Darkness, part three
The brawny man, the Dog of War, walked across the terrace. A small distance ahead of him, stood the leader of the New Genesis pantheon, a man with hair of white and (for the day) robes of darkened blue. Orion halted. Highfather turned to regard his son.
"Orion," spoke the man, whose white hair framed his whole face, sternly. "It is good to see you, despite the severity of matters. Have you any doubts of what I am about to tell you?"
"None," spoke the war-god of New Genesis, with a scowl on his face. "That would imply there was ever any true doubt about who it was that dared this craven attempt to undermine New Genesis."
"And," continued Highfather, wistfully amused, "I suppose that I cannot persuade you to stay your hand, no matter the reasons or arguments?"
For a moment, Orion simply stared coldly at his adoptive father. "No. Though I would be glad of it if you could provide me with some counsel, I am afraid that I will let nothing stand in my way, father. I refuse to leave Scott and Barda to the horrors that proliferate Apokolips. Should this endeavor cost me my life, then at least it was given for a worthy cause."
Silently, smiling brightly, Highfather began to approach his adopted son, then wrapped his arms around the man, who hesitantly returned the gesture.
"Whatever happens on Apokolips," whispered the aged god-king, "try to return to us, to me, alive and yourself in mind and body."
He very well couldn't keep that promise, and they both knew it. From the rulers to the Parademons, the infernal planet had reared so very many terrible and wicked things that could kill him. That he wasn't asked to make it that was a small comfort for Orion. "I intend to, and to return with them in triumph. I swear to you, you shall not have to worry yourself because of your children."
On the balcony to one throne-hall of the Apokoliptian monarchs, silence reigned, and not unwelcomely so. On this balcony, the rulers gazed out over their hellish dominion and their many subjects.
"Have I ever mentioned the day that legendary Galactus visited Apokolips?" communed the stone-skinned god, unable to keep a tinge of good mood out of his thought. "The end to that particular conflict was delectably humorous."
"I believe not," communed the red-haired goddess, shooting him an amused look. "How did it end?"
"With Galactus realizing that Apokolips was a poor choice of sustenance material."
She replied by way of an amused scoff. "These instances of you demonstrating how other than aloof you can be are always amusing, beloved."
Darkseid gave no answer, simply gazing with a flat frown out over the city-scape and towards the blood-colored sky, his arms remaining folded behind him. She studied him briefly, an amused smirk on her lips, before turning her attention elsewhere.
The silence immediately returned, unbidden by them and unbroken by anything on the balcony. His gaze wandered over the city-scape ahead, finding nothing worthy of his interest, then he gazed up towards the red sky. "How many unknown wonders do you suppose that there exists out there, in the gulf between this world and the Source Wall, ripe for the conquering?"
Phoenix studied him briefly, then gazed upwards as well. "A curious question. I imagine that we will have, well, all eternity to find out."
Darkseid neither said nor emoted anything in response to that, simply taking a glance towards the sky. Dark Phoenix looked in the same direction, noticing the speck darting across the sky. Elsewhere on the planet, one or two of the gods and their mortal servants too gazed at the pissed New God - including a wild-haired brute of a man from the roof of the Female Fury barracks.
"I was wondering," voiced Darkseid, "when Orion would come."
The goddess-queen silently watched the speck in the sky as he steadily approached and became less of one. "Indeed, that was inevitable," a smirk graced her face as she thought, "I shall go attend to our guest," to Darkseid.
A veritable cloud of psionic force erupted from her, and began to envelop her while taking on the visage of her namesake. Silently, she began to fly off towards Orion - the red-haired goddess raced across the sky like a shooting star, drawing it a dividing line with the brief-lived trail of psionic fire that was left in her wake.
Not even a whole minute had passed by before mother and step-son confronted one another in the skies. Orion and Phoenix hovered, like gravity was but a quaint something they no longer wished to indulge in, and both were held aloft where they were by different forces.
Orion stared sternly at the red-haired woman, who returned the gesture with a deadpan look of her own.
He felt unease slither across his skin, at the thought of what she might do to him. "Well you might exercise caution, Orion, but in facing me openly as you do, there is no salvation for you, hero," he heard her voice, coy and mocking, in his mind. "Come for Barda and Miracle, have you?" spoke the red-head, with a tone that was as minimally questioning as was imaginable.
"Where are they?" demanded Orion.
The psychic released a single simple mocking scoff, and a minute smirk grew on her face. The Dog of War felt inclined to just throttle the answer out of her. "Your timing is, as always, horrid, step-son of mine. Scott Free is dead already, and the best part of it all?" her smirk widened, to the point that Orion was reminded of Mad Harriet. "Barda was the one who took her husband's life. With but one command from your father, she strangled him, no remorse, no hesitation, and no resistance."
Rage. Blinding, blood-boiling, maddening. Orion felt only rage at that moment, rage so potent that his desire for avenging his best friends caused him himself pains of the flesh. His fists balled reflexively, and he released a guttural wet scream as he lunged for Dark Phoenix.
The next thing he felt was the sensation of solid material pressed against his back. His eyes scanned his surroundings, compelled by his warrior's instincts. Before him laid surroundings that he recognized faintly - one of his father's throne halls, a long hall with only three walls. By the far left end of the hall, he spotted his abominable wretch of a father.
As Orion regained his bearings, Dark Phoenix flew back into the room, and made a quiet landing.
"Idiot," scoffed the woman at Orion. "You know who I am, and what powers I possess. What delusion enabled you to think that you could ever even have touched me if I desired otherwise?"
Orion stood up, glaring defiantly at the red-head. "Spare me your self-aggrandizements and prattle, psychic. For what you have brought about, you shall die this day. So swears Orion of New Genesis."
A mocking smirk formed on her face. "Your arrogance is astonishing, Orion," countered the ascended New Goddess. "What precisely do you imagine that your physical strength and that astro-force irritant can achieve against she who is both omnipotent and omniscient? Step-son, the words you speak are madness!"
As Orion glared daggers at her, his eyes scanned the room. The wall behind her was non-extant, so he could escape through there if he could get around her. "No, you will not," he heard her voice in his mind, and ignored it. She might know what he was thinking, but knowing that and being able to impede him were different matters entirely.
Phoenix's smirk became a frown as Orion's thoughts and examination of the situation went on.
By the throne-room's far-left end (or was it the right?), he noted the presence of his wretched father. Almost worse, Barda was flanking him there, no shackles and no unease and no sign of Scott. Unease seeped into him at the thought of that. The conclusion of those combined facts was as reasonable as it was unwelcome.
Her smirk lit back up, and the eyes that gleamed with the gold-white light of her sort of divine power gained a triumphant sheen at Orion's current mood.
Without warning, the hall's quietude was ripped into piece by the loud sound of stamping steps. The throne-seated god turned his head towards the balcony, his gaze noting the arrival of another son of his. Orion looked past his adversary, spotting what he soon recalled to be his brother there and drawing near. In her mind's eye, Dark Phoenix observed the presence and checked rage of Kalibak, while her physical eyes remained fixed on Orion.
Knowing well that she was watching, the animalistic green-armored man shifted his stance, to genuflect before his mother. His head, he lowered in reverence.
"Mother, I beseech you," said the lion-maned God of Lust. "Allow me to have the honor and pleasure of taking Orion's life. Let mine be the hand by which he suffers and the heel under which he is crushed."
Orion gave an annoyed scoff. Ignoring that gesture, Dark Phoenix turned around, to regard Kalibak face to face. "Very well," she said, giving her step-son a pleasant smile. "For your many years of loyalty and dedication, Kalibak, you have earned the right to kill him. Enjoy your work to the fullest."
Without another word, the lean-figured woman turned towards Darkseid and began sauntering towards the thrones. Her waist-wrapped sashes swayed quietly behind her in the faint breezes of that throneroom.
Orion scowled, inwardly annoyed by her dismissive demeanor. "It is a fine mess you have buried yourself in this day, warrior," thought the New God. "Three of the mightiest residents of terrible Apokolips are around you now, you can at best only rival the strength of Kalibak, and none of these foul souls are particularly fond of you. This might well be your finalhour."
Kalibak smirked, raising his balled fists, beginning a slow walk towards Orion. "Oh, how I have waited for this day, brother mine," he leered to Orion, who returned only a deadpan glare. "More than four decades, I spent on my training journey, traveling across the mortal realms with only my Mother Box as company. You cannot begin to imagine the adversaries I faced in my venturings, the mundane people or the macabre things. Even the Super Saiyan of myth, Broly of the planet Vegeta, fell in his battle against me. I wonder," his voice grew even more smug, "will you fare any better than Broly did, brother?"
Orion walked quietly towards his brother, heedless of the posturing. Once he had entered arm's length of Kalibak, he swung his balled right fist towards the man's mid-section. The blow connected, Kalibak didn't even make a gesture to dodge. It immediately dawned on Orion why that was - the beast didn't even seem to feel his punch.
"Not a disappointing start," conveyed Darkseid to her.
Kalibak smirked, baring the fangs in his mouth. With a speed that Orion could barely follow, his three-fingered hands wrapped around his helmeted head. Veins surfaced on the hands of Kalibak as he pushed the helmet inwards. The New Genesis steel proved yielding, but Orion's cranium, not so much.
The war-god refused the urge to grunt. His arms raced up to grab Kalibak's wrists, but he soon found his brother's grip so not easily broken. "No, Orion," he heard the voice of Kalibak, heavy with glee and blood-thirst, say. "From this battle between us, there will be no retreat, no delays, no mercy, no restraint. Only one of us shall survive to see another day, and it shall be I!"
So saying, he charged forward, pushing Orion head-first into the wall. Drawing his mountain of a left arm bag, Kalibak laid into the Dog of War with all the strength he could muster. Then, he delivered another such blow with his right arm, causing a crack to form in the golden transport-device that Orion wore and a cry of raw pain to escape the god's lips.
Glee filled Kalibak's face as he began to pound away at Orion, a single blinding desire in his mind - that he struck Orion so hard and so many times that his brother was rendere too disoriented by agony to think clearly, and thus unable to strike back.
The sounds of flesh striking both flesh and steel filled the throne hall. Along with those, the sound of machinery and electronics shattering, the sound of flesh tearing and blood hitting the floor and bones cracking, the sound of Orion's agony and Kalibak's jubilant laughter.
From the thrones, Darkseid and Dark Phoenix watched on, as though was it merely a gladiator's match in an arena for public consumption. The Goddess of Despair flanking them watched the battle with a bored look in her eyes.
The moments passed idly. For about the first minute of Orion's pummeling, the seconds could be counted by the blows that Kalibak dealt him. Once that time was up, Kalibak quickened his pace and Orion's wincing had died down. Kalibak hadn't noticed that his victim wasn't responding anymore, he was having a ton of fun with almost literally beating Orion's everything out.
After dealing another blow to Orion's blood-soaked eye, Kalibak decided that this sufficed. He turned half a rotation, then began to walk away, pleased with himself. About four metres was all the distance that Kalibak had gotten between himself and the man who had been beaten deep into the wall, before he heard Orion's voice and a semi-focused grunt.
He spun, a smirk on his lips yet surprise clear in his eyes, glaring at the mauled New Genesis resident. "You live still?" he questioned. Then, he mentally chided himself for that. "Of course, you do," he said, knowingly. "You would not be worthy of godhood, nor our shared blood, if you died so readily."
The God of Lust walked forward again, carrying himself like he was strolling through a meadow, towards the undying remains of his brother, with balled fists.