aftermath

thirteen

XIII. demons and angels

"You,"  Superman snarls, because it's all he can press through his mouth without anger spilling forwards in a torrent, and zooms towards his now, copy. The thing transforms back, in a split second, and Batman can't help but curl his lip in utter disgust. Instinctively, he reaches for his belt.

Luthor's monster is a gigantic, dripping thing of sharp incisors and putrid skin. Ivory lines are wrapped around its body, and though Batman thinks it to be some kind of war paint at first, on closer examination it appears to be living trails of bone protruding from its internal skeleton. Where its eyes should be lie two enormous craters of molten red, and when it stretches its mouth apart, rows and rows of teeth, in circular arrays, line the inside.

Smoke shrouds the bottom half of its body, and there are things crawling, trying to break free from the roiling coils of mist heavily condensing. As its gaze shifts from Superman to Batman, crimson light trails after the path of its sight like a glitch on film.

Superman has his fist wound back, about to throw a slamming punch, when the demon morphs again. He grows a black cape, gray suit, and a cowl that elongates into ears. The bat insignia blooms on the chest.

Clark hesitates for a split-second, but that's all the time it needs to strike forward, and the Man of Steel is instantly shrouded in smoke.

"Superman!" Bruce yells, and the League is rushing behind him, and civilians are screaming, but everything tunes out because what is happening to Clark- what is the demon doing to him- is he alright?- he-

Then a fierce battle cry, and gray explodes from a center as Superman breaks free. It reforms into the hideous creature it is, snarling all the while at its lost prey, but Superman is already high up in the sky. Once at a safe height, he surveys the area below while looping around to the ground.

But it's hard to focus when anger threatens to crush his mind. Clark only wants to hit and hit and hit until the thing lies twitching, dead, bloodied, on the ground.

Below, it turns to Batman. It laughs. "Go back to hell," Bruce growls.

"I'm not from hell," It claws at the ground, approaching. Bruce tenses. "I was beautiful too, once."

"And now what? You're jealous, so you go around destroying things?" Destroying me? His fingers climb to the back of his belt. Could he even use smoke pellets against... smoke? "Why are you working for Lex? What's he promised you? Money? Eternal youth?"

Clark gathers himself, forcing deep breaths.

"And what the hell are you?"

The creature folds in upon himself, suddenly, and the world seems to stand still for a second, and then it's combusting in a fiery explosion of the brightest, deepest red Bruce has ever seen.

It grows in size, showing a true, demonic form, and he understands.

"I am Akem Manah," it says, and its voice is like a thousand razors grinding together at once. "The demon of evil intention." Behind the smoke, Bruce can see the white-pale mask of a skull, and then enormous, curling black horns, like that of a ram. And he can see the flickering image- the horrifying entity, and then something else- something gone and faded, but something that used to be there, something beautiful and divine-

Quicker than anything in the world, it surges forward and entraps Batman, and all he can see is black.

"Bruce!" Diana screams from a distance away, but Superman is already staring down in utter, absolute horror. He had been about to fly down when the thing changed- into something big, a deity not from this world, all fire and blazing.

Then it caught...

He zooms down the fastest he's ever gone, the burst of air from a sonic boom only distantly reaching his ears, as he searches for Bruce within a dark mass.