Dream 7

"There is just so much hurt, disappointment, and oppression one can take... The line between reason and madness grows thinner."

-Rosa Parks

********

"You're going to need to back up a bit," I said, grabbing a seat as I looked at the four women in the center of the living room. 

Mindlessly agreeing with someone was a surefire way to get stabbed in your sleep, and that danger multiplied by a factor of thirteen when in a relationship with a baker's dozen women.

"Darkseid? Why do you think it's not him? And why do they think it is?"

With all the trouble this 'Oppressor' had given me, I couldn't help but try to figure out who it was. The problem wasn't that I didn't have suspects but that I had too many.

Both DC and Marvel were filled with a whole host of beings who could qualify as 'Oppressors.' 

Hell, even Worm had a few. 

I still hadn't discounted the possibility that this was some sort of long-term ploy by an Entity, either Zion, Eden, or some unknown third entity. 

Given what we knew, it was unlikely, but it wasn't impossible.

My list of suspects was long.

Highest on my list were beings like Sublime, Nekron, Apocolypse, Brainiac, Dormammu, Mephisto, Sinistro, Ra's al Ghul, Luthor, Psycho Pirate, a turbo version of Jack Slash or something like them. Even Dr. Doom was up there, even if an asterisk was near his name at the moment.

Those beings of significant power but who were long-term planners, psychics, or focused on manipulating emotions.

This was a crossover world, and I had already seen plenty of differences between it and straight comics, so there was every possibility that it could be something completely unexpected. Still, I had to work with what I was given.

It wasn't like Darkseid wasn't considered. He was the physical embodiment of Tyrrany, after all.

But some beings were so powerful that, despite their ability to do everything the 'Oppressor' did, they would not need to go through all the trouble.

Darkseid was up there with 5th-dimensional beings like Mr. Mxyzptlk, reality warpers like Mad Jim Jaspers or someone with the Infinity Gauntlet.

The simple truth was that if any of those beings were the 'Oppressor,' this version of Earth would have fallen under their control or been destroyed long before we arrived.

"I am saying it can't be Darkseid because he would never act like this," Diana argued, looking between me and Robin. "He is supremely confident and egotistical. He would never waste decades on one version of Earth. He would appear and conquer the world, killing all who oppose him and enslaving the rest. Then he'd move on. If he were responsible, he would have arrived when the Earth was almost wholly defenceless except for the gods. He'd have wiped them out."

"Not even Trigon at his peak believed he could defeat Darkseid directly," Raven continued, looking far calmer than her fellow heroine. "He schemed against him but never challenged him directly."

I felt the urge to point out all the times Darkseid had been defeated in comics as if to say, 'Let us consult the Holy Texts,' but realized I'd be helping prove their point.

It wasn't that Darkseid never lost. He lost quite a few times. He was the go-to DC villain when the writers wanted to make a significant crossover event or raise the stakes, like Batman and the Joke or Luthor and Superman. Only Darkseid was the archnemesis of the entire Justice League instead of just one hero.

The problem was that Darkseid was never truly defeated.

For one, he existed in a literally different sense of reality—not a 'world' like Marvel or DC, or dimensions like Earth 616 or Earth 52, but a facet of reality separate from the rest. 

A conceptual existence similar to Plato's philosophical World of Forms.

The New Gods of Genesis and Darkseid's world of Apokolipse were more ideas than actual beings. Even if they died, they'd return if they were strong enough. They had the concept of death, but it wasn't permanent.

Every time they went to another 'world,' it was less like they were teleported there and more like they were reflecting a part of themselves through a film of water to mirror themselves there. In doing so, they left the most significant portion of their being behind.

I remember some comic writers explaining that every depiction of Darkseid was a fraction of the actual being. Pieces of a mirror.

In a way, Darkseid was a meta-being beyond the 4th wall. He was the conceptional representative of a 'Tyrant' or a 'Villain' in comics. 

That made him increadibly popular for writers to use. Still, every time he 'lost,' it was because of some unique contrivance or situation that the writers created to deal with him.

"I actually agree with them," I nodded at Diana and Raven. "I just can't see why he'd bother with such a convoluted plan. Why use the Endbringers? He has a literal world of soldiers, entire realities under his control, and his lieutenants would spank most Endbringers like naughty children. And the emotional manipulation doesn't fit either."

"I knew you'd agree," Diana sighed in relief.

I almost felt bad.

"All that being said, I'm willing to be convinced differently," I said, steepling my fingers in the classic Gendo Ikari pose. "Go on."

Diana's hands made little clenching motions as if she wanted to wring my neck, and even Raven shot me a slight glare.

I tried not to smile.

I failed.

"Thank you," Robin smiled, utterly unsurprised by my actions. Tsunade rolled her eyes. Her smile became a touch kinder as she met Diana's gaze. "I do agree with you, too." The Amazon's brows raised, but Robin continued. "I also have no idea why Darkseid would choose this route. But I am confident it is him."

"Why?"

"First off, we can eliminate all necromantic possibilities from our list of suspects," Tsunade started. "The Green is the only sapient being we are certain was under control that we have freed, so we need to operate with the information it provided as our primary source rather than our speculation. Similarly, The Green fall to an enemy and your subsequent 'Free'ing of it corroborates Ciara's information." 

"If it were necromancy rather than a form of Mastering, I wouldn't be able to have Freed The Green," I begrudgingly nodded. 

I made it a point of fact to 'Free' everyone I touched, but so far, nobody had reacted to anything that we could conclusively prove was the shadowy 'Oppressor.'

I had managed to root out a few dozen Masters, Strangers, or psychics, but none had the power or scope to fit our shadowy enemy. It still might have been them, but their touch had been increadibly subtle, such as on Sinister, so we had no way to know who was an enemy agent and who was just an asshole.

Same with the Blood Plague. 

Our foe was learning about the Old Blood more and more every day, but was it passively watching or actively creating test scenarios? Were world leaders experimenting with a known super plague because of a desire for power, desperation, or because someone was directing them to?

All the influence seemed to come from within themselves. The only mark we had been able to prove was the occasional fount of knowledge someone shouldn't have that could have only come from an outside source.

"Next, we need to rule out all the powerful psychics," Tsunade continued. "Because the Phoenix Force would have sensed them."

I realized that was an excellent point as I looked to Melina, who nodded in agreement. 

She still didn't have the control to directly manipulate reality, but she had been working on her psychic abilities non-stop for weeks now, on a global level. Even if she wasn't a great host, she'd still have noticed a global psychic controller.

I hadn't discounted a possible psychic attack because, for all her power, Emma was not the most skilled psychic entity, as proven when she didn't catch Xavier's little trap in Amelia. Melina wasn't better than Emma, but the Phoenix was, and the pair were in regular communication now.

Hadn't I just seen Melina separate herself from it a few hours ago?

"For those same reasons, we remove magical and technological enemies from the list. Both Medea and Valeria would have found either of those."

"So we are left with either a soul-based control or a reality-based one," I said, looking around the room to see if I was missing any possible ones. Nobody corrected me. "I assume it is the former since there'd be no need for all the effort if it was the latter. Snap, and you win."

"Emotions are connected to the soul," Medea said pensively, and Raven gave a simple nod, agreeing as well for obvious reasons. Her emotions were literal parts of her soul. "Hypnotism and other controls can wear off, but if a soul is corrupted or influenced, it would pass on to the rest of the being from within instead of without and would be permanent, except for in conceptual cases like your 'Freedom' or directed spiritual healing."

"It was Robin's idea. We're not experts on souls," Tsunade picked up again, gesturing to herself and Robin. "But we know they are real in pretty much every world. Our worlds had ways of attacking and manipulating souls, so it wasn't out of the question our enemy was doing."

"I had the idea from Perona and Big Mom," Robin shrugged when I looked at her. "Both of them worked with souls and were tied to emotions. Big Mom even needed fear to use her power most effectively."

I didn't know if souls existed in my original world, but they were real in every other world we knew about and interacted with. In fact, now that I think of it, everyone here had some connection to souls in one form or another.

Glynda fought with Aura, the manifestation of her soul. Yoruichi was a literal soul reaper. The women from Fromsoft games went without saying all my Servant wives were manifestations of the souls of dead heroines. I even gave a whole spiel about souls in comic realities on national television.

Was I actually dumb? How had I not thought of this before?

Was it just because I thought 'Master' and went, 'Oh, it's obviously a mental attack?' 

Was I so fearful of having my mind, my Self, controlled that I had given no thought to my soul? 

I knew I had one. I had to, even if it wasn't human. I could see the souls of the dead, for crying out loud, and some of them were definitely not human.

Was it because I was from a world where souls were unproven and just unconsciously discounted them?

Kakashi-sensei would weep for my lack of looking underneath the underneath.

"Ok, operating under the belief it's a soul-based process, why would that lead you to think Darkseid?"

"If you're thinking of the Anti-Life Equation, it does not work like that," Diana argued with a grimace. "If Darkseid had it, he'd just dominate this reality and be done with it."

I side-eyed my Amazon a bit. 

I never knew from which continuity my comic-based wives were, but they had stuck mainly to and talked about 'canon' events, so there was every possibility that she had faced Darkseid before. She had likely been under his control through cybernetic methods or the Anti-Life Equation.

Was her vehemence against it being the Lord of Apokolips because she understood him better or because she didn't want it to be him?

Still, Diana had a point, so I looked at Robin to explain more.

"There are two reasons we believe it to be Darkseid," Robin explained. "The first is The Green's testimony. Its experience almost perfectly matches what the Anti-Life Equation would do."

"Before you continue," Raven interrupted, making Robin pause in her tracks. The Demon Lord looked over at Emma. "She's back."

"Send me over," the mutant said with a grimace. "It's time I dealt with this."

Raven nodded, and Emma disappeared into her own shadow.

"What's that about," I asked.

"An issue with the most recent group," my Big Tiddy Goth Wife said without inflection. "She'll explain more when she's done."

It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the group of people Raven was continuously having her emoticlones teleporting to touch my scales to Free them of the Old Blood. At this point, I did it on autopilot.

"While we wait for Emma to return," Glynda spoke. "What is the Anti-Life Equation?"

"It is a source of power for those looking to dominate the wills of others."

"To be more specific, it is a mathematical proof of the futility of life," I elaborated on Diana's words. "The theory goes that 'If someone possesses absolute control of you, you're not really alive.' Basically, if someone with the Anti-Life Equation presents it to you, proof that life isn't worth living, you give up the will to live and become their slave in your entirety. No longer alive, without actually dying."

"Because of... math?" Yoruichi asked doubtfully.

"Comics, especially DC, went through a phase where math, science, and the like were the main subjects of fear. In my world, they were created during the dawn of the information age, and most people feared the changes. Hell, the Anti-Life Equation was created as an almost direct allegory representing the dangers of emails and the internet, as that was how Darkseid originally spread it all over the world. Which is hilarious in retrospect."

"There is some basis to the logic, even outside of worlds like this," Medea explained. "Even magecraft can be reduced to formula. True Magics can't, but the number of True Magics has shrunk from thousands to only five in the modern Human Order. This is because of math and science. Humanity has learned to understand and quantify the world and, in doing so, control it. It isn't out of the realm of possibility that True Magics will entirely disappear once the likes of the soul, dimensions, time, or others have been mathematically proven."

"A unified 'Theory of Everything' is the theoretical end point of science. It is a process of hypothesis testing, revision, discarding, adapting, and new hypotheses. Repeat infinitely until you understand everything and, in doing so, control everything," I shook my head. "Humanity can't achieve it due to its limited lifespan, limited computing processes, and lack of tools to detect and quantify much of reality. But it is theoretically possible, if realistically impossible."

"I would think you would be against such an idea," Robin said with a raised brow. "Given your belief in Freedom."

I blinked in surprise, then realized that Robin was making the same mistake most people make when discussing this subject.

"Free will, if it exists, would be part of that 'Theory of Everything,'" 

I shook my head. "You are mistaking a 'Theory of Everything' with the mind experiment 'Laplace's Demon.' I can't stand that thing. Scientific determinism is a fundamentally flawed belief system. It doesn't consider not only what we don't know, the unknown unknowns but also emergent properties that arise on macro scales that aren't represented in micro levels of reality. If it did, it would be boiled down to the following: 'If something exists that knows everything, then that thing would know everything.' Which, duh."

I wished Valeria was here. She could help present the idea better. My fault for not choosing a 'Science Waifu' because of their lack of utility in a Soulsborn world.

"Ultimately, science is not a belief system, no matter what some think. It is a process. One that tests and refines beliefs against reality and discards what is proven wrong. If done right, science encompasses magic and divinity as well, if they exist. Every single scientific theory is just that—a theory. We must all be aware that what we consider true now will almost certainly be discarded in the future as ignorance. Not too long ago, humanity thought phrenology was peak science."

"It is a theoretical Root rather than the actual Root of my world," Medea joined in again before I could really get going Laplace's bullshit. "Someone or something that has achieved complete knowledge of everything is not bound by time and space. If anything ever does reach that endpoint, then they already have. If we use the Catalogue as a base, they aren't Tier 12 or 13. They are Tier Infinite because even the Company and we would be included in the 'Theory of Everything.' Including whatever attained it. That is why it is completely irrelevant. Ultimate power is ultimately useless because that would include power over the 'self' that gained it. They'd be included in the 'Theory of Everything.'"

I twitched.

"Anyway," I said, trying to drag us back on topic. "The Anti-Life Equation. Originally, it was used as I said. A method of control of life forms. Over the years, it has been used from everything as a source of power to those who have a fragment of the complete thing, to a way to bring back the dead, to a sapient... being."

As I said the last word, I looked at Diana in realization and sympathy.

Her teeth were clenched, and she looked away from eyes.

"What? What am I missing?" Yoruichi asked, looking between myself and the Amazon.

"The Anti-Monitor," Diana bit out. "It is the thing that destroyed my universe. It is a being that was originally mortal before attaining the Anti-Life Equation, merging with it, and becoming a physical embodiment. My world was just one of countless others that were wiped out."

Raven put a reassuring hand on the Amazon's back, and Artoria even went so far as to give her friend a hug.

Diana gave them both a stoic nod of thanks, clearly trying to act strong.

"You see why it cannot be the Anti-Life Equation," she asked Robin. "If that kind of power were in the hand of our enemy, we would not be having this discussion. We'd have already fled, and nothing would have remained of this reality."

Robin's mouth was set in a grimace of sympathy, but she didn't back down.

"If it makes you feel better," I said, trying to defuse some of the tension. "The Equation either doesn't work like that here, or it doesn't exist at all in this reality."

"How do you know?" Diana asked, the words coming out bitter.

"I tried it," I shrugged casually.

"You WHAT!"

"Tried it," I said with a smile despite the looks I was getting. "It, the Life Equation, the Speedforce formula, and others. As soon as I realized this was a comic world. I'd be stupid not to."

"That does not, in fact, make me feel better," Raven deadpanned.

"If. I said, 'If it makes you feel better.'" I pouted. "Here, watch. 'Loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding ⋅ guilt ⋅ shame ⋅ failure ⋅ judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side.' See? Nothing happened."

"Mikael," Diana growled with a glare. Man, she looked mad.

"Relax," I sighed, trying to calm her down. "I know for a fact that just knowing the Equation and using it isn't inherently bad. And it didn't work anyway. Either just knowing the Equations isn't enough, this world's Equations are different, or I was missing something. It could just be that our words are but a human's interpretation of the actual formula. As a Great One, I would probably understand if confronted with it, but getting it off the pages of a comic might not be enough."

I hadn't been trying to dominate others; I was experimenting with potential sources of power that my meta-knowledge might grant me for free. 

As I said, I'd be stupid not to try, at least. 

In at least one comic, Scott Free becomes immune to the Anti-Life Equation's power and influence by knowing it, and he could pass that immunity along to others.

"Thou can at least trust Lord Husband to take care when poking the Rune Bear," Ranni 'defended' me.

I mock glared at the blueberry.

"Not true," Melina chimed in. I didn't like that smile. "This one time, he found a glade with six of the biggest Rune Bears I've ever seen and-"

"We agreed never to mention that!"

"I never agreed."

"ANY WAY," I very subtly directed the conversation back on track and away from the traitorous traitoress. "My point is that I took precautions. I never lowered my Defences and kept my Elements going the entire time."

I pretended not to notice the looks the rest of my wives gave Melina and her nod. 

I'm sure they'll all know the story by tomorrow.

"I shall believe you this time," Diana nodded imperiously, but I heard her faint sigh of relief. "I would hate to lose you simply due to carelessness."

Gah.

Direct Hit.

It was Super Effective.

The Gap Moe was too strong.

Mikael is attrachted.

I lunged.

Diana's eyes widened in surprise.

She tried to move out of the way, but I wouldn't be denied.

"Who's a strong, independent woman," I cooed as I rained Diana's face with kisses. "You are. Yes, you are."

"This is highly demeaning," Diana snarked, trying to remove me. "And insulting. Get off me."

"Who doesn't need a man? You don't. No, you don't."

"A little help," Diana asked the room.

"I think you're fine," Yoruichi answered, not hiding her laughter.

"Who's a feminine icon? You are. Yes, you are."

"I won't even ask," Emma sighed, emerging from the shadows once more to see me aggressively cuddling the heroine.

We all knew my brief bout of Cute Aggression was nowhere near as offensive as Diana was acting like it was. 

Partially because I was so over the top everyone could tell I was joking and partially because the Amazon should have no problem tossing my human avatar across a county or three if she genuinely wanted out of my grasp.

"What was that about?" I asked the mutant, not bothering to stop aggressively cuddling Diana with my best lamprey impression. 

Or was it closer to a squid, given that I was a Great One?

Food for thought. 

And hentai.

Ironically, none of my Family had that particular fetish, nor did I, so any sort of tentacle action was limited to cuddles and feeding my cat.

Consensual cuddling tentacles. 

Consentacles.

"I'll tell you when we are done here," Emma said, retaking her seat. "What did I miss?"

"Exposition on science, the Anti-Life Equation, and how fucked we'd be if it really is Darkseid," I deadpanned, unable to resist giving Diana's fantastic ass a squeeze.

"Enough!"

With a move not out of place in a wrestling competition, the Amazon contorted her body so she had her arms around me, lifted me above her head, and threw me at an empty sofa.

I landed perfectly horizontal on the cushions, the couch sliding back from the force but not tipping over.

"Most men would pay their life savings, an arm, their right nut, and both their lungs to have you throw them on a couch like that."

Judging by her glare, Diana clearly didn't appreciate my objective analysis of the situation.

That's all right. The others were on my side.

"You don't get to complain when you could have done that a while ago," Glynda said, adjusting her glasses with a smirk, and Diana turned her glare on the teacher.

"If you want revenge, you just need to grab his ass back," Scathach pointed.

"I'd let you," I chirped happily.

Then flinched.

Robin tried to look innocent at my look, but I wasn't buying it. My ass was against the cushion, so she was the only one it could have been.

"Enough," Diana repeated, but I caught the slight twitch of mirth in her lips as she looked back at Robin. Mission Accomplished. "Now that we're all here, explain why you are so certain it's Darkseid after all that."

"To do so, I need you all to look this over," Robin said, reaching into the bottomless box Medea had given everyone based on mine from Dark Souls.

She pulled out a broken fragment of a trident. It had clearly seen better days, covered by rust and brine. Some efforts had clearly gone into cleaning up what she could, but the thing had spent at least a few decades exposed to the elements after being destroyed.

Robin passed the trident to Tsunade, who looked it over before passing along.

"What are we looking at?" Yoruichi asked, turning the destroyed weapon in her hand for a bit before passing it to Scathach.

"That is the most recent artifact that we can reliably trace to Atlantis," Robin explained. "Thanks to Melina's psychometry, we know it was a standard-issue weapon for their soldiers. There are other artifacts, of course, but they are older. That is the last one to wash ashore. Everything else is either not listed, not identified, or lost when Mikael 'Free'd the ocean of trash."

"Sorry," I said sheepishly. 

I didn't want to feel garbage rubbing against me, and I figured it would be an excellent way to gain some goodwill with the local populace after the kerfuffle with the League. If I hadn't, we might have been able to find the remnants of Atlantis, gaining more information from either studying the ruins or talking to spirits.

"We had no way of knowing underwater civilizations had been wiped out and erased from memory," Robin reassured. "As an archeologist, I must acknowledge when knowledge is fully lost and try to piece together what is missing from what we do have. Case in point, what does the inscription on the handle say?"

"'Last sight,'" Emma answered easily before handing it off to Ranni. "Though it is faded and missing words in between."

"That's what I understood as well," Scathach nodded. "Though 'Last-Dying-Sight' would be more accurate."

"Diana?"

"You've already had me look at it," the Amazon instead passed the weapon over to Raven. "They are right; it can be read like that, but it's too worn out to say for certain. The conjugation is absent, so there are half a dozen ways to read it. What are you trying to show?"

"One moment," Robin said, stopping Raven from passing it to me. "Before looking at it, I want you to know that Ancient Greek, which this script is based on, had multiple dialects and rules depending on context. I know you studied Japanese and French, so I want you to look at it through a Japanese sentence structure."

"Sure," I said hesitantly, dredging old memories of fighting with Moonrunes.

TTPOV.

Topic. Time. Place. Object. Verb.

It was almost the complete opposite sentence structure of English, and the language was hugely context-based, so the topic was often left unsaid.

Focusing on those old lessons, I reached out for the broken trident.

I had no trouble finding the broken inscription and immediately understood what Robin was getting at.

"'End - death - seeing,'" I said to the room.

"And if the first word is a proper noun?" Robin asked with a smile.

I focused, trying to picture the lettering as if it was something like my name.

My vision didn't swim or anything, but suddenly, something clicked in my mind. My brain automatically filled in the blanks in the words and translated them back into English for me.

"Seeing Omega is death."

"Exactly!" Robin exclaimed proudly.

"Mine pardon," Priscilla pipped up hesitantly. "But what is the significance of such a sentence?"

"The Greek letter 'Omega' is Darkseid's personal symbol, meaning 'the end.' It is also the symbol used to represent the Anti-Life Equation," I explained, looking over the inscription again. "In the original comic with the Equation, just seeing the symbol was enough to become enslaved, as it represented the whole Equation."

"It is also a common letter in the Greek alphabet," Diana argued. "Its presence on a soldier's inscription is not at all uncommon, and I felt nothing from seeing those letters."

"The Catalogue," I murmured contemplatively. "The Defences can protect us, but if something isn't directly targeting us, we won't sense it. Like when the gods were spying on me through a portal. I don't even notice half the time a psychic tries to pry into my mind because I always have Mind Defence going automatically. There are downsides to all its perks, aren't there? Even the most innocuous, like the languages."

"The ability to speak, read, and write any language is an incredible boon," Robin nodded with a grimace. "But languages are a microcosm of cultures. We do not actually gain knowledge of the culture. Native speakers of a language might hear us use an idiom that mentions a mythological figure we know nothing about."

"How did you figure that out?" Yoruichi asked curiously. "I never gave it much thought, but you all aren't speaking my language at all, are you?"

"Grail Knowledge would have allowed us to communicate even without the language translations, probably in English as it is the most common language of the group, but the Catalogue goes a step beyond and directly translates things to us in the language we are most comfortable with. As for how I figured it out? The Green."

"The Green speaks in experiences," Tsunade explained. "Because of the Catalogue, we could understand it, and it could understand our words, but its mind didn't connect 'words' with 'meaning.' It only had a point of reference with a psychic entity that does something similar like the Phoenix Force."

"They understand us perfectly, and we understand them as well, even jokes and puns, but when it comes to inorganic transmissions like writing, our brains have to interpret everything from what we are given," Robin continued. "If we have a full book or complete sentence, it's not an issue. We have enough context clues to piece together the information. We get the implied meaning even if we do not get certain references. But with something fragmented and up to interpretation? Then we are left with our own biases to guide us."

"So this is the basis of your theory that it's Darkseid?" I asked, waving the broken weapon for emphasis. "It's a good base, but it doesn't answer the question. If he has the Anti-Life Equation, why hasn't he used it to bulldoze all opposition?"

"It just gave me the idea," Robin shook her head. "What if, like the inscription, we have been looking at the situation through the wrong lens?"

"What do you mean?"

"We have operated under the assumption that our enemy is a long-term planner working towards some grand conclusion. What if we were wrong?"

"If we believe that the Oppressor is the one behind the destruction of Atlantis, that was decades ago," Diana pointed out. "They would have to be a long-term planner to bide their time all this while."

"I don't mean they are not smart or plan things years in advance," Robin denied. "We can say with some certainty that they are the ones behind the destruction of Atlantis. Poseidon's odd behaviour and the destruction of the Clear both point to this fact. What I meant was that maybe the plan itself is the goal. What if the process is just as important, if not more so, than the result?"

"What are you getting at?" I asked directly, wanting to get on with it and gesturing at the trident again. "This could be the Anti-Life Equation itself, and we might not feel anything, but that's not what you are saying, is it?"

"Well, it might be, but I don't think so. I think it's a test. I think the entire fall of Atlantis was a test. One that failed."

"Tests?"

"What if our opponent is learning?"

A beat of silence.

"Learning?" Raven asked. "About us?"

"No. We aren't part of the plan at all," Robin denied emphatically. I couldn't help but admire how her eyes were alight with excitement at the mystery of it all. "What if they are learning about themselves? About their power? If we look at their actions like this, instead of all pointing towards some specific goal, then so much starts to line up."

"Like the Old Blood," I said with realization.

I had already suspected our enemy was manipulating various situations to experiment with the Old Blood and its abilities, and if so, it would fit this supposed MO.

"Exactly," Robin smiled proudly. "Our first known instant of it moving was Atlantis. Locked under the sea without easy rescue, it was an almost completely isolated first test. But it failed somehow. Atlantis and The Clear were completely destroyed rather than controlled. If destruction was the goal, why not repeat the process? Instead, it backs off, biding its time. Then, years later, the Hand becomes much more active."

"How does The Hand fit into this theory," Yoruichi asked eagerly, getting into the spirit of things.

"More failed experiments," Tsunade explained. "Those who weren't destroyed but became mindless automatons—useful for grunt work and as agents but otherwise disposable. Orochimaru had something similar."

"Then the pattern changes again," Robin continued excitedly. "Suddenly, in 2011, the Endbringers show up. We know Shard-based powers have been around for way longer than that, so why then? It wasn't like the entities needed more conflict. There were already plenty of heroes and villains fighting. It is also around this time that the Divided and the Rythm fall to the Oppressor."

"Maybe that's when the Oppressor gained access to the entities?" I posited. "They were just laying there, weren't they? They crashed to a planet and were continuing the Cycle by instinct. That's why the Ancient One left them alone, and when Dr. Fate went to check on them, they were gone."

"The only source we have for the Ancient One's statement is Stephen Strange," Medea pointed out with eyes narrowed in suspicion. "We know he's been compromised. Who's to say that ever actually happened? Maybe they've never been braindead and are fully functioning and working for our enemy?"

I shivered at the idea but conceded the point.

"Whichever of those is true, we can agree that their behaviour changed again," Robin continued. "If we act on the belief that they are learning about their power, then it is around this time that they discovered the emotional component of their control. By inflicting specific emotions, they can enslave others but allow them to retain their full faculties. Useful lieutenants rather than useless soldiers. They use the Endbringers to cause these feelings of helplessness and fear."

"And then we show up," I nodded, following along. And the pattern changes again. I killed Simurgh. The illusion of invincibility is broken before they can infect all their targets, so they use Doomsday to try and bring that fear back. Darkseid would know about him. Maybe he was planning on using him as the Ultimate Endbringer—the masterpiece that, even if defeated, keeps returning stronger than ever. No hope allowed whatsoever."

"We stopped him," Artoria joined in. "Thus, our foe begins to see us as a viable threat."

"And it's still learning," Robin pointed out. "They know we can bring back the dead by then but don't know we are immune to their control. So they pit us against something they think will be enough to stop the people who killed Doomsday."

"Trigon," Raven said lowly. "They didn't know I existed but made an excuse to have us fight him with the stolen books."

"By then, we had acted heroically twice," I nodded. "They'd probably have expected us to do so again."

"More than that," Diana shook her head. "They knew you hated being stolen from. One of the agents that tried to take one of your weapons was from the Hand, remember? They probably thought that, after Trigon was summoned, if we didn't confront him ourselves to save the world, all the Sorcerer Supreme would have to do was mention the stolen books, and we might have fought for that reason."

"No, wait." I shook my head, brain a mess of ideas and trains of thought. Robin and Tsunade were definitely on to something here. "They didn't even need to worry about that. Mini-Raven knew I was planning something against Trigon. I never Freed her because she was bait. The book thing might have just been a discarded plan after they found that out. It was stolen way before I revealed myself to Mini-Raven. It might not have been stolen, just given to the Hand."

"No matter what, so long as you confronted Trigon, they'd win something," Robin nodded. "His sons were trying to usurp him, right? If they succeeded, we can guess they were already under the enemy's control. If they failed, we'd be there to fight Trigon. And no matter who won, the damage would be huge enough to spread the infection. Maybe the loser would even be alive and feeling enough despair to be infected."

"The only way that plan would work was if whoever thought it up was supremely confident they could defeat Trigon the Terrible at the peak of his power if he won—or whoever beat him."

Grim faces nodded at Raven's words.

"But we unintentionally sidestepped the plan by not fighting at all," I said, trying to cheer them up. "Instead of throwing hands, we threw bants. And Pride got a snack and a smack."

I got a few smiles, but the mood was still dour.

Trigon was the largest threat of all the enemies I had faced so far. The gods could have been just as bad if they hadn't underestimated me so much. The Demon Lord, however, had taken me seriously from the start.

If I didn't have so much forwarning and so many hidden cards, I would have had to grab my Family and flee this dimension or use enough power that destroying the planet would be the least of my worries.

Anybody confident enough to take on peak Trigon was somebody I didn't want to tussle with without an equal amount of planning and traps.

"By doing so, we proved to be a threat to our enemy's plans," Robin nodded just as grimly. "But we were also an opportunity they needed to know more about how to use it effectively. Around this time, Sinister got his hands on the Old Blood."

"And Dr. Fate was spying on me with the gods," I agreed.

"That was the opportunity," Diana said softly. "Me. I'm a known entity. The Amazons would have been a thorn in our enemy's side if we are right. We were isolated from the world and peaceful despite our power. Soldiers who could be called upon that couldn't be infected easily."

"If I was confident to throw down with Trigon, I could take on the gods. Or at least, we'd distract each other long enough for them to do whatever they want to the divine pantheons. And while that's all going down, put the fear of the Endbringers back into the populace while wiping out the Amazons with Leviathan."

"They likely added the Leviathan part after the forced teleportation failed, and you left the gods and paradise in peace," Scathach pointed out. "And we foiled much of the impact of that attack by destroying the Endbringers relatively quickly."

"That is another reason I think it is Darkseid," Robin continued. "He's known to have killed gods for their powers before."

"And once he absconds with most of the powerful heroes, the earth is left defenceless," Diana muttered.

"So why continue to wait," I asked the room. "If you are right, the earth is at its most vulnerable right now."

"He still might be learning," Emma said. "As of now, the 'infection' requires the recipient to feel specific emotions. It is inefficient compared to a psychic attack, even if it is more complete. Or it could be us he's wary of."

"Maybe," I allowed. "That would fit with the idea it's Darkseid, though. He's sometimes defended the Earth, or at least ensured it survived, because he thinks humans are the key to the Anti-Life Equation. He could be pulling a Boss Dark Side again, though with the goal of finding the full Equation instead of using it to take ov-"

I froze, a memory rising to the surface thanks to revisiting events in chronological order and my earlier repetition of Death's question to myself.

That bitch. 

She did it again.

What a stone-cold bitch.

I couldn't help but laugh.

The odd looks my wives were giving me just made me laugh harder.

"Has he finally snapped," Yoruichi 'whispered.' "If so, I get dibs on his room."

"Perhaps you can tell us what you find so funny," Diana asked, arms folded in displeasure.

Not at me, though. At the situation.

At the fact that it was absolutely Darkseid, and neither of us was happy about it.

"I'm an idiot."

"We know."

"Yep."

"You just realized?"

"Took you long enough."

"At least thou hast a beautiful voice."

"We still love you though."

"Our idiot."

"Our idiot with a great ass."

"I just hope it's not hereditary."

"His great ass?"

"His idiocy."

"T'is not, our Lord Husband's lunacy is infectious."

"We're doomed."

"Hey!"

"Mrow."

Et tu, Medea?

"What, specifically, are you an idiot about today?" Emma asked with a smile of her own.

"Well, it's definitely Darkseid," I sighed, giving Diana a commiserating look.

"I am glad you are on my side, but why the certainty," Robin raised a brow. "I still have questions myself, like why, if it is Darkseid, why so much effort to remain a secret when he could just control or kill those who discovered him? And why use Endbringers instead of his lieutenants? And how is he keeping track of everything? Even Emma and Ranni have trouble with so much multi-tasking for an hour, let alone decades."

"Honestly, I can't answer those questions either, though I have a few guesses on the latter. No, I am certain it's Darkseid because Death told me it was him."

"Unless you've conveniently forgotten about that until now," Raven drawled sarcastically. "I doubt she told you."

"Not exactly. She just pulled the same trick she did during the Deal," I said, shaking my head with another laugh. "Remember the meeting I had with her?"

"The one where she laid out how she expected you to kill us as soon as you met us?" Emma asked dryly, getting dour looks from the rest of my wives. "I remember."

"'I shall provide no help, no information,'" I quoted directly. "'Neither directly or indirectly. There is no Lady Death, Chosen of Death, Black Racer, or embodiment of my power. The closest is your bond, Priscilla, and she is far from an avatar of death yet. As of yesterday, no gods of death remain on this planet either. Everything, the good and the bad will depend on you. That is the only way you can grow. No one to blame, no one to thank.'"

"That bitch!"

"Ha," I laughed again at Diana's uncharacteristic swear. "That was my thought exactly."

"Context, please," Glynda sighed.

"It was the only way we managed to defeat Darkseid when he possessed the Anti-Life Equation," Diana explained to the confused room, a stormy look on her face. "He was literally unkillable and as close to omnipotent as I had ever known him to be. We only beat him because Flash led the Black Racer, the physical embodiment of death for Speedforce users, to kill him after being chased through worlds and timelines."

"What does this mean," Emma asked.

"Just like she subtly warned me of the manipulation when making the Deal, she also warned me about Darkseid," I shrugged with a smile. "I'd have no way of guessing by her words until we were fairly certain it was him, but now that we are, it's her way of confirming it. She's giving me a warning and an ultimatum. She lined things up so I'd awaken around now, which means that the Anti-Life Equation is either almost complete or already solved. And there will be no mcguffin, no Deus Ex Machina to solve the issue for us."

"This is a dead-end world, isn't it," Raven muttered. "Like the ones we are from." 

"It has been since Darkseid set his sights on it," I nodded gravely. "Maybe he could have been stopped if all the heroes of today banded together and pulled some shit, but he arrived decades before the heroic heyday. He's been setting up the board for years, taking it slow instead of rushing in with his usual arrogance. The doom of most villains is not their lack of power but their lack of caution. And Darkseid has been very cautious."

"Where does that leave us?" Artoria asked, looking at Diana. "We finally know our foe, but not their location or plans. We have hindered them and will continue to do so, but we are no closer to stopping them."

"I don't know," the Amazon bit out. Then she sighed, looking at Robin and Tsunade. "You convinced me. It's Darkseid. But do you know his next step? What about the kidnapped heroes? Did The Green give anything else?"

"The Green's only orders were to try and destroy Ciara and Priscilla," Tsunade shook her head. "That, and consume Old Blood. We didn't get anything else out of it of use."

"Then we keep at it," I eventually said when nobody else chimed in to give me ideas. "Keep buying time till Melina can wipe the Old Blood from the Earth. At that point, she and I might be able to contend with Darkseid if we work together. For now, no speaking of Darkseid or the Anti-Life Equation off the Island. You never know who is listening. He has no idea we are finally on to him, and I want to keep it that way. We see how he reacts to The Green's loss and keeps dealing with the plague."

Just because we knew our enemy didn't mean all the old issues disappeared. Hell, even if we killed Darkseid, the Old Blood wouldn't just die with him.

If we could kill him at all.

In the end, reality was not a comic book. You couldn't just punch your problems away.

"What about Death?"

"What about Death?" I repeated Emma's question.

"What are you going to do about her," the mutant elaborated.

"Nothing," I answered easily. "She's Death. The End. I made the mistake of expecting her to act human exactly once. I haven't since. No morality, no expectations. She's on no one's side. She's upheld every part of the Deal so far, even if she's not been exactly cool about it. Her little trick? It's her way of saying we're on our own. She won't help or hinder us. I either pull something out of my ass, become Tier 11, run away, or die."

We finally had a name, so I'd be content with that for today.

Darkseid, huh? 

We were getting closer to a showdown, and as much as I was displeased that it was him, I couldn't deny a part of me was a bit excited.

Would Darkseid be my next Wall?

It's your move.

I hope you don't disappoint me.

********

Darkseid didn't disappoint in scale if nothing else.

If one little planet's governments weren't enough, why not make me the enemy of the entire universe?

"Why not just throw the kitchen sink at me," I muttered under my breath as I looked to the sky in my actual body.

My eyes, the size of a city, could see all the way to Mars without issue.

Usually, at least. 

Right now, I could barely see the moon because all the armies in the universe had decided to park their battleships in my sky.

Well, fuck.