The night split open.
From the sky came fire, smoke, and the thunderclap snap of Boom Tubes. The sky rippled as a massive tear in space opened above Gotham's outskirts, casting a crimson glow over the abandoned rail yard below.
Mahoraga stood at the center, unmoving.
Beside him, Zatanna tightened the last warding circle. "This place is old—forgotten. If they want a fight, let them try it here."
The Boom Tube howled—a sound like a thousand mothers screaming in unison.
And then, they arrived.
The Furies of Apokolips.
Tall, brutal, twisted with divine rage, and armored in nightmares. At their head walked the cruelest of them all—Granny Goodness, smiling like a grandmother from hell.
She stepped down from the Boom Tube's edge, clasping her hands like a kindly nun.
"Oh, look at you," she crooned, eying Mahoraga. "So strong. So confused. So… ripe."
Zatanna's eyes narrowed. "We're not here to talk."
Granny wagged a finger. "You never were polite, child." She turned to Mahoraga. "Darkseid still extends his offer. A throne. A family. Belonging."
"I belong to no one," Mahoraga said calmly.
Granny sighed dramatically. "Pity."
Then she snapped her fingers.
The Furies attacked.
Lashina struck first—her electrified whips cracking through the air. One wrapped around Mahoraga's arm, another around his throat. Electricity surged like liquid fire.
He didn't flinch.
The wheel on his back turned once—then again. His skin glowed faintly.
The third time Lashina struck, her whips slid off him like silk.
"Adapted already?!" she snarled.
Stompa followed—leaping with seismic fury. Her boot came down like a meteor aimed at Mahoraga's skull.
He raised a hand and caught her foot mid-air, the impact shattering the ground beneath them. Stompa's eyes widened just before Mahoraga hurled her into a rusted train car. Metal screeched. The entire car imploded.
"Control him!" Granny shouted.
Mad Harriet cackled and vanished in a blur of speed and claws. She reappeared behind Mahoraga, stabbing wildly—aiming for eyes, joints, nerve clusters.
She struck only once.
The next moment, her arm snapped at the elbow.
Mahoraga turned, his golden eyes glowing.
"Too slow."
The wheel spun again.
Zatanna circled the fight, weaving containment wards with speed and precision. Her hands blurred as she chanted.
"Snoitcirtser emit dna ecapS—kcolb eht edistokopA ecrof!"
A dome of flickering blue light rose around the battlefield, muting the sound and locking the Furies inside. "We finish this now," she said.
Mahoraga nodded and stepped forward.
Granny Goodness scowled, her mask of warmth gone. "You were supposed to be ours."
"I was never yours," Mahoraga replied. "I was no one's."
With speed no one expected from someone so massive, he launched himself forward. The wheel behind him spun like a divine engine.
He struck Lashina first, disarming her in a single blow. His fist connected with her gut, and she collapsed with a wheeze.
Stompa roared and returned—punching with enough force to crater mountains.
Mahoraga blocked it barehanded, his bones cracking from the force.
The wheel turned.
Then she struck again—and nothing happened. Her blow bounced off like raindrops on steel.
Mahoraga exhaled slowly, then knocked her unconscious with a palm strike that sent shockwaves across the dome.
Only Granny and Harriet remained.
Mad Harriet lunged—but this time, Zatanna intercepted her, whispering a binding spell.
"Purahs eht gnidnim!"
A sigil exploded beneath Harriet's feet, freezing her mid-air in a web of light.
She screamed—then fell, stunned.
Granny stood alone.
Still smiling.
"You don't win, darling. You only delay. Darkseid does not forget."
Mahoraga walked toward her, slow and purposeful.
She backed away.
Then vanished—Boom Tube opening and closing in less than a second.
The Furies lay scattered.
The night grew still.
Later, inside an old stone observatory deep in Gotham's ruins, Zatanna lit a fire while Mahoraga sat, still as a statue.
She finally broke the silence. "You didn't hesitate."
"I've been fighting all my life," Mahoraga said. "But I've never fought for something."
Zatanna sat beside him, curling her legs beneath her. "You didn't kill them. Not even Harriet."
"They weren't trying to destroy the world," he said. "They were trying to chain me."
Zatanna looked into the fire. "I used to think people like us were alone because we were too much. Too strange, too dangerous."
"And now?"
"Now I think maybe… we're alone until we choose not to be."
Mahoraga watched the flames, then turned to her.
"You've shown me more kindness than anyone in either world."
Zatanna smiled faintly. "Maybe that's because I know what it's like to be told what you're supposed to be. And to say no."
He didn't speak.
But something subtle shifted in his posture.
A new understanding.
A connection forming.
Zatanna reached into her bag and pulled out an old piece of parchment, folded with care.
"I've been working on this," she said. "It's not a spell. It's a choice."
She unrolled it—a name written in silver ink beneath the starlight.
He read it aloud.
"Raga."
Zatanna nodded. "Not Mahoraga. Just… Raga. Yours. Chosen."
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then, softly: "I like it."
Far across the stars, on Apokolips, the broken Furies limped into the throne room.
Granny knelt.
"My lord. He grows."
Darkseid did not respond immediately.
Then:
"Let him grow."
Granny looked up, startled. "You don't wish to punish him?"
"No."
Darkseid's gaze pierced galaxies.
"I want him to become everything his creators feared."
"And then?"
Darkseid's voice was absolute.
"Then I will break him."