Fanfic: DC Cataclysm

   “Miss Lane,” says Dr. Fate, “I will send you home now, this battlefield is far too dangerous for a mere mortal.”

   “Now wait a minute mr…”

   “I….” Lois Lane in mid sentence finds herself transported from the Sahara back to Metropolis, “I’m a reporter and it’s my duty to cover Super-man fighting this or any other super-villain, great Lois, what are you going to tell Perry now? Oh sorry sir, the super-villain who just strolled into the Daily Planet and kidnapped me, her? Yeah I have no idea what happened, one moment I’m locked in a cage and this woman claiming to be yet another space queen was fighting super-man and oh, I can’t give you any details because Dr. Fate of all super-heroes swooped in and sent me home. Yeah…that makes headlines.”

   ******

   Back in the Sahara Super-man looks at Dr. Fate a moment, lament in his eyes for his friend Zattara has once more dawned the helmet of Nabu becoming host to the Lord of Order.

   “Stand near me,” says Dr. Fate as he makes a wave motion with his arms and summons a blinding light.

    When it clears, everything is blue and still, save for a bit of aura around them…and around Rhulan who is standing on the ground now some distance away with her arms crossed watching them, studying them with predatory eyes.

   “I have stopped time,” says Dr. Fate, “time may only move again in the space around us, such is how we can continue to breathe. The vision I received by the messenger of the high way is correct; our enemy would move outside of time with us. However like any sorcerer her magic should now be weakened as time is its own dimension; go now Super-man, save the world.”

    Super-man flies at Rhulan, who *zips*, appearing just behind him. With a swing of her fist she strikes the man of steel in the back of his head surprising him as he had expected her strength to have also been a spell, now cut off. In this moment of sudden throbbing distracting him Super-man can not react fast enough to seeing Rhulan *zip* down to Dr. Fate and roundhouse kick him in his right side sending him tumbling through the sand kicking it up, it sticking in the air a moment later trapped outside of time as the external to time passenger rips through the landscape. This sorcerer supreme rights himself, expressionless, his right arm now hanging limp and broken at his side.

    Super-man heard the cracking of bone, it still echoes in his ears as though slowing down and replaying, as Rhulan flies directly for Dr. Fate, her toes slicing through the sand as she levitates at a slight angle over the surface he tries to fly to the rescue, but finds himself slowing down, he struggles against it.

    “No!” thinks Super-man his eyes opening wide, “Dr. Fate! His magic is holding me here with them, he must be weakening!”

     In this moment, the last thing Super-man can see outside of time is Dr. Fate raising a barrier and Rhulan moving through it as easily as one can move through air and uppercutting Dr. Fate, his helmet flies off as the man beneath it follows. This is all Super-man saw before his vision changed.

    “Do it now son of Krypton,” comes a voice, Super-man once more can see outside of time, the sorceress Rhulan is holding Dr. Fate’s helmet in her hand studying it, unconcerned with Super-man or the man lying at her feet, super-man is not fully freed from the hold on time, he can not hear any heartbeat, only his eyes are free. In his anger Super-man uses his heat vision, hitting Rhulan on her right arm. She drops the helmet and grabs her arm, the flesh burnt and boiling with blisters.

    *sssss-eeerrr* growls Rhulan holding her arm and glaring at the man of steel and another who appears like a ghost beside him; a silver man wearing a green robe and cape.

    “Be free now son of Krypton.” says the man, his hand on Super-man’s shoulder, “by the power of the presence, most high of all we must remove this vile evil from existence.”

   “There shall be no mercy,” growls Rhulan as she lowers both her arms, “Celestial power streams forth from thee creature, angel, celestial, diety, for this affront on my person, you…shall….die!”

    Super-man and the man known as the Spectre feel a quake of the very air and ground, and through their very beings; a strange vibration sending images of Rhulan off her body as though her very being were quaking into the air.

    “Her arm,” whispers Super-man noticing it has healed, as though it never happened.

    Rhulan’s eyes glow with blue and white fire, as though no eye balls were in her head, and her whole body filled with a mystic fire. As the tremors increase the air splinters with red cracks, the sky and ground follow suite. These cracks glow and emanate a light that seems to fade and erase everything around the cracks.

    “No!” screams Spectre trying to lunge at Rhulan, only to stop and regain his composure halfway to her. Spectre raises his arms and announces, “Behold the hand!”

    A white hole opens in the sky erasing even the cracks as a massive glowing hand lowers down towards Rhulan.

    “The Presence,” says Spectre, “shall remove this virus on our universe himself.”

    “What is going on?” ask Super-man, he is cut off by something that even frightens Spectre.

    “She is mine!” comes a woman’s voice that fills their very souls with dread as a massive red hole, much like the cracks appears and a slender black hand darker than black with fingers like blades comes down from the other end of the sky.”

    The finger tips of these two hands touch and everything turns white.

    ******

    In the nothingness a woman’s voice can be heard or known as there are no words to describe the sensation in nothingness from those with out forms, although Super-man recalls seeing Rhulan floating around sitting on nothing with her legs crossed and arms crossed with her eyes closed and an irritated expression upon her face. She crunches up her nose and lip like a child being scolded as the woman’s face says, “My dear Rhulan, this multi-verse is not like your own. A Time Quake in my universes may shake loose the hold of a time spell and kill your opponents by sucking them into chaos; but in this damaged multi-verse you risked destabilizing the precarious hold of time and ending that timeline forcing it into another…reboot.”

   Rhulan shrugs, “what ever. I’ll be more gentle then…pathedic instability, your new friend should fix his universe to prevent that.”

    *the voice giggles*, “Oh, it is my dear, it is. We have agreed simply that time will not fold around you when distorted like that. Simply put my dear, Time Quake shall no longer work, this Presence has cut off contact with that dimension to preserve its universe. Now I must help it contain the damage our clashing realities have caused.”

    ******

    A sunny day, the light shines in Super-man’s eyes, people stand in the distance at Super-man, and Spectre, with an unconscious Dr. Fate…or rather Zattara at their feet with the helmet of Nabu next to him.

    “Super-man?” comes a voice in his communicator, “what happened?”

   “I don’t know,” says Super-man his finger to his ear, “Dr. Fate used some kind of time spell and the…Celestial Sorceress…that’s what she called herself, did…something…it’s a bit fuzzy. Next thing I know I’m here and so is Zattara.”

    “Zattara?” asks Red Tornado from the watchtower.

    “Yeah,” says Super-man, “I think she knocked the helmet off again.”

    After a pause he says, “and The Spectre is here too.”

   Super-man addresses Spectre, “What happened?”

   “Impossibility,” says Spectre, “The Presence…is above all…no equal…and yet…I felt…impossibility…another…the another….I….don’t know how to describe it.”

   Spectre looks at Super-man, “Another omnipotence, of another multi-verse…this sorceress connected the worlds and…it almost ended us…I…have to go, I…do not understand.”

    “What is happening,” asks Bat-man coming onto the line, “What is Spectre talking about.”

    “I…” says Super-man, “don’t know.”

   “Connecting different…multi-verses…” says Bat-man, “I suppose that is as good an explanation as any for what we are seeing from your last position.”

    “Last,” says Super-man looking around noticing now that he is standing in front of a mall somewhere hot, but not as hot as where he was, “Where am I now?”

    “Sierra Vista, Arizona,” says Bat-man.

     Hal Jordon comes on the line, “but your last position is now under a massive force field holding in what looks to be a white explosion. What ever happened there it looks like something is inside fixing it,”

    “Fixing?” asks Super-man.

    “Yeah,” says Wonder Woman appearing above Super-man coming down from her invisible jet, “the explosion is shrinking, I’ll take Zattara.”

     “Of course,” says Super-man looking around as Wonder Woman collects Dr. Fate as gingerly as she can.

    She whispers, “I’ll take him to the Watch Tower; but by the way where is that woman?”

    “I don’t know,” says Super-man, “back in the Sahara maybe.”

    “Maybe she’s fixing the explosion,” offers Zattara starting to come too.

    “Save your strength,” says Super-man.

   “Its okay,” whispers Zattara weakly, “I’ll…tell you later…but…she did something…Spectre did…something…and everything went white.”

    ******

    Not long after Super-man leaves after talking to a news team that was alerted when he showed up in a ball of white light.

    Much later the sunsets, on the watch tower Zatanna begs her father to never put on the helmet again, Bat-man briefs the Young Justice team on what has happened, and the world watches in tense fear as the massive dome over half the Sahara slowly shrinks; no one knowing what to do; some pointing fingers at the Super-heroes, some at Super-man directly; others praising them for actions the Justice League knows they are not responsible for yet don’t know if they should tell the world they had no control over the dome as it shrinks to nothing.

    At this mall, this clearly old and deserted mall, the next day in the afternoon, a blue sigil appears below where super-man had been and Rhulan rises from the sigil.

    “Okay,” says Rhulan, “lets try this again.”

    A woman looking much like her with dark black curly hair, and wearing a long black dress appears her voice echoing not in sound but thought, *Remember my dear, while you are here, chaos, netherworld, necro, death, shadow, and demonic powers will not work; the omnipotent of this multi-verse has cut off access to those elements from our multi-verse…the poor dear, completely caught off guard by the dangers of foreign magic in his fragile universe.*

    “If you’re done,” says Rhulan, “please leave me be mother-of death, dreams, and chaos.”

   Rhulan smiles at the woman.

   The woman laughs in her throat and smiles before her whole form turns black, her eyes glowing blue and she vanishes.

    “Any who,” says Rhulan looking around, “where was I? Oh right, I was trying to have some fun before this whole game went ape shit crazy; but seeing as my playmates have all gone I think I’ll call it a day as well.”

    With that Rhulan opens a portal and vanishes.