Huh? The question caught Circe completely off guard. You don't know why I left the Underworld? Don't you have any idea?
I offended your wife. You're not going to retaliate?
A thousand tangled thoughts raced through Circe's mind. Then it hit her—she'd been overthinking this the entire time.
"I was deceived by Kalibak—" She was scrambling to salvage something, but her little scheme was completely transparent to Thea.
Thea laughed out loud. "Kalibak? That idiot is famous for being the dumbest New God in the entire pantheon, and he managed to deceive you? Cut the act. I'm not going to hold your offense against you, but you're banned from the Underworld for the next hundred years. Stay on Earth, behave yourself. Dismissed."
She waved her hand and forcibly teleported Circe away.
Circe was undeniably capable. With her deep magical reserves, her combat power rivaled a New God's. Unfortunately, she'd been Diana's arch-nemesis in the original timeline—clashing with Wonder Woman more times than anyone could count. In this timeline the two were no fonder of each other, so from a personal standpoint, there was no way Thea could bring Circe into the fold.
After checking on Batman's condition—nothing critical; his depleted vitality was already replenishing, and the mental strain would resolve itself with a few days of rest at home—she turned to Damian.
"Alright. Talk. You caused a massive incident. What happened?"
The story was complicated if you wanted it to be, and dead simple if you didn't.
Damian had been tracking leads on his own when he stumbled across Kalibak torturing Heracles. Years at Batman's side had instilled a strong sense of justice in the boy, and he'd drawn his sword without hesitation.
Kalibak, however, was merely a projection cast from Apokolips to Earth—barely any combat power to speak of.
Which meant the actual fight was between Circe and Damian.
In the original timeline, Circe had utterly dominated Diana in battle more than once. Against a sorceress of that caliber, the boy threw everything he had and still couldn't match her.
Just as defeat loomed, Circe—on a whim—asked: "Who is your master?"
Damian never called Thea his master. Thea, for her part, dreaded being called old. The two had a silent pact to never bring it up.
So when Circe posed the question, Damian answered without thinking: "I don't have a master."
Thea's instruction had been sporadic at best—she taught when she remembered and left him to figure things out when she didn't. But her mastery of the magical arts spoke for itself, and Damian was both brilliant and tireless. Combined with some guidance from Raven, his education was eclectic but his understanding of magic ran remarkably deep.
After a few exchanges, Circe was stunned. The boy's fundamentals were exceptional. Learning he had no formal master, she assumed he'd reached this level entirely through self-study.
Right then and there, she decided to take him as a student. Circe's transformation magic truly was unique, and Damian—half-forced, half-willing—was dragged off to Apokolips. They'd barely begun their lessons when Batman came crashing through the door. Thea already knew the rest.
She was noncommittal about the whole affair. It was basically an alternate-universe version of Guo Xiang and the Golden Wheel Monk—a villain taking a shine to a talented child.
"Fine. The woman isn't exactly evil. If you want to learn from her, go ahead—her transformation magic really is top-notch."
Thea wasn't the territorial type. She'd live for countless billions of years; she had no intention of passing her mantle to Damian. Besides, the Underworld still had a mountain of unfinished business waiting for her.
...
A month slipped by. Batman recovered fully. Damian had suggested rebuilding the Hellbat armor, but his father refused.
"That power is far too deadly. It shouldn't be tapped into lightly." He was terrified his son would chase power down a road with no return, and only after repeated warnings did Damian finally drop the idea.
Damian had even gone to Thea for her opinion on the matter.
Thea hemmed and hawed, deflecting the boy with vague noises. Batman's warning was the kind of thing that only fooled children. If Bruce Wayne wasn't secretly building another suit behind everyone's back, he didn't deserve the name Batman.
Affairs in the Underworld reached a turning point. Under Kanto's covert assassinations and a sustained propaganda offensive, Trigon's three idiot sons turned on each other halfway through their own war. The Underworld forces launched a full-scale counterattack, driving Hell's armies out entirely. Peace returned to both realms.
On the strength of that enormous prestige, Thea formally established her standing military: two hundred thousand death knights, nine thousand liches, over five hundred dracoliches—the elite tier. Below them, Soul Walkers and banshees were proliferating rapidly, and the rank-and-file undead soldiers were too numerous to count. Her personal military force in the Underworld finally had some real weight to it.
With the busywork behind her, Thea could at last return to her own path forward.
To transform the Two-Dimensional World into a three-dimensional one, she summoned Lady Styx to the Underworld.
Dragging an immortal into the land of the dead was like inviting the God of Longevity to a noose convention. The alien—born and raised on distant worlds—was terrified. Every moment in the Underworld felt like a thousand invisible blades angling for her life.
But she couldn't leave. In Thea's own words, only here—subjected to that bone-deep, existential pressure—could Lady Styx continue growing her psychic power.
Since you got nothing from the arena, and you refuse to face death willingly, let's skip straight to the killing floor. I refuse to believe you won't improve.
Thea locked Lady Styx in solitary. Three days.
The brutal treatment produced spectacular results. The pair of tiny brow-eyes that had been Lady Styx's defining feature finally grew to normal size.
And with that came an explosive surge in psychic power.
Four ink-black eyes locked onto Thea, as if measuring the gap between them.
"Hmm? You don't look too happy..." Sensing Lady Styx's newly surging power tipping toward defiance, Thea brought down psychic pressure ten times greater than anything Lady Styx could muster.
Having put Lady Styx firmly back in her place, she gestured for her to resume work on interfacing with the Two-Dimensional World.
Lady Styx's face went chalk-white. The psychic backlash was manageable, but the psychological weight was crushing.
She'd reached the absolute limit of her species. Even so, facing Thea—this monster in human skin—she was still utterly helpless. She hadn't been trying to betray anyone; she'd only wanted to negotiate for some measure of equal standing. Instead, the gulf in power remained as vast as ever. Her heart sank.
Since resistance was futile, she might as well do as she was told. But she genuinely disliked the Underworld's ambient aura. Hesitantly, she asked, "Your Majesty, your domain is impressive, but it seems rather... devoid of life. Wouldn't it be better to continue the experiments elsewhere?"
Thea gave her a look that was half-smile, half-warning. "Do you know what this place is?"
"No." Lady Styx shook her head immediately.
"Do you know why I'm attempting to create life here specifically?"
"...No." Lady Styx shook her head again with a bitter smile.
Thea sighed. "It's not that I'm being secretive on purpose. It's just that the reasoning behind this..."
She was stuck too. The Two-Dimensional World stubbornly refused to produce life, and it was seriously impeding her future trajectory.
There were no predecessors to learn from. All she could do was try everything.
The underlying theory—yin nurtures yang, life blooms from death, all things reverse at their extremes—those Taiji principles were impossible to explain to an alien like Lady Styx. And Thea wasn't even sure she had it right. Everything was trial and error, feeling her way forward stone by stone. If she misspoke, it would seriously undermine her authority.