The void was silent.
Bruce hovered above The Fallen One, his heat vision fading as the last remnants of cosmic blood drifted into the abyss. The once-mighty Herald of Galactus, the being who had once carried the power of dead stars, now hung motionless in space, his form flickering, unstable. His silvered flesh was cracked, darkened by the toll of battle, and his once-burning eyes dimmed like dying embers.
And then, a sound... soft, unexpected.
Laughter.
A quiet, hollow chuckle escaped The Fallen One's lips, the sound weak yet strangely content. His body convulsed slightly as if he were struggling to hold himself together, but there was no fear in his expression, only relief. His glowing white eyes met Bruce's.
"...You did it," he murmured, voice carrying through the emptiness. "You freed me..."
Bruce remained silent, watching.
The Fallen One exhaled, cosmic mist drifting from his lips. "First Galactus… then Brainiac… I was never truly my own. Always bound, always a weapon for another." His gaze flickered, distant. "But now… now, it's over."
His body trembled, light escaping through the cracks in his skin. Bruce could see it... his essence was unraveling, the last of his strength failing. And yet, the silver figure smiled.
"For the first time… I can feel peace," The Fallen One whispered.
His head tilted back, his dim eyes staring at the distant stars. "I wonder… how many lives I took in my slavery… how many planets I burned… just to keep Galactus weak, to keep him from devouring entire worlds. I thought I was preventing something worse. But in the end…" He closed his eyes, a sorrowful breath escaping. "The blood is still on my hands."
A heavy silence followed.
Then, The Fallen One looked at Bruce again, his expression unreadable. "You… you're different. More than just a warrior. More than just a man."
His trembling hand reached forward, glowing with the last remnants of his cosmic power. "Take it," he said, his voice firm despite the weakness. "You will need it for what is coming."
Bruce hesitated for the briefest of moments. Then, without a word, he reached out. Their hands met, and instantly, a surge of raw cosmic energy flowed into Bruce's body.
The stars themselves seemed to tremble.
Bruce's veins glowed for a moment, his entire being infused with power unlike anything before and very much different from the power of the infinity stones. It was an ancient, primal force from the beginning of time itself. His mind expanded, glimpsing shadows of what lay ahead—of something far greater, far darker, approaching.
'Darkseid,' Bruce thought.
The Fallen One gasped as the last of his energy left him. His body began to fade, breaking apart into shimmering particles of silver light. But his smile remained.
"Thank you… for ending this," he whispered.
Bruce clicked his tongue as he flicked his fingers, using the matter manipulation, but the Ring's power wasn't enough to bring him back again. The Fallen One's body continued to dissipate, his form slipping away like sand through fingers.
Bruce's jaw clenched. His mind raced through possibilities. Was it Brainiac's interference? Was it some unknown cosmic force preventing resurrection? No… it was something else.
The Fallen One had been bound for too long. First by Galactus, then by Brainiac. Now that he was free, his existence had no anchor—he was unraveling because there was nothing holding him together anymore.
He wasn't just dying. He was ceasing to be.
Bruce narrowed his eyes.
"Not yet," he muttered.
His hand lifted again, but this time, it wasn't the Rings that glowed.
It was him.
The Infinity energy he extracted back then from his old body, he has been carrying it in his suit for quite a while. Now, he injected that power into his body. And now with the boost of his new cosmic power, plus the Rings...
Bruce's eyes gleamed white-hot as he channeled the infinite energy outward. He reached into the fabric of existence, past the limits of reality, past the boundaries that governed life and death itself. His mind stretched across dimensions, his will imposing itself upon the universe.
And then—
He pulled.
The void rippled. The dying embers of The Fallen One's existence stopped fading. The drifting silver particles were yanked back, their dissolution reversed. Cosmic light swirled around Bruce's outstretched hands, forming into something new, something reforged.
A shape took form.
A body.
Flesh knitted itself back together, bones reforged, cosmic veins reignited with flowing power. The Fallen One gasped as his body was forcibly reconstructed, as his soul was ripped back from the void. His eyes shot open, burning brighter than before, alive again—but no longer bound.
He collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily, hands shaking as he stared at them in disbelief. He was whole.
Bruce hovered before him, arms crossed.
"You don't get to escape that easily," he said, voice cold as the vacuum around them.
The Fallen One looked up, confusion flashing across his face. "You… brought me back?"
Bruce nodded. "You wanted peace," he said simply. "But you don't deserve it."
The Fallen One's breath hitched.
"You don't get to atone by dying," Bruce continued, his voice sharp as a blade. "You've destroyed civilizations. You've burned planets. If you think fading into nothing absolves you, then you're a coward."
The words hit like hammer blows. The Fallen One flinched, but he didn't argue.
"You're free now," Bruce said, stepping closer. "No masters. No chains. No gods to command you. But freedom doesn't erase the past."
The Fallen One swallowed hard, still kneeling, still shaking. He looked at his hands again—hands that had once torn worlds apart.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, voice raw.
Bruce's eyes burned.
"Redemption."
The Fallen One's gaze snapped up.
Bruce crouched slightly, his expression dark, unyielding. "You're not going to run from what you've done. You're going to face it. Live with it. Atone." His voice hardened. "You took lives. Now you're going to protect them. The same universe you helped destroy? You're going to fight for it. Defend it. With everything you have."
Silence.
The Fallen One didn't speak. He didn't move.
But something shifted in his expression.
A flicker of understanding.
A flicker of purpose.
Bruce exhaled, standing back up. "You don't get peace," he repeated. "Not yet."
He extended a hand.
The Fallen One hesitated.
Then, slowly, his fingers closed around Bruce's forearm, gripping it tightly.
Bruce pulled him up.
For the first time in eternity… The Fallen One stood as a free man.
And he was ready to fight.
...
[Brainiac's Flagship – Central Command]
Brainiac observed the battle unfold with a calculating gaze, his neural link processing the events in real-time. The loss of The Fallen One was unexpected, but not unaccounted for. He had contingencies. He always had contingencies.
The war raging outside was brutal. His drones adapted quickly, countering the Sentinels with optimized strategies. But on the flagship itself… there was another problem.
Two problems, to be exact.
A pair of blurs tore through his forces like living weapons.
Harley Quinn and Selina Kyle were reducing his army to molten scrap.
[Brainiac's Ship – Hall of Conquest]
A squadron of Brainiac's enforcers, the elite, enhanced war drones designed for planetary subjugation, stood ready, their adaptive armor shifting in response to incoming threats. Their glowing eyes locked onto the blurred figures streaking down the corridor at impossible speeds.
"Engage." Brainiac's cold command echoed through the ship's systems.
The drones fired. A storm of energy blasts filled the air.
Selina laughed.
The crimson beams of heat vision erupted from her glowing green eyes, slicing through the barrage of incoming fire like a hot knife through butter. The walls trembled as she cut through the first row of drones with surgical precision, their metal bodies melting before they could even react.
Harley was a storm.
She didn't bother dodging. The energy blasts slammed into her, but they did nothing—only fizzling against her indestructible Kryptonian form. With a gleeful grin, she launched forward, her fist colliding with a drone's chest.
BOOM.
The impact sent a shockwave through the corridor, shattering the metallic floor and turning the drone into a mess of crumpled steel. Another leaped at her, its adaptive systems shifting, its arms morphing into blades of pure plasma...
Harley caught the blade with her bare hand.
It sizzled against her palm for a moment before she snapped it off effortlessly, twirling it like a baton before driving it straight through the drone's head.
"Oopsie! Guess ya ain't adapting fast enough, metalhead!" she giggled, kicking the now-useless husk into the wall.
Selina zipped past her in a blur, grabbing another drone by the neck and slamming it through three walls before uppercutting it straight through the ceiling.
"Try and keep up, Harl," she teased, her smirk full of dangerous amusement.
Harley cracked her knuckles. "Oh, you know I love a challenge, Kitty Cat."
Brainiac's forces were being annihilated. The war drones, designed to conquer entire civilizations, were crumbling under the sheer brutality of the two Kryptonian-enhanced warriors. No strategy, no adaptation, no technological marvel could compensate for the raw power they wielded.
Brainiac knew this.
Which is why, as they ripped through his soldiers, he prepared something else.
A contingency.
Something built for them.
---
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