"Same old Max," Constantine said, shaking his head with a dry smile.
"Would someone mind telling us what's going on?" Batman asked. He had been silent long enough.
"It'd be best if Max explains it himself," the other Superman said. "But like he said,a lot has happened."
"How bad is it?" Cyborg asked, looking between the newcomers.
Mr. Terrific held his gaze steadily. "Very bad. You'll understand when he explains it." He paused. "But he's the best chance we've got at possibly ending this. The best chance any of us have got."
Meanwhile
Max appeared at the training grounds. Thena materialized shortly after, Terra beside her. Terra spoke first, her voice carrying an edge of worry.
"What's going on, dad? Why are they here?"
"There's a powerful being called the Anti-Monitor," Max said. "He's coming. For all of us. And I have to stop him before he destroys everything and everyone I've worked to protect."
Thena's eyes were steady on him. "How strong is he?"
"Very strong." Max didn't look away. "I'll struggle more than I ever have in any fight. But I'll win."
"What can we do to help?" Thena asked immediately, her voice carrying quiet determination.
"I'm sorry, Thena." Max's voice was gentle but firm. "This isn't a fight you can help with. What I need from you,both of you,is to stay here. Hold things down. After me, you're the strongest one we have and if something goes wrong while we're gone"
"No."
The word came out quietly but without any room for negotiation.
Max looked at her.
"We're not staying behind again, dad," Thena said. "Not this time." She held his gaze. "We know we might not be able to do much. We know the gap. But a little can make a difference,and we'd rather be there than here waiting and not knowing."
"Please, dad," Terra said softly. "Let us come."
Max looked at them both. They looked back at him with worry written plainly across their faces but standing their ground.
A long moment passed.
Then Max sighed deeply and smiled,small and genuine.
"Alright. Go back with the others. I have some preparations to make before we leave."
Thena's eyes narrowed slightly. "You won't disappear on us?"
"I won't," Max said. "Trust me."
Thena studied him for one more moment. Then she nodded, reached out and placed a hand on Terra's shoulder then teleported away.
Max stood alone in the empty training grounds.
He sighed again. He'd been doing that a lot lately,more than he'd ever admit out loud. And as much as he wouldn't say it to anyone, the weight of what was ahead was pressing down on him in a way nothing ever quite had before.
If only Thena and Terra knew the full picture of what he was about to walk into.
He pushed the thought aside for now and vanished.
He appeared in the cemetery and walked slowly to Nina's grave and crouched before it, placing a bouquet of flowers carefully on top of the headstone. He stayed there for a moment, looking at it in silence.
Then he spoke. Quietly. Just the two of them.
"This is it again." A pause. "The time has come again. To face him." He exhaled slowly. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous." Another pause, longer this time. "But...it's just like you said." The corner of his mouth shifted almost imperceptibly. "I've got this. And I believe that. I do." He was quiet for a moment. "I will win. I'll do things differently this time."
The wind moved through the cemetery gently.
"Making it through though..." He let the sentence sit unfinished for a moment. "That's a different story."
He stood up slowly, looking at the grave one last time.
"But I know that after this,everything will be alright."
There was a brief moment of silence before he spoke again.
"Goodbye for now,and maybe forever."
Max said then teleported away.The flowers remained on the grave, undisturbed in the quiet of the cemetery. The only evidence he had ever been there at all.
Max appeared back before the group. Thena and Terra were already waiting for him. He gave Mr. Terrific a single nod.
Mr. Terrific activated his T-Spheres. A portal opened.
They stepped through.
The other side was a spaceship,vast and filled with advanced technology. Around them, gathered from every corner of the multiverse, were heroes and villains from different Earths. Dr. Fate. The Question. Saturn Girl. Blue Beetle. Batman. The Lanterns. Dozens more, all bearing the particular look of people who had traveled far and lost much to be here.
Luthor was the first to speak.
"About time. We were honestly beginning to think you weren't coming back."
"You're lucky we managed to come back at all," Mr. Terrific said flatly. "Otherwise you wouldn't have lasted much longer here."
Luthor had the rare good sense to say nothing further.
"Okay." Cyborg turned to Max, voicing what everyone from their Earth was clearly thinking. "What exactly is going on?"
"We are facing an existential crisis," Max said. The room quieted around him,even those who had already been briefed seemed to lean in. "A being known as the Anti-Monitor. A powerful entity whose singular purpose is the destruction of the multiverse. That is what we are dealing with."
"The multiverse?" Wonder Woman asked. "But why? What does he gain from destroying it?"
"Because to him It's completion." He paused, letting that land before continuing. "The multiverse was never supposed to exist. It was a mistake. In a universe without me,one where Darkseid attacks for the second time and things go considerably worse than they did in ours,the situation became so dire that" he glanced at Constantine "he sent Barry back in time to fix it. To clear the board. Kill Darkseid years before he ever becomes a threat, while he was still vulnerable."
"As an infant," Constantine said quietly, not quite meeting anyone's eyes.
"And I made sure he succeeded," he added. "Even though Barry didn't pull the trigger himself."
The room was very still.
"Darkseid is a fixed point in time," Batman said. "That's what caused it wasnt it."
"Yes," Max confirmed. "Killing a fixed point shattered the timeline. And from that fracture, the multiverse was born,a new Earth spawning with every critical decision, branching endlessly outward." He paused. "But this reality was never built to sustain infinite variations of itself. It began to collapse under its own weight. Which is where the Monitor came in."
"Who is the Monitor?" Superman asked.
"A being whose purpose is to oversee the universe. To observe and document. Nothing more." Max gestured to the assembled heroes around them. "He's the one who gathered everyone you see here." He continued. "Originally he was meant only to watch. But after centuries of observation he became attached to what he was watching. And when the universe fractured into a multiverse and began to collapse, he intervened. He tried to save as many as he could."
"Is that not a good thing?" Wonder Woman asked carefully.
"In isolation, yes. But here is the problem." Max's voice remained measured. "If he had done nothing and had simply allowed the collapse to continue,the multiverse would have folded back in on itself. Returned to a single universe. Everyone and everything within it would have been wiped out and the timeline would have reset."
He let that sit for a moment.
"By intervening, he prevented that. He stabilized just enough of the multiverse to keep it from fully collapsing,but not enough to sustain itself. So now it exists in a permanent state of slow collapse. Fracturing further with every passing moment." He paused. "And that is where the Anti-Monitor comes in.
He is a being that thrives in entropy and destruction. A fractured, dying multiverse is the perfect environment for him,because it is already resetting on its own. He is simply accelerating a process that has already begun. No cosmic entity will intervene or oppose him for that because technically he isn't doing anything that wasn't already happening."
Max said as there was silence for a while before he continued.
"But for us," Max said quietly. "It is the end."
End of Chapter