Phantom 36

Kalibak and he were still trading blows, yet Kal knew that he was the worse off between the two of them. It was dark now, the only light being that of the barely visible moon and the still-burning fires around him. Although he had no sunlight to rely on, that didn’t mean he was bereft of power. Kal still had the strength to go on for a while, but the constant healing of his muscles, organs, and sometimes even bones had taken a toll on his endurance. There was a constant ache in his forearms from blocking the heavy strikes.

And it wasn’t simply that Kalibak was strong.

The alien was relentless in his single-minded pursuit of breaking through every guard he put up and following him into every feint so long as he got to hit him. Swaying back from a punch that passed millimeters from his nose, Clark let his heat-vision lose once again, feeling the burn build up behind his eyes far faster than normal—though given how much he had spammed the ability in the last hour, it was to be expected. Energy as hot as the surface of the sun crashed against Kalibak’s forearm, singeing his already burnt hair even more, and Clark screamed as he caught the smell of burning flesh, pouring everything he had into the attack.

However, just like it had happened a dozen times before, Kalibak shrugged off the heat like it was water. Arm snapping out with a speed that belied his size, he clawed at his eyes. The fight had grown so lethal and quick for him that Clark didn’t even have time to blink off the heat in reflex, consciously needing himself to stay alert of every single movement and twitch made by Kalibak. By now, Clark was avoiding most of the blows only by the scrape of his teeth, and those he couldn't avoid, he was being saved from a grave injury by his durability.

That and his flight.

If he had been without either of the three, the fight would have ended within the first ten minutes once the large Apokoliptian got serious. Rushing inwards as Kalibak’s hand over shot to the side, Clark landed a vicious haymaker on his face. Breaking through the sound barrier was becoming a thing of the past now, he thought as the sound of his fist going supersonic broke through the night yet again, crushing Kalibak’s healed nose into a bent mess once again as fresh drops of blood coated his knuckles.

Leg rising through the air, he kicked Kalibak in his solar plexus, only to grimace as the giant gave him a bloodthirsty grin and grabbed his ankle in a vice-grip. Twisting around, he threw him over his head and bashed him back-first into already destroyed ground. Resisting with his flight, Clark was surprised by Kalibak’s power as the Apokoliptian simply grinned and stopped keeping him down.

With how much force he had been exerting on his flight, Clark had no time to realise what was happening until he was at Kalibak's face level, and before he could realise that he had stopped, he was slammed down again faster than he could even perceive the change. The smell of sewage and refuse had become a constant in his nose by this point, yet that overpowering smell of waste made him cringe for a moment, losing his focus on his current situation for just an eyeblink.

Against Kalibak, that might as well have been a whole minute. Even as his back slammed into the sallow water, two fists the size of his face each descended like meteors, crashing into his chest with a force that displaced water for meters, and simply shattered the tunnel around them like a child’s toy. Despite the echoing crash of stones and grinding of concrete and rebar against his other, Clark clearly heard the crack of his ribs as his body dug through the bed of the pipe. 

For the first time since the fight had begun, Clark felt real pain lance through his body as the shards of his bones dug into his muscle tissue, his lungs screaming under the hot pain literally penetrating through them. His mouth opened as he took in a ragged breath, only for the returning water to fill his throat as he choked on it. Pressing his hands against the rapidly breaking surface, Clark attempted to push himself up, but the damage had been done.

He had given Kalibak too big of an opening to pass up, and for the first time since he had first traded blows against the Apokoliptian general, he was at a clear disadvantage with no way of escaping it. Punches started to rain down upon his body, pushing him further into the crater even as the whole tunnel simply started to collapse around them. Through the pain and his clenched eyes, Clark was aware of how the stones that got near them were simply broken into crumbs by the power of Kalibak's heavy fists striking his body, the crater turning into something unrecognizable as the alien continued to beat him without a pause. His ribs and sternum cracked again, breaking and splintering faster than he could heal them, and Clark rapidly felt the pain reach heights he had last experienced in the presence of Metallo, the killer android equipped with the remains of his home planet.

This however, was not due to his cells weakening and stopping the nuclear reactions because of the Kryptonite. This was just pure, raw power breaking through his strength and durability. He attempted to fly out of the ditch, his leg kicking up at the giant but yet Kalibak somehow saw it coming and simply grabbed his leg once again before turning him and around and bending his leg inwards into a hold so hard that Clark almost feared his spine would snap, while his other hand caught him by the back of his head.

“Enough games,” he snarled bestially, and despite himself, Clark shuddered at the intense anger burning in the voice above him, a complete one-eighty from the almost amused tones Kalibak had taken until now. “This was fun for a while, but you are not worth anymore of my time.”

His face was slammed into the broken, churned-up bedrock below him, shaking the destroyed cavern that had formed around him to the last pebble. His nose simply burrowed through the hard stone, the impact rattling his brain inside his skull fiercely and sending a wave of vertigo throughout his body. Before he could form another thought, Kalibak raised him up and bashed him down once more, his heavy, large hand holding him by his hair and tugging on it for the third time in as many seconds.

Heat gathered behind his eyes as Clark screamed in frustration and pain both, the shards of his ribs still poking into his lungs, being kept there by the force Kalibak was exerting on his spine even as his body attempted to heal him. Crimson orange light shone brightly for half a second as his eyes turned into furnaces and he started to simply burn everything below him into molten slag.

“Stupid.”

A sudden pain shot up through his brain as Clark felt something touch his eyeballs, and heat that had built up behind his retinas simply bled out in an uncontrolled explosion. The underground cavern shook once again as heat and light filled it for a moment, as if a bomb had gone off inside the closed space. But yet, over the sensation of steam filling the air and rocks falling on him, Clark was aware of only one thing.

His vision was completely dark.

For someone like him, who could see everything across multiple wavelengths and from enormous to microscopic distances, darkness was a foreign concept. Even during the power cuts in Smallville, he had never had trouble distinguishing the smallest of seeds or the locusts flying through the crop. As his mind struggled to come up with the reason for the sudden loss of sight, Clark felt something warm run down his face, a smell other than dust and sewage entering his nose.

Blood.

He felt something move over his forehead, warmth trailing behind what he identified to be Kalibak’s fingers. And with that, his heart started to beat faster as the sensation returned to his optic nerve, hot pain travelling through his entire brain as he tried to blink, only to feel nothing over his eyes. However, even before the realisation that his eyes were gone could settle in, Kal could already feel the regeneration kick in, cells multiplying quickly as Kalibak landed another punch on his spine, cracking it further. The sudden blockage had caused all of his energy to literally blow up in his eyes, burning off the top of his corneas and giving him a fierce concussion.

“Your durability is something to be admired, Kal-El,” Kalibak grunted as he stood up, and Clark groaned as hot needles pierced his whole body from inside. “But you rely on it too much. I figure you have never had somebody punch the lights out, heh. Also, optical attacks? Please, I have been seeing them since I was a year old, and yours barely tickles.”

He was barely aware of Kalibak’s words as the alien jumped, breaking through the ground and arriving in the city once again. As Kalibak threw him down, Clark saw light return to his eyes, the asphalt meeting his face once again that very moment. “Tch,” he heard the bestial growl scoff, faintly feeling the steps come closer before his back was crushed beneath a lazy stomp. “You are just a baby Kryptonian, thinking yourself untouchable amongst these insects. Congratulations, now you finally know what it's like to really fight. DeSaad is going to have real fun breaking you in before you are inducted.”

Clark groaned, finally feeling his ribs slide back in place as his lungs relaxed. Blood dribbled past his lips, and he spat out more as his trachea was emptied. Palms open on the ground, he pushed himself up, spitting his blood to the side as his spine straightened, vertebrae righting themselves with an audible, agonising span that almost sent him to his knees again. Burning away his tears with a burst of invisible heat, Clark turned around and faced Kalibak once again, knowing that the alien could see the slight sway in his body as clear as day despite the darkness around them.

“You can still stand?” the Apokoliptian raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest, and at the sound of his knuckles tightening, Kalibak's bloody lips spread into a smile, “Good.”

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Another of the bionic creatures died under her fists, Kara swiftly flew through a horde, breaking through their bodies as fire trailed from her fingers, incinerating them to ashes before she grabbed the car that had been in their grasp. Safely lowering it to the ground, she checked the humans inside for any injury, but other than ruined pants, they were mostly fine. A sonic boom rocked through the street as she returned to the skies, heat vision blasting out in bursts as she sniped out the individual fluttering insects, stopping them from reaching the fleeing humans as the Army and Police too conducted their operation. 

Though other than their high-powered automatic turrets and sniper rifles, they weren’t having much luck shooting down the things. Heavier weaponry was stationed alongside them, tanks and choppers outfitted with missiles, but considering that most of these insects were already too close to civilians, they were being used sparingly. She had seen them swarm out of Detroit in droves, and on the radio chatter of the soldiers below, she had heard of how Kal and the two Green Lanterns, along with the Flash had been fighting off the aliens in the city.

And that Superman was engaged with “something huge and hellish”.

Harry was nowhere to be sensed, her older brother having vanished from the Atlantic in an instant. Nor had she heard any talk about Diana coming out to help the humans, which left only one conclusion: that something was wrong within Themiscyra. But she had no time to dwell on the hidden island, not when she was busy saving every human she could from being carried off towards Detroit by these weird cybernetic insects.

Besides, Themiscyra had her brother as well as Diana. Those two could handle anything.

A red bolt of energy zipped by her head, jerking her out of her thoughts as twisted mid–air. ‘Right, be alert,’ she thought, containing the explosion while the soldiers jumped away from the jeep, stopping even the sound from escaping her grip. She felt the heat and force behind the explosion struggle inside the transparent bubble as she raised the smoking, burning wreck into the air. The soldiers stood up, and she watched every human stop for whatever they had been doing as she sent it soaring towards the swarm above before removing the shield. All that contained energy exploded out finally, shredding through a hundred aliens in an instant. And that was before she fed the fire with her magic directly, controlling it and turning it into a giant bird that swept through the stragglers, yellow fire turning blue as she raised its temperature.

Her work done in this block, she ignored the ash and molten fire falling down around her, twisting on the spot to arrive above another swarm, fire already swirling in her palms. Thrice more she did the same, clearing away entire swarms and saving the civilians as well as the soldiers. Taking down the child towards the couple crying on the ground, she handed him to his mother, smiling beneath her hood as the father thanked her profusely, holding his family close while his wife heaved and clutched at her son.

“Thank you, uh, Miss Appolina!” he shook his head before looking up into the darkness where her face should have been with so much gratitude that it almost made her look down in embarrassment, “I—I do…I don’t know what else to say, but thank you very much. I don’t know wha-”

“It's ok,” she intoned softly, before looking at the small boy and conjuring a replica of the Batman figurine, ignoring the shocked whispers that swept through the soldiers standing a distance away. “Here, it will give him something to focus on.”

“-We can’t take i–”

“Relax sir,” she shook her head, giving it to him as she took a step back, looking at the still crying mother and son, “that toy isn’t permanent anyway.”

Before he could say anything, Kara heard a scream from a few blocks away, and disappeared in a sonic boom, unable to see the way the mother looked up just in time with a heartfelt smile on her face as the soldiers finally came close. Arriving above the scene, Kara looked down as she found a soldier screaming, firing her weapon blindly towards the aliens that were crawling towards her, blood covering her entire right half.

Not hers, she realised quickly, rushing and tearing through the nearest bugs in a second, their metal parts and wasted, dried flesh no match for her.  Eyes flicking down to the blasted apart body to her right, with only the uniform-covered legs surviving the blast, she turned around and stopped the energy blasts in their tracks, before killing them all with a burst of electricity. Looking at the smoking, sparking aliens as they dropped to the ground, Kara looked at the dead body of the soldier once again, patches of his jacket torn off from where the energy weapons had simply exploded the top half of his body.

It was not the first dead body she had seen. The effects of the irradiated land of their city on Kryptonians had been far more brutal for her, having to see cancerous cells devour the life and vitality of those she had known for years right before her eyes. But yet, it was gruesome all the same, and Kara sighed, conjuring a stretcher beneath the body and covering it with a flick of her wrist as she turned around. The female soldier was slack against the car behind her, her rifle clutched tightly in her arms and pointed at her as she took light, fast breaths.

Hyperventilation.

Hitting her with a calming charm before stunning her to sleep, Kara strained her hearing for the nearest squad around her. Finding one just past a couple of buildings and already rushing towards her, she raised a palm and fired a magical flare into the sky, the crimson light shining brightly in the dimming light as the sun disappeared over the rooftop behind her.

However, as she prepared to take off once again, she felt something beneath her feet. A tremor, so minor that it would barely register as an earthquake on the human scales, but in the relative quiet around her, it still stood out—especially since there was no explosion around her generating them.

Focusing on the seismic energy as another wave passed beneath her feet, Kara turned in the direction from which they were emerging, before her eyes widened slightly.

Kal.

Glass shattered around her as she disappeared in a sonic boom, tearing through the air like a missile and literally shredding through the aliens in her way as she made her way towards Detroit. In the distance, she could see the half-destroyed city, smoke rising in great columns while fires raged across the Mistown. Two emerald pinpricks flew around like meteors while the Flash raced around the edges of the city, the aliens falling like flies all around them. But yet, there seemed to be no end to the swarm that was still flying out of the distant white portal she could see.

Honing her senses, Kara swept her gaze throughout the empty city as she came to a stop right above it. A dull sound caught her attention and her eyes instantly moved towards the source, the meager dust cloud doing nothing to stop her from seeing her cousin get up, his fists raised towards a big, hairy bipedal. Kal was by no means a small man, even by Kryptonian standards...yet this creature completely dwarfed him in every sense of the word, his face split into an unnerving smile.

“Good,” she heard him say, before he rushed forward and knocked away her cousin’s incoming punch as if it were a toy, headbutting him brutally. As the shockwave of the headbutt buffeted across her face even so far up, Kara’s eyes widened with shock.

Fast.

She had expected strength from someone who had fought Kal for more than an hour at this point, but not this. And as if that wasn’t enough, her breath came to a standstill at the blood that had dribbled down Kal’s nose. It was then that she was finally able to notice his injuries, as well as the blood that stained his skin. There was no pause, no hesitation, no heart-wrenching realisation that came next, like Hollywood liked to show in its dramas.

Her fingers clenched into a fist with enough force to crush diamonds, and before the sonic boom had even begun to displace the air, the whole city shook with the force of her movement. She saw his eyes move, those manic black irises shift as even Kal took notice of her sudden appearance past his half-shut eyelids, but it didn’t matter in the slightest. Bone crunched beneath her hand as the alien took the full brunt of her attack, launching him and everything around her away as the buildings around them crumbled down. Grabbing Kal and moving out of the dust as she saw the giant break through another building, Kara focused on her cousin and moved her palm over his face.

“Episkey,” she muttered, the standard healing spell instantly mending the already healing bruise on his face within a second. “By Rao’s Light Kal, what has happened to you?!”

“Just some scratches,” he shook his head, pushing away hand to stand straight again, and Kara frowned beneath her hood as she flicked his chest, where a slight pink mark still remained, his bodysuit’s frayed edges trying in vain to strength across the gap and repair the material. “Jesus, Kara that hurts!”

“A sibling? She hits harder than you do,” a gravelly voiced echoed out of the dust-filled rubble behind her, and Kara turned, staring past the occlusion as the giant’s silhouette slowly grew smaller, walking towards them with clear, deliberate steps. “By the Dark One, DeSaad is going to be ecstatic!”

Knuckles wreathed in emerald fire, Kara disappeared from her spot, using every bit of her power that she could as she made to punch the creature. A hand twice as large as her face blocked her hand, and she saw the surprise in the black eyes as the limb was pushed back, yet, she could feel the strength resisting her grow stronger and stronger. Not that it mattered, she thought with anger as an emerald explosion rocked them both, magical fire eating away at his palm—much slower than she would have liked, but it worked all the same. Surprise flitted across his face at the sight, but Kara gave it no heed as another fire-imbued punch landed in his abdomen and pushed him back by a couple of feet. Emerald light filled her vision, and she crashed her palm against his chin, not wasting even a single microsecond as she flowed seamlessly from one strike to the next.

However, despite dozens of punches landing against him, despite the mystical fire literally eating away at his skin and flesh in front of her very eyes he slowly began to respond. A block here, a parry there, and Kara was slowly starting to lose the momentum she had hoped to maintain over the creature. Grunting as she ducked underneath a grab, Kara flew up and slammed her knee into his elbow. A mistake, she realised his limb barely moved, and he grabbed her leg and twisted, tugging away from her leverage like a child and throwing her into the rubble he had crawled out of.

“You hit harder than Kal–El, Kara,” the mocking voice grated on her ears as she stopped herself and turned mid-air, finding the alien already blocking blows from her cousin, and yet, his eyes didn’t stray from her. “The Furies would do well to have someone like you on their side, especially that fire. It burns differently than your optical attacks.”

“Shut up!” Kal roared, and Kara paused at the anger in his voice, even though the strength in his arms dropped with each rushed punch he was throwing at the alien. “You are not going to take anyone from Earth! Not me, not Kara, and not the humans!”

“Back on Apokolips, my father taught me at a very young age that strength defines the power your words carry,” the creature laughed, taking Kal’s punch head on on his chest before his fist blurred, and Kara heard the crunch of bone as Kal’s face rocked back, her cousin feet almost leaving the ground had it not been for her quick action. Steadying him with her arm on his back, she floated him backwards and took her stance before the giant once again, leaving behind every ounce and measure of control she had trained herself to possess. Before her eyes, he took his stance much like a wrestler would, shaggy mane matted with blood and dirt as the burns on his arms slowly healed, “and when you are strong enough, even your silence is damning to the universe. I have come out to play after so many centuries, Kryptonians, entertain me more before you break. ”

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Creating a whip made of Greek Fire, Harry swayed past the axe and latched onto the New God’s arm, watching the metallic armor begin to glow as his magic ate through the weird energy that ran through his body. To his side, Diana leapt through the air, sword flashing through the darkening sky and scratching against Steppenwolf’s nose, sending a spurt of dark blue blood into the air. The alien general was stronger than them both, but not so much that they couldn’t hurt him. But yet, his armor remained a game changer despite the last one hour of constant fighting between them and the gilded minotaur.

Steppenwolf was an able fighter, especially against them with his towering height and that wicked greataxe, Harry thought with a frown as he dodged a clawed swipe once again, fingers clasping around the jagged wrist before he guided the arm to the side, his hardened fist burying itself in the alien’s solar plexus—or where he at least guessed it to be based on Steppenwolf’s bipedal nature and relatively human like anatomy. A pained grunt came from above him, and Harry smiled as he condensed all that Greek Fire into a thin blade, pulling back his fist before stabbing forwards into the silver armor. Embers splashed out from the impact, but Harry hardened the fire, raising its temperature even more as he pushed deeper, weaving a cutting curse into the core of the ‘blade’ as he saw Diana use her lasso to strangle Steppenwolf. 

Her sword struck against his shoulders and neck, but to no avail as the armor held against the sword crafted by Hephaestus himself. And while Diana might not have had much luck with the armor, his methods were yielding an entirely different result. Satisfaction churned through his veins as he felt his hand move an inch, and Steppenwolf’s struggles ceased entirely. Raising his head with the cocky smirk he had first seen in the pages of Tom Riddle’s diary, Harry looked at the fury and pain in the New God’s eyes, and buried his fingers into the tiny incision he had managed to make into his body.

Maybe it was his intuition born of his thousands of years of life.

Maybe it was his God of War powers.

Or maybe it was the absolutely delighted, sadistic expression on his face.

Whatever the reason may have been, Steppenwolf seemed to have some kind of premonition, the minotaur-like alien grabbing his wrist and trying to pull his fingers out of his guts. Emerald eyes shining with malice and cruelty he had never had a chance to let out, Harry looked past the neon blue eyes in Diana’s fierce ones, silent words passing between them. The smell of ozone invaded his nose as his hair stood on end, the swirling clouds above flashed with unmistakable power, lightning arcing down in great bolts across the battlefield as Diana’s divine power reared its terrible, hungry head.

Themiscyra came to a standstill, and even the winds stopped as Zeus’ power manifested before him, and the clouds churned the most tumultuous they had since his arrival. Wreathed in lightning, Diana had never looked more dangerous and beautiful than she did now, he decided as he grabbed Steppenwolf's arm with his own, gritting his teeth as he pushed back against the larger, stronger creature with everything he had.

“For Zeus.”

Sword left forgotten, Diana had simply grabbed Steppenwolf’s by his jaw, her fingers digging into his scaled face mercilessly as rivulets of blood instantly began to flow—and with her whisper of death, divine judgement dropped from the heavens like the thunderbolt of Zeus. Yet it was not all that happened. He felt the pain as the electricity struck him too, burning him from inside out as he grit his teeth and pushed past the pain. Channeling magic into his hand even more he anchored himself to the New God—and he felt the energies behind Steppenwolf’s station resist him, trying to halt his magic. His regeneration had also almost pushed his hand out by then, with only the tip of his finger pushing past the armor repairing itself.

But it was enough.

“Sectumsempra.”