Chapter 595: The End of an Eternal War

OA -

The Guardians had not felt genuine alarm in a long while. And yet, for a handful of seconds, something in the hall shifted that none of them could immediately name.

"The Battery registered a fluctuation," one Guardian said, his ancient hands tracing symbols across instruments that had monitored the universe’s vital signs since before language had been invented on most of the worlds it watched over. "It’s quite massive."

Another Guardian joined him, studying the same readout with narrowing eyes. "Where?"

"Apokolips.."

"Impossible," a third Guardian finally said, though there was no real conviction behind the word, only the reflexive habit of denying anything that threatened the order they had spent an eternity maintaining. "Apokolips has stood for centuries... Its defenses, its fortifications, Darkseid’s own power..."

"It is not fluctuating," the first Guardian said grimly, "It has stopped."

Hal Jordan, who had been waiting near the Hall’s edge for an entirely unrelated briefing about sector patrol assignments, pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and crossed the distance in a few quick strides, his ring already glowing faintly at his side in response to his rising alertness.

"Stopped, as in.." he started.

"As in the readings from Apokolips’s command grid, its defense network, its Fire Pits, its entire planetary infrastructure, have all gone dark within the same sixty-second window," the Guardian said, turning to face him fully now. "There is no natural phenomenon capable of producing that result. Not war or a rebellion. Something ended it.. Entirely, and all at once."

Hal’s jaw tightened. "You’re telling me the whole planet just... stopped existing?"

"The Battery’s readings suggest exactly that," another Guardian confirmed, something almost reverent creeping into his ancient voice despite himself. "A world-ending event, contained precisely to Apokolips’s borders. No collateral bleed into neighboring systems. No detectable weapon signature matching anything in our records." He paused, exchanging a long, uneasy glance with his fellow Guardians. "Only a brief energy presence, registered moments before the collapse initiated. Dark and overwhelming in scale. And then, nothing... as though whatever caused this simply ceased to exist the instant its purpose was fulfilled.. Could it be.."

Hal felt something cold settle low in his stomach, a suspicion he didn’t want confirmed and already knew, with grim certainty, was about to be.

"You already know who that was," he said. It wasn’t really a question.

The Guardians said nothing, which was, in its own way, answer enough.

"We spoke of this before," the first Guardian said carefully. "The Apokoliptian incursions across the outer sectors. The Shadow Lanterns arriving in their wake, never before them. We theorized, at the time, that the Shadow Monarch’s forces were reacting to Darkseid’s movements, rather than provoking them."

"Looks like the reaction escalated," Hal said flatly.

"It would seem so."

Hal ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly, trying to process the scale of what he was actually being told. An entire world, gone. Not conquered or subdued, not even reduced to rubble in the conventional sense. Erased. And the being responsible for it wasn’t some cosmic entity out at the edges of known space. He lived on Earth. He had a family there. Hal had shaken the man’s hand at a League meetings.

"I need to get to Earth, I need to learn all of this from Arthur himself." he said, already turning toward the transport ring.

None of the Guardians said anything to stop him. If anything, they wanted him to do just that.

NEW GENESIS -

Across the golden spires of New Genesis, the reaction arrived far more immediate. Highfather stood when the tremor passed through the cosmic fabric, a ripple of energy that every native of New Genesis felt in their bones before any instrument confirmed what it meant. He did not move at first, seemingly confused by this.

Orion arrived within minutes, Lightray close behind him.

"Apokolips," Orion said, without preamble, striding up beside the Highfather. "I felt it collapse.. the whole world. It is gone." His fists were already clenched at his sides, his voice tight with a lifetime of unresolved war finally, impossibly, running out of an enemy to fight. "Tell me I’m wrong."

"You are not wrong," Highfather said quietly.

"Then who?" Orion’s voice rose, sharp with disbelief. "Who in this universe has the power to do what we could never manage across a thousand years of war? We bled ourselves dry fighting my father to a standstill, generation after generation, and someone simply.." he gestured helplessly toward the sky, "..erased him? In an afternoon?"

"The Shadow Monarch," Highfather said.

The name settled over the small gathering with obvious weight. Lightray’s brow furrowed. "Him again? I thought he was a force of darkness as well?"

"The same," Highfather confirmed. "There is no other force I am aware of, in this universe or the countless others adjacent to it, capable of ending a war of this magnitude without so much as formally declaring it a war to begin with. Darkseid moved against him repeatedly, foolishly, believing his own dominance unquestionable. It appears he was mistaken."

Orion let out a short, humorless laugh. "So the war that defined my entire existence just... ended. Without me. Without any of us. Some being on the other side of the galaxy did in an hour what generations of New Genesis warriors couldn’t manage in a thousand years of open war, it seems he was preparing for this... and he prepared well."

"Does that trouble you?" Lightray asked carefully.

"It should trouble all of us," Orion said, turning to face his father directly. "We should be relieved. We should be celebrating. And instead, all I can think about is what it means that something exists now capable of doing that so easily, so completely, and I don’t even know his intentions."

"Then perhaps," Highfather said, his gaze drifting back toward the still surface of the reflection pool, "that is the first question worth answering, before we decide whether to celebrate or prepare."

"You think he’s a threat," Orion said.

"I think," Highfather said carefully, "that we have spent so long defining ourselves by opposition to Apokolips that we have given very little thought to what comes after it. That absence will need to be filled by something. I would prefer New Genesis have some say in what that something becomes." He turned, finally, toward his son, something almost gentle in his expression despite the gravity of the moment. "We owe him a debt, Orion, whether we like the idea or not. Whatever grievances or suspicions we may come to hold about him later, do not let them cloud that truth today. Darkseid is gone. That alone is worth acknowledging honestly, before anything else... Yet I’ll still go and find certain beings that contacted me from a strange realm, beings that wanted an alliance with me... they called themselves the Rulers."

Orion said nothing for a long moment.

"Fine," he said finally. "Today, I’ll allow myself to be glad he’s dead." His eyes hardened, distant. "Tomorrow, I want to know more about the being who did it."

.

.

.

.

EARTH – JUSTICE LEAGUE WATCHTOWER -

Batman had been hunched over the same console for nearly half an hour by the time Diana found him, the glow of scrolling telemetry reflecting off a cowl he hadn’t bothered to remove even here, in the relative safety of the Watchtower’s command deck.

"You’ve been at this a while," Diana said, settling into the seat beside him, studying the cascading data with open curiosity. "What exactly am I looking at?"

"Apokolips’s primary command network," Batman said, not looking up, his fingers still moving rapidly across the console. "Or what’s left of it. I got access through a backdoor Grail helped establish, before she agreed to stay put on Themyscira. Leftover credentials from before she cut ties with her father entirely." He pulled up a secondary window, cross-referencing a dozen separate data streams that had, one by one, gone completely dark. "Every system I’ve been quietly monitoring on that planet for the last several days has gone offline within the same hour. Command grid. Defense network..."

Diana’s brow furrowed. "That could mean any number of things, maybe internal sabotage."

"That’s what I thought at first too," Batman admitted. "So I cross-checked it against every seismic and gravitational sensor we have within range of that system." He pulled up a final readout, stark and undeniable. "The planet’s mass signature is gone, Diana. Not damaged.. I mean it is truly gone. As if it was never there to begin with."

Diana’s eyes widened slightly. "You’re saying Apokolips no longer exists.."

"I’m saying the data supports that conclusion, yes."

She was quiet for a moment, processing it, her gaze drifting toward the star map still glowing faintly on the far wall of the command deck. "Does this mean Darkseid is dead?"

"I think so," Batman said slowly, still working through the implications even as he voiced them, piecing together threads he clearly hadn’t fully connected yet himself. "We’ll have to wait and confirm with Arthur, to be certain.." He paused mid-sentence, something in his own words visibly catching him off guard. "Though Arthur’s been home all day.. As far as I’m aware."

His eyes widened.

"Wait a minute..."

Diana watched the realization assemble itself across his face.

"Bruce?" she prompted, when he didn’t immediately continue.

"He didn’t leave," Batman said quietly, almost to himself. "I checked his estate’s security feed less than two hours ago, for an unrelated matter. He was there. Raven was there, Kara as well. No indication anyone had gone anywhere." He sat back slowly, the full scope of the conclusion settling over him. "Which means whatever just ended Apokolips, whatever just erased an entire planet and the god that ruled it.. wasn’t him. Not directly at least. He didn’t even need to be there.."

Diana’s expression sobered considerably. "A construct. Like the ones he’s used before."

"Has to be," Batman said. "Nothing else fits the timeline." He exhaled slowly, removing the cowl and dragging a hand down his face, an unusual crack in his composure. "Diana, do you understand what that actually means? He fought and killed one of the most dangerous beings in the known multiverse using a fragment of himself. Casually.. While the rest of him stayed home, as far as I can tell."

"You sound concerned," Diana said carefully.

"I am concerned," Batman said. "Darkseid was a known quantity. Terrible, but known. We understood his goals, his methods, his limits, even if we could never quite match him directly." His eyes narrowed, fixed on the dark, empty space on the star map where Apokolips’s icon had blinked steadily for as long as the Watchtower’s systems had tracked it. "I don’t know what Arthur’s limits are anymore.. I’m not sure anyone does. Including him."

Diana said nothing for a long moment, considering the weight of that.

"Then you should talk to him, Arthur never acted against Earth, he is a man with a family on this planet." she said finally. "His power is so great, and you are afraid it would consume him... I have no fear from a man like him I trust him fully, and honestly you should talk to him. Before assumption does the job suspicion usually does."

"Agreed," Batman said. "Eventually.." His gaze lingered on the blank space where a planet used to be. "Just.. not today. Let’s let this settle first."

/-\

If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Shadow Monarch: In One Piece / The Witcher: Heir of Fire!

&

If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my p@t-reon / FrenzyAren"

You can Get Access to 7 More Chapters on all of my stories!