The demoness was breathtakingly beautiful. She looked Steppenwolf over with a playful gleam in her eyes, her gaze lingering on his chest and the muscles of his arms, then laughed softly. "Welcome to Hell, Commander of Apokolips. I am Malcanthet—mistress of the City of the Dead."
Steppenwolf gave her a longer second look. A named demon with her own territory. This was a greater demon, no question.
She didn't look all that formidable—her waist was narrower than his forearm. But he wasn't about to underestimate a demoness. When it came to scheming and treachery, demons were the gold standard; no one else even came close. And this was Hell. With the will of Hell behind them, a demon's combat power could multiply several times over. Surface appearances meant nothing here.
His voice came out deep and gravelly. "Where's the meeting? You're one of the Goddess of Death's people?"
Malcanthet neither confirmed nor denied—her silence was its own answer.
The Underworld is already infiltrating Hell? Steppenwolf's estimate of that beautiful lady's strategic reach climbed another notch.
Apokolips didn't fear Hell. But even among villains, there were factions. Demons were ruled by self-interest, and what was worse, they couldn't be permanently killed. Darkseid had publicly stated on more than one occasion that he found demons distasteful—especially the high-ranking ones.
"The venue isn't far," Malcanthet said. "It's the territory of Trigon's eldest son—Belial, the Black-Gold Flame Messenger." She opened another portal. Steppenwolf inspected it, found nothing amiss, and stepped through after her.
The meeting site wasn't large—just a small palace. The Underworld and Trigon's sons had recently traded blows, but demons only cared about profit, and after several rounds of negotiation, the Underworld had reached a working arrangement with Trigon's eldest. Classic dynamic: help the elder brother against the younger. Malcanthet now served as the bridge between the two sides, moving between both camps with considerable skill and enjoying her position immensely.
Steppenwolf did another sweep. The venue was clean—no ambushes, no traps. Not that ambushes would have mattered; the boss would be attending via projection, and losing a projection wouldn't affect the real body at all.
As for Steppenwolf himself—he had enough self-awareness to know Thea wouldn't bother going to this much trouble just to trap him. He wasn't important enough for that.
Steppenwolf and Malcanthet sent their signals simultaneously. Within ten minutes, Thea's and Darkseid's projections appeared inside the chamber.
Like a servant, Malcanthet bowed and withdrew, drawing a second glance from Darkseid. She was a greater demon who had transformed from a human—her raw combat power was unremarkable, but her Hell-aura was strong, which meant the will of Hell favored her.
The Dark Lord looked away quickly. His voice was heavy as a war-hammer, each word striking like thunder. "Who has the Anti-Life Equation?"
"The Anti-Monitor."
"Where is the Anti-Monitor?"
"Most likely in the Antimatter Universe."
"You mean to attack the Antimatter Universe?"
Their exchange was crisp, question and answer, each probing the other's limits. Darkseid established that Thea really did know about the Anti-Life Equation—she wasn't lying to him. Whatever happened today, at least the trip wasn't wasted.
And Thea confirmed that Darkseid's hunger for the Anti-Life Equation ran deep—deep enough that he'd commit to acquiring it. That gave them a foundation for cooperation.
"The Anti-Monitor was recently revived—"
Darkseid nodded. "I saw your battle with him on the timeline. Is that when you sensed the Anti-Life Equation?"
Thea hadn't expected him to fill in that gap himself. She went with it. "That's right. That's when I sensed it. That power—the kind that annihilates everything—is truly terrifying. We still have a window. The Anti-Monitor is weak right now. If he's allowed to destroy a few more parallel universes, his strength will mutate past our reach. By then we won't stand a chance."
He had something Darkseid wanted. Joining forces to kill him before he recovered, then splitting the spoils—Darkseid felt no moral friction about that whatsoever.
But he wanted to know what Thea's angle was. What was she getting out of all this effort? Was she setting up a sandpiper-and-clam scenario, waiting to swoop in as the fisherman who walked off with both?
"What do you get out of this?" He didn't just wonder—he asked.
Thea's expression stayed flat. She snapped her fingers, and light shimmered in the air, resolving into the image of a woman.
Who's this? Darkseid studied the figure carefully—then it clicked. This was Thea's counterpart.
A flicker of contempt crossed his mind. A new god ascended from the material plane, all right—still had counterparts running around. He didn't have that problem. In the entire universe, there was one and only one Darkseid.
But... Darkseid's eyes could pierce the source of matter itself—that was the Omega Effect. He drew on a thread of it now to trace the image back to its origin, and immediately detected something off. The woman in this projection was formidable. Strong enough that he felt a quiet tightening in his gut. Could I take her?
The Goddess of Death's counterpart was this powerful? It defied logic. Was she the daughter of a creator god or something?
Thinking back on how Thea had climbed to her current level in just a few short years, Darkseid started to overthink.
Could it be that the two of them are fundamentally one entity—some higher-tier being who split for reasons of her own?
And now she's trying to reclaim the original essence she lost, which is why she has no interest in the Anti-Life Equation?
The more he turned it over, the more it added up. It wasn't just Steppenwolf feeling the pressure—Darkseid felt it too.
At the rate Thea was leveling up, she'd catch up to him in just a few more years. That was a serious blow to his confidence.
But if she was a higher-tier being who had descended from a higher plane, that would explain everything. Super-tier entities experiencing ordinary life wasn't unheard of. Whether she'd gotten stuck in the role or whether getting stuck was part of the game, Darkseid didn't particularly want to know.
Thea had no idea Darkseid was overthinking things. She waited in silence for his decision.
"You take out your counterpart. I deal with the Anti-Monitor. That's the plan?" Darkseid wanted to lock it down: each side handled their own business, neither interfering with the other. That prevented double-crosses and kept the post-battle loot split clean. It was the ideal arrangement.
"Correct. As soon as the Anti-Monitor shows up, he's yours. Of course, if you can't take him, I'm willing to help—but that would require you to sweeten the deal."
"What if he runs?" Darkseid wasn't entirely certain of his odds against the Anti-Monitor. Given the enemy's miserable current state, he had some confidence. But if the Anti-Monitor bolted, things got complicated fast. One look at Darkseid's massive frame and anyone could tell speed wasn't his forte—at least not compared to others at his tier.
"I'll lock down space and time. He won't get away." Thea figured if she was going to watch two villains beat each other to death, she might as well contribute something. Space-locking was a good job, and she claimed it for herself. As for the will of the evil worlds—that had minimal influence on beings at Darkseid's or the Anti-Monitor's level. Besides, which of those two was actually more evil? Hard to say.