Daytime Metropolis buzzed with activity. Office workers chased their paychecks, lawyers argued themselves hoarse in courtrooms, diner owners prepped the lunch rush. Everyone pushing forward, building toward tomorrow.
"The ordinary people here live well. I can sense it—their dreams are mostly good ones." Daniel observed.
Thea agreed. After all, this was the Justice League's headquarters city, heroes practically stacked on top of each other. If gangs ran rampant and muggers owned the streets, the heroes might as well hang up their capes. On that front, Metropolis had Marvel's New York beat by a mile.
By evening, they arrived in Gotham. Batman still prowled the rooftops. The gangs carried on with their petty schemes, year after year, day after day.
"I've seen him before—back at Arkham..." Daniel pointed at Batman.
"Is that so? You'll need to guide him in the future. You'll be properly introduced eventually, but not now." She left it at that.
They drifted through city after city. Oliver and his archery club were tangling with Prometheus and Silver Swan. The Flash was locked in a battle of wits with The Thinker, DeVoe, over in Central City.
Aquaman was in Atlantis, locked in the eternal love-hate dance with his brother.
"It really is chaos. You actually live in all this?" Daniel asked after a long silence.
Thea thought it over. "It is chaotic. But don't you think it's full of life?"
Daniel gave her a sidelong look, his expression screaming you've got to be kidding me.
"You need to define your own path. Fate wants people to pursue freedom. I'm a friend of Life—and you need to figure out what you need, or rather, what you can give to the world. We've seen the mortal world. Now let's visit the Sphere of the Gods."
She led the way. Thea was hardly the self-denying type who'd walk past her own front door without stopping in. She went straight to New Genesis.
"Who's this?" Diana eyed the man Thea had brought along, visibly surprised.
"He has... roughly a seventy percent chance of becoming my brother." Diana's eyes went wide. Who described a sibling in terms of probability?
She had to admit, Diana's eyes were stunning. If not for the company present, she'd have stolen a kiss right there.
Two coughs. A quick explanation over the telepathic channel.
Once Diana understood the situation, she cooperated fully, ordering her guards to give Daniel a tour of New Genesis.
Thea seized the opening. With Daniel conveniently out of the way, she and Diana had several rounds of "in-depth discussion."
"That empress—she's yours?" Daniel asked as they departed New Genesis, curiosity getting the better of him.
"She's my lover." No hesitation, no hedging.
"Must be nice."
"Heh." They weren't close enough yet for her to lay on the PDA.
Hell, the Underworld, Heaven, the Celestial Realm—none posed any obstacle. They swept through each in a whirlwind tour, and Daniel's comprehension of dreams gradually elevated from the mortal to the divine.
They came to The Dreaming and The Nightmare. The Dreaming itself was the domain of the Sandman, and as a candidate, Daniel had visited multiple times. Thea had nothing to explain there.
Their focus was The Nightmare. "This place gives me a bad feeling," Daniel said.
If Daniel's feeling was merely bad, Thea's could only be described as terrible. The corruption had spread far deeper than she'd anticipated. The entire Nightmare was swallowed in darkness, and the growing darkness drew in still more nightmares from the physical world—a vicious cycle spiraling toward catastrophe.
"Every impossibility, every thought buried in the deepest corners of the subconscious, is being dredged up and replayed as nightmares by some force. The decay here is faster than I expected."
"Can't you stop it?" Daniel asked.
Thea paused. "I can't. The universe needs these dark forces to maintain balance. If it wants to grow, it has to face all of this head-on. I can't interfere too much."
Then she pivoted. "But you can. You need to sort through the wreckage here and restore it to normal."
Find work for the younger siblings! This was exactly how Fate had handled her, and now she was passing the tradition along to the Sandman.
Daniel looked stricken. The Nightmare before him was shattered beyond recognition. Rebuilding from this rubble would be backbreaking labor.
He shot Thea a somewhat resentful glance. He'd only been venting—how had that turned into a mission of this magnitude?
"Fifth-Dimensional beings believe that all existence, at its core, is stories. That's an interesting idea. Your task is to untangle and reorganize the stories here. This isn't a joke. This is something you must accomplish."
"Eliminate every reality that shouldn't exist. Restore rationality to this world. Build a system that crushes every subconscious fantasy into dust. That is your mission." She pointed squarely at him.
"When you complete this task, you'll become the official Sandman." She kept the briefing short. As for how to untangle things—sorry, she had no idea.
"Let's go. I have high hopes for you. I hope you'll become a member of the family. We've got one last stop—Apokolips." She pulled the reluctant Daniel along, and they slipped onto Apokolips undetected.
On New Genesis, they'd been visible because she wanted to be seen. Here, she didn't, and so no one could.
A major battle had just concluded. The battlefield was littered with corpses—Parademons and demons alike.
Apokolips was no pushover. After suffering heavy initial losses, they'd conducted countless brutal experiments and devised methods to truly kill demons.
The kill ratio had evened out to nearly one-to-one. The demons had been fighting for plunder; Darkseid was fighting for survival. Their fundamental motivations couldn't have been more different, and after round after round of combat, the demons were losing their appetite for the war.
Death—vast, suffocating death—blanketed all of Apokolips. As the god bearing the brunt of it, Darkseid was oblivious. Victory had blinded him, and he had no idea catastrophe was bearing down.
Daniel disliked the evil saturating this place. After a brief look around, he asked to leave and get started on repairing The Nightmare.
Seeing his enthusiasm, Thea didn't stop him. She sent the Sandman candidate on his way and drifted slowly toward the heart of Apokolips.
The demons were pulling out—a signal many gods and mortals could read—and Apokolips was celebrating. A grand festival marked their half-year campaign and ultimate victory.
No one saw Thea. She walked calmly into Darkseid's sprawling palace.
Every New God on Apokolips was on edge. The Anti-Life Equation extraction had reached its final stage. Darkseid had summoned every New God to his side—partly to prevent anyone from snatching the prize amid the chaos, and partly because he didn't trust his subordinates' character. What if someone got greedy and tried to steal what was his?