seemingly desperate for a comfy purchase.
It comes to Bernadeth quickly, and she smiles widely, not even remembering the fact that she was surrounded by her ‘sisters’.
“Nightwing, wou-,”
“Are you comfortable-hehehehe-Nightwing?”
Harriet moves forward, stealing the words right from Bernadeth’s mouth, as she reaches out and places her hand upon the man’s shoulder. She moves to his front, dropping to her knees almost in that all too typical animal-like walk of hers, and comes face to face with the man who raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“Huh?”
“Ar-hehehehe-are you comfortable? You keep shifting around. C-can I get you a pillow?”
“Huh…you know? A pillow would be nice. Thanks Harriet. Really nice of you” he says with a seductive smile, one that made Harriet’s eyes go wide and her heart rate increase. “Nice? Hehehehehehehehe”. Bernadeth, meanwhile, was fuming, her lips pursed and quivering with her utter rage.
On one hand she knew that Harriet hadn’t intentionally stolen her idea. After all, there was no way she could read minds, but to her there was enough malice in this action so as to justify an addition to her hate, kindling on the fire so to speak that was already burning. She balls her hands up into fists and lets them shake too, lest they go flying into the face of Harriet.
Something Bernadeth knew would be an utterly awful idea. If she did that, engaged in a brawl with Harriet, she would lose. And besides that Harriet was Lady Darkseid’s favorite and no matter how much she hated her, how much she wished to displace her, she couldn’t risk her rage. Not yet. She wasn’t powerful enough yet.
“Thanks Harriet. Sounds good. Might leave me with less of a sore ass for later”.
“Don’t bother”.
Another voice joins, and this time all eyes turn to the entrance of the booth as Kara comes waltzing in, now dressed up in a long, flowing black gown that was cut up the middle, exposing a generous portion of her breasts. All instantly snapped to attention, especially the parademons that lined the walls.
“I don't want any of you leaving this spot” she continues, this time smiling, forcing it, as she moves up towards the slightly nervous Jason, who couldn’t quite make sense of what was going on with the woman or why she seemed different. She reaches out for Jason, and pats his head, further confirming the idea that he was thought of as nothing more than an exotic pet.
“But we can’t have our little friend getting a sore butt now, can we? You”.
She points at a parademon.
“Go get Nightwing a pillow for his rear end”.
Instantly the insect-like creature begins to shuffle off, and Kara releases the man’s head, turning and ascending the steps quickly, turning around and finally? Plopping right down in the chair, her arms going to rest atop the sides.
“Good morning Lady Darkseid,” Barda says first.
“It is a good morning, isn’t it Barda?” she asks rhetorically, reaching out for a bottle of what was essentially alcohol upon this awful, hellish world. With one movement the cork is removed, and Kara wastes no time with a glass, simply tilting the already chilled bottle back towards her throat and letting it pour down.
Jason watches with a neutral expression, waiting for his chance to ask a question of the woman.
“Ahhhh…that hit the spot”.
The blonde notices as soon as she pulls the bottle away and wipes the remnants clinging to her lips with the back of her hand. And her smile, somewhat, falters. “What is it, Nightwing? You thirsty?” she teases, reaching out with the bottle. “Want an adult drink? Or would you rather I nurse you like a baby boy?”
She gestures to her breast and the Furies laugh, all going along with her joke and even Jason cracks a smile. But to him there was something odd about the way she was right then. Almost manic, like she was hiding something.
‘No way of finding out what it is though…’
“Just wondering where Bruce is” he says aloud as the parademon enters with a cushion of sorts in hand. He rises, and both Bernadeth and Harriet, at the same time, reach out for the cushion, grasping it out at different sides. A glare is directed at Harriet from Bernadeth, a withering one that carries with it the strength of hate left over from Harriet having stolen what she saw as a chance to ingratiate herself to Jason.
She wasn’t letting go though, and it was on Bernadeth to surprise the woman, quickly yanking it away from a shocked Harriet who glared back when her quarry was taken from her.
“Here you are Jason”.
Bernadeth quickly sets the cushion down, patting it once or twice, her hands lingering wanting to make sure it was indeed comfortable. “Ohh…thanks”. He sits down and says nothing more, too focused upon getting an answer to his question from Kara.
“Hopefully? Soon dead. I know, I know, you love him or care about him or something. But hey, that’ll pass”. Her face suddenly becomes dark again, as if she was unaware of the presence of those around her and simply stuck in her own little world.
“We all lose people we love…sometimes more than just a few too. You’ll get over it. And me?”
She becomes chipper again, smiling. “I’ll be entertained by watching his stupid little corpse writhe around on the ground before he dies fully. And maybe I’ll have him stuffed. That might be fun. A museum dedicated to him. He’d like that wouldn’t he? I get the sense he’s a bit self absorbed anyways”.
‘Lady…I can’t wait till we blow your head off’.
Jason looks forward, no longer wanting to make any conversation with the woman who had thus far only angered him, though granted he did feel a bit more comfortable in the stool. He looks out over the War Dome now, a massive, sprawling microcosm of a city that was, in a way, similar to the arena in which he’d already fought.
There were stands on the sides, all packed with lowlies and other Apokoliptians, each wanting to watch the massive battle that was about to take place. Over it though, were bands of energy that crisscross over one another, no doubt potent enough to keep anyone that they wanted to be there in.
In the center of the city was a hill, atop which was positioned a small square building with a flagpole atop it, at this moment bereft of any flag. This would be the space that thousands would fight and die over. This small, self contained space.
‘Bruce…I’m beginning to have doubts that even you’re gonna be able to handle this’.
Kara just smiles, getting the sense that things were about to begin in earnest.
“Let's get ready to rumble”.
She loved a bit of blood sport in the morning. It always got her mind off of the night before.
Below
THUNK!THUNK!THUNK!THUNK!THUNK!
The chains continued to fall one right over the other as they raised the platform up higher and higher, bringing Bruce and his detachment of parademons out of the darkness below in much the same manner as it had brought them upwards. All of the parademons were quiet, though eager also described them as they clutched their rifles, spears and other assorted weapons, their armor resplendent in its black coloring with Bruce’s symbol upon it.
And before them?
The man himself stood clad in his Apokoliptian styled armor, clutching a rifle he’d gotten to know the ins and outs of that very morning. Glorious Godfrey stood off to the side, a serene smile on his face as he spoke the final commands to the man, the platform getting closer to the surface.
“You have twenty four hours to seize your objectives, Batman. Whoever is in possession of the hilltop bunker at the end of that time, is the victor”.
“You’ve already told me”.
“I am simply reiterating it,” he says without his smile leaving, the thunking finally ending as they reach the surface, Bruce able to see a large gray building through the energy bars before him. They fizzle out and disappear, allowing him a path forward.
“Good luck Mr. Wayne”.
“Hmmm”.
He steps out slowly, already hearing the sounds of far off combat as the reports of rifle fire and screaming could be heard. Apparently the others had immediately taken to killing. The parademons followed behind him, and as soon as the last one was out, the energy bars returned and the sound of the chains once more falling one over the other could be heard. Glorious Godfrey was returning to the darkness of the War Store below.
Now Bruce was in command.
“⍙⟒ ⋏⟒⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ☌⍜ ⍜⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏃⏁⏁⏃☊☍. ⋏⍜⍙.”
The parademons were eager, not even letting a second or so pass before they spoke, though what they said? Bruce couldn’t know. He turns to his right and sees a smaller building, one which had only one space open to the attack or fire due to its positioning, flanked on either side by much larger buildings.
“There. Take up position in that house”.
He begins walking, heading towards it, and at the same time drawing the confusion of all the parademons behind him. Of course they followed, walking right behind the man in readiness to carry out his orders. But they were confused. Why weren’t they instantly going on the attack? There was war to be made.
They should be seizing the objective, fighting through and yet…they were heading into a building for purposes unknown. The battle was just beginning though. Who knew what would happen. So? They walked