A gift

"What do you mean... He's Superman..." Barry couldn't find the words to express what he was feeling.

I understood him perfectly. In the minds of people who had firsthand knowledge of the Kryptonian's exploits, such an outcome was simply impossible. After an intense battle with Lex Luthor's brainchild, despite the massive destruction of several coastal neighborhoods of Metropolis, the sunny boy had only slightly damaged his clothes, but he hadn't spilled a drop of blood. What blood! He didn't even have any bruises, though the fake Doomsday sure did give him a couple good smacks in the face. This isn't a good example, of course, because it was hard to get a good shot of the bacchanalia going on, but, for example, before I got there, General Zod was trying to take over Earth, wanting to create a new Krypton by terraforming it. Superman was getting his nuts kicked in the ass by his brethren of reason, and he was breaking skyscrapers with his carcass without serious injury.

"He may be a superpowered alien, but the horned devil has a spear with a tip made of kryptonite. Holy shit, it's live! - I exclaimed as I turned my attention to the ticker and realized that this was happening right now.

I saw the Wolf pin the already dead Superman to the remains of the roof of the ventilation station, which caused a fountain of blood to spurt from the latter's mouth, and then pulled out an axe from behind his back, clearly intending to make a test blow by cutting off the stupidity.

 - Barry, get him out of there.

"But I, uh.

I took the guy by the pecs, giving him a little shake.

"Put on your uniform and run! Now! - my speech is accompanied by a charming smile that would be the envy of the original.

"Ah... Got it," determination flashed in his eyes.

As soon as I let go of the speedster, he disappeared in acceleration, heading off to take out one alien idiot. At least the image on the center computer screen blinked and changed to a map of Gotham, which meant the Flash would find his way.

It would have been nice to put a couple of buffs on the budding crime fighter, but I was really running out of time. I remembered from the comics of the past world that Superman could come back to life if his body was infused with enough energy from the sun, but whether it would be possible if his head was cut off was unknown. So my order was quite reasonable and was not some kind of bliss. Maybe Kryptonians have a different anatomy and the brain is not in the head, but in the sirloin, so to speak.

At the same time, knowing the approximate strength of the sunny boy, I doubt that he needs a head at all, well, maybe only to eat and sometimes talk. Personally, I don't understand why, having in his arsenal of abilities laser beams from his eyes, he would have to fight a foe with a kryptonite spear. Just fry the enemy from afar and that's it! And it would be okay if it was a knife that could be hidden in a small lead sheath somewhere on the body. But hell, Superman has X-ray vision for that, with which to assess the degree of danger. I think even a dumbass would understand: if the enemy is not X-rayed, it's worth staying away from him.

As I pondered, the events on the screen continued to unfold. The Darkseid general swung his lightning-covered axe leisurely, as if in public, but suddenly he jerked oddly, jerked backward, and Clark's corpse disappeared in a faint red flash.

The cameraman immediately oriented himself by getting a close-up, and the audience could see Flash standing on the opposite edge of the building, holding Superman's corpse on his back.

"Kill him," was the short order, and the nearest five Parademons rushed toward the speedster.

Barry shuddered and disappeared in a new red flash. The rest of the heroes had just arrived, rising out of the mine shaft in some sort of walking tank, clearly Bats's, judging by the general style. Or Victor's, given that he was driving it, though I didn't recall the half-black man having any serious toys, except for his own body.

A trio of supers, including Aquaman, Bats and Diana, jumped down from the armored transport's powerful legs, assuming pompous poses and clearly determined to fight seriously, although, judging by their slightly battered appearance, they had already had a good beating. Cyborg remained in the cockpit, aiming the machine guns at the metal-armor-clad figure of Steppenwolf. A moment, and the friendly company breaks into battle with the support of a couple of machine guns, but the enemy also did not wait and set on the defenders of the land parademons, which came from somewhere below. And if on the island the flying creatures were unarmed, now they clutched high-tech rifles in their clutches, firing energy clots that melt steel structures and leave small craters in the concrete on impact.

I was staring intently at the screen, watching the battle as the air in the room shuddered, and in a flash of red, the Flash appeared before me, accompanied by a dead Clark.

"What the fuck did you bring him here for?!

"I came running in, I pulled Superman out of harm's way, and there he was. This scary guy with an axe. He's screaming: "Kill him!" So I got scared and ran to safety," the boy said quickly.

"Why didn't you leave him there, or at least take him to the hospital... Though the hospital won't help..." I nodded, helping to put the body on the couch, where a translucent film had magically appeared. - Harley, help me.

"When I connect with the Speedforce. That's what I call the layer of spatial reality that manipulates space and time: the Speedforce. My thinking becomes slightly distorted. That is, I can think fast, but I react within certain limits that I set for myself before speeding up. When I first got the ability, at first I could even trip and fall because my brain didn't perceive irregularities in the ground well. Anyway, when you get hit by several monsters at once, your body automatically wants to get away from it all, so I ran to my warehouse," he said in one breath.

The guy's way of speaking made me a little uneasy. He seemed to pause, even where he didn't really need to, but he spoke too fast, and with unnecessary details, which made my ears start to slowly curl up into a tube.

"All right, I get it. Now head back and give the allies a little help, as they're clearly not handling the influx of parademons.

"Demons? - Flash rounded his eyes fearfully.

"Parademons. Huh, even after death his body continues to be incredibly strong," I remarked in surprise, managing to pull the spear from the corpse with great difficulty.

"But... I'm kind of running out of steam. It's not that I refuse to take part in all this," he glanced at the TV screen, where Beaver and Donkey were still fighting. - But I'd like to tune in first...

"I don't care what you've got in there. The earth is in mortal danger right now, and it needs your help. Just for the record, you're not doing this for nothing, you're doing it for karma.

"I am an atheist and do not adhere to any denomination.

"Sorcerers call this thing "Earth's help", but in essence, it's luck. When you help the planet globally, it repays you in kind and helps you avoid mortal danger, or win seven-figure sums in casinos, the latter of which I personally checked when I was vacationing in Las Vegas," I said, scrutinizing the gruesome wound, through which I could see a heart cut in half.

"I..." He looked at the bloody body lying on the couch, pale. - I guess I really should run out and help...

A moment, and he was already gone in acceleration.

"Yeah. Just be warned, helping the planet, you simultaneously start attracting more and more trouble..." I said thoughtfully, twirling the unusual weapon in my hands.

It would seem to be an ordinary spear, whose tip is a processed piece of green kryptonite. But in fact, the shaft has a slightly unusual structure and seems to be made up of many segments.

Fingers fumble for a small indentation.

~Click~

In one fell swoop, the entire structure folds up to become the hilt of a small dagger.

Hmmm... I'll admit, it really was the way to conceal a weapon on the body, but Clark is still a sheep.

While the superheroes were trying to beat Steppenwolf with varying success, along with Flash, who had joined the party and was making more of a fuss than doing anything useful, Harley and I were trying in vain to reanimate the corpse. We were getting the godlike creature's blood for further analysis and studying how Clark's body interacted with magic.

Despite my optimistic predictions about the Kryptonians' resistance to magic, the weak spells simply dissipated when they hit the body lying on the couch. I had once thought that simple mind-affecting illusions would suffice against Superman. At the same time, if I used more energy-rich weaves, they did not dissipate and could successfully interact with the Kryptonian body. At least a small blade made entirely of neutral mana could cut through a patient's skin, while the point of my cane was only blunt, though after an owl alloy upgrade it could easily cut through steel plates or slice through trash cans.

The spell itself became more stable and powerful with the addition of life energy, but it took much more effort to make the cut. It was too early to draw conclusions from this, because it was unlikely that prana and the source of Kryptonian power were somehow interconnected, but mana... And not just any mana, but neutral mana, which bypassed the body's natural resistance too easily.

I don't want to sound paranoid, but this seems like an artificially created vulnerability. I don't believe that Clarke's ancestors, known for their love of genetic experimentation (Dumsday is worth a lot), could so easily miss one of the forces of the multiverse and not figure out how to protect themselves from it at least on a minimal level.

All these thoughts did not prevent me from carefully joining the two halves of the broken heart, joining the edges of the wound, and, in general, to make Superman look more or less proper, so that I could put him in a coffin right now... Only I need a normal suit, not this horrible red and blue tight tights.

The next thing I knew, I was trying unsuccessfully to heal the dead body with various healing spells, including those based on prana. The latter worked like hell, though the usual ones didn't have any positive effect either.

Well, fuck it, we still have a backup.

Now we just have to figure out how to get the corpse closer to the sun. What if he really does come back to life? Still, during my research, it was impossible to tell that I was looking at a real dead man. Well, yes, the fused halves of the heart don't beat, lungs don't work, blood doesn't flow through the veins, but neither Harley nor I noticed any signs of tissue degradation. Even the Beloglazov Clark test is successful, or rather, does not pass, because the pupil when pressed continues to remain round. And less reliable, in this case, the reaction of the biceps muscle of the shoulder to the mago-mechanical irritation (I had to hit, reinforcing the blow with a knuckle from mana), says that the patient is more likely alive than dead. Well, or just about dead.

It's certainly worth checking the body again in a couple hours for cadaver stains, but in the meantime, Superman will stay in my spatial pocket.

While the "operation", which looked more like the experiments of two mad scientists, was underway, the superheroes had successfully hunted down the bulk of the Parademons, losing the Battank in the process, and were now standing pathetically in front of the remnants of the alien squad led by Steppenwolf.

It would have been a good time to make some sort of pathetic speech, no matter who was doing it, but Darkseid's general was smarter than that. Looking at his serious opponents, he growled something, and a blue beam of light struck from somewhere above, which took him and his minions away. The heroes, of course, tried to hold off the enemy commander, but neither Bats' cat hook, nor Aquaman's trident, nor Diana's lasso, could get Steppenwolf. Only a shot from the energy cannon, grown by Cyborg directly from his own hand, managed to reach the freak, but he simply put the sparking axe under the trajectory of the bright blue clot, completely negating any damage.

That concluded the epic battle, and the blonde and I, after turning off the TV and returning the Flash's hideout to pristine condition, headed back out.

The portal travel had been a thrill for Harley and me so far. It's real, like a full-fledged water slide in a water park, but without water and incredibly long, besides, the views of the conjugated dimension with renewed vision played with new colors, forcing to look more closely at the flicker of colorful spots. In some ways it resembled the interworld, but it did not try to drive you crazy, but made you sincerely admire its beauty and the shimmer of many bright colors, like a drug trip.

Just for the sake of it, it's worth helping my favorite assistant to get the true gaze. But before that I will have to learn how to work properly with the astral plane, and I haven't even started researching my soul, and Amazon magic is still in the gap, although the buffs in it are pretty cool. And I'm not even mentioning the frozen project on researching the effect of prana on standard spells. A couple of experiments have shown that if we're talking about relatively simple weaves, they're fine: more life energy - more stable structure, more powerful effect, faster filling. But with something more serious, there are already problems. Energy lines can stupidly close on themselves, in the best case destroying the created charms, and in the worst case, creating a surge of energy with spontaneous coloring. To take cases with the healing of Gordon, the queen of the Amazons, and the creation of a copy of the Mother Cube would not be quite correct, because there was still involved divine energy, which at a great desire can turn any laws of the universe at will.

I was too deep in my thoughts, and when I came back to the real world, I was surprised to find that we had already reached Bats' temporary headquarters, where he had decided to house the entire superhero team.

He was paranoid, and even now he didn't want to reveal his real identity, having set up a secret lair in a familiar abandoned movie theater, which used to be a boarding house for Hugo's insane patients. This time, however, the asylum was located on the upper floors of the building and looked a little more modest than the previous one. But that didn't cancel its monumentality, epicness, and the best equipment.

After passing through the steel bulkheads, disguised as an ordinary wall with a couple of yellowed posters, I found myself in a large hall, which was visually divided into several spaces: a recreation room with a huge plasma, a kitchen, a workshop with half-disassembled alien weapons on a stand, and in the middle of all this splendor stood a round table with a hologram of the globe hovering above it. It felt like Bats really had nowhere to put his money.

As soon as we crossed the threshold, the frowns of those present crossed on our awesome couple.

 - Ha ha ha! Hello, people! - I said hello with a cheerful wave of my hand. - Why are you so sour, as if someone had died? Hey, dude, I realize that in Night City it's customary to point a gun at every passerby, but this is Gotham. So put that toy away unless you want your head to meet the end of this fine cane.

***

Well, while the superheroes warmly greeted their fellow craftsman, on another continent, in the center of an abandoned nuclear power plant, transformed by the power of the Mother Cubes into something resembling a giant alien beehive (which wasn't far from the truth), Steppenwolf stood near a black obelisk that was slowly taking on a human shape.

Soon the metamorphosis was complete, and the obelisk took its final form, transforming into a five-meter tall humanoid figure dressed in a loose hooded robe with a deep hood.

"Desaad," the horned knight nodded briefly.

"Steppenwolf, have you completed your enslavement yet? - The metal golem spoke.

"Not yet.

"Then why did you summon me again? - The creature's voice was clearly displeased.

"One of the Mother Cubes... It's not working properly.

"Explain yourself.

"At first I couldn't figure out what was wrong, but comparing it directly to the Atlantean Cube, you can't help but notice the difference," the monster pointed to one of the walls, which was covered in black metal veins with pulsing red veins. Unlike the rest of the hive, it was noticeable that they were much thinner and couldn't even take up all the available space, so the concrete parts of the original structure were showing through.

"That's odd. Their powers should be completely identical.

"The Mother Cube of the Amazons," the Darkseid general gently touched the golem figure and pulled out a box pulsing with an otherworldly light.

"Hmm," Desaad examined the object he was handed with interest. He made a few passes with his hands and a scanning beam shot from the obelisk, after which the metal humanoid's eyes widened in surprise.

"This... It can't be. We must report to the master immediately!

"What is to be reported? - There was a wary note in Wolf's voice. - Before this Cube came to me, it had been held by a human mage.

"So... Darkseid's army could use such a valuable man. Try to lure him to our side if you meet him again," Desaad said thoughtfully, ignoring the first part of the question. There was a flash of steel in his voice. - But remember, your first priority remains the same. It is the only way you can regain your place at His throne.