"Wait, he's my—!" Damian had spent enough time with Circe to recognize her signature spell: high-potency polymorph magic.
Circe's transmutation was brutally powerful. Like Diana's Lasso of Truth, it operated on the level of fundamental rules.
Resisting it required being at a higher tier—New Gods, for instance, could shrug it off.
Or simply being female. Damian had proven through personal experience that boys qualified too.
But grown men? Universally susceptible. Batman was old enough to have a son running around on his own—he was undeniably a man. A "normal" man, at that. By all logic, his odds of being affected were one hundred percent.
And yet, to Circe's absolute horror, her proudest spell sank without a trace. It appeared to strike Batman, but the magic had been shunted off to some unknown plane.
The Dark Multiverse was still gestating. Not even Highfather knew the full picture of what lurked inside—Circe certainly didn't. All she could sense was a vague impression of something behind the black-armored figure that had swallowed her spell whole.
"Who are you?"
Batman didn't answer. Damian's reaction told her everything she needed to know.
"You—how did you get here..."
"I'm here to rescue you. Let's go—now!" Batman noted that his son's situation was nothing like he'd expected. Far from being tortured, the boy was lively and healthy—not a scratch on him.
He looked Damian over from head to toe. "How are you breathing normally in this environment?"
Damian's mind worked at lightning speed, connecting the dots in an instant. "Circe taught me a spell for that. She... she's not really a villain. I think there's been a misunderstanding."
Batman didn't have time to think it through. He triggered a Boom Tube—everything could be sorted out back home.
But the orange-red portal had barely flickered to life when a fist tore through the dimensional gap with the force of a thunderbolt.
"That's Darkseid!" Batman had seen the Dark Lord before, though Thea had been the one holding the line. The pressure then had been manageable. Now, facing him directly, even with distance still between them, the sheer, boundless power radiating from that fist was overwhelming.
The attack came blisteringly fast. The Mother Box Batman had scavenged from a Parademon grunt was a low-grade unit—the Boom Tube had only just formed, and it needed another second to stabilize. No time for explanations. He grabbed Damian, spread his wings, and dove sideways.
Circe's reflexes were equally sharp. The punch's kill zone included her, leaving no choice but to bolt alongside Batman.
They cleared the blast radius just as Darkseid's iron fist met the ground. The impact was a planet-scale bomb—all of Apokolips shuddered for several seconds. The already hellish environment deteriorated further: volcanoes erupted, earthquakes rippled outward, as if they'd been waiting for the signal. Civilian casualties on Apokolips surged past five figures within moments, and the number was climbing fast.
Punching a crater in your own planet? Thea would never do something that stupid. But Darkseid didn't care. He was absolutely livid.
Barely a month had passed, and another solo invader had come to Apokolips.
Thea, at least, had been a peer—a fair fight between equals. They'd battled for ten days before either could claim an edge. She'd just claimed the Godhood of Death, young and eager to test herself. The Dark Lord could understand that.
But Batman? Darkseid didn't even know who he was. Some nobody in armor, waltzing onto Apokolips—did they all think I was dead?
He dismissed Batman automatically. Damian was a child—also dismissed. Darkseid's gaze settled on Circe. Hmm. This woman seemed reasonably powerful—roughly on par with Kalibak and the others. But that still wasn't enough to justify an assault on Apokolips.
Feeling those blazing eyes lock onto her, Circe nearly had an aneurysm.
She desperately wanted to say: My lord, I'm not the enemy—I came here to pledge my service to you! This armored brute next to me? I'd never seen him before two seconds ago! Where's Kalibak? He's your son, isn't he? He brought me here—ask him!
Circe didn't know that Kalibak—the one person who could corroborate her story—had been knocked unconscious yet again. No one on Apokolips could vouch for her. She opened her mouth to explain, then saw the look in Darkseid's eyes and swallowed the words.
She knew the moment she started talking, he'd blast first and listen never. Leaders like him didn't admit mistakes. And with Darkseid's temper, even if he believed her, there was a ninety-nine percent chance he'd still reduce her to ash on principle. You could reason with the good guys. Reasoning with a tyrant? The fist was the argument.
Darkseid was not at full strength. He was injured—his true body, not an avatar.
Osiris was one of the Egyptian Ennead after all—father of Anubis and Horus. His dying counterattack, even against someone a full tier above, had left a mark that Darkseid couldn't fully absorb.
The Dark Lord's left arm, from elbow to palm, bore a stretch of skin that had been turned to sand.
A dying curse from a chief deity. Even Darkseid had no quick fix—only the slow grind of time and willpower.
Thea's day trip to Apokolips had taught him that his subordinates had a reporting problem. He'd quietly planted informants throughout the hierarchy, and Batman's clash with Steppenwolf had reached him almost immediately.
At first, he hadn't cared. If an enemy this minor required his personal attention, what was the point of having subordinates?
But when Batman tried to flee, Darkseid could no longer hold back. He struck directly, intending to annihilate all three and send a message to anyone else feeling bold.
He hadn't expected Batman to be that fast—fast enough to grab a child and clear the blast zone.
Darkseid's expression soured. When Batman not only failed to run but instead charged straight at him, it soured further.
Neither wasted words. Talk was wasted time. Batman needed to activate the talisman Thea had given him to leave Apokolips. Darkseid saw no reason to converse with a mortal—kill first, sort it out later.
They collided head-on. Batman wanted to see just how strong this "Dark Lord" Thea had warned him about truly was.
The answer was gratifying in the worst possible way. Strong. Incomprehensibly, overwhelmingly strong.
A blow Batman was certain could shatter mountains and split rivers was caught effortlessly. Darkseid's massive hand clamped around Batman's left wrist. Armor alarms shrieked—and that was only the beginning. The Dark Lord's other hand curled into a fist and hammered into the armor's chestplate.
Forged in a star. Quenched in the deep ocean. The toughest metal in existence meant nothing before the God of Strength's supreme force. A single hit spiderwebbed the gleaming black plating with countless fractures. The Hellbat armor was on the verge of shattering like glass.
"Insect. Tremble before the name of Darkseid. Dying by my hand is your honor." Batman's resilience had exceeded expectations. Darkseid had assumed one strike would obliterate both armor and wearer—yet the armor hadn't fully shattered, and the man inside was still alive. That made Batman arguably the only mortal ever to survive a direct blow from the Dark Lord. It earned him two extra sentences.