The Justice League never called Thea and Diana "goddesses." Divinity was an abstract concept to most modern people, and the two of them didn't stand on ceremony—they laughed, bickered, and took the same ribbing as everyone else. Nobody really thought of them as gods in any meaningful sense. Batman and Lex Luthor, for instance, regarded divine beings purely as high-level organisms operating outside the normal spectrum.
The only ones who'd ever addressed Thea with formal reverence were the little blue Guardians and Saint Walker, who owed her a debt. In this entire universe, H'El was one of the very few who'd ever used "Goddess" as a genuine title.
He caught her frown and smiled slightly. Then he launched a full-force strike at Kyle Rayner.
Thea had no choice but to fight him on his strongest ground—raw power—which was her weakest. Trading blows with a supercharged Kryptonian was humiliating. She had never, in all her years of fighting, felt this frustrated. She was always the one with all the intelligence, the one who made enemies trip over their own feet. Now the tables were turned, and someone clearly weaker than her was making her scramble. Frustrating didn't begin to cover it.
"You've fought us three times?" Diana pressed, catching H'El's blow on her shield. She understood her partner's weakness. "Why?"
On the other side, Superman redoubled his attacks. The four of them coordinated, trying to take the initiative.
H'El had slipped into a losing position, yet he showed no panic whatsoever.
"Kal-El." His voice was almost conversational. "I came to invite you—sincerely—to rebuild Krypton. Three times. Three times you refused me. Your soul has been corrupted by this planet. You are no longer truly Kryptonian."
"You are Krypton's shame! The House of El's disgrace!" Something seemed to snap inside him. He grabbed Superman by the collar, rage boiling over, and headbutted him square on the nose. Blood ran freely from Superman's lip to his chin.
Thea grabbed H'El by the back of the neck and hauled him away. Both of them were strong, and neither let go—the fabric gave instead. There was a sharp tear, and a wide strip of Superman's suit came away from collar to chest, exposing a generous patch of chest hair.
She'd barely gotten Superman clear when Kyle Rayner took a punch across the field and went flying.
H'El was deliberate about his targeting: seventy or eighty percent of his attacks landed on Kyle and Superman. Thea and Diana were relegated to playing support, running interference from behind.
Half her darkest abilities weren't convenient to use. She didn't know which of her remaining techniques H'El had seen in the previous encounters. And she couldn't just bench the two men and let them watch from the sidelines—they had their pride. The fight ground on without resolution.
"Kryptonite!" Superman called from somewhere underground, his voice muffled. "Forget about me—use Kryptonite!" H'El had apparently decided Superman's skull made a decent floor mat and was taking out his frustrations accordingly.
Kryptonite. Thea rifled through her ring at speed. Nothing. Kryptonians were no threat to her personally, so she didn't carry it. She wasn't Batman, who apparently kept a piece of the stuff on him at all times—even in the bathroom. Her ring was packed with far too many other things; finding something that small would take the better part of two hours.
She glanced at Kyle Rayner.
Fine. He can make one.
She transmitted the spectral frequency signature of Kryptonite to him. The most versatile Lantern in all seven corps' history—a talent so singular it probably wouldn't be matched for generations—thought for a moment, made two attempts, and conjured a long green construct-blade with precisely the right resonance profile.
The blade swung down.
The expected result—H'El staggering, suddenly weak—did not materialize. Instead, something ugly crossed H'El's face, as though the sight dredged up a painful memory. He leapt to meet the blade, fists-first.
The kind of punch that could move mountains connected with the flat of the construct. It shattered.
Thea swore under her breath. That exchange told her a lot. Against Kryptonite, Superman could only gut through it on willpower. Faora and Kara could barely manage a retreat. But H'El had come close to tanking it. There was still a visible effect at the margins—she could see him compensating—but it wasn't slowing him down enough to matter.
Had the previous two encounters conditioned him? His skin color wasn't right, either. It had taken on a distinctly blue-grey cast—nothing like normal Kryptonian complexion.
"There seem to be trace Kryptonite particles inside his body," Superman reported from somewhere, having apparently taken advantage of the chaos to use his X-ray vision. "That's my best guess."
Thea nodded slowly. That would explain why H'El hit Superman like he was made of cardboard—the Kryptonian's own physiology had partially adapted to Kryptonite exposure. She didn't know how he'd managed it, but at low concentrations, he'd essentially become a walking Kryptonite source.
"Annoying." A thin curl of black mist began to drift from her skin. She swept her hand and launched a torrent of shadow-fire—black flames that consumed the air around them, roiling and hungry, like a dragon screaming across the sky.
H'El vanished. Same move he'd been using all fight: space fold.
Using spatial displacement against a divine caster. Let me show you something.
She drove her right fist into the surrounding space. A shockwave rippled through the seams between dimensions and connected with H'El mid-transit. His expression soured as he was forced back out—straight into the shadow-fire.
He screamed and threw both hands wide. Thousands of near-invisible filaments erupted from his palms, catching the black flames like a net. Then they began converting—restructuring the fire's energy, reweaving it into a new architecture, wrapping it around himself as an energy shield.
It was oddly reminiscent of Firestorm's transmutation ability. Thea didn't let it slow her. Ten fingers began to dance, and the flames performed their own choreography—a portion broke through the filament cage and wrapped back around from the inside.
Diana was already moving to flank, a lightning-spear crackling in her hand.
Superman and Kyle Rayner hit him with ranged strikes from both sides.
H'El's defeat was a matter of time now.
"Is that all you've got? Laugh—why aren't you laughing now!" Thea caught his arm, the death domain's influence bleeding into her tone—the longer a battle ran, the harder her edge became. She wanted to tear the arm clean off. She pulled. His body was unusually dense; it didn't budge. She settled for a kick to his ribs.
The force launched him off his feet. He skipped backward for over seven hundred meters before a small mountain interrupted his trajectory—he crashed into it and barely scraped to a halt.
Diana threw the Lasso of Truth. H'El, with undignified speed, rolled out of its path.
"Is he... stalling?" Kyle Rayner asked, uncertain. He was the newest member of the team, and he didn't want to sound foolish.
Thea blinked.
He'd come to Earth alone. She was sure of that. And yet—he was right to wonder. H'El's power level was genuinely impressive; in most corners of the universe, he could have ruled unchallenged. But he couldn't stop her. And after three rounds against her, he should have had something left in reserve. So why hadn't she seen it?
Without her prophetic edge—and this being H'El's third encounter against her—she couldn't figure out what he was waiting for.
"Everyone fall back to Earth," she said. "I'll finish this."
Teleportation would normally be fastest—but H'El knew spatial transit too. Destruction was always easier than construction; she didn't know if he had countermeasures. Better to let the others fly back under their own power.
At the same time she opened a long-range mental link to Batman.
"Bruce. Cut off all electronic communications and listen. If he wasn't lying, this is H'El's third visit to Earth—his past, our present."
"I don't know what he's holding in reserve. He knows me. He knows Superman, Diana, all of them. I don't know whether my next move is already in his plan. But I know you're a variable—by the timeline, he arrived before you came back. You came after."
"Watch the planet. Trust your instincts. Superman and the others are on their way."
She sent the three messages as fast as thought allowed, though she trusted Batman's ability to disrupt things. Then she turned her attention back to H'El.
H'El's so-called "third time" felt less like a timeline reset and more like a consciousness—or a body—snapping back to a fixed point: the breach the antimatter cannon had punched open. A full timeline restart was impossible. Destiny, the Phantom Stranger, Darkseid, Highfather, Zeus—too many apex-level entities were anchored to the timeline for any random newcomer to rewrite it.
There was also something else nagging at her. H'El had come through first. Then Batman had returned. That pairing felt deliberate—a counterbalance built into the chaos. Whatever the outcome was hinging on, she had a strong feeling Batman was at the center of it.
Thea watched Superman and Diana shrink in the distance and vanish. The smile that touched her lips didn't reach her eyes.
The black mist rising from her grew denser. Her fingernails lengthened visibly in the space of a breath.
"Let's see who saves you now."
She didn't wait for his answer. She was already moving—a dark streak across the void, trailing speed-blur like smoke, aimed straight at him.