Darkseid's march through Crucible Town was swift and grim. Kryl-Ux and his rebels knew the alleys, where they had spent the majority of their lives. Darkseid and the Furies were just aliens, invaders. Without their local guides, they would never have found their destination in time.
The further they went, the closer they were to the sounds of battle and cries and jeers of the crowd. Despite the rough state and low prosperity of the regular people here, they remained warriors in spirit; they enjoyed the adrenaline-filled rush of the fight, even while watching it from the side.
The stakes in this battle were higher for them; one of the sides of the conflict was their local heroes, two sweet sisters. To a regular citizen, they were like daughters of their neighbors, who came to success through the Arena. But the fight they were in was not for glory or money; it was for survival.
Finally, Darkseid's group had reached the street that the sisters lived on. Darkseid stood at the edge of the street, cloaked by the shadows of the alleyway, his eyes narrowing to slits. Around him, Kryl-Ux's people trembled with rage, but none dared to step forward. Furies had stopped everyone from moving forward at the order of their ruler.
Darkseid wanted to gauge the opponent first. From his viewpoint, the battle was in a desperate state. The two sisters were unarmed, forced to try and evade and parry enemy strikes with their bare arms. Whatever was granting Otho-Ra and Thao-La their powers was not working right now. The two sisters looked much weaker than they had shown themselves to be at the Crucible arena.
The street itself stank of blood and waste, baked into the rust of the thin metal walls. The light of the star engines was dim, adding to the gloomy atmosphere of the slums. Along the grey and brown colored walls were bystanders, gawking with awe and horror at the beatdown happening in the middle of the street.
The two sisters were cornered against a wall of one of the houses, bloodied and beaten up. Parts of their flesh were torn off, clawed, and bit off their body by something or someone. Thao-La, the oldest sibling of the two, was standing above Otho-Ra, trying to protect her from the attackers. The massive slash in her abdomen was holding her back as she was trying to keep her guts from falling out. A heavy flow of blood was still escaping through her hands, despite all her efforts.
Otho-Ra was lying in a bloody pool behind her, beaten almost to unconsciousness. She was desperately grasping for air; her body was on the verge of falling into shock from her injuries. Parts of her body were gone, including both of her hands from the shoulder down.
Her arms, reduced to something barely resembling their shape, were in the claws of a green lizard-looking monster. In his wild stance and feral predatory movement, Darkseid almost failed to recognize someone that he had fought just a couple of days ago. It was Ridge, the gladiator elite, whom he fought on the first day of the tournament. But this man standing before two bloodied young women was much different…
Numerous scales on his body were cracked, and blood was seeping from dozens of small non-lethal wounds. His clawed hands were twitching, as if his nervous system was failing. His muscles were jerking as if he was a puppet pulled by its strings in agony. There were chains wrapped around his massive body, digging into his scaled skin. His eyes were empty. His maw was frothing with acid saliva as he snapped mindlessly at the air. A leash was attached to the iron collar around his neck. He was no more than an animal now. His mind was reduced to pure carnal instincts Now he was nothing but a leashed creature.
A single man was holding the leash.
"Who's leashing that beast?" Darkseid asked Kryl-Ux beside him.
"Leash. Known maniac and a sadist. A Warzoon. He is one of the Ravagers, Mongul's men. Leash is a handler; he breaks beasts, people, whatever he can get his hands on, honestly. He trains them, chains them, uses them as weapons. A parasite."
Kryl-Ux spat on the ground, a disdain on his face.
Darkseid's lip thinned.
Leash was a short man, his hair was tied into a ragged, unwashed knot. A leather garb clung tight to his body, every strap designed for holding tools, hooks, and chains. Yellow toothpicks for the teeth, his eyes gleaming with the sadistic thrill of humiliation. Periodically, he would jerk the leash, enjoying the pained cries of his former teammate. The lizard-man would, in turn, lash out at the sisters, drawing blood and clawing at the defenseless girls.
"The one beside him…" Kryl-Ux continued, his voice lowering even more; his whisper was barely audible even to Darkseid, who stood right next to him. "That is his sister."
Darkseid shifted his gaze. It was a tall woman, taller than most Warzoons that he had seen. Her body was wrapped in leather, face hidden behind a mask. A whip in her hands, long, twinned like a snake tongue. She held it lazily in her hands while standing there motionless and wordless, but her posture was alert and sharp, ready to strike at the smallest provocation.
"They call her Lash," Kryl-Ux whispered to his ear. "Cause of her brother. She is her brother's hand, punishing what he cannot reach."
Next to Lash stood a figure whose presence was different. Bronze skin, dark as burnished metal, gleamed beneath the false sunlight. She wore a strange headdress, a construct of plates, peaks, and orbs that pulsed faintly in the light. Her eyes glowed faintly gold, and every movement shimmered with an aura that bent the light around her.
"That is Solstice. Priestess. Some say she can blind a man until he claws his own eyes out just to stop seeing it and fall asleep. Others… say that she can strip a person of their mind."
The last of the group standing in the street was a weird one. Darkseid looked at her directly, but for a moment, his gaze slid past her. She seemed deliberately unremarkable. Lemon colored skin, a simple tunic, no jewelry, no sigils, nothing that marked her as special. She stood with her hands behind her back, her posture relaxed, her eyes half-lidded.
Kryl-Ux shuddered as he described the woman.
"That one... She has no name that the people know. Only her power. She is said to have liquid flesh, one that she is able to shift and mold at will. She can slip through cracks, strangle a man from across the room, twist herself into a shield, a spear, a net, you name it."
Something bugged Darkseid. There was another presence at the scene. Not even the stealthy woman was as hidden as that presence. He looked up at the sky. Two winged forms were in the air. Darkseid peered harder, trying to perceive the details of the pair of flyers. With his warrior senses Darkseid knew that from the people present, those two were the most dangerous ones.
One looked young, almost impossibly so, clean and smooth. Angelic white wings stretched from his back, wide and feathered, though their sheen seemed darker than the light of the engines. His skin was black; he was not one of the Warzoons, nor even one of the Phaelosians; the facial features were very different. More brutish, despite their angelic elegance. This one looked like he was the strongest one of the bunch.
The other one from the pair was much less graceful in his flight. Clearly a Warzoon, judging by his vivid orange skin. Although beneath it was a strange metallic glow, spread over his face like a blight. His wings were metallic, made of segmented plates, ridged and sharpened as weapons. They were not natural; every flap of his wings betrayed the weight of machinery.
This one looked at the leader with unmasked admiration. His eyes shone with unrestrained respect, his body angling slightly toward him like a moth to a flame.
Kryl-Ux's voice disturbed the air once again.
"They say Mongul has a training ground hidden somewhere, made for his best warriors. People from there are called Ravagers. They are symbols of his rule. A reminder to us all that Mongul's reach is absolute."
The leader of the Ravagers clapped his wings once, the sound sharp, echoing across the street. The group on the ground that was beating up the sisters froze instantly, turning to the skies like obedient dogs. A single finger was pointed in the direction of Darkseid's retinue.
"They caught us," Darkseid said in response, his voice firm yet quiet.
The elder sister, one who still stood on her legs, looked in his direction. A small gleam of hope dared to show its face on her beaten face. Blood dribbled down her neck as she collapsed under her unrepentant weight. She was relieved. Someone had come to help.
The Furies bristled, shuffling from leg to leg, waiting for an order to engage. Barda stepped forward, but Darkseid raised a hand, halting her. His eyes did not leave the man in the sky.
He was met with a gaze, cold and judging. Suddenly, the winged man's face lit up in a sadistic, psychotic smile. A predator caught the scent of the prey. But there was little doubt in Darkseid's mind that he would make the guy eat his shitstain of a smile together with his fangs.