Steppenwolf didn't even glance at the aftermath. His yellow eyes were fixed on the blue and red blur in the sky. Slowly, he turned, a wide, grotesque victor's smirk spreading across the monster's face, anticipating an easy kill.
Superman, hovering in midair, instantly activated his X-ray and heat vision. His gaze scanned Steppenwolf—his armor, his axe… Nothing. No obvious power sources, no hidden compartments, no signs of kryptonite radiation. The armor seemed merely durable, strange, but… inert. He decided to probe further. With a sonic boom, Superman dove, not head-on but in an arc, aiming for Steppenwolf's back to knock him down or at least gauge his reaction speed. He moved fast but not at full throttle, ready to veer off at the slightest threat.
Steppenwolf's smirk widened. He didn't turn. Instead, with a high-pressure hiss, the outer plates of his shoulder and chest armor slid open. Beneath the dull golden, bone-encrusted exterior, a second layer emerged—dark green, matte, etched with a complex network of microscopic channels. From it, faint, nearly invisible waves of familiar, deadly radiation began to emanate.
Superman felt the hit immediately. Not paralysis, but a sudden, deep weakness, as if someone had dialed him down to half-power. His speed dropped, his vision blurred, his muscles grew leaden. He barely managed to adjust his trajectory, but he was already too close. Steppenwolf, with terrifying speed for his size, spun with unexpected grace. His axe, now pulsing with the same crimson energy that had torn through the dome, traced a lethal arc aimed at the weakened Kryptonian.
In that instant, a red blur slammed between Superman and the axe. BAM! Shazam, seeing his mentor's hesitation, crashed into Steppenwolf's chest with full force. The impact was deafening. The ancient conqueror, unprepared for such audacity and power, flew back ten meters, crashing deep into a dune, his axe carving a trench in the sand.
"Back off, freak!" Shazam roared, planting himself between the staggering Superman and the rising Steppenwolf. "I'll handle you myself!" He shouted to Superman, "Get out of here!"
Superman, still weak but pulling away from the radiation source, nodded gratefully and shot off, seeking cover behind a dune to recover.
Steppenwolf rose, brushing off sand. His face showed not rage but contemptuous disappointment. He pointed his axe at Shazam.
"Tch, tch, tch…" His voice, low and grinding like stones in a cement mixer, rumbled. "In the last version of Earth, he fell for that trick so easily. Those three ghouls will mock me." He took a step forward, his gaze no longer just cruel but piercing. "Listen, boy. Billy Batson. I know you're hiding under that ridiculous cape. I know your smelly old neighbor, your foster parents, Marilyn and Clarence Batson…" He spoke their names with chilling precision. Shazam froze, thunderstruck. Terror gripped him harder than any armor. They knew his name? His family?! "…So vulnerable in this cruel world." Steppenwolf spread his arms in a mock gesture of protection. "I can shield them. Take them under my wing. True Apokoliptian protection. No one will touch them. All you need to do is say one word. Let go of that foolish power. Say: Shazam."
Billy's fear was all-consuming. Images of Mary and Clarence, defenseless before this monster, flooded his mind. His hands trembled. The word lingered on his lips…
"Don't listen to him, Billy!" Alex's voice crackled through the earpiece, sharp as a whip but calm and analytical. "He can't beat you physically, so he's hitting your weak spot—your family. He's got an inflated ego. He hates being seen as weak. Hit that. Tell him he's the most pathetic of the four. And looks the part."
Alex's words hit like cold water. The fear didn't vanish, but it was shoved aside by rage—rage at the attempt to use his family. Shazam's power surged through his veins anew.
"Protect?" Shazam's voice boomed, filled with a hatred beyond his years. "You? The weakest, most pathetic of those four freaks? Even on our Earth, comics say you're Darkseid's doormat, a perpetual loser! And look at you! Like a failed experiment with a horned cow and a trash heap! You're no protector—you're Apokolips' loser!"
Steppenwolf's face contorted—not just with rage, but humiliated rage. His yellow eyes blazed crimson. He let out a roar that shook the air.
"YOU… VILE WORM! I'LL FLAY YOUR SKIN! I'LL CARVE YOUR FAMILY BEFORE YOUR EYES!"
"Into the air! Now!" Alex commanded through the earpiece. "Not too high! Let him think he can reach you with a jump. Taunt him. Hit him with lightning from above!"
Shazam shot upward, but only fifty meters—just within Steppenwolf's maximum leap. The ancient warrior, blinded by fury, crouched and launched himself with monstrous force. Sand erupted in a geyser. He rocketed upward, axe raised for a crushing blow.
But Shazam was higher—just a few meters out of reach. Steppenwolf hit the peak of his jump. For a split second, his face showed furious disappointment… then he began to fall.
"NOW!" Alex barked.
Shazam clenched his fists. The sky darkened, not with clouds but with gathered magical energy. He didn't just strike with lightning—he unleashed a torrent of blinding, white-hot bolts. They hammered Steppenwolf relentlessly, knocking him off his descent, driving him into the sand, scorching his armor despite its protection. Each strike was punctuated by Shazam's shouts, hurling insults from Alex and his own fear-fueled rage: "HORNED LOSER! FAILURE! DARKSEID'S RUG! PATHETIC OLD FREAK! MOTHERLESS MONSTER!"
The sand around Steppenwolf melted into glassy pools. His armor smoked, bone protrusions cracked. He roared in pain and impotent fury, trying to shield himself with his axe, but the magical lightning found every gap.
When the barrage finally stopped, Shazam panted, drained. Steppenwolf lay in a small crater of fused sand, his armor charred and cracked, smoke rising from multiple spots. He lifted his head. His eyes held no fear—only cold, vengeful hatred.
"Your family…" he hissed, struggling to one knee, his voice hoarse but brimming with unyielding malice. "They'll die… first… slowly… I'll personally…"
He didn't finish. A surviving LexCorp heavy robot landed nearby with a thud, its plasma cannons—still smoking from overuse—aimed at the fallen general. Steppenwolf glanced at the portal, still spewing his horde, and at the sky, where Superman, now recovered, joined Power Girl to intercept a new war machine emerging from the portal. His primary task—protecting the heavy tech—was at risk. Staying under fire from ground forces and two Kryptonians was madness.
With a hateful glare at Shazam, Steppenwolf slammed his axe's haft into the sand. Space warped around him, swirling with crimson sparks—and he vanished, teleporting back to the portal or one of his ships.
Six hours. Six grueling hours of relentless defense. After Shazam, at immense effort, temporarily neutralized General Steppenwolf, the battle's intensity eased, and the front gained a fragile stability.
Shazam, reverted to his young Billy Batson form, dozed against a wall in the command center's corner. His mighty body demanded rest after the clash. Deep in the complex, Flash had delivered a live parademon for urgent study. The stockpile of high-energy bars, prepared for Flash, was vanishing at an alarming rate.
The Amazons continued their miracles of endurance. Armed only with swords, spears, and bows, they fought as a single, perfectly synchronized machine. Their superhuman stamina stunned: crafted from clay, they didn't bleed. Every serious wound drew the immediate attention of their few but extraordinarily skilled healers. Themyscira's magic sealed cracks and gashes in their clay bodies, returning them to the fight. Though vastly outnumbered by the endless parademon horde, each Amazon was worth a hundred foes. Their discipline and martial prowess turned defensive lines into a slaughterhouse for the invaders.
From the still-pulsing portal stretched a dead sea—mountains of parademon corpses and wrecked war machines forming a grim, natural wall. At a glance, the situation seemed under control. But that very appearance of calm was the most alarming sign.
"It's bad," Batman's hoarse voice broke the heavy silence in the command center.
Alex, standing at the holographic table displaying the battlefield, nodded without looking up. His gaze flicked to Doctor Fate. The mighty sorcerer sat in deep meditation, his eyes glowing with mystical light, scouring countless threads of possible futures to find a path through the looming nightmare. Beside him, Martian Manhunter rested a hand on Fate's shoulder. His telepathic power acted as a buffer, absorbing part of the immense strain threatening to shatter Kent Nelson's mortal form. J'onn's face was taut with focus.
"Why bad?" Aquaman asked, ready to relieve the Amazons on the front line. "Isn't the situation stabilized? We're holding. The Amazons are a rock. My warriors will take over soon."
"Not quite stable," Alex replied, finally looking up, his eyes weary but sharp with calculation. "Darkseid sent Steppenwolf—he lost and fled. But what followed? Where are his elite fighters? Where are the advanced war machines that tore through the dome in the first assault? Where's any valuable resource beyond this endless stream of cannon fodder?" He gestured sharply at the screen showing the front: endless waves of parademons, with only occasional, weaker versions of those terrifying machines.
"So, the question is: why?" Alex paused, letting it hang. "The obvious answer: wear us down. Exhaust our strength, our reserves, our magic. Effective? Absolutely. But his time is limited—the portal isn't eternal. So there's another goal—doing what we did, but in a more twisted way." He pointed at the hologram, where a red glow marked the sea of corpses. "When he thinks there's enough of that filth, he'll detonate it. One massive, obliterating explosion. The decay energy of thousands of bodies, concentrated in a single epicenter."
Alex sighed heavily. "We expected this. We modeled scenarios like it. But that doesn't make it easier. That's why Fate's scrying the future right now." He nodded toward the meditating sorcerer. "When the moment comes, he'll use the Lanterns' power to build an energy barrier—open at the top, like a tube—to channel the blast wave skyward. It's our only shot at minimizing ground damage and holding the perimeter."
Aquaman swallowed, his hand tightening on his trident. The desert, now a graveyard, was set to become a colossal bomb. "I hope he can handle it," the Atlantean king muttered.
Batman and Alex, eyes back on the hologram, nodded in unison. Hope was a fragile shield against Darkseid's calculated cruelty. Outside the command center, through the muffled roar of battle, came the relentless, haunting hum of the endless horde, amassing its deadly potential under the scorching desert sun.