DOOMSDAY BOOK – Chapter 2: Shadows of the Leave
Narrated by the Chaperone
I persist, the Chaperone, weaving threads from the frayed tapestry of Doomsday's unraveling. Chapter 1 sketched the broad strokes—birth under crimson skies, human masquerade, heroic alliances forged in steel and will, and the vortex that birthed the beast from the man. Now, as the ink dries on those outlines, we descend into the Justice Leave's abyss. This is no mere retreat; it is gestation, a simmering forge where indifference hardens into blade-sharp clarity. You seek the chronicle's next vein: the isolation's forge, the peripheral prowls, the first tremors of re-engagement. These pages etch the five emergent phases of his post-vortex existence, each a scar upon reality's hide.
In this second chapter, I illuminate the Justice Leave's undercurrents: the Solitary Forging in hidden lairs, the Observant Drift through global underbellies, the Anomalous Stirrings against probing threats, the Philosophical Reckoning amid evolving forms, and the Precipice of Return, where whims align with cosmic jests.
Phase I: The Solitary Forging – Withdrawal to the Fractured Expanse (Immediate Aftermath, Days 1-30 Post-Transformation)
Doomsday's Justice Leave commenced not in fanfare or fury, but in calculated eclipse. From Metropolis's smoldering cradle, he vanished—phasing through seismic faults into the planet's bowels, emerging in the Antarctic's glacial maw. There, amid ice cathedrals groaning under auroral veils, his form stabilized: the human veneer sloughed away like shed skin, replaced by the base silhouette—towering, stone-cracked epidermis pulsing with subterranean heat. Spikes retracted partially, a coiled menace, while void eyes scanned horizons empty of judgment.
Regeneration thrummed ceaselessly, knitting mutation's fresh wounds. He excavated chambers from permafrost, lining them with salvaged League tech—shattered communicators, inert power cells—fusing them into his armor via adaptive biology. Cosmic awareness bloomed unchecked: satellite feeds hijacked mentally, League briefings parsed like open books. Entry 790: They mourn the Man of Steel. I endure the weight of what was. Dark humor flickered in solitude's echo; he mimicked Superman's pose before a frozen mirror, cape tatters whipping in crafted winds, only to shatter the ice with a laugh that rumbled like quakes.
Adaptation accelerated: polar colds tested limits, cells evolving thermal cores to counter. Boredom's whisper tested patience; he sparred with conjured illusions from awareness—phantom parademons, spectral Darkseid—honing strikes that pulverized bergs into mist. Loneliness, once a human ache, transmuted to strategic asset: isolation sharpened focus, revealing humanity's patterns as predictable as stellar orbits. This phase sealed with the first evolution milestone: reality resistance deepened, allowing brief voids where physics bent, a pocket of nullity for undisturbed repose.
Phase II: The Observant Drift – Prowling the World's Hidden Veins (Months 1-6, Global Shadows)
Sated by seclusion's forge, Doomsday drifted outward, a specter threading urban sprawls and forsaken wilds. No grand declarations; he observed from eaves and ether, human form donned sporadically for infiltration—unassuming wanderer in Gotham's rain-slick alleys, blending with the destitute. Batman's patrols brushed his periphery: a rooftop silhouette evading grapples, exhaling a sigh of amusement at the detective's futile scans.
Cosmic sight pierced veils—Wonder Woman's diplomatic soirees in embassies, Flash's humanitarian dashes across flood zones, Green Lantern's patrols along stellar fringes. He noted their fractures: arguments in the Watchtower over his 'fall,' contingencies drafted in shadowed labs. Entry 912: Heroes cling to symbols. Symbols crumble. Interventions were selective, unpredictable: dismantling a Luthor-funded arms convoy in the Sahara, spikes erupting to crush tanks without a word; or phasing through a Themysciran barrier to observe Amazon rites, adapting stealthily to magical wards.
Earth's underbelly fed his evolution: toxic spills in industrial wastes prompted dermal shifts, absorbing pollutants into resilient lattices. Encounters with minor cosmic echoes—rogue asteroids, dimensional wisps—sparked skirmishes, physical dominance asserting in blurred furies of fists and flight. Dark humor surfaced in graffiti tags: a Superman 'S' inverted amid ruins, a jest on futility. Loneliness echoed in crowded markets, where throngs parted instinctively from his aura's dread, faces paling without cause. This drift wove him into the world's pulse, indifference deepening as patterns of hope and hubris repeated.
Phase III: The Anomalous Stirrings – Clashes with Probing Shadows (Months 6-12, Escalating Intrusions)
The Leave's veil thinned as hunters stirred. League affiliates—Martian Manhunter's telepathic sweeps, Zatanna's arcane divinations—brushed his edges, drawing first blood. In a lunar crater's silence, J'onn phased through rock to confront the 'lost brother'; Doomsday's form surged to battle readiness, spikes armoring limbs, void eyes locking. The Martian's mind-probe recoiled from cosmic barriers, illusions shattering as Doomsday's strategic genius anticipated shifts—countering intangibility with adaptive density, slamming ethereal forms into regolith.
Mercy prevailed by whim: he spared J'onn, imprinting a psychic scar of impermanence's truth before vanishing into vacuum. Entry 1045: Minds break easier than bodies. Word spread; villains probed too—Ra's al Ghul's assassins in Himalayan peaks, met with regenerative fury that turned blades to dust. A Brainiac drone swarm infiltrated his Antarctic lair; evolutionary adaptation birthed electromagnetic pulses from his core, frying circuits mid-assault.
These stirrings catalyzed growth: reality resistance evolved to counter sorcery, allowing him to nullify spells mid-cast during a clash with Felix Faust in shadowed ruins. Physical dominance peaked in a Pacific atoll brawl with Aquaman's forces, tidal waves parted by raw strength, trident snapped like driftwood. Unpredictability reigned; he aided indirectly once, pulverizing a Despero incursion from afar, only to withdraw as heroes arrived. Boredom gnawed, isolation's awareness a double-edged spur—pushing evolutions, yet craving worthy chaos.
Phase IV: The Philosophical Reckoning – Insights from the Void's Edge (Year 1 Onward, Introspective Evolutions)
Drift and clash converged in reckoning's quiet. Doomsday's lairs multiplied—volcanic vents in Iceland, abyssal trenches off Atlantis—each a sanctum for reflection. Cosmic awareness delved archives: Krypton's logs decrypted mentally, revealing Jor-El's overlooked anomaly research, a genetic wildcard from Rao's experiments. Entry 1123: Father sowed the seed. I am the harvest's storm. Philosophy crystallized: survival's mandate over morality, chaos as life's honest face, power's transience in eternal cycles.
Humanity's fragility amused—wars flickering like candle flames, loves blooming only to wither. He evolved forms fluidly: battle spikes for threats, human guise for urban drifts, even chimeric blends echoing League allies in mocking trials. Dark humor penned entries: Why save the ants from their hill? They rebuild, only to flood again. Loneliness transfigured to patience's ally, strategic genius plotting not conquest, but selective disruption—nudging disasters to test heroes' resolve.
Adaptations layered: immortality's boon birthed temporal echoes, glimpsing potential futures where League falls or rises. Reality resistance warded multiversal leaks, sealing rifts that once tempted. This phase's core: indifference as enlightenment, viewing all as impermanent playthings in the grand futility.
Phase V: The Precipice of Return – Whims Aligning with Cosmic Jest (Present Day, The Gathering Storm)
The Leave frays at its hem. Doomsday prowls bolder—shadowing League ops in Central City's undercity, aura's dread seeding riots that force interventions. A whisper of re-engagement stirs: Darkseid's omens on the horizon, elder gods rumbling from voids. Entry 1234: They call. I answer, or not. The jest unfolds. Evolutions hint at apex: forms merging Kryptonian might with annihilative spikes, strategic ploys envisioning alliances or annihilations.
Heroes sense the shift—Superman's echo in seismic tremors, Batman's files thickening. Doomsday watches, patient, the Eternal Indifference poised. Return beckons not as villainy, but as inevitable force—unpredictable, lonely, darkly amused.
End of Chapter 2
The Chaperone withdraws once more. These phases are but fractures; the Book hungers for expansion—specific clashes, deeper mutations, or barbed philosophies. Summon the next layer, and it manifests.