Back with Batman and Supergirl:
Oracle had just finished telling Batman what Flash had done; and how he'd probably saved millions of lives. But right now, she couldn't find where his exact location was.
Batman stood there in silence for a moment, processing all of what he just heard. He was the only other person; Barry had trusted enough to tell about the Flash Point.
About how he once tried to save his mother, changed the timeline, and destroyed a world in the process. He knew the burden Barry carried more than anyone else.
'Barry…' Batman muttered under his breath, as his jaw tightened. The kid had once again taken on something unbearable by himself.
Supergirl stirred, finally able to stand on her own. Her breathing was still uneven and her body ached from the earlier beating, but she was conscious enough now to speak.
"Satoru… we need to find a way to help him," she said, pushing through a small wince.
Batman gave her a short nod. "We will. But for now, we better hope they don't fight anywhere near a populated area." He tapped the comm in his ear. "Oracle, any progress with the search?"
"Nope," she answered. "Still trying to track Lazlo's location."
Lazlo's projection had already vanished. He was most likely watching the Satoru vs. Machina fight unfold somewhere else.
"And what about the others? Were you able to contact those three?" Batman asked.
"Only Zatanna," Oracle replied. "She says she and John will need more time before they can bring Dr. Nelson in."
Kara frowned as she asked, "you're planning something?"
Batman didn't say anything right away, as his eyes were already turned in the direction Satoru and Machina had disappeared.
"It might as well be impossible to kill that thing now," he said. "But Dr. Fate might be able to seal it. Or at least send it somewhere far. We'll have to count on Satoru to keep it busy until then."
"Where are they now?" he asked, pressing the comms.
Oracle checked the trackers and replied, "in the savannas of Namibia."
That punch from before had thrown Satoru across the continent. He climbed out of a smoking crater in the middle of dry grasslands stretching for miles.
Reddish-brown mountains stood in the distance, glowing under the sunlight. Half the land looked dead, half teeming with wild life, hot and dry wind flowing across the plane.
Satoru pouted as he dusted himself off, his forearm was still shaking from the impact of Machina's punch. He chuckled, 'this is getting fun.'
His senses suddenly flared as Infinity woke up on instinct and two burning beams of heat energy slammed down from above, ripping the air apart as they stopped just over his head.
Satoru looked up through the dissolving heat haze. Machina was descending towards him, red lightning crackling around its body, shockwaves exploding behind it with every burst of speed.
The ground around Satoru was melting from the heat, chunks of earth turning to glowing molten sludge. He rolled his neck; eyes locked on the abomination charging in.
'Not like he's gonna complain about copyright across dimensions,' he thought.
He raised his hand and cut through the air. A razor-thin repulsive slash fired out, splitting the twin beams in half. In the same motion, it carved through Machina's descending form.
One of Machina's arms spun away in the air, torn clean from the shoulder. Satoru wasn't done; He teleported underneath the falling monster, with his hand raised at its abdomen.
He visualized not one, but thousands of those cutting strikes, then he let them loose. In a fraction of a second, Machina was shredded by a storm of invisible blades.
Slash after slash tore through its bone exoskeleton and metallic armor, ripping it apart and hammering it into the dirt.
The constant barrage blasted it into the ground and sent it skidding across the savanna, carving a deep trench through the earth.
For the first few seconds, Satoru's slashes tore across a wide range in a wild frenzy, shredding everything in their path; including Machina.
But after a while; moving at blinding speed and throwing out countless strikes, Satoru focused everything on his single target.
Machina was regenerating even within the storm of blades. Skin, bone, metal and those bizarre mechanical-organic innards were reforming just as fast as they were destroyed.
Satoru studied every piece of it while he attacked; its regeneration speed, nature of that reformation, its reaction time, energy readings and even the amount of effort needed to cut it each time it healed back.
Machina roared, the sound rattling across the land, but the slashes didn't stop. If anything, they only increased.
Satoru couldn't help the grin growing on his face, 'heh! No wonder that old mummy loved throwing these around.'
The barrage finally ended when Machina was blasted into the side of a massive sandstone plateau.
Before it could recover, Satoru raised his hand and spelled the full chant this time, "Phase, Paramita, Pillars of Light."
Reversed Cursed Energy flared out like a tidal wave before condensing into a blinding crimson mass glowing in his palm.
Then his arm came down in a diagonal swipe as he whispered, "Atomic Severance."
A single slash cut through the air, far stronger and intense than the barrage before it. It carved a clean diagonal cut through the sandstone plateau behind Machina.
The entire mountain was cut in half and the top half slid off with a thunderous grind before crashing to the ground, detonating into a storm of dust and rock that spread across the landscape.
Machina's body stood at the edge of what was left of the plateau, perfectly still; until its torso slid off diagonally, from belly to shoulder, like a broken statue.
But before the severed piece even hit the ground, Machina's arm snapped out and grabbed its own leg. It pulled itself back together, the body reattaching immediately afterwards.
Satoru didn't look surprised. 'I knew it, it's not just Mahoraga 2.0… it's straight up dying and coming back. I killed it at least twice already. Once just now, and once during the slash barrage.'
He watched as the wound closed across Machina's body. 'And every time it comes back, it adapts. The cuts that diced it before? They don't even scratch it afterwards.'
He tested the theory immediately and fired another massive slash; the one with same intensity and output and it struck Machina directly.
But this time, the attack bounced off harmlessly as it ricocheted into the sky and parted the clouds far above in a perfectly straight-line stretching, miles long.
'Yeah, it was a good idea not to use purple right off the bat…' Satoru smirked, 'Maybe look for a chance to erase it completely. Or, I'll just have to figure out some other way to kill something unkillable.'
Machina began to move again, slowly walking toward him. There was no rush in its steps now and Satoru couldn't feel the hatred fueling the need for destruction from it, anymore.
"Oh?" Satoru tilted his head. "Coming straight at me now, huh?"
He stepped forward too. The two closed the gap until only a few feet separated them as the air between them crackled with tension.
It was almost as if they were sizing each other up for a proper fight. Machina seemed to have developed a conscience, as he could see its eyes were more alive and aware now, it was excited, filled with anticipation of what was about to happen.
Satoru noticed the wide metal grin stretching across its jaw, he could feel what it was thinking. "Already sure my attacks won't work now, huh?" He said out loud.
Machina loomed over him, towering in size; but the moment it tried to step closer, the ground cracked beneath it, as an invisible pressure shoved against its body.
A grin was plastered on Satoru's face as the Infinity flared outwards, Machina slid back, metal heels scraping against stone as it fought the barrier.
Red lightning surged around it, veins of energy sparking across its body as it roared and tried to overpower the spatial force holding it back.
But Satoru only grinned wider, pushing forward casually taking a slow walk. Unlike before, no matter how much strength it exerted, Infinity never bent as it had then,
Just the sheer output Satoru was dishing out on Infinity right now, was greater than anything else that he'd ever executed on.
Changing the tactics, Machina vanished in a flash of red but Satoru had already caught up to meet it in the middle of air.
Infinity surged outward, a pressure front that caught the monster mid-transit and hurled it higher into the sky. The next thing Machina saw was a bright red glow filling its vision.
Satoru floated upside down in front of its face, arm extended, one finger leveled at it like a gun. At the fingertip, a dense crimson orb howled; repulsive force packed tight into something the size of a toy ball, shaking the very air around it.
"I'm just getting started." Satoru said with a grin.
The sky above the torn plateau bled to crimson. Repulsion slammed downward in a widening column, dragging Machina with it.
The blast printed a red ring across the sky and crushed the monster straight into the remaining half of the sandstone mass.
The entire mountain base groaned and sank in on itself. A sandstorm exploded outward with a dirty halo of dust and rock racing across miles of savanna.
When the pressure faded, Machina tore itself free from the crater, twin beams of heat firing up from its eyes. Satoru slipped left through the boiling air, the beams carving furrows in the sky behind him.
Machina swung with a heavy cross and Satoru slid inside the arc, a burst of repulsion tracing his knuckles as it rapped along the monster's forearm.
The strike redirected the punch past his shoulder. He stepped up the giant's frame and cracked a heel into its jaw, a clean snap that sent red lightning peeling off its face.
The rebound tossed him into the clear sky; he drifted with the momentum, then dove back in. Machina changed its tactics on the fly.
Its second punch contracted, mechanics in the shoulder shifting mid-motion. The arm snapped backward, trading windup for speed.
Satoru leaned back just enough to make it miss by a hair and drove a palm into the elbow. The joint folded with a metallic bark.
He spun along the limb and hammered the shoulder cap. A burst of repulsion detonated on contact and sent Machina skidding through the air.
They crashed together again and Machina started copying Satoru's tight and clean movements. It started compressing its footwork, just like Satoru, in a rhythm of slides, taps and whips.
What had been wild swings became precise combinations, shoulders rolling, hips stuttering with stolen human cadence. It began to feint and bait.
Satoru grinned wider, impressed by how terrifyingly fast it was learning to fight. "Hahahahaha… Hahaha… Come on, Machina. Show me what else you can do!" He exclaimed, pure excitement radiating from his voice.
Another feint from Machina came along; its left-hand flaring and right elbow tucked, then a sudden torsion in the spine and a spear-hand stabbing for Satoru's throat.
He let the hand pass, brushed the bicep, and filled the gap with a compact blue burst that dug into the torso like a piledriver.
The monster folded around the hit and swung its knee. Satoru's shin met it, repulsion ringing out from the contact, and he corkscrewed up its centerline, punching a straight line of air into the monster's face.
They broke apart and Machina disappeared in a flash of red, Satoru followed with a burst of faint blue as they appeared low over the grass.
Dust fountains chased them. Heat from Machina's body burned swaths into the plain; Infinity made the air around Satoru shimmer like a mirage.
Machina flew closer and Satoru threw a hook, but its chest plate suddenly folded in, as a trap to cage his arm, but Satoru was already on its blind side, that same excited grin planted on his face and hands light on the monster's frame as he moved around.
He planted a kick at the base of its neck, redirected mid-kick, and used the recoil to rocket under its center.
A red sphere spun into existence on his knuckles and he flicked it into Machina's abdomen. The monster tumbled, tearing trenches through yellow grass and dry stone.
Lazlo, who was observing this fight very closely, also through Machina's eyes, couldn't help but be amazed at Machina's accomplishments and at the sheer excitement with which Satoru was involved in this fight.
Lazlo raised his eyebrows as Machina copied Satoru's habit of striking on the half-beat. For a few exchanges, he also realized that Satoru was letting it learn his moves, weaving just out of reach so it could memorize nothing cleanly.
'Not just strange magical abilities, but a battle obsessed maniac too…' He thought with a smile. Anyone else would just see Machina adapting to every new danger, but Lazlo could see it, as clear as day, that Satoru was adapting too, and at terrifying rate at that.
Even he couldn't help but wonder, how and why a human had been allowed such power and potential… He couldn't help the excited grin on his face either, not fully sure what the outcome of this battle would be.
Machina's fist grazed Infinity as Satoru parried with empty space and let the monster's momentum carry it past his guard, then tagged its ribs with a flicker of blue that knocked its trajectory away.
The mountain range rose ahead, red-brown ridges cutting around the edges of the Namibian savanna. They skimmed over spines of stone as the fight quickened into a blur of frames.
Satoru vaulted along jagged ledges, and Machina, a blur of red lightning, chased with lunges that left craters, their shockwaves peeling sediment from cliffs in long sheets.
It suddenly faked a stumble, forcing a narrow pass through a canyon throat, then snapped its arm into a chain-gun of short jabs.
Satoru slipped under each one, shoulders rolling, head tilted by inches and answered with a backfist that never touched the target, repulsion striking where his knuckles didn't.
The hit folded Machina into the canyon wall, stone exploding behind it. The monster kicked back into open air, bent at the waist, and copied the same strike, just without the repulsion.
For some reason, it wasn't able to copy his abilities. Amazo's abilities that Machina now carried, wasn't able to replicate the energy that Satoru had, nor the way he manipulated space.
Satoru ghosted to the monster's flank and raked three repulsion slashes stronger than the big one before, but concentrated into smaller sizes, then spun inside the follow-up and touched the monster's sternum with two fingers.
He then swiped them across its bony armor and a gash opened up on its chest. In response, a hammer-fist fell upon Satoru's head.
He just slid to the side and let the fist, scrape by, then cut the monster's wrist with a line so thin and dense it existed only as a change in air pressure.
Its hand stayed on, but the wrist stiffened uselessly. He was already three moves ahead, painting the fight however he wanted.
They rose higher and a volley of heat beams stitched the sky; Satoru braided through them, letting Infinity block anything that came close.
He answered with a fan of dense red arcs, each one a flying crescent that redirected Machina's charge, turning straight lines into curves.
The monster bent its own movement, and pressed in close with stolen tempo, then broke the tempo with an alien twitch that only something built of metal could manage.
They flew through the range and finally reached the heart of the mountains, Machina paused as they hovered over a tall spine of stone.
Satoru floated a few meters away as its mouth split into a metal grin and it suddenly accelerated towards the base of the mountain. Satoru followed it and just before they reached the ground.
The monster's chest lit as bright green bled through the red lightning; veins of luminous energy threading across its body.
A wave of bright red and green energy erupted out of Machina's body, the color burning in layers; red along the skin, vivid green underneath.
The first wave vaporized the ridge beneath them. Stone went liquid in an instant, then turned into mist. The next wave broadened, blooming outward in a ring that consumed the mountains.
Peaks vanished, valleys flashed to glowing glass, then cracked and ran in rivulets. From a hundred kilometers away, people saw the horizon change in an instant.
Ranges that had always been there were simply gone, replaced by a widening crown of red-green light and a column of dust punching into the sky.
At ground zero, Satoru stood behind infinity as the wave smashed against it and split around him, boiling beyond him in a howling torrent.
He leaned into it, one hand in his pocket, the other raised to feel the texture of annihilation sliding along the barrier. His hair streamed back as the grin on his face didn't falter.
When the blast finally burned down, the mountain range they'd been fighting over didn't exist anymore. In its place sprawled a crater of glowing slag, rivers of red-hot matter crawling outward and cooling to black.
A few days ago:
Inside the insurgency base, Batman and Catwoman stood behind the glass overlooking the training hall. Below them, Satoru and Kara were sparring; two blurs moving fast around the training hall.
Even with her strength and speed, Kara couldn't land a decisive hit. Satoru was matching her perfectly, not with power, but with technique and control.
Every time she moved, he was already there; redirecting, slipping past and countering with effortless precision.
Bruce watched the exchange silently, the reflection of flickering energy lighting his face. Lines of data and shifting graphs scrolled across the monitor beside him.
Selina leaned against the table. "You look so serious, Bruce. Is it that time of the month already?"
He stopped typing, turned to her with that silent, 'did she just say that,' stare.
"Pfft… come on, bad joke." She waved it off, smirking. "So, what's got you brooding this time?"
"Something that barely makes sense," he said, eyes back on the screen. "I still can't pinpoint what kind of power Satoru uses. But I've managed to track its efficiency."
He paused as the screens flickered and then continued, "how much of it he's using, how fast it's increasing. Same way I classified divine energy for Wonder Woman, Shazam, and Black Adam. I can chart it down."
Selina arched a brow. "And…?"
Bruce tapped the display. "This was his level when I first measured his power level." The graph showed a baseline, and another appeared beside it, the bar towering far above.
"And this new one is the current one?" Selina asked, pointing at the new chart.
"This was after he fought Wonder Woman." Bruce replied.
Her eyes narrowed. "And now?"
Batman's expression didn't change. "Probably even higher. Right now, as he's sparring against Supergirl, he's still evolving."
Selina didn't say anything else, she understood why he was serious about this. His doubts about superman, which everyone had labeled too paranoid, even cynical, was proven true.
This was Bruce Wayne at his core; he didn't like to be inadequately prepared.
She looked down again at Satoru moving against Supergirl's blows, still smiling through every exchange. 'How strong is he going to actually become?' She wondered.
Back to the Present:
The shockwave still rippled through the air when Machina's body began to shift. Its massive, armored frame compressed and reformed.
The bulky design fell away, replaced with sleeker lines of metallic bone and muscle. Its head thinned and streamlined and its limbs now looked optimized for more speed and power.
It was smaller now; still twice Satoru's size, but he could feel the sheer power radiating off of it.
Lazlo, watching through the link, froze. Machina had fully broken free from his control. It wasn't just a weapon anymore.
Satoru floated opposite to it, hovering just above the molten ground as it began to cool. The air between them shimmered from the heat.
As if they could read each other's mind, they slowly drifted closer until they were only a few feet apart. The air in between them started vibrating as their auras clashed.
Both raised their arms, crossing each other's forearms in mirrored stance. Dark red lightning crawled over Machina's new body.
From Satoru, waves of cursed energy rolled out, denser than before. Their fists tightened, then, like a bullet tearing through sound, they launched skyward.
Two streaks of red and blue light ripping into the clouds, the ground below shattering from the force of their takeoff.
Machina was pushing Satoru back, as they tore through the sky, he was fully on the defense as its attacks clashed against infinity.
In the observation room Lazlo's face pinched; part disappointment, part relief, because for him, every second Machina evolved, was another step toward his goal.
But through the screen, Satoru's voice suddenly rang out; wild, loose with laughter even as he threaded through Machina's strikes. His eyes shone brighter, the feral grin stretching his face.
"Hahahaha… you like adapting, right?" he cackled, and vanished from Machina's flank then reappeared above the abomination and drove an axe kick straight down.
The heel slammed the top of Machina's head; metal crumpled and its skull caved inward. A shockwave detonated on impact.
Machina tumbled, nose-diving toward the ground, but Satoru was already beneath it. As Machina flipped upside down, Satoru moved like a whip.
"Adapt to these hands," he said, and unloaded the punches and kicks, dancing around it until he slammed both legs in a double kick as he hissed, "Black Flash!"
The strike spat out dark-red lightning. The force pushed Machina hard enough that the thing skimmed across the skies over central Africa.
Satoru didn't even bother to warp as he launched after it, two blurs cutting the air as they rocketed toward the northwest desert of Libya.
Their collision with the earth made a crater the size of a small town. Machina snapped back up, roaring with anger and sent an uppercut at him.
'That speed…' Satoru's eyes widened as he crossed his forearm to block; the force threw him skyward. Machina followed, and the two kept climbing higher and higher, almost 65 to 70 kilometers high in the sky.
Lazlo was on his feet now, watching intently as things got even more intense, beyond what he'd expected from both Satoru and Machina.
Satoru's voice rang through the screen again, he laughed, then spoke, "hey, Pyg or whatever, you're still watching this, aren't you? You as a scientist should know what happens when smaller masses collapse into a black hole, right?"
Lazlo's eyes widened, 'he couldn't possibly mean-'
Satoru's voice dropped, more to himself now. "I always wondered how far I could push the Amplification of Limitless."
His eyes glowed as the world slowed down to almost a halt. Machina, wrapped in its speed force, crawled like a rusted machine as Satoru's perception of speed ramped.
Within that fraction of a second, his mind went hyperdrive as he began calculating values and exact numbers for mass and energy, for what he was about to do
'The target energy is equivalent to a Nuke with a yield of almost 100 megaton TNT. That's 100 × 4.184e15 joules = 4.184e17 J. And E = mc² so, the required mass would be m = E / c² = 4.184e17 / (2.99792458e8) ² ≈ 4.655 kg.'
'And the Schwarzschild radius for that mass would be rₛ = 2GM (4.655 kg) / c². rₛ ≈ 6.9e-27 m. I need to collapse that mass to be smaller than a proton.'
'And the Hawking lifetime t ≈ 5120·π·G²·M³ / (ħ·c⁴). t ≈ 8.49e-15 s. Practically, an instantaneous release of all that mass as pure energy.'
And right after, a sphere of converging blue energy manifested between them. At this altitude, with almost nothing around to worry about, he didn't have to care about collateral.
The sphere converged atmospheric gases into it, until that mass matched the number his brain had just spun out, about 4.655 kilograms of air was now converged into the sphere of Blue.
Satoru's grin softened as he readied the convergence and chanted, "Phase, Twilight, Eyes of Wisdom; 120 % Output."
"Singularity Bloom"
Just a few moments earlier:
Batman and Supergirl were still standing where they had last made contact with Oracle when a golden portal flared open in front of them.
From it stepped John Constantine, looking half-dead but still upright. His dark hair was a mess, beard untrimmed, long coat torn at the edges. Behind him came Zatanna, staggering on her feet, her clothes scorched and dusty.
As the portal sealed shut, a new figure appeared in front of it; tall, calm, wrapped in a golden cape and blue suit, the Helmet of Fate gleaming like the sun.
Supergirl was the first to move, catching Zatanna before she could hit the ground. "What happened?"
"Sent some demons back to hell," John said, putting a cigarette on his mouth but the blood soaked lighter refused to light so, he just lit the fire from his fingertip. He looked at Fate, floating in front of them.
"And saving his ass," Zatanna muttered, glaring up at the helmet.
"I did not require saving, mortal," Fate replied, his deep voice echoing under the helm.
Zatanna spat, "I was talking about the old man you control, you selfish bastard-"
"Dr. Fate-" Batman cut her off, but the sorcerer spoke over him.
"I know what comes next Batman. Let the otherworlder bring the abomination here. I will handle what follows."
Bruce frowned, trying to make sense of it. Before he could ask though, Oracle's voice crackled through the comms.
"Batman, they're back north again. Both of them had crashed somewhere in Libya, but are now high above the Egyptian skies."
Supergirl and Dr. Fate looked up at the sky almost at the same time. Then his comms went dead. Static filled Bruce's ear before the line cut out completely.
The ground trembled as a wave of invisible force rolled across the land; a soft, humming thump that carried through the air; an EMP wave.
All active electronics and circuits in the entire region had blinked out in an instant.
A second later, the world lit up.
High above, nearly eighty kilometers up, a point of blue flared and blipped out, bright white flaring into existence, which then bloomed outwards.
A fireball expanded across the upper sky, bright enough to bleach the clouds and turn the desert daylight into white, followed by a wave of warmth; the heat wave toned down by the distance.
The gigantic ball of plasma turned orange, then dark red, spreading outward in a sphere that stretched for kilometers. And for a few moments, the planet seemed to hold its breath.
Zatanna stared up, whispering without thinking, "Oh… god."
The explosion was too high to burn the ground, but the kinetic pulse was still coming, compressed air, folded, and hurled back toward the earth, travelling faster than sound.
Dr. Fate rose into the air, cape fluttering as he raised both hands. Golden circles and runes spun into existence around him; endless geometric layers of light.
As the wave closed in, he pushed forward, the sigils forming a wall that met the oncoming energy head-on. The shield expanded, bending the blast and redirecting it upward.
Fate's helmet blazed with golden light as he absorbed the heat and pressure, turning it into raw magic and flinging it back into the upper air.
The shockwave then reversed its course, carrying with it the air that had been ripped away in the vacuum, rolling back into the stratosphere.
Batman stood still, cloak snapping in the wind. He didn't need to think too deeply to tell him what had saved them. The only reason they were still standing was because the detonation had happened so high above.
The plasma storm still glowed faintly, streaks of lightning dancing in the sky like bleeding veins. What remained of the cosmic radiation, spread outward, painting the upper atmosphere in a curtain of red-orange light.
Half way across the continent, people looked up; awed and speechless as the artificial aurora rippled across the heavens.
Dr. Fate stayed silent as two burning figures plummeted through the sky, crashing into the desert far from their position.
This whole thing was different from what he'd foreseen. Not all of his visions came to pass; fate was fickle like that, but there were only a handful of beings unpredictable enough to defy it.
'Satoru Gojo…' He thought the name and shot forward, a streak of gold cutting through the sky until he reappeared above the impact site.
The crater smoked beneath him, Satoru stood at the center of the crater, facing what was left of the metallic creature; a writhing mass of fused metal, bone, and half-formed flesh.
His own body was a wreck too; most of his skin was gone, his clothes were burnt off, parts of his skeleton showing through.
'Damn… I knew it'd hit instantly, but I still thought I had the timing down. Got myself turned into a grilled turkey,' he muttered, clicking his tongue.
Faint red light shimmered across his frame as the Reverse Cursed Technique kicked in. Skin and muscle began to knit back together, steam rising from the healing tissue.
Within seconds, he stood whole again, fully naked, but as good as new.
Dr. Fate floated closer, about to cast a healing spell, only to stop mid-gesture. The energy coming off Satoru when he healed, felt close to magic, but not quite, its inherent nature, felt completely opposite.
"Good work bringing that abomination down, outsider," Fate said, voice echoing from behind the golden helm.
Satoru looked up, blinking. "Golden cape, shiny helmet, you must be the Fate fella."
"I prefer Dr. Fate," the sorcerer replied evenly. "And that thing isn't dead yet." He pointed at the metallic mass on the ground in front of Satoru.
"Yeah, I can see that," Satoru said, eyes flicking toward the grotesque heart pulsing in the crater. Veins and fragments of bone were crawling back around it, knitting themselves into a shape that almost looked like its old body.
"I've got something that can erase it completely, so-"
"Wait." Fate's cut him mid speech, "The abomination can never truly die. Even turning it to atoms won't matter if it re-forms afterward."
Satoru paused, thinking, 'Well, he's got a point. It was vaporized into subatomic particles at the center of that plasma sphere, which was probably hotter than the core of the Sun, even if just for a second, and it still came back.'
"Yeah, I guess it did heal from that," he said finally. "Got a better idea?"
"Stand back." Fate said as he brought his hands together, forming a cross.
A golden eye symbol burned on his chest, and in front of him, a glowing cross topped with a circle; the mark of Horus, took shape in mid-air. It expanded, towering over him, the light so bright it bled into the sand.
Satoru squinted, scanning the energy, analyzing the spell's structure. And all he could tell was that it was something designed to bind and freeze rather than destroy.
He thought, 'a sealing array, huh. Alright then, if this works, I'll keep Purple as a backup, just in case.'
The radiant sigil descended over the regenerating body. Chains of pure gold wrapped around the creature, and spears of light pierced through its mass, locking it in place. The regeneration stopped instantly, time itself seeming to hold it still.
Fate grunted, pushing more magic into the seal. Even in its half-dead state, the thing's resistance was staggering. He could feel the strain pushing against him, testing his own limits.
He glanced toward Satoru; this otherworlder who'd fought it and reduced it to this state, he unconsciously gave a smallest nod of acknowledgment.
The golden light around Fate burned brighter, the air rumbling as a few of the broken chains around Machina's body reformed. His voice echoed from within the helmet as he chanted, "Vengeance of Horus."
The sky itself seemed to split from the flash of gold and a giant figure materialized, grabbing the top of the glowing cross.
The Egyptian god Horus, his eyes blazing like the Sun, pressed the seal downward, shoving the cross into Machina's body before lifting it high above the ground.
A portal of light opened in the air, shimmering like liquid gold. With a single heave, the god hurled the bound creature through. The portal snapped shut behind it, the glow fading into nothing.
When the silence returned, Satoru just stared, face blank. "Bruh… all those theatrics, just to throw it into space?"
Unbothered, Fate replied, "it's a different dimension. A collapsing universe; the abomination will perish with it."
"Right…" Satoru muttered and then gave a shrug.
Fate floated higher, the desert winds whipping his cloak. "My task here is done. You'll soon meet the one responsible for all of this in person. May we meet again, Satoru Gojo… if fate permits."
He vanished in a flash of gold, the light fracturing like shattered glass.
"Wait-" Satoru started, then sighed when he realized the man was already gone. "Could've at least magicked me up some clothes…"
He pouted, looking down at himself. Before he could teleport away, someone dropped out of the sky and landed in front of him.
"Kara?" he said.
"Satoru, are you al-" She froze, eyes going wide. "You're naked!"
"Wow, thanks for the update. I'd never have guessed," he said flatly.
Her cheeks flushed red as she looked away, fumbling as she took the black cape from her shoulders and held it towards him, "here… j- just take this and cover yourself"
He tilted his head, amused, and took it from her. She probably forgot he could just warp out of there. And before she could say another word, she just heard a short chuckle before he disappeared with her cape.
Kara blinked, standing there alone, staring at the empty air where he'd just been. "Did he just-", she realized late that she'd been played and her cape was gone, and groaned.
Meanwhile, Satoru was already back in his room at the Insurgency base. And a few moments later, he stood in front of a mirror, now wearing a light-blue shirt, black pants, dark shoes, and most notably; Supergirl's black cape fastened around his shoulders.
His trademark shades covered his eyes as he posed in the mirror like a hero straight out of a poster. He smirked, "humm, definitely has some kind of special effect, I feel like giving a motivational speech now."
His eyes narrowed as he sensed something and without turning, he said, "You know you're, kind of standing there like a creep. Not that it's new for you."
Lazlo's holographic projection stood at another corner, staring at a painting on the wall.
"Here to negotiate with the victorious?" Satoru asked, still looking at his reflection.
Lazlo smiled faintly. "No. Just to tell you where I'm hiding."
Satoru turned his head slightly, brow raising behind his glasses. "Well, damn… Color me surprised then."
The hologram nodded once and disclosed his location before flickering out, leaving Satoru alone again.
Now, as he knew the location, he chuckled quietly, shaking his head. If Lazlo wasn't lying, he was definitely interested to see what he was planning.
A few moments later… Washington, D.C.
The White House stood silent, its walls cracked and windows shattered. Inside, the secure presidential bunker opened with a heavy metallic grind.
Satoru stepped through as the circular door slid aside, the reinforced alloy glinting under dim emergency lights.
Inside, bodies in suits and uniforms littered the floor, the air thick with the smell of rust and death. At one of the terminals, the president slumped against the monitor, his head blown out, blood dried across the screen.
Satoru walked past without slowing, eyes scanning the bloody mess until he reached another chamber deeper inside.
A man stood there, watching a goldfish swim lazily in a tank. He wore a dark-grey suit, polished brown shoes, and his slicked-back hair was streaked with some white; a glass of something iced hung loosely from his hand.
Satoru stopped in the doorway, his gaze narrowing slightly, after a beat of silence, his voice broke the quiet first.
"And here I thought you'd have pumped yourself full of all your experimental junk; juice up for a last stand or something. But here you are, drinking cold whisky without a care in the world."
He stopped a few steps behind Lazlo, scanning him fully. The man's body read as perfectly human, no enhancements or unusual energy signatures. Even his emotions were steady, completely in his control.
Lazlo held his glass to the side. "Old barreled malt. They had this stuff vaulted down here." He finally spoke with a calm and detached voice. "Up for a shot?"
Satoru shook his head. "Nah, alcohol doesn't mix well with me. Tastes like shit anyway."
"Never had it, or-" Lazlo started.
"Nope," Satoru cut in, tapping the side of his shades. "Just messes with my coordination."
That earned a quiet chuckle from Lazlo. The idea that one of Satoru's few weaknesses was alcohol, amused him more than it should have.
He glanced over, nudging at the black cape draped around Satoru's shoulders. "And the cape?"
Satoru shrugged. "No particular reason, just borrowing it for a while."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Satoru broke the silence again, "So… was all this actually just to see how far you could go?"
Lazlo didn't answer right away and turned back toward the aquarium, eyes on the lone goldfish circling its glass prison; a faint smirk touched his face.
Instead of replying to that question, he said, "You ever get the feeling you've got a different sets of memories in your head? Memories where everything worked out; where you got what you wanted?"
Satoru's expression shifted as he understood what he was implying. His own alternate memory fragments clicked together once again.
He could now, fully make out the alternate, shittier future that "never happened".
He let out a slow breath, saying, "not a damn clue. But if I had to guess… maybe Flash had something to do with it." He shrugged at the end, knowing the man would piece it together.
"I see," Lazlo murmured as his eyes got distant. "So close to that thrill… yet still out of reach."
Satoru watched him for a second, then said, "I gotta ask though; since you were already here. Why not just hit that big red button?" He gestured at the medium-sized black suitcase sitting on the table. "You'd have caused a lot more trouble with that."
Lazlo smirked, "Isn't that too boring. And honestly, how much effort would it even take for someone like you to stop the warheads midair?"
Satoru chuckled, "heh, fair point."
He stepped closer, standing beside him now, both men watching the fish swim in slow circles. "Any last words?"
Lazlo took his final sip, set the glass down beside the tank, and asked quietly, "Did you have fun?"
Satoru looked at the fish, his reflection wavering in the glass, "Probably more than I should have had."
Lazlo smiled faintly, "well, me too… I guess-" he never finished as a sharp red flash streaked across the room, and Lazlo's body exploded into a mist of crimson.
Flesh and bone splattered the walls and floor, blood droplets clung to the aquarium glass before slipping into the water, spreading like smoke.
Satoru's gaze swept the room once, his expression unreadable. Then, without another word, he disappeared, leaving behind the silence and the slow, steady movement of the goldfish circling through red-tinted water.
... To be continued!