Caterpillar

Final Battle

When another portal opened in the skies above Metropolis City, nobody noticed it. Though the Parademons' rampage had not lasted for long before Doctor Fate's spell annihilated them, those few minutes had been enough for hundreds of people to die and for the entire city to be thrown into chaos.

"Where's everyone?" Naruto was the first to ask after coming out of the portal that Kurama had created to transport them.

Wonder Woman frowned and looked around as she even flew down from the skies, closer to the city below. She could see no metahumans fighting, no Darkseid, and no Parademons. There were just regular people, running about in a panic and the police forces looking as scared and unorganised as the rest of the civilians.

Naruto and Diana arrived only moments after Doctor Fate's forbidden spell had erased all traces of enemies from Metropolis City and even put Darkseid on the run.

"Give me a moment," he said and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, his pupils became a horizontal bar crossed by a slit and an orange pigmentation appeared at the corners of his eyes. He had entered Sage Mode.

Every life signature in the city appeared in his mind's eye as he focused on the sensing ability of his Sage Mode. There were so many people below - over 10 million - that he could never hope to single out a random guy out of them. However, metahumans' life signature was different from that of regular humans, to speak nothing of that of a god. Brighter, stronger, bigger. Sometimes even of a different colour.

"Maybe they managed to move the fight away from the city. It's definitely something that J'onn and Batman would think about in order to reduce crossfire casualties. Expand your senses towards the ocean," Wonder Woman reasoned.

Following her advice, he did focus his Sage Mode sense towards the ocean. And there, a few miles away from the shore, a group of very powerful life signatures appeared on his 'radar'.

"It's as you said. They're out, in the open ocean, at 7 o'clock.'

A coat of yellow-red chakra appeared around his body and transformed his clothes into a garment of light and energy. Ten ominous black spheres appeared at his back as well. He had entered his Six Paths Sage Mode.

"You're faster, go ahead. Take my dagger and throw it at Darkseid, in his blind spot. I will teleport there in an instant with a very big surprise for him," he said and began to form a bijuudama into his left hand.

Despite the dire situation, Diana let out a smile at his words. She took the tri-pronged dagger from his right hand and raised her other hand at him, balling into a fist.

"You don't have a long time in that form while on Earth. Let's end this fast," she said.

"Yes. You take care too, don't get overconfident," he chided.

"Right back at you."

Sharing a smile, the two bumped their fists against each other. Then, a sonic boom echoed in the air as Diana burst at her fastest speed towards Darkseid's location.

⁂

Wonder Woman arrived at the scene just in time to witness how Darkseid fired an Omega Beam out of his remaining eye and reaped the life of yet another member of the Justice League of America. Steel was disintegrated, down to the tiniest atoms. His sledgehammer was the only thing that had remained of him as he had dropped it right before the beam hit him.

A powerful voice resounded across the battlefield:

"In brightest day, in darkest night,
No evil shall escape my sight -.

As John Stewart said the Oath of the Green Lantern Corps, a brilliant green light started gathering into his power ring. Witnessing yet another comrade dying in front of him, he cursed his weakness. He cursed his own lack of will, lack of strength to attack with the intent to kill. Even after the Justice League was reformed by Superwoman and Batman into the Justice League of America which used deadly force and extreme means against incurable criminals, John Stewart himself had never broken the code of the Green Lanterns, that of never using deadly force.