Rakan re-entered the fight, Kara barely had time to register the shift in the air before his clawed hand tore through the space beside her, forcing her to release Querehsha and twist away.
She adjusted herself instantly.
She stopped trading blows head-on and instead danced around him, striking from angles, targeting joints, disrupting his balance, forcing him to react instead of dictate the fight.
Her knee drove into his ribs hard enough to cave them in and she followed with a spinning backfist that snapped his head to the side, sending him skidding across the street.
Before he could recover, she was already on him again.
Her hand clamped around his wrist and she twisted.
Hard.
The sound of bone snapping was drowned out by Rakan's snarl as she tore the arm clean off at the joint and hurled it away, the claws clattering uselessly across the ground.
"You're slower," Kara said coldly, stepping back before the kryptonite's proximity could drag her down. "And you're getting weaker."
Rakan staggered back, blood pouring from his shoulder as his regeneration struggled to keep up.
"You..."
He didn't finish.
Because Kara was already attacking again.
She hit Querehsha next.
This time harder.
A punch to the abdomen that folded her in half, followed by a rising strike that launched her skyward before Kara blurred upward after her, grabbing her by the leg mid-flight and slamming her back down through three consecutive rooftops before letting go.
The city shook with the impact.
For a moment it looked like Kara was overwhelming them.
Dominating them.
Even Querehsha, even Rakan both of them were being pushed back, forced to react, forced to endure her relentless attacks.
But monsters like them didn't fight fair, Querehsha rose slowly from the rubble, her body twisting back into shape, her expression no longer amused, her lips parted slightly.
And she exhaled.
At first, it looked like nothing.
Just a faint mist, colorless and harmless.
Kara didn't recognize it for what it was until it was already too late.
The moment it touched her, everything changed.
Her strength vanished in an instant.
She dropped, hard.
Her knees hit the ground with a crack, one hand bracing against the shattered pavement as her breathing hitched violently, her vision blurring.
A faint, sickly green glow lingered in the air around her, the invisible mist turned green in an instant.
Kryptonite.
But not solid, Gas.
Kara's fingers dug into the ground as her body trembled, every cell screaming as the radiation tore through her system.
"…How… did you.." her voice broke, breath catching as she tried to force herself back up.
Querehsha smiled, a satisfied venomous smile.
"Adaptation, this is how I killed your cousin by the way, you should be honored to die like this as well." she purred.
Rakan stepped forward slowly, he was in terrible shape his body still broken in places, his regeneration lagging, but it didn't matter anymore.
He raised his foot and brought it down hard against Kara's face, slamming her into the ground again.
"This bitch…" he muttered, breathing heavier than before, blood still dripping from his mouth. "You weren't this strong back then…"
His foot pressed down harder.
Pinning her.
"But it doesn't matter," he continued, lifting his leg again, preparing to crush her skull completely.
"It's over."
He brought it down, and stopped.
His red eyes widened.
Something… instinctive made him stop.
Querehsha tilted her head, her smile faltering slightly as she noticed the shift.
"…Why did you stop?!"
Rakan didn't move.
His foot remained pressed against Kara's face, pinning her into the fractured concrete, her strength bleeding away under the kryptonite gas that still lingered in the air, but his posture had changed. The feral confidence, the savagery that had defined him moments ago, cracked.
His head turned slowly.
His eyes, those predatory, blood-red eyes widened.
"…You don't sense this?" he asked, his voice lower now, strained in a way that didn't belong to a creature like him.
Querehsha frowned, irritation written all over her transformed features as she glanced around, her enhanced senses stretching outward.
"What?" she snapped. "What are you talking about?"
She saw nothing and felt nothing.
Only the prey beneath them.
Her gaze dropped back to Kara, lips curling. "Stop stalling and kill her. We've wasted enough time!"
Kara barely heard any of it.
Her vision blurred, her breaths shallow and uneven as her body fought a losing battle against the poison and radiation eating away at her from the inside. Her fingers twitched weakly against the ground, but even that felt like too much effort.
Rakan didn't move, didn't press down harder and he didn't finish it.
Because what he was feeling was seriously wrong.
****
Across the city, the war had turned.
What had begun as a battle was now a flood of monsters.
The gate still stood open, a monstrous tear in reality that continued to pour out wave after wave of beasts, giant wolves crashing through buildings, horned war beasts trampling entire streets, insect swarms blotting out sections of the sky. The defenders had pushed back at first, carving through the initial waves with force and coordination, but now,
Now the numbers were suffocating, fatigue was building up.
Hunters who had arrived with bravado and arrogance were being forced back, their formations breaking under the sheer pressure.
"This is insane!" one of them shouted, firing spells desperately into a swarm of creatures that simply replaced themselves as fast as they fell. "They're not stopping!"
"The fucking insects are multiplying.. fall back! FALL BACK!"
Above them, the Justice League fought, Wonder Woman cleaved through towering beasts with her blade, her lasso snapping around a winged creature and dragging it violently into the ground. Green Lanterns pushed back entire hordes with constructs of blinding light, their willpower forming barriers that flickered under the strain.
"Too many!" Hal barked, reinforcing a collapsing wall of energy as a wave of monsters crashed against it. "We're getting overrun! Damn it, Oa needs to send reinforcements!"
"We will still hold this line," John replied sharply, his constructs hardening. "That's our job."
But even they felt it, the pressure of an army that didn't care how many it lost.
Then the ground itself betrayed them, massive roots erupted from beneath Gotham, tearing through streets and buildings alike, twisting upward like pillars. thick, pulsing vines spread across the battlefield, and from them,
Gas, clearly toxic started emerging, Hunters stumbled as it spread, coughing, choking, their bodies reacting instantly.
"What the hell is this?!" one of them gasped, dropping to his knees as the toxin filled his lungs.
"Don't breathe it!" another shouted, pulling his mask over his face too late as his vision blurred.
Even the League faltered for a moment.
Martian Manhunter telepathic senses stretching as the sudden spread of unnatural life overwhelmed the battlefield. "Bruce needs to hurry while this thing is still in Gotham..."
.
.
.
Far from the chaos, the Batwing cut through the sky and it didn't slow as it approached the frozen expanse of the Arctic, didn't hesitate as it descended toward the crystalline structure of the Fortress of Solitude.
Batman was already moving before it fully landed, the moment the ramp dropped, he was out, boots hitting the ground at a run as he moved inside without wasting a second.
He found him exactly where he expected.
Superman lay within the healing chamber, his body still, his condition far worse up close than any screen could convey. The yellow sunlight bathing him should have been restoring him, should have been purging anything foreign from his system, but it wasn't enough.
The poison of the Monarch was still in his blood.
Standing guard nearby was Marshal Zeus.
The shadow turned his head as Batman entered, violet lightning flickering faintly across his form. For a moment, the two simply regarded each other.
Then Zeus gave a single nod.
"I will return to the battlefield," he said, his voice calm but absolute. "He is in your care."
Batman's gaze lingered on Superman.
On the state he was in.
On the fact that this… Shadow… had stayed behind to guard him.
"Thanks for bringing him here," he said at last.
Marshal Zeus was gone in the next instant, vanishing in a streak of lightning.
Batman stepped forward, already pulling out a specialized injector.
"Glad I got here when I did," he muttered, scanning the readings as the Fortress systems fed him data.
Worse than expected.
But he didn't hesitate, the injector pressed against Superman's neck and discharged.
"It'll take time," Batman said quietly, watching the readings shift, however slightly. "But it'll work."
.
.
.
Back in the ruined city of Gotham, Rakan stepped back.
Slowly and instinctively. His foot lifted off Kara as if the contact itself had become irrelevant.
Querehsha stared at him now, her irritation turning into confusion. "What are you doing?!"
Rakan didn't answer her, he was looking around.
Breathing heavier, sweat beginning to form despite his monstrous nature.
"…Why am I the only one who feels this…" he muttered, voice tightening.
Then he turned, and ran.
He ran like something was behind him.
"I… I must go!" he snarled, shifting into his beast form fully, dropping to all fours as he tore through the ruined streets, abandoning everything.
"Wait!" Querehsha snapped, but he didn't stop.
Her attention snapped back to Kara, rage replacing confusion.
"Fine," she hissed. "I'll kill this bitch myself!"
She moved... and never reached her.
Lightning fell from the sky like a spear of judgment.
It struck Querehsha, driving her into the ground with a deafening crack as the energy pinned her there, her body convulsing as she let out a shriek that echoed across the ruins.
Far away, Rakan ran.
His beast instincts howled.
'What is this presence…' he thought, terror creeping in despite himself. 'This isn't what we sensed in the dimensional gap...this...this is..'
He looked up but it was too late.
Something descended.
Extremely fast, a foot came down and crushed him.
The impact obliterated the ground beneath him, a crater forming instantly as his skull shattered under the weight, his body pinned like it was nothing more than an insect beneath a boot.
Silence followed.
When the dust settled he stood there.
Dark armor wrapping around him like living shadow, a cape of darkness flowing behind him. His ashen white hair moved gently in the air, untouched by the destruction around him, and his violet eyes burned with something far worse than anger.
It was sheer disappointment, as he glanced down at what remained beneath his foot.
"…I think I stepped on trash," he said calmly, almost absentmindedly, lifting his foot slightly and looking at the blood staining it. "My shoes are ruined."
Then his gaze lifted.
"Prepare yourselves," Arthur said, his voice quiet, yet it carried across the ruined city.
Those glowing violet eyes sharpened.
"Because I'm about to end all of you."
/-\
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