Life Ore Death
* November 9 [Wally PoV]
"Nope, Ah'm not planning on dying for Darkseid, and if his stone-face-ness has any problems with that, he's welcome to lean over and kiss my a- ahh,
ahh!" The knockout beauty named Knockout began yelping, because her hottie lesbian lover had just reached over, pinched her ear, and twisted. "Noone'skissinganypartofme!
Noone'skissinganypartofmewithoutyourpermission! NomoreDeadshots! NomoreDeadshots!" she yelped.
"Good girl," Scandal decided, and let her go. I would have bet money that she was smiling faintly under that mask of hers.
"Yeah, that," Barda grumbled morosely, and I turned back to the other scantily clad, super-hot woman in the Mountain. "Spooky."
'
Stay on task,' I reminded myself sternly. '
They just tried to kill Renka, so I shouldn't be oggling them, no matter how- Ugh! Stupid teen hormones!'
"Mm. Look as my mind," Ferris murmured at Barda, and I slid to stand almost between them as Barda turned back to look at my friend who she was willing to murder, since Ferris had barely spoken the past half-hour.
'Granted, Ferris isn't taking it all that personally, but she also said she'd take it personally if we were targeted, so… Well, there are things that being hot doesn't get you out of,' I grumbled mentally. I didn't feel any better about Barda being unimpressed at my stink-eye, sadly.
"Ferris comes from a world with less advanced technology, and a smaller diversity of powers," I summarized shortly for Barda, "so whenever she comes up against stuff like teleportation, nanotechnology, or Atlantean biomancy, trying to work it out makes her head hurt."
"Oh. …Yes, that's pretty accurate. I mean," Barda admitted with a grimace, "it's breaking my brain right now just to figure out which is supposed to be weirder, how easily Kay said that when I still have a bit of trouble trying to vocalize my disrespect, or how easily she got reigned in by her beau. Add on the woman holding Anti-Life with no connection to Apokolips and sure it's making my head hurt."
I glanced down at Ferris in her wheelchair, assessed, and then conveyed, "She's sending you her sympathies, since she knows what that's like."
"Thanks," Barda grunted, and I knew it had just made her head hurt a bit more. I smirked, appreciating why Ferris liked to do this.
"What did you mean by, 'No more Deadshots,' just now?" Superman asked. "Are you referring to the mercenary, Deadshot?"
"Yup," Scandal said shortly, popping the p-sound behind her mask. "Long story: through a
headache-
inducing series of events in another jurisdiction, Kay once got in bed with him despite us being together, and then she had no idea why I was upset when I found out."
I crushed off my little twinge of hormones wondering what that'd be like if it'd happened to me, since these guys almost killed Ferris, but part of me did sigh at the way creeps like Deadshot got all the perks while we superheroes got left holding the bill.
"Aw c'
monnn, Ah already apologized out the wazoo," Knockout whined. "Captain, back me up here, it happens all the time for us!"
Barda shrugged her shoulders, and Scandal turned to her.
'Huh. Maybe she's as curious about it as I am,' I wondered.
"Actually, that's a good point," the masked brunette decided. "My chances to encounter any New Gods other than Kay are… well."
'Yeah, she's married-or-whatever to a turncoat, so she can't really go visit the in-laws,' I considered, leaning over the back of the wheelchair a bit. "Since the Justice League is asking about Apokolips anyway-," Her eyes flicked toward where Kaldur and Uncle Barry were talking to Vykin and Scott Free. "-would it be too much trouble to tell me a bit more about this? If you don't mind?" she added to Superman.
"Well, we're not on a time-limit right now," he decided, eyes flicking towards Ferris to see that she was also interested, which was agreement.
"So, if Apokolips is Planet Hellhole," I asked, "does it even have things like marriage, or is it just a free for all, or what?"
"It… depends a lot on caste," Barda said slowly, "but mostly the idea of love marriages… the idea exists, but I think Darkseid just lets it spread to perpetuate the misery of everyone who finds love and is denied it. Among the nobility, marriages are arranged, either for political gain or by Darkseid personally, perhaps because he thinks it's funny." She scowled. "Among the lowlies, you can find things like love marriages and commitment, if only because no one cares enough to regulate them. Even then it's rare, and they can get ripped apart easily."
"Ick, talk about a
disturbing
disaster of a
dystopian world. It's like that across the entire planet?" Rob asked vaulting over a couch to join us.
Barda nodded, and I wondered again…
'Well, it is a really advanced civilization – in terms of technology, at least, but they're pretty barbaric about everything else – so them being that homogenous, having wrecked their ecosystem with industrial pollution, having really brutal 1984 practices and being an actual ecumenopolis isn't totally unthinkable. Just look at what the 'good guys' were willing to do earlier.'
"Darkseid has turned Apokolips into an extension, expression, and reflection of his own will. Fire pits, ghettos, factories, chemical labs, and a few vast expanses where all life was scoured away by something or other. Misery is the basic state of being for most of Apokolips, and death is a mercy and a release. But they all revere Darkseid as a god, and most of them are almost totally subservient to his will."
"Is it some kind of planet-wide brainwashing effect?" Scandal asked carefully. Barda shrugged.
"Maybe. I was a soldier, and even if I was high on the totem pole I was never the best at tech-work or mantling theory. Darkseid's ultimate goal is to attain the Anti-Life Equation in its entirety, at which point he'll be able to wipe out free will and utterly control all of existence by his word alone." Ferris snorted at that. "Given how big the universe is, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever parts he's already obtained are enough to let him create a planet-wide brainwashing effect, especially an imperfect one, given what it does in person."
"What position of authority did you have on Apokolips?" Superman asked. Knockout perked up, but Scandal quieted her.
"I was Captain of Darkseid's royal guard, leader of the Female Furies. There were male furies too," she added, "but they usually went by a different term, got different assignments, or were cycled off to join another Corps, largely because Granny preferred females."
"That's Granny Goodness, head and founder of the Furies; she was pretty much the only one above Captain," Knockout chimed.
"Granny Goodness? This is totally one of those ironic name things, and she's super evil, right?" Rob checked. Ferris grunted a bit.
"Oh
hell yes it's ironic. Granny Goodness is one of Darkseid's inner circle, and she's… I think the best translation of her mantle in your language would be to call her the New God of Child Abuse," Barda answered, and that dropped my jaw a bit. Because
really?
"New God of
Child Abuse? What the heck does that even
mean, and- okay, sure,
we get it, Apokolips is really,
really evil, but
come on, really?" I asked. Rob bent over to put his ear by Ferris's mouth as she said something under her breath.
"Really. She's in charge of the orphanage and educational services; Scott wasn't kidding when he compared being raised by her to a childhood of torture. She's a master of physical and emotional suffering, and the expert at breaking young minds into becoming loyal soldiers willing to 'die for Darkseid'. That's literally a quote of their rallying call and ideals," Barda added.
"How can a place so horrible even continue to exist?" Superman wondered, which I was thinking too. Barda had a short answer.
"Different people suffer in different ways, castes who have even small privileges love to lord it over everyone lower, putting most of the weapons in the hands of the soldier caste members, the disparity in technology between everyone, education, and indoctrination."
"Can you tell me some more about the castes? Knockout was never very specific about Apokolips society," Scandal said carefully.
"Hey, I just knew who was above me: who I had to obey, and who I didn't. Simple as that," the redhead complained with a shrug.
"You
would think so, Kay," Barda said with a little laugh. "There are… a whole bunch of complicated strata, but the main thing to know is that all power on Apokolips comes from Darkseid. If Darkseid declares a Dog Soldier to be in his inner circle, then all the nobles are going to bow their heads; supposedly, that's exactly what happened with Granny Goodness, but it was early in his reign, a while ago."
"So given that a lot of courts are nest of vipers, how much actual back-stabbing and insubordination can we expect there?" I asked.
"Thing is, any power that doesn't come directly from Darkseid is the result of personal power. In view of anyone major, it's usual to obey court protocol. I've seen Darkseid let people get away with things because the laws are what he says they are, but risking that the god of Tyranny will let you get away with insubordination is not a good gamble. Backstabbing and plotting is basically a matter of how well you can hurt someone out of sight without being caught. Plenty of people would undercut Granny obliquely, like Desaad, but not obviously."
"Power equals power," Ferris said. Rob settled into her lap – '
I guess that's what she asked him? But why that? Maybe something else, or a gambit?' I wondered – and I leaned over to wrap my arms around her shoulders, since she wasn't looking any less beat up than before.
"That's shorthand for a talk she has about how any amount of power can usually be translated into another currency," I explained.
"Another… currency?" Barda asked, eyes narrowing.
"Ah. I remember when we had this talk, along the rooftops," Superman recalled.
Knockout snorted. "Is there anything worth having other than fighting power? Ah can't think of it," she grumbled irately.
"Plenty, but the point is that you can turn other things into fighting power, or back, right?" Scandal guessed a bit more astutely.
"Bingo," I said, giving a charming grin on reflex before I remembered she'd come here to help strangers kill my friend.
'I need to keep that more in focus. Seriously.' "She said violence is the smallest, uh, she talked around it a bit because she didn't have quite the right word…."
"Denomination," Superman volunteered. "Power is the ability to change the world, and violent force is the smallest denomination or unit of power, she believes, because it's what we can fall back on when other methods – reasoned debate, monetary trade, peer pressure, or other courses of action – fail. We use violence after every other option has failed. 'Ultima Ratio Regeum.' A King Louis in France had that phrase carved on his cannons as a symbol of the royal ability to enforce their will through force. Violence as 'the last argument of kings'."
"And the first argument of super-powered people everywhere," I pointed out drily, because it seemed like all we did was fighting.
Ferris whined softly, to almost everyone's alarm, and Rob twisted around in her lap, to listen.
"Huh? Yeah, Kid Flash, we think you're forgetting our cunning sting operation on Eiling, her work on the grafts in Atlantis, all the charity work done by pretty much everyone in the Justice League, and, oh yeah, the time she
talked down a genocidal robot with no fighting."
I had to stifle a guffaw, because,
'Okay, okay, they've definitely got me.'
"She what? Really?" Scandal asked, starting up. "Seriously:
When was a robot about to commit genocide,
how did it pull that off without anything on the news, and
what did she
say to talk it down? Don't tell me that Star Trek speeches about the value of life actually
work in real life."
Ferris just chuckled softly; Rob and me laughed with her at the good memories. Scandal's phone rang, but she quickly silenced it.
