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Jake was a class-3 Peon, same as Scott, and he was a good friend. Which meant he was willing to put with Scott, even when they were scouring the graves for soup-bones.

“I can’t believe we got soup-bone duty again,” Jake said as he shoveled aside another clump of dirt. Graves on Apokolips weren’t buried deep, but the ground was so hard that it made little difference. Every shovelful was a mere pittance of soil.

“Could be worse.” Scott hammered into the grave-soil with his pickax. “We could be one of the poor suckers in training with the Furies!”

A klaxon sounded, followed by the well-known goose-stepping of the Female Fury battalion. Their boots trampled the barren ground, heels breaking down some of the few rocks that tried to break the level landscape. Within a matter of moments, the cemetery was swarming with Furies standing at statuesque attention. Almost sexless in their armor, their freakish biology, they made it appeared like the desert-dry landscape had broken into a hallucinatory art display—the same mad mind that could dream up such a desolate place now furnishing it with inhabitants ghoulish enough to break through its conformity.

“Attention orphans!” Granny Goodness shrilled out of the nearest loudspeaker. “The Furies will be training with you today in mercy management!”

There was a chorus of groans.

“Be honored that you are allowed to participate in the cleansing of mercy and compassion from our valiant warriors! In Darkseid’s infinite fairness, only the lazy will be volunteered. Work sloppy and you will feel pain! Work hard and you will feel less pain!”

The orphans redoubled their efforts. Scott, however, only had eyes for one thing and it wasn’t the grave.

“Who is that?” he exhaled.

“Scott, less talk, more pick. This soil isn’t going to loosen itself.”

Scott hammered the soil, breaking it up into grits for Jake. “Look at her. She’s beautiful.”

“She’s a Fury,” Jake said. “They’re all scarred and mutated and…” He noticed one of the larger Furies overhearing.

“But beauty is in the eye of the beholder!” Scott said quickly. The Fury shocked them both with her pain-baton before resuming her stroll through the headstones.

Scott rubbed the sore spot where the pain-baton had hit. “I don’t think she needs any lessons in mercy management… but look! She does!”

The woman he was looking at was the only Fury who wasn’t enthusiastically thrashing the orphans. She very much looked like she was willing to, but her eyes shied away from the torment and her pain-stick remained in its holster.

“She, she, she! Which one? They all look alike!”

“The one with no scars!” Scott hissed admiringly. “Not even a bruise!”

“So she’s really good at hurting people,” Jake said dismissively. “So’s my mom, you don’t see me bragging about it.”

“But she hasn’t even ritualistically mutilated herself! Every promotion-hungry Fury does that! And she’s still so… pretty.”

“Duck!”

Jake pulled Scott behind the headstone. They dug harder.

“What? What?”

“I think she saw us looking at her.”

“She did?”

“She may have.”

“She may have?”

Scott looked over the top of the headstone.

“Keep digging!” Jake ordered.

Scott waved at her.

“Don’t wave!”

The woman looked at Scott, than pointedly looked away.

“You have a death wish, Free. A death wish!”

“It’s Apokolips. We’re supposed to have death wishes.”

“For Darkseid, not for ourselves!” Jake realized what he had said and quickly censored himself. “I mean, we’re supposed to want to die for Darkseid, not for… some girl!”

“She’s not just some girl, Jake. She’s merciful and beautiful and she waved back!”

“Darkseid’s testes, there’s something wrong with you.”

“Tell her I’m being sluggish.”

“What?”

“Just do it!”

Jake stood up as if fearing an Omega Beam would destroy him at any moment. “Excuse me, ma’ma? You there, ma’am?”

The woman looked at him as if he had just been scraped off someone’s shoe. “Yes?”

Jake knew her type. She walked like a tank, hips swinging only as much as they needed to for her to take her next bold stride. Her fingernails were cut short, never lacquered. Her stare wasn’t so much ‘come-hither’ as ‘go far, far away’. Her skin was rough, her smile was cruel, her hair was dull, and when it came to conversation, she was great at giving orders.

“My friend here… well, he’s not my friend, acquaintance… is slacking off.”

“I just don’t feel like working today,” Scott said in a listlessly theatrical manner, one arm leaning against the headstone.

The woman grumbled and bulldozed toward them with hearty stomps. She arrived at the grave, all seven feet of her. Scott and Jake could both fit comfortably into her shadow.

“Maybe you could let me off with a warning?” Scott offered with a smile.

“Dig.”

“Digging!” Jake said as they both got back to work. The woman circled around at a short distance.

“She didn’t shock me. You know what that means?”

“You have the devil’s own luck?”

“I already know that,” Scott said with a dismissive wave. “I think it means she likes me.”

“She’s a Fury! They don’t like anyone!”

“She’s not like other Furies…” Scott said as his digging slowed. He looked over at the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am…”

She glared at Scott. “Speak.”

“What’s your name?”

The woman crossed her arms. “Barda.”

“Barda. That’s a pretty name.”

Jake thought he would have a coronary. “Excuse my friend, Bar… ma’am. Heatstroke, you see. He’s not in his right mind.”

“I can see that.”

“It’s my best quality,” Scott said, grinning. “Well, okay, top ten.”

“Cadet Barda!” Granny Goodness shouted. “Your tally shows no pain recipes. Step it up!”

Barda looked around for someone to shock, but all of them looked thoroughly cowed and miserable. No one who deserved to be…

Scott checked his watch, which did not exist. “Say, don’t we get a lunch break around here?”

Barda shocked him in the stomach.

“Coffee?”

Shocked again.

“Maybe just a cigarette?”

“Three shocks in as many ticks!” Granny Goodness said, impressed. “Don’t overwork him, now. You could kill him and his bones aren’t big enough for good soup.”

Scott began digging again, nursing his stomach. “So, what do you do when you aren’t torturing people?”

Barda arched an eyebrow. How the hell could he still be giving lip? It was virtually courageous. No one was courageous on Apokolips. You did what you had to do to avoid pain and death. Facing injury to make a point was anathema to all Darkseid stood for.

“Think about torturing people,” Barda said.

“Oh, me too. Personally, I’ll just kick a guy a bunch. I’m old-school that way.”

Barda’s lip spasmed upward.

“Hey! You smiled!”

“I did not!” Barda said indignantly.

“He saw it,” Scott said, jerking his thumb towards Jake.

“No, I didn’t.”

“What’s this about a smile?” Granny Goodness demanded as she stampeded to their worksite.

“Me, ma’am!” Scott sprung to his feet. “I was just thinking about your face and one thing led to another…”

Granny Goodness unhitched her whip from her belt. Barda stepped in front of her, delivering her pain-baton to Scott’s knee. “Sir, allow me!”

“That’s a good girl. Show initiative for Granny,” Granny Goodness said approvingly before walking away.

Scott gagged on the floor like a fish out of water. After a moment, Barda hauled him to his feet.

“Thanks.”

“You’re thanking me for shocking you?” Barda asked.

“Beats the alternative. And it was worth it to see you smile.”

And Barda, having not learned her lesson, smiled again.

***

There were no windows on Apokolips. There were openings designed to allow “fresh” air in, and they were covered by grates. The sound that the grates made when a rock hit them was pok. The sound repeated twice more before Barda picked herself up off the floor where she had been sleeping (alone, as she’d earned by being class valedictorian) and went to the window. Two stories down (out of a hundred and fifty-two), Scott was clinging to a symmetrical beanstalk covered in foot-long thorns. He gestured for her to open the grate.

“GUARDS!”

***

The next night, Scott was on the vine again. This time he had armed himself for the thorny climb with Parademon gauntlets. Thus armored, he’d climbed a bit higher than before.

Pok.

Barda came to the window, as if she’d been sleeping lightly for him.

“Okay, maybe you didn’t know it was me earlier. I’m not trying to assassinate you or anything, I just wanna talk…”

“Scott Free, was it?” Barda asked.

“You know my name!” Scott said, trying to climb higher.

“I know lots of names. Like Auric, Franz, Yorun…”

“Who are they?”

“The GUARDS!”

***

Pok.

Barda came to the window in a rotten mood, a bruise on her brow where Granny Goodness had slapped her earlier. Scott let her glare at him for a moment, then yelled “GUARDS!”

***

The fourth night Scott climbed past the window, then tied a rope around the vine and climbed down it to land on the windowsill. He locked his fingers into the grate to steady himself and saw, in the hellish orange light of Apokolips’s many fires, Barda curled up on the floor. She looked cold and Scott felt a swell of pity for her, that became a swell of something else when he noticed she was naked. He cleared his throat.

“Five more minutes, Granny,” she muttered, rolling over in her sleep.

Scott rolled his eyes, picked a rock out from his pocket, and threw it at the grate from a distance of about six feet. Pok. Barda sat straight up.

“You! Again!”

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Scott succeeded, by sheer force of will, in stopping Barda from yelling. “Before you call the guards for the traditional beatdown and torture, you mind if I put this back?” He pulled a folder out of his nightshade jacket. It was stuffed with files, from ordinary typewriter spool to modern holographics.

“What is it?” Barda asked suspiciously as she grabbed her pain-baton (she slept with it like a teddy bear, Scott noted) and transformed into her battle armor.

“Your permanent file. I nicked it on my way up. Interesting reading, but you probably wouldn’t want to have a look. It’s just what all the most important people in your life think of you. How boring is that?”

After a long pause, Barda slid the grate open. Technically, it wasn’t supposed to open, but every good cadet had ways around that. Scott sidled inside the room like he was afraid she would change her mind if given a nanosecond to spare.

“I don’t like you,” Barda said. “I’m only doing this to get a leg-up on my education.”

“Well, let’s get started. Just consider me your tutor, except not in that icky student-teacher way.”

Barda would’ve grabbed the papers from him if she knew how to read. Furies didn’t need to know that, or writing, or what music sounded like, or how to roller-skate, or any number of things Scott imagined teaching her.

“Let’s see…” he began. “Close-quarters combat: A. Long-range combat: A. Negotiation: B.”

“B?”

“You accepted too many surrenders. Tactics: A. Artillery: A. Command: A. Marksmanship: A. Piloting: A.”

Barda was practically aglow, although her face still worried at the B. Scott was glad to be the cause of such happiness, even indirectly. “Skip to the end. Final grade.” She crossed her fingers.

Scott looked. “Granny Goodness recommends transfer to the Pleasure Corps, where she might learn how to service more fitting… this can’t be right.” He said the last part at the same time as Barda, who grabbed the file from him. She looked at the incomprehensible words as if she could stare them into making sense.

“Explain!” She shoved the file back into his arms.

Scott quoted directly from the paper: “’Barda exhibits excellent skill, but is insubordinate and slow to use lethal force. Her taste for battle is not half what it should be and she has a strong streak of mercy which our conditioning has been unable to remove. She is not Fury material.”

Barda reached for the file, let her fingers coil halfway there, then noticed a drop of liquid crawling down the side of her nose. “I’m bleeding. I need medical attention. I need…” She was suffocating.

Scott grabbed her arm when she tried to move past him. By the feel of it she had more than enough power to throw him through the roof, but instead Barda let herself be halted. “They’re just tears. You’re crying.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and dabbed at her face.

“Furies don’t cr…” and the horrifying realization that she would never be a Fury hit her. She was crying.

Scott patiently wiped the tears away. “Crying. Haven’t you ever felt sad before? Happy?” He stared into her eyes, which seemed a particularly rocky shade of gray. “Haven’t you ever felt anything?”

“Annoyance,” Barda said. “Mostly at you.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

He smiled at her and Barda felt an overwhelming urge to express how she felt. In the Corps, such weakness was swiftly punished, but she felt as if she could trust him. Moreover, as if he could understand.

“All my life I’ve wanted to be a Fury,” Barda began, her voice haltering.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why a Fury? They’re… they’re not nice people,” Scott said, fingering the old fractures where his bones had knitted themselves back together. “You are. Well, after a fashion. I mean, you could be nicer.”

Barda was careening off the tracks. Her life had been perfectly set out in front of her. Granny had said she was the best. She would receive a scholarship to Omegaversity, lead the charge against New Genesis and eventually die in battle, die for Darkseid. Aside from a few moral quibbles, her life had been fine. But it was all a lie. Strange urges were filling her to the brim and she could no longer picture Darkseid speaking at her future, herself as general of his armies, not even the next few minutes. Her immediate future should be sleeping.

She didn’t feel like going back to sleep. She felt like rebelling. They thought she was too merciful? She’d show them mercy!

“Come here,” she said to Scott, who tensed as if she were a cobra that had just showed its hood. “Come here!”

He meekly stepped closer to her, returning the handkerchief to his coat pocket. She took his hand roughly and shoved her keycard into it. “This will get you back inside the orphanage without their ever having noticed you were gone.”

Scott looked at it, stunned. It would be nice to go to sleep without being whipped first. He liked sleeping on his back, for one thing.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“I like hearing that.” She shook the file a little, or perhaps her hands were just shaking. “The next time I see you, I promise I won’t call the guards.”

“I’ll be around,” Scott promised as he slipped back out the window.

Barda left it open all night.

***

Scott hung in the shaft of Firepit 137-B . It was one of the older firepits, and would be decommissioned soon. It no longer worked. But then, Scott didn’t know what firepits did in the first place. He doubted they did nothing, as he had a hard time imagining anything in Apokolips that didn’t serve some purpose, and efficiently at that. But it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for someone in Darkseid’s hierarchy to have a sick enough sense of humor to create firepits just because there were no volcanoes anymore.

He had been waiting for fifteen minutes. He loaded the food back into the picnic basket and lowered it down by pulley to the not-yet-cold embers of the firepit. He thought about Barda. Hoisted the basket back up and checked his reflection in the plate he’d polished to a glossy sheen. He’d done his best to find enough clean water to wash his face clean, with a little left over for his hands. His palms were pink and surprisingly soft, but his knuckles, everything under his jawline and chin, and the back of his neck were all stained in deep, sometimes purplish colors. They reminded him of bruises.

“Someone hit you?” Barda asked. She sounded concerned.

Scott half-turned and, like a card-dealer, began setting out lunch. It was the best he could scrounge and he’d had to trade in a considerable amount of favors to get food and homemade wine from as far as Apocalypeninsula. “Hungry?”

She stowed her Mega-Rod in her belt and, cat-like, scrambled down the weird mixture of ladders and stairways to where he was seated. She was dressed in full armor, with her cape flowing behind her and the horns of her helmet sharpened to shiny points.

He held out a mug of wine, which was crudely festooned out of ceramics. It still had some scar-like bones stenciled into it, although Scott had done his best to paste them over. “Thirsty?”

“Granny Goodness gives me all the water I need.”

“This isn’t water,” he said, shoving it under her nose like an overeager puppy.

She sniffed it disdainfully. “I can tell that. One drink. Then back to the orphanage.”

“Some food too.” Scott unwrapped a sandwich. “I hate the chow there.”

“You could always join the military.” Military got to eat what they killed.

“I hate violence.”

“I don’t.”

Barda gave him a look as she languorously sipped her drink. Some of it slid down her strong chin and Scott wiped it away with the only clean napkin in Apokolips.

“Okay. I’m not very good at violence. I don’t like it when it’s pointless, random, gratuitous… and directed against me.”

“You think I’d hurt you?” Barda asked.

“I think you don’t always realize what’s most important in life.”

“Maybe we just don’t agree.”

Using slow, precise motions, Scott concentrated on ripping open a bag of chips. “We both know you enjoy this more than you enjoy hurting people.”

“Cheesy Chips?”

“Spending time with me.”

Barda held out her hand and let Scott pour out some chips into it. Then she leaned back, masticating each, one at a time. “I remember as a child, there was an invasion from Dimension Nazi. Third Reich demons and Adolucifer, press-ganging everyone they met into their war machine. The Furies beat them back. I wanted to do that. Defend Apokolips. Serve Darkseid.”

“Meet interesting people. And kill them.”

“Haven’t killed you yet,” Barda pointed out.

“Would you? If they ordered you to?”

“They wouldn’t. You’re harmless.”

“Harmless?” Scott repeated, offended.

“Nice,” Barda amended.

“You have more faith in the system than I do.” Scott guzzled down some more wine. “It’s not just flawed, you know. It’s broken. Ground up, top down. Pointless cruelty… pointless everything.”

“You really hate it here, don’t you?”

Scott rubbed his knuckles between his fingers. “Not always.”

Barda looked over the small, paltry picnic. “Nice food you found here. I… hope you didn’t go to much trouble.”

“It would be worth it.”

“For what? Me arguing with you about ‘the glory of Darkseid’?”

Scott smiled, just a little. “You being sarcastic when you talk about Darkseid’s glory. Watching the look on your face when you taste good food. That lock of hair that fell down between your eyes.”

Barda twisted it around a gloved forefinger. “You brought me here to show me something and it’s almost here, isn’t it?”

Scott’s smile widened slightly. “What makes you think that?”

“You always have a trick up your sleeve. You’re Scott Free.”

It was quite possible Scott would never stop grinning. “That was worth two meals. Come on.”

They climbed, hand over foot, up the side of the shaft, leaving their waste to be burnt away by the next, long-overdue flare. Scott, slowed by a full stomach, slipped once. Barda grabbed his wrist protectively. Scott didn’t need it and didn’t react further than he already had, but patted Barda on her padded shoulder as they finished their climb.

“We should get going,” Barda said. “If you’re gone from the orphanage for longer than one night…”

“Just wait..”

Scott sat down and, unprompted, Barda joined him. He sat cross-legged, her on her backside with her legs drawn up to her chest. The butt of her Mega-Rod dragged against the metallic ground.

“I see someone saw fit to give you a Mega-Rod.”

“Granny Goodness. She says I’m showing real potential.”

Scott laughed harshly before he could stop himself. “For what?”

“I know you’ve been hit with Mega-Rods in the past. But I’m not going to be one of those people.”

“I wish it were your choice. But that’s why the system’s broken. It’s Darkseid’s choice and Granny’s choice… everyone’s choice but Barda’s.”

Scott felt the surprising weight of Barda leaning against his side. “And what do you want to choose for Barda?”

“Me.”

Barda took off her helmet and her hair tumbled out over her shoulders like an avalanche over a mountain range. It was long and dark and did not belong to Apokolips (which would have insisted she cut it short). Scott had no frame of reference for it. He couldn’t compare it to ebony or onyx or the space between a starry night. He did not know of such things.

So he combed her hair with his fingers, watching as it rose in his hand and fell back to her broad shoulders, and tried to think of a name for the sensation. The sun rose in the North, giving them a rare look at its splendor unencumbered by the blinding light and obscuring fumes of the firepits. Barda watched and let Scott run his hand through her hair, not saying anything until the sun was far overhead.

“You should feed me more often,” Barda said, rubbing her stomach.

“Nah. I’m not much of a cook.”

“Fine. I’ll barbecue a rat for you some time.”

“It’s a date.”

***

In the shadows of Apokolips, a large figure detached from her assigned hive and moved through the darker-ness of night cycle with surprisingly grace. It was a short journey. The prisons of Apokolips were built frequently so that every settlement could benefit from the morale boost. After three minutes of jogging, she reached her destination. The hounds gave her some pause, but upon seeing her they quickly tucked their tails between their cyborg legs and went about their business elsewhere.

"Scott?" she whispered into the calcified bars on the window of the barnacle-like jail cell, which grew out of the landscape of Apokolips like an abscess.

"Wha? Who?"

Despite the torture apparatus he was strapped into, Scott Free had managed to free and pop back in his limbs. He now appeared rather comfortable, albeit hanging upside-down. With a little shimmy he disengaged himself from his footholds and dropped to the ground. He landed feet-first like a cat, although with a little showy too-do that no cat would indulge in.

Barda considered clapping - it had been impressive - but that would only encourage him. "Last night, you said you had permission to see me."

"I might have fudged," Scott admitted as he gripped the barred windows of his cell.

"You can't keep sneaking away! Some day you're gonna get in real trouble."

He smiled, unconcerned. "Some day you'll come with me."

As always, she was torn between frowning at his words and smiling at his certainty. "Apokolips is my home. Yours too."

Scott scowled uncomfortably, like a boy reminded of a test he had yet to study for, then brightened a little. His grip tightened on the bars. "That's enough about me. What about you?"

Barda really hated being put on the spot like that. She, like all of Apokolips's citizenry, was a worm. Why did he insist on there being something memorable about her? At least when they talked about him, it was because he was a freedom-loving freak who scoffed at the loving tyranny of the great Darkseid, which made for a great ice-breaker.

"I'm..." Barda scrambled to think of something relating to herself. "I'm being docketed this month's pay again."

He stood straighter. "Oh?" Scott replied, interested.

"Yes. Beauty unbecoming an officer." No matter how many duels she fought, her face had not yet been perfected by a scar. Her opponents were simply not good enough to lay their weapons upon her.

Scott reached through the bars, cupping her face. He was the first living person to do so without recoiling in disgust... and, curiously, Barda felt the same way.

"I like you just the way you are," Scott said, just before he pulled her into the first kiss for both of them.

And for the first time in Apokolips's long, sad history... there was joy.

***

There were many shades of darkness on Apokolips. Every child knew how to catalog them, which were dangerous and which were safe (to a degree. This was Apokolips, after all). The current darkness was rather stygian, which did not immediately make Barda think of masturbation.

It was their mid-term for Pleasure Corps training. So far their studies had been theoretical instead of practical, to Scott’s unending relief. She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was because the targets liked to break trainees in themselves. The final exam would be their most… hands-on training so far. Barda looked in the mirror of the spotlight, seeing her own dark reflection, and flashed back to her instructor’s words.

“Sometimes, your target may be incapable of achieving erection,” Sexa had said. It was always ‘the target,’ never the lover. “In which case you will provide him with viewing entertainment. Spread your legs and display yourself. Then masturbate. I trust you all know how to masturbate, correct?”

Barda didn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a sex dream, as infuriatingly ephemeral wet dreams had proven, but it wasn’t like there was anyone or anything in Apokolips to feel sexy about. Who in Darkseid’s twisted vision of utopia could be described as beautiful to her strange fetish, which had come to value beauty over strength and humor over discipline? Including herself. She took a step into the light and saw her reflection more vividly. Despite her graceful movements, her armor looked clunky and she felt like a block of particularly unaesthetic clay in it.

If Scott were here, he’d say something illuminating and no doubt irritatingly lyrical about how blocks of clay could be molded into a beautiful butterfly (oh, you’ve never seen a butterfly? I saw them in a transmission from Earth. Wanna see?). But she hadn’t seen him since the kiss. It was strange. Before that night, she had no idea what it even was… not even a clue from the transmissions Scott had pirated. But as soon as his lips moved against hers, it had all clicked into place. That scared her more than anything else. Before that, she had seen Scott as quirky, out there, a bit of a freak really. But never as… like her.

But if he were here… Barda asked herself what would Scott Free do? The solution seemed obvious. If she didn’t feel sexy in armor, take off the armor. The chainmail-like garment lost its rigidity as she took it off, becoming as supple as the cape pooled at the floor. Her helmet and Mega-Rod made the most impressive thumps. All that was left was her boots and gloves, which she would need for combat. Barda was always ready for combat.

Molding the clothing into a small blanket, just like Scott had done at the Fire Pit, she sat down on it. Looked at herself in the mirror. It was still dark, still smelled of sulfur and toxin, and she could still hear cries of pain and explosions in the distance. Barda closed her eyes and tuned them out. The first step of masturbation was to get comfortable and if she couldn’t get comfortable here, she would somewhere else.

She wasn’t here, in this hellish place that had been a home to her for as long as she could remember. She was in that serene place from the movie Scott had showed her, the one about the butterfly-man. They had islands on Apokolips, but those were surrounded by rivers of sludge and lava and flaming sludge that vaguely resembled lava. Not on Earth. There the water was crisp and cool and blue like Scott’s eyes, and it splashed against the sandy shores with a quiet, rhythmic beat.

Barda drummed a single palm against her taut, muscular belly. A thousand sit-ups a day. Hell yes she was molded. Molded into the biggest, baddest Barda around. And if Scott were here, he’d tell her the same thing. He’d tell her how beautiful she was, how perfect she was… how much of a Fury she was. And she’d tell him that she’d be one of the good Furies, she’d tell him…

What had she told him? Did he even know how much she appreciated him? How much he meant to her? By Darkseid’s eyes, infuriating man! Even his memory wouldn’t give any peace. If he were here she’d push him to the floor, watch him squirm on the belly and demand…

“Ohh.” Her hand rubbing concentric circles over her abs, a light touch like Scott would use, she went back to the beach and took Scott with her. He would be happy there, in the sun and waves, although it wouldn’t be long before he started building a boat to escape. It was his nature. He would cut the wood into planks, the sweat milling over his naked body. He didn’t show it, but there was power in his lithe body. He moved like a sleek cat, with rounded, athletic motions. He could handle himself in a fight. He could bleed. He could live.

And each evening, when the dwindling sunlight forbade any further work on the raft, he would come to her. She could hear the waves, covering up the penetration of distant noises. She remembered them because she could recall thinking that they were such a pretty sound and Scott had told her the legend of how you could hear the ocean forever in something called a couch shell. And he had promised he’d bring her one some day…

Barda cupped a hand and held it over her ear, imagining it was Scott holding the shell to her ear. If she concentrated hard, she could remember the sound of the ocean. It was only drowned out by her heartbeat.

Her other hand touched her right breast and found it surprisingly cool, yet not clammy. Further exploration revealed it had swollen and both nipples were taut. She tried to recall Scott’s scent and had it, suddenly, that fastidious clean smell, slightly earthy where he rubbed himself with mushrooms to get rid of the many odors of Apokolips. But it never quite managed to cover up the sweat that soaked his clothing or the sulfur that bristled from his pores. Was it wrong that she enjoyed that little bit of Apokolips he tried so hard to scrub clean?

But on the beach, Barda didn’t have to think of such things. She would still feel her home that wasn’t a home in the way his hands danced over her. She brought her hands to her mammaries and cupped them from beneath, feeling their height and weight in appraisal. Scott would find them pleasing. How could he not? She would hear her home in the occasional endearment barked in the guttural tongue of Darkseid’s land. Xihet, she would have Scott call her during the act; Shell. His couch shell, letting him hear Apokolips wherever he went. They would not forget their heritage. They would stay strong. For each other, if not for Darkseid. For themselves.

She squeezed her nipples as tightly as she could, shivering as a wave of sudden lust hit her, tossed her about like a ship on the ocean. She hadn’t been ready, hadn’t been prepared. Wasn’t being a good soldier but fuck it, who cared? The toes of her outstretched feet touched the cold surface of the mirror as she rubbed her naked legs together.

Scott would hold the couch shell to her ear and try to get her to take it, so he could go and get some sleep, but she would take hold of his wrist. He would try to pull away and realize that hers was the superior strength. “Where are you going?” she would ask, padding towards him on bare feet through the sand (what an interesting sensation that would be). And he would say “Anywhere you go.” And she would pull him to the bed and say “Here. Now.”

Barda shivered with delight. Kneading her breasts tighter and tighter as if in an attempt to contain the lust surging through her, she finally let herself groan out loud. The sound reverberated through the darkness, off the mirror, echoing her own satisfaction which was even now sloshing through her body to pool between her legs. She could feel the pool growing larger and larger, exerting more and more pressure to bust the dam that held it back. Her hands became Scott’s as she gave her body to him totally and freely.

He wouldn’t need much persuading, Scott Free. She knew the way his eyes centered on her, how they drifted from her face when he wasn’t careful. There was nothing cruel or demeaning in his stare, like there was with the not-yet-neutered Parademons or the salivating higher-ups. Instead there was a promise, an appreciation, and she would let him fulfill both. His hands… her hands…

Her hands lifted and massaged her breasts as she began to gyrate her body slowly, allowing the feelings to take control of her mind. She pinched a nipple, hard, torturing it between thumb and forefinger to eek out every last quotient of sensation from it. Scott would be rough with her! He would push her to her limits, make her hurt where it counted. But he would not be satisfied with any one area of worship. He would escape.

One of her hands left her breast and glided along the flesh of her rib-cage, feeling out where the bones had cracked and sprained. Never from an opponent’s weapon, but from pushing herself hard, to be the best. And she was the best, not a whore for the Pleasure Corps. She had healed and her bones had hardened. The supple skin of her stomach was trawled next, her hand inching its way closer and closer to the top of her ebony pubic hair. It was shaved into a neat, militant triangle. When she was on the island, she would trim it into another shape. Any other shape. Perhaps she would let Scott decided. Perhaps she would let Scott shave her…

Barda forced her eyes open so she could see herself touching her own body. Totally absorbed in what she was doing, she found that watching what was happening added to her excitement. This was hers. No one else’s. To give as she saw fit. The notion delighted and terrified her.

Parting her long, corded legs, Barda ran one hand down the inside of a thigh until it was groping at the edge of her pussy. Holding her breath, she gently sought out her clit. She pressed hard.

Her foot kicked out automatically, cracking the mirror with its heel as a hot wave of lust shot through her. The pool had become a waterspout, switched on by her probing finger. Her mouth opened, gasping for more air and for a moment Barda was unable to move, amazed at the intensity of the feeling she could wring from her own body.

Why? she thought in confusion. Why is it so much stronger now? She had tried it before, but all she had gotten were a few dull twitches… nothing compared to the thrill and glory of combat. Just as well it wasn’t really Scott touching her. If he sensed such… vulnerability in her, she’d never hear the end of it.

Perhaps she’d let him know anyway.

Trusting herself, knowing that the whole operation was safe, under her own control, Barda continued to modulate her throbbing clitoris. She wanted to plunge her fingers inside herself right away, but she knew by instinct that if she teased herself a little first, it would be much better a few seconds later. What was it Scott always said? “The magic of the trick isn’t in the trick, it’s in how you sell it.”

She knew she could climax just from touching her clitoris, but this time, her first time in every real sense of the word, Barda wanted to feel her fingers… Scott’s… inside her. Regretfully pulling her hand away from her almost painfully erect clit, Barda sought out her labia, clumsily at first. She snaked her middle finger inside herself and was surprised at the damp, tight warmth she found. There, as the opening throbbed around her finger, she retracted it quickly, moving it along her thigh as she parted her legs widely.

Her other hand was massaging her breast, pulling and squeezing it violently, kneading the soft mound of flesh and pressing the hard nipple harshly against the acid-pitted palm of her glove. She opened and closed her hand against the pliant flesh and with each constriction felt a new riptide of pain and desire. Not long now.

With one hand now plucking her breast out into a cone and releasing it, she opened her other hand and drew it lightly along the quivering flesh of her inner thigh, once more entering herself. Finally she had her finger up inside, exploring her own inner terrain, fascinated by the musculature of her own pussy.

Her body began to thrash as it rebelled against the teasing she was giving it, the self-destructive lack of fulfillment. Barda forced herself to remain still. She stopped writhing, didn’t make any excess movement at all. Her only outward reaction was sudden tremors convulsing her muscles from time to time when she touched a particularly sensitive place. She named each pleasure and had a sudden vision of Scott exploring her, her patient delight as he rediscovered each… perfect… note…

“Scott,” she whispered softly, so only he could hear. Miles away, in the pits of whatever dungeon he was rotting in or quarry he was working at, she knew he could hear her. Barda had never screamed in pain during combat, never given a war cry or spoken up in her own defense, but she would give Scott this. His name on her lips.

Let men do whatever they like to her. They would never hear their name spoken with this much warmth, this much passion. And Scott, the front of his body speckled with sand where he had laid down between her open legs, would look up at her, add another finger, and say Barda.

She didn’t come. The dam was intact. That should have been it, she really didn’t have a fantasy beyond that. Strategically speaking, her only tools at the moment were her fingers and thus all she could simulate was Scott fingering her. She began to wonder if she would be able to satisfy herself. She had felt Scott’s cock brush against her thigh once when she squeezed past each other in a crevasse. He had stammered and apologized, but they had walked away in opposite directions, grinning.

Compared to Scott’s endowment, her finger was ridiculously small and thin. She wormed in another finger and the added thickness stretched her gratifyingly, but try as she might, they were just too short to reach far enough inside. She was just about to admit defeat when her eyes lit up. She would not be defeated, lest of all by her own body. She would adapt.

Barda picked up her Mega-Rod.

It was a fifteen inches long, no more or less, with its heft long familiar to her. She was determined to fill herself with every inch, satisfy herself with every ounce of its weight.

She laid down with her legs splayed and her knees drawn up. The Mega-Rod came with a vibrate function, designed to shatter glass and shake apart walls. She switched it down to a low throb and was overcome with the vibrations passing from the thick, hard metal into her hand. They were soft, sensual, so at odds with the brutal purpose of the device.

A strange soothing feeling came over her as she brought the tip of the makeshift dildo to the front of her neck, touching the skin experimentally. Her whole body was like a sponge, soaking up the soothing feelings that shouldn’t even exist in a place like this, and she was relaxed to a completely languid state as she felt her whole being melt into a pool, washing and waving with the delicate sensations coursing through her.

She moved the dildo along her body to the valley between her cleavage, and shuddered as she encircled a breast, running the tip of her Mega-Rod around the base of the lust-swollen mound, inching it closer and closer to the summit until, finally, she touched the sensitive nipple with the searing tip of the Mega-Rod. At the first contact, she stiffened her body and felt the dam begin to give. It was time.

Barda held the Mega-Rod between her legs, its humming tip just nestled within her folds. Perfect. She thrust--

It hurt! Pain too sudden, too harsh to be pleasurable. Her pussy was far too sensitive, the hunk of metal far too lifeless and cruel. She had thought she was lubricated enough, but her tender flesh could not be stretched that far. She withdrew the Mega-Rod…

“Is there a problem, Cadet 40522?” Sexa asked over the loudspeaker. Now there is. She had forgotten, for the moment, that she had an audience. Technically, she was supposed to be “performing” for them. Never.

“No, no problem,” Barda panted. “Just a small… miscalculation.”

“Solve it, Cadet 40522,” the loudspeaker barked. “Your time limit is almost up.”

Again her mind turned to how Scott would escape. She couldn’t force this with power, but she could overcome it with cleverness. She pictured the Mega-Rod as Scott’s cock, held erect and ready in her hand. Lubrication was key. Some of the men she would be expected to service were virtual giants. Kalibak was said to be particularly large, although sessions with him were also said to be thankfully short-lived.

Barda licked her lips and opened them for the Mega-Rod. Scott’s cock wouldn’t have the coppery metallic flavor of her weapon. She didn’t know if it would be sweet or sour and she didn’t care. If would be hers to work between her lips until she swallowed everything he gave her. She imagined the sounds Scott would make as she did this for him and her hand seemed to slip between her thighs of its own accord. She only noticed when her hand came into the first contact with the stray wisps of her pubic hair.

With her fingers barely touching the valley of her legs, she could feel herself begin to moisten. The Mega-Rod was well-lathered and she felt like a warrior ready to go into battle. She pulled it from her mouth, observing with some satisfaction how thoroughly slathered it was, and brought it slowly down her body.

Her hand was doing its best to stretch out her sex in preparation, adding finger after finger. The more she got, the more she wanted. She imagined that Scott was about to pounce on her body with the fury of a wild boom tube and ravish her cunt with all his might. She made low, throaty moans of wanton pleading; begging her imaginary lover to fuck harder. The observers would dismiss them as grunts.

The machine hummed softly in her hand. Her warm mouth had turned the cool metal into a hot cock, stiff and angry like it should be. Its effects were no longer soothing. Each second increased the mounting excitement building within her and her legs spread wide open again, begging that she feed the Mega-Rod to her hungry cunt.

She could hold herself back no longer. Taking a deep breath, she moved the dildo along her thighs, belly, and ass in small, delicious circles, each time coming closer and closer to her core. Her juices were pooling on the floor between her thigh and she intended to put them to good use. Closer and closer she circled her weapon of choice, coming into contact with the first fleecy wisps of her pussy hair, inching through that hair, until, at last, the warm tip of the Mega-Rod touched her opening like a living thing.

“Don’t be gentle, Scott,” she subvocalized, or thought she subvocalized, or would’ve thought she’d subvocalized if she was capable of thought. “Take me. Take me like we both deserve.”

She did, becoming her own Prince Charming, allowing her autonomous hand to drift along the flailing legs and rubbing thighs, pulling the Mega-Rod closer and closer to her cunt, and she opened her legs, knowing that she would not be able to resist one second longer.

Laying full on her back, she spread her labia and touched her seething cunt with just the tip, just an experimental tip, of the Mega-Rod.

Scott entered her.

“Yes,” she said, fearful to open her eyes and destroy the illusion. Whatever part of her was receiving pleasure, it was entirely separate from the hand driving a makeshift dildo between her legs. It was on a beach, listening to the waves.

On the beach, she jerked her hips desperately up against it and plunged the Mega-Rod deeply into her cunt, where it was gripped and throttled hungrily. Every inch, every pound, dug further into fertile ground. She twisted the dial higher and, ever obedient, the Mega-Rod vibrated wildly, washing her body in a delirious sea of lust.

The metal, no longer hot or cold but lukewarm, felt soothing in her depths. She undulated her hips against the imaginary lover as she fucked it again and again up into her cunt. The twinge of pain as her hymen broke was submerged entirely beneath her adrenaline. She would not notice the blood until it had long since dried.

Xihet, a voice said in her ear. Xihet, my lovely Xihet…

She forced her eyes open with a conceited effort to see that she had driven seven… eight inches of the Mega-Rod inside. She felt every pound and it was the most intense feeling she had ever encountered. She had to control her breathing.

Momentarily putting aside the fantasy of Scott, she matched her heaving gasps with the rhythm of her masturbation and her undulating hips. That just made it better. It was as though Scott and her were in perfect alignment, working as a single unit. Her whole body blazed as she suddenly added two fingers of her other hand deep up into her pussy. Her labia was stretched further than ever before and she felt as if she were opening up, passing through a new trial of fire no Fury had ever gone through before. She called out to Scott, caught himself, and instead merely screamed. Five inches to go.

Yes, Scott! Like that! Just like that!

She plunged and rammed the artificial cock as deeply into her cunt as she could, holding the slippery pole wildly inside her. And with every inch, every millimeter, another wave of pleasure rippled through her body. She added still two more inches to the blissful agony she had brought upon herself. She jerked. Her hips bucked randomly. The added thickness rebelled against her and her inner walls tightened as they held back her surging, flooding orgasm. Each brutal thrust of the Mega-Rod added to the tidal wave she was creating. If she did not have her release soon, she would go insane.

"Ooohhh! Hhhuuuhhh! Gggaaahhh!”

She buried Scott’s name in gibberish, disseminated the syllables in mad ranting and nonsense utterances.

“Uuummm! Ooohhh!"

Her hips were thrashing wildly with the mounting climax and she tossed her head from side to side as she cried out in utter delight.

“Hhhuuuhhh! Ooohhh! Uh! Uh! Uh! Aaahhh!”

She summoned up her discipline to hold back her orgasm for as long as she could, but it was impossible to deny her body the pleasure she wanted so badly. She had crossed the point of no return.

"Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhilh!"

She thrust the Mega-Rod into herself so fast it was a blur of motion. Her head thrashed against the floor, only the piled folds of her cape preventing her from denting the ground. Her shimmering black hair was hurtled from side to side, covering her sweating face and placing loose strands in her open mouth. Finally, she stiffened her whole body as she felt the irresistible explosion of her orgasm force its way wildly up from her pussy.

“YES! YES! YES!”

Without so much as a deep breath, she drove the Mega-Rod up to the hilt into her burning cunt. Lifting her body almost completely off the floor save for her shoulders and polished boots, she let out her first battle cry.

“SCOOOOOOOOOOoooottt-“

The end of the word trailed off as abruptly as a television being turned off. She froze, not a single sound being produced by her taut body. The dam had shattered so completely there was no evidence it had ever existed. Her whole body was a blazing, seething mass of pleasure. Again and again she felt her pussy contract, flooding her hand, her discarded clothes, and the floor with the evidence of her orgasm

Completely satiated, she let the Mega-Rod fall out of her. Every inch that exited made her coo with simple pleasure. When her trembling and fluttering had ceased, she fought away the orgasmic drowsiness that threatened to claim her. Nervously her hands fell away from her body, trying to prop herself up, but for a few seconds she was too stunned to move.

By the Source Wall! she thought, I never knew it could be like that.

She got to her feet and chanced a look in the mirror. Her entire body was dripping with her own fluids. Where her ejaculate hadn’t wettened, her sweat had. Her breasts still heaved and her hair was so tousled it would be impossible to imprison under her helmet again. She looked like she had just fought a war… and won.

“You pass,” Sexa said numbly as the lights came on. “Who were you thinking of when you came?”

The lie came easily. “Darkseid, of course.” Barda turned to look at her audience, to tell them what she felt of them, but the words died in her throat. She hadn’t known he was in the audience.

“You’ll do,” Darkseid said.

***

Barda rolled her armor-clothing against the washboard and squeezed it through the pinch roller compulsively. She wasn’t naked… Darkseid had given her a skimpy red bikini of sorts to befit her new station, but thankfully they had let her keep the armor. It had been tailored to her specifications and, besides, was stained with ejaculate. Barda washed it over and over again, trying to get the smell out. It was better than thinking of her future. Of what would happen to her when she graduated into Darkseid’s clutches.

Scott gravitated to her. He didn’t say anything, just wrestled a few well-washed articles of clothing away from her to hang on the clothesline. She didn’t tell him. She didn’t ever want to hurt him like that.

Finally, there were no more clothes left to watch. Scott looked at Barda, refraining from commenting on the harem outfit. She looked back at him. Kissed him hard on the lips, her hands wrapped around his back, his petting her hair soothingly, passionately, lovingly.

“I was thinking of you,” she said after a long moment, as a foul-smelling breeze kicked up the drying clothes.

Scott smiled. “Of course you were, Barda, after our first kiss.”

Barda smiled despite it all, not caring who saw. “Call me Xihet. Once in a great while.”

***

For the first time in his life, Scott Free didn’t know what to do.

From the day he first woke up to Apokolips, he had been consumed with a desire as strong as it was inexplicable: Escape. His life was measured in distance. Out his room, out the orphanage, out his section, but off the planet… never, never off the planet. On the other end of the sun orbited another world, a better world, the world of New Genesis. Locked in eternal reflection with its sister planet. Scott couldn’t see it for the hellish red rays of the sun, but he felt a curious affinity for it. It called to him in pleasant song, like a mother’s nursery singing that lulled him to sleep after he closed his eyes.

That distant home had shrunk to nothingness in his mind. Its ethereal promise was like a candle to the sun when compared to Barda.

He loved her.

He hated himself for loving her. 

Scott was an escape artist. Not a rescuer, not a savior, not a hero. How could he save anyone? There was no room for friends on Apokolips, no room for family in Granny Goodness’ Orphanage. There was only room for strength.

And loving Barda had taught Scott that he valued strength as much as his hellish home. His ruthlessness was different, but of the same shade. The things that truly separated New Genesis from Apokolips were absent in him. Although beauty was something to escape towards, he had never appreciated it except in Barda’s eyes. Although friendship was something he admired over Apokolips’ competition, he had let no one truly know him except Barda. And although he longed for love far more than he enjoyed hating his captors…

There was only one solution. 

For Barda, he would become Apokolips’ son.

***

The cities of Apokolips were, by chaotic turn, squat pits and skyscrapers which towered claustrophobically. The only tower which truly soared was the keep of Darkseid’s palace. Its roof was high enough to give a view worthy of a god. A pity, Barda mused, that it was wasted on a god such as Darkseid.

He was even more imposing in person. His fingers were clods of stone, hewn into blunt instruments. His face, a façade that had been weathered by every millennia of his eternal life. His body, a mountain range stuffed into the form of a man and lit with the core of a planet. Although his touch was cold, she could feel his feverish warmth through the air. It was muggy instead of comforting, making her break out in an unpleasant sweat.

“I can smell life on you,” he said in his voice that was mixed from granite. “Free thought and notions I never approved. They grow within your mind like viruses propagating through healthy cells.”

“Then choose someone else,” Barda shot back. She was not openly defiant, her voice did not raise above a monotone, but it took every ounce of courage she had.

“When a son becomes diseased, does the father cast him out? No. He provides medicine and pulls the child to his breast, nourishing him back to health. So it is with Darkseid and his people.”

Barda sniffled and quickly took a drink of wine to cover it up. The food was prepared of ingredients culled from Apokolips’ greatest conquests, and cooked by the greatest chefs to breath slave air. Barda would trade it all away to be back eating burnt rat and drinking filthy water with Scott in a fire-pit.

“Does your heart break?” Darkseid rumbled in frightful sympathy.

“Yes.”

Darkseid’s right hand closed into a fist with a sound like boulders grinding together. “Imagine a world without heartache. A universe of perfect strength and discipline, where not a moment of weakness is experienced. That is worth any cost. Paradise justifies its own means.” His eyes were twin embers in his cracked obsidian face. “Paradise justifies me.”

“You call this paradise?” Barda demanded with eyes sweeping over the vista. “This is hell.”

“It is impure,” Darkseid argued. “Corrupted by scions of free thought and beauty. Such as you and the mortal Scott Free. When the rest of the universe falls into lockstep with anti-life, such unpleasantness will not be necessary.”

“Scott?” Barda asked, panicking. Not him, too!

“He is not like you and I. He is not from Apokolips.” Darkseid’s lips curled with disdain. “He was whelped on New Genesis. That is why he is weak. I tolerate his existence only because of the use he might one day serve.”

Barda slumped down in her seat. She felt utterly defeated and wished, more than anything, that when she had said goodbye to Scott, she had meant it. “If this were paradise, it would have room for Scott.”

“Do you think me so cold as to enjoy the violence here? I abhor it, as I have ever since I left New Genesis. But it is necessary. The strongest steel comes from the hottest flame.” He swept the table out from between them with one off-hand gesture. “And Apokolips burns so very hot…”

His kiss was forceful enough to please…

***

Scott always was lax about keeping his head shaven, letting a fine stubble turn his cranium all… fuzzy. His hair grew out so fast and unruly that Granny’s men tired of shaving him. Besides, he was able to collect so many escape tools while he was being shorn. A pair of good scissors were invaluable. 

He wetted his head with murky brown water, already hating the way it darkened his skin, and drew the razor over his scalp.

***

Darkseid’s kiss was forceful enough to please, but the heat burned her tongue like hot soup and he couldn’t match the simple emotion that swelled in her breast at Scott’s touch, not with a thousand such caresses. She marshaled all her strength and shoved him back.

“YOU DARE…”

“You dare! All your talk of anti-life and discipline, yet you can’t even control your own lust.”

The smoke issuing from Darkseid’s shadowed eyes cooled from smoggy black to white, dwindling down to tiny wisps. His eyes burned down to blood-red once more.

“Darkseid… apologizes for his action. It was hasty and shall not happen again. However…” He cupped her chin between two monolithic fingers. “By the end of the week, you shall be my servant in all things. And though you scoff now, in time you will live for the slightest hint of affection from me. And when that time comes, I shall find a new whore. The last one lasted two hundred years before she worshipped at my feet. I doubt you will prove as spirited.”

***

“You win,” Scott told Granny Goodness.

Her office was decorated in Early Martinet, portraits of prize students hanging from the walls. Their broken faces reflected Scott’s like a thousand prisms.

“I win what?” Granny asked innocently from behind her obelisk of a desk.

“Call it off. Reassign Barda to the Furies. Take her out of the Pleasure Corps. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Dear boy,” Granny folded her hands together, “this is what I want. You, a good boy, finally ready to behave. I see no reason to remove Barda from the Pleasure Corps. Even if I did, Darkseid’s taken a liking to her. But her fate does give me leverage over you. How foolish of you to reveal that to me. If you misbehave, I’ll have her service an entire battalion of Parademons. But if you’re a good little boy, I’ll give her the honor of licking the great Darkseid’s boots clean.”

Scott leaned forward, trembling hands resting on the desk. His arms twitched. Sweat dripped down over his eyelids.

“For twenty years, there have been lines I haven’t crossed. Because I knew that if I went too far, I’d be in real trouble. I cared what happened to me. But you know what, Granny?”

“What, good little boy?”

Scott’s smile was Apokolips turned against itself. “I don’t care anymore.”

He threw himself across the desk, arms outstretched for Granny’s throat. It took minutes for the Parademons to drag Scott off of her, but every second he had his hands wringing Granny’s neck was paradise.

***

Somehow, the sound of the cell doors clanging shut seemed to resound more portentously than before. As if the metal weighted more just for him. It might at that. Apokolips was funny like that.

“You sit here and think about what you’ve done,” Granny said, red welts standing up bright as sparks from her neck. “You’re a lost cause, Scott Free. The Furies will terminate you in the morning.”

Scott’s hands clenched around the bars like they were her throat. “I’ll live long enough to see you dead. That’s a promise.”

Granny cackled. “The only man whose word matters here is Darkseid’s.” She laughed all the way out of the cell block.

Scott observed his surroundings. Four by four cell, just enough room to turn around. When he got tired, he would sleep sitting down