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She led him by the hand through a half-dozen staircases, always going down, at one point clotheslining a Parademon they passed. Scott had to look back to see if its head was still attached.

It was. Barely.

“Barda, not that I don’t trust you, but—“

”Left!”

“You sure you know where you’re going?”

“Want me to stop and ask for directions?” Barda asked him. She led him down another corridor. “I looked up the blueprints to this place before I came here.”

“How’d you swing that?”

“No one wants to say no to Darkseid’s newest paramour.”

Scott swallowed.

“He hasn’t touched me,” Barda said resolutely. “And he never will.”

Thank the Source.

They reached the lowest sub-level and Scott instantly started scanning for a secret passage, a tell-tale scent of fresh air from nowhere or a cobweb startling in the breeze. Above, Scott could hear the dog cavalry closing in. He had no preparation for Barda picking him up. One arm went under his shoulder blades, the other supported his knees. 

“Uhh, Barda?”

“Hang on,” Barda said, and Scott diligently wrapped his arms around her neck.

She stomped on the floor. It gave way. They dropped. Ten feet, twenty feet, a hundred.

Landed, Barda on her splayed feet like a cat. Scott felt the thump right through her body. She straightened, then set him down on his feet. Scott wobbled for a moment, holding onto a wall for support. It was grimy under his hand. 

“You okay?” Barda asked.

Scott nodded briskly.

They ran. Barda snapped some support pillars with her Mega-Rod, causing the room to cave in behind them. That would slow down any pursuit.

“You thought this up all by yourself?” Scott said.

“I got an A in Tactics.”

“Oh yeah,” Scott remembered. 

Curiously, Scott felt no exhaustion as he ran. Barda easily outpaced him, but hung back so he could keep up, her cape waving at him like a red flag to a bull. His lungs billowed, his legs pistoned, but the energy of escape stayed with him. Maybe it was having something to run to, even if he didn’t know quite what it was.

Then the pent-up exertion hit him like a jackhammer. It felt as if his heart had exploded. His legs cramped and he actually sank to his side, gasping for air. Instantly Barda was next to him, shoving the neck of a bottle into his mouth. He drank greedily. Clean water, the prerogative of the Furies. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

She tried to help him up to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t comply. Her face was unreadable in the faint light that penetrated down to this depth through mirror-lichen and Fire-Pit bursts, but Scott had an impression of it softening. Gathering up her long legs, she sat down next to him.

“We’ll rest here,” Barda said.

Scott nodded and felt like vomiting. He drank some more.

“What is this place?” he said, drops of water running down his chin.

“The catacombs. They used to bury the dead down here, to wait for the Source to claim them. That stopped with Steppenwolf’s death. Darkseid said wasting bodies was inefficient. That was right after he started the corpse reclamation program.”

Scott nodded. “There must be thousands of side-passages. It’ll take months for them to check them all. And the sewage will make our scents impossible to track.”

“I did my homework,” Barda said. “I can get you as far as the spaceport, from there on you’re…”

“On my own?” Scott asked, his voice fragile.

Barda nodded, up and down, two motions.

“You could come with me.”

Barda said nothing except “Yes, I could,” which was a form of nothing.

Scott ruffled around in his pockets, finally coming up with a small scalpel-like instrument matted in lint. He wiped it off on his knee. “Here,” he said, offering it to her. “I want you to have this. It’s my lucky lockpick.”

“Your lucky lockpick,” Barda said tonelessly. 

He pressed it into her hand, wrapped her fingers around it. “So you have something to remember me when I’m…”

Barda stared at him. “You’re not… I mean…”

“It can unlock anything,” Scott said quickly. “You barely have to wiggle it. It’s like the thing’s got a mind of its own.”

Barda looked down. “I have nothing to give you…”

“Nothing is required.”

She unholstered her Mega-Rod and held it out to him. “Here.”

"I can’t take this.”

“I’m not giving it to you. You wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’m pledging it to you. It’s yours. So am I. I give you myself. Everything that is left of me, everything promised to Darkseid, everything I am, everything I ever will be, anything I become… I’m yours.”

Scott was frozen for a moment. “…Thanks.”

He had long since caught his breath. Barda sat up.

“Ready to move out?”

“Not yet.”

His fingers were wrapped around her arms and she glanced at them, then down into his eyes. Waiting for him to make the next move. He pulled her to him, more insistently when she didn’t resist. They laid down next to each other, on their sides. He breathed in, breathed out, keeping his eyes on her as his chest hollowed. With nothing left to do, he kissed her.

Scott felt her arms tightening around him, a gloved hand brushing over his shorn scalp. He broke away and grabbed Barda’s hand at the wrist, stripping off the glove and kissing her scarred knuckles. Her nails were cut short, her palm a web of lines. He kissed them, moved down to the pulse of her wrist and kissed it as he loosened her bracer.

It unclasped like a lock and he put it aside, easily finding the loose on her sleeve. It unzipped up to her shoulder and he saw the rigid musculature of her arm revealed under her chainmail. With a little probing through the armhole of her tunic, he found the shoulder strap of the vest underneath and pulled it down to her bare bicep.

She rolled over, pinning him to the ground for a moment, kneeling on either side of his waist. The shoulder strap she undid with a small gesture, letting its broken halves sag under her armpit.

“Here,” she said, showing him where the chin-strap of her helmet met the collar of her uniform. 

His nimble fingers easily unhooked it and she tugged the helmet off, letting her hair dangle down towards him. The helmet cratered to the floor next to them, instantly forgotten. Beneath the headdress, her hair was done up in a single warrior braid. Barda kissed him so hard he thought the back of his head would be ground through the floor. He felt through her hair, ripping out each hair tie he found until he felt the back of her neck and tried to cradle it. The hard, cold metal of her collar stopped him. Barda reached back and guided his fingers to the lock.

“Free me,” Barda said softly, practically a purr.

Her loosened hair, thick and lustrous, fell over the back of his hands as he worked the lock. It was extremely simple, requiring no more than bare thumb and forefinger before it clicked open. Gently, Scott took off the collar and set it aside. The nape of her neck was paler than the surrounding skin, the jugular vein and throat protected from decapitating attacks. He grabbed her by the shoulders, one supple skin and one chafing armor, and buried himself in the valley of her neck. Thoughtlessly, he rolled on top of her, his knee parting her legs.

His hands brushed over the lapel of her armor and tried to rip through it, but Barda didn’t even notice his efforts until she heard a strained grunt of effort. With a small smile, she joined her hands over his and ripped the outer layer of clothing open. The tight tanktop underneath, half-undone, did little to contain her heaving breasts, or to conceal the definition of her abs. Scott’s lips ran over her clavicle, finding a small bruise that he stimulated with his tongue. Her groan was music.

Wait. Scott had always heard Barda was too good for anything to even touch her. “Who…?”

“Darkseid.” 

Barda demonstrated, pointing a finger in Scott’s chest. Such a small gesture to leave such a mark. Scott shuddered at the thought of Barda in such power… then shuddered again as her finger moved lower, scraping over his stomach and tugging at the waistband of his pants. 

“I want to touch you too,” Barda said in a low voice.

Her hand disappeared into the crotch of his hands, Scott groaning as she gripped him like a weapon. In pain, too hard, then softer, moving up and down with gentle, flowing strokes. 

With her other hand, she ripped his shirt clean off. Lockpicks and homemade explosives rained down from the garment, tinkling off Scott’s back. He kissed her again, forcing his body to stay loose and limber despite the handjob she was giving him and the skill she was gaining with each second. Her lips were ruby-red, dry until she wetted them with her tongue. Scott fought his growing arousal down, brushed her chainmail off her armored shoulder. The shoulder strap of her vest followed.

Scott’s hands lingered on her shoulders, drawing strength from her just go keep from falling flat on his face. He could feel a bullet of precum working its way over his purpling cockhead. Barda obligingly rolled him over and he grunted a little as she forced him down on his back. Her breasts swayed over his way and he nipped at them before she pressed him down again, smiling, a firm hand over his heart. Her other hand slipped over his cock, spreading his precum on her palm like warm butter. The slick fist twisted around his cock.

“You’re…” Scott gulped. “Pretty good at this.”

“It’s very intuitive,” Barda said, still smiling (smiling!). “I’m trained to read my opponents.” She sent her jacking hand down all the way to his balls. “And my allies.”

Scott wrapped his hands around the muscular arm that was holding him down, massaging up and down the smooth forearm. “You do this for all your allies?”

“I don’t have any other allies.”

She continued milking him with short and brisk pumps, every drop of precum another victory. Scott strained, every muscle tensing and relaxing in a eroticized sequence, his back actually arching off the ground and into her touch. She let up the pressure on the hand that was over his heart, keeping it just light enough to feel the thumping heartbeat rocking against his rib cage. Then his back straightened, relaxed, and his hips rose into a slower, more languid stroking. Barda moved lower, the hand on his chest a forgotten memory, and Scott felt something velvety and warm encompass his dick.

“Don’t—“ Scott said half-heartedly. He dragged at her hair until she pulled away from his manhood, lips glazed. 

Her swallow seemed to echo through the chamber. “Did I do something wrong?” It was a cadet asking for correction and a girl, a hurt girl.

“No. It’s just…” He took her hands and pulled her up to him, relaxing now that the throbbing in his testicles was stopped. “I don’t want to go before you. Or without you.”

“I pledged myself to you. I want to please you.”

He hugged her, whispering in her ear “And do you think I don’t want to do the same for you?”

The last few traces of his uncertainty evaporated as Scott stripped her armor with careful ministrations, setting it down all around them in a rough circle. She was naked from the waist down, reclining on her back in artful repose. Her cape shielded her from the hard, cold floor. Scott kissed over her ribs, biting his fingers into her belt. He tugged downward, exposing the powerful contour of her hipbone, then her broad hips, and finally her soft thighs. The flesh goosepimpled at his touch.

“I’m trembling,” Barda said, shocked at her own vulnerability. Shocked more at admitting it instead of controlling it.

“Me too,” Scott said, rubbing her thigh comfortingly. She smiled at him. He smiled back.

He looked down. Eyes widened in surprise. Barda had a small belly button. It was practically cute. He bent down to kiss it and Barda cooed delightfully. Her hands cupped his head, scissoring around his ears. Palms gently pressed downward and he followed. Scott ran his lips over the small layer of fat that blunted the hardened definition of her abs. He liked it. It softened her, made her voluptuous instead of a pure blunt instrument. His tasting moved lower until his chin brushed her close-cut pubic hair. The gentle pressure she was exerting on him stopped and he looked up to see she was squeezing her own breasts, almost unconsciously. Certainly un-self-consciously. 

“Good idea,” Scott said, moving upward.

“A in tactics,” Barda said.

Her breasts were high and jutting, as proud as the rest of her, and as firm. He hadn’t known why he’d expected them to be… gelatinous. They were soft, true, but the more he felt it, the more they seemed to swell. He kissed them, lips brushing over her areoles until her nipples bristled to hardness. Barda moaned a little, one hand clawing deep gouges into the stone floor, the other touching Scott’s back.

Not rubbing or massaging or pressing, but peppering each into her touch as the mood suited her. The smooth, gentle feel of his kisses was turning harsher as he became more passionate. He was suckling at her breast now, tongue whipping at her nipple. She petted his hair, eyes screwing inexorably closed.

Scott pulled his head up a little, playing with her nipple between his first two fingers. “Ticklish and soft.” He pinched her nipple, stretching it out a little ways before releasing her breast. “If this gets out, it’ll ruin your reputation.”

“I’m not ticklish.”

“Oh yeah?”

His fingers itched at her flat stomach, but before she could crack a treacherous smile, she had flipped over once again, throwing him on his back.

“It’s been too long since I touched you,” she said as her hand closed around his cock.

“Far too long,” Scott agreed.

She pumped him maddeningly slowly. He was just starting to get into it when she stopped, lying down on her back next to him at what could’ve been mistaken for military attention, had it only been vertical.

“Inside me. Now.”

Scott rolled over so he was facing her, his hand laid flat over her belly. “Are you sure? We don’t have to. We could just keep kissing, if you like… I can wait.”

She pushed his hand down lower, mopping it over her soft pubic hair until he was between her legs. “No more waiting. Not one more minute.”

His fingers felt wetness, furnace-warmth. 

“I did that?” he asked, not sure.

She leaned up to kiss him, put her head back down. “Not a single instant more.”

Barda thrilled as Scott moved over her, his shadow briefly crossing his face before he kissed her again. Must’ve been the hundredth time. She wouldn’t care if it were the millionth. He could do that forever, long as he did more. 

His arms were planted firmly to either side of her and her heightened senses, used to fear and blood and death, smelled something like the courage of her fellow Furies on him. He was sweating, had sweated, had it dried out, was sweating again. Her fingers slid over his back like fluid when she touched him, soaking up his musk. She was ready for him. She reached down for his cock, grabbed it in the darkness, helped him find and penetrate her. He sighed blissfully. She felt stronger than she ever had before. She had expected this would make her weak.

“Darkseid’s eyes!”

“Don’t say his name!” Scott said with surprising force. “Not here. Not now.”

Scott’s teeth were against her neck, cold and hard but not biting so much as raking against the tender pale skin. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, knowing he enjoyed the way her breasts pressed against him from the jolt his cock gave. Inside her. There had been men she’s fancied from a distance or who she’d stoutly rejected, from Darkseid on down, but Scott was real. Tactile. Barda smiled at the pun. Smiled at everything.

“What’s so funny?” Scott asked. He was halfway inside her, obviously straining to keep himself under control. His magnificent body could contort into all manner of delightful shapes. It could stand up to a little battering before coming.

“You.”

“Should I be offended?”

Her hands wandered over his clenched ass, forced him deeper inside her.

“That answer your question?”

“My funny little valentine,” he said, so close to Barda that his breath mixed with hers.

Impossibly, Scott could feel her getting hotter and moister around his cock. It made fucking her easier; the intensely clenched muscle of her cunt was loosening with each second. Pity, it was overbearingly pleasurable, what little he could fit inside. 

Scott groaned as Barda wrapped her legs around him, enjoying the reaction he made to the power of her legs. They squeezed him. Scott’s eyes rolled up in his head with the effort of holding down his orgasm and Barda quite enjoying dangling him over it, keeping him uncomfortably close to the end. Did it count as torture if he liked it too?

Her arms flexed. Her grip on him tightened. She could feel his breath coming in shallow gulps, his heart pounding against his chest. Hers wasn’t quite making a mile a minute, but the pace it did set was (for a Fury) out of control. Scott licked between her breasts, nibbled on her engorged nipples, kissed her. The kiss hard, forceful, good. She was tasting him. She needed more. Of him, of life… everything.

Scott wasn’t surprised when Barda barreled over him, straddling him once more. By now they had rolled all the way across the room they were in. One more switch and they could be fucking against the wall.

Not a bad idea, although Scott much preferred the way he could study every curve of Barda’s body in the light, erected above him like a temple to femininity. 

“I’m beautiful,” she said, sliding down lower over his shaft. Encompassing him. Devouring him. “I know. You taught me that.”

She bent over him, hips mercilessly pounding herself against him, arms holding her over him in prolonged repose. “You showed me that.”

She slid along, elongating over him, hips driving, pulsing, pumping. Scott felt acutely stimulated, on a level of existence that could only be reached by extremes of pain or pleasure. He had visited it before, whenever Desaad paid him a visit… then, he couldn’t have imagined not wanting to leave. Her nipples, hard as the diamonds, hard as the rest of her, cut over his flesh.

“You showed me how beautiful I was,” she said, hips speeding up, sucking him in and expelling him back out. “And I love you for it.”

His eyes, screwed shut with ecstasy, shot wide open to see Barda grinning down at him. Sincere. Not a dream or a hoax or his imagination. He smiled. It was a goofy smile.

“My funny little valentine,” she said, riding him hard, pushing his body past its limits until finally, inevitably, together…

The undulation seemed to begin in Barda’s body and flow down into Scott’s. She sighed, tensed, relaxed, all at once. Her eyelids fluttered as something positively immense filtered through her body. She had to put a hand to the floor to support herself. She slid off Scott, hitting the floor next to him with a resounding thud. It was the only punctuation their release had. 

“Yes,” Barda breathed, her voice soft and quiet, not a harsh whisper but something small inside her coming to life.

Scott kissed her forehead as he rolled on top of her one last time. Her body was firm and hard and muscular, but it was the best mattress he could ask for. 

With one outstretched hand he grabbed her cape and pulled it over, wrapping it over both of them like a bedsheet. Barda looked tired, soft, sated… and adorable. Scott instinctively recognized her torpor as stemming from the recent orgasm. It felt good to have made her feel like that. It made him feel… heroic, in a way.

He didn’t know what to say, so he said the truth: “For the first time in my life, I don’t want to escape.”

Barda recognized the importance of that like no one else save Scott Free himself could. She acknowledged it with a smile that had nothing to do with bared teeth.

“Good. I wouldn’t let you go.”

“I noticed you weren’t…” Scott began, with a bit of sadness, then faltered.

“A virgin?”

“Yeah.” He winced. “Did someone… hurt you?”

“No.” She held up her Mega-Rod. “If it’s any consolation, I was thinking of you.”

They laughed. Long and hard, the last droplets of tension evaporating from their exhausted bodies.

“Ah geez, we make jokes about that kind of thing,” Scott said, resting his head on Barda’s cleavage. 

“Really? I’ve never heard one. Tell me a joke.”

Scott reared up to look into her eyes. “Okay. Promise not to be offended.”

“I’m a Female Fury of Apokolips with multiple battles to my name. I’m not going to get bent out of shape over a joke.”

“Alright then. What do you call a Female Fury with two Mega-Rods?”

“Right behind you.”

The voice was a dry rasp, something ancient dragged over anything that was ever good or decent. Scott turned, not fast enough, and a Mega-Rod slapped across his face. He went down, thrown off Barda. Blood already pouring down his scalp.

“You—!” Barda started, the rest dissolving into a roar of rage, but Parademons were piling on her. Naked, exhausted, unprepared, the sound of bones breaking came from the dogpile.

Not hers, though.

Scott rolled up to his feet, shaking his head to clear it of his double-vision. One Granny Goodness was enough. He was on his knees, looking at Granny. She leered at him.

“Have you naughty kiddies been playing doctor?”

The casual reference to their lovemaking enraged him almost as much as the assault on Barda. From the way she carried herself, she was expecting the blow to the head to take him out of play. Scott grinned for a half-second at her naiveté before throwing his punch. It dug into her gut, doubling her over into a fit of hacking coughs. That felt good.

The whip that wrapped around his neck and jerked him down to his back didn’t. Lashina gave it a crack, just in case he didn’t get the message.

A Parademon flew overhead, body broken in two. Barda had found her Mega-Rod. It was probably the head wound, but Scott found that immensely funny. He laughed.

Stompa’s heel pressed into his crotch, the cleats causing him no small amount of discomfort.

“Barda!” Stompa barked. “Stand down! Before I make your stead into a gelding.“

Mad Harriet cackled at the wordplay. Scott realized they were watching, one of them, or heard, or something. Fucking perverts. Fucking Apokolips perverts. The blood rushed to his head. And out of it.

“Don’t listen to her!” he shouted, ignoring the blood pooling behind his head and the boot pressing down into his groin. “You run! Hear me, Barda? Run!”

The Parademons hung back, licking their wound, watching as Barda surveyed the situation. She looked beautiful. Naked save for her Mega-Rod, skin reddened with her bloodlust. Scott could be content with that being the last time he ever saw her.

“What would I run to?” she asked him, sincere as the sunset.

The Mega-Rod cracked the floor where she dropped it. Barda’s knees followed suit.

***

Their clothes were in tatters, both from their lovemaking and the abuse heaped on them during the forced march. They had drudged through sewage, had bricks and broken bottles thrown at them by the Lowlies, been whipped by Lashina to greater speeds, and heard a seemingly endless rant on the glories of Darkseid from parade leader Granny Goodness. By now they’d long since tuned it out, but…

But there was a dreary déjà vu about being recaptured, like Tuesday morning going to a job you hated. But his time with Barda gave it immediacy, like going back to that job on Monday.

“They sent out the A-list for us,” Barda said. Her voice wasn’t quite as drained as Scott imagined his would be, but it was still hoarse. She looked smaller somehow. “You have to be a little impressed.”

Scott was quiet. His muscle were slack.

“Scott? Don’t shut me out.”

“We were so close,” Scott said softly. His lips were dry and chapped and parted like doors that needed their hinges oiled. “This time, I thought…”

“They’re not going to kill you. If they were, they’d have done it already.”

Scott half-heartedly tested the strength of his manacles. “I can’t do this anymore. I really can’t.”

Barda did her best to comfort him despite her chains. All she was able to do was press herself into his side and tug on his manacles until she was holding his hand. “You don’t have to. I’ll be brave for both of us.”

“Can you hope for both of us?”

By the time they reached Darkseid’s palace, the only thing holding Scott up was Barda. Desaad was waiting for them, a four-legged torture apparatus walking behind him on a leash. Dog-torture.

“Look at it, Scott,” Barda whispered to him. “It has a weakness. Find it.” Her hand was rubbing at his hipbone. If sex would motivate him, if anything would bring him back to life, she’d do it. “Come back to me.”

Barda was roughly jerked away from Scott, leaving the escape artist to fall on his face. He tried to get to his feet, but a boot from Stompa kept him drowning in the puddled mud. The dog-torture bit into the scruff of his neck and held him up, blood dripping off his throat to sully the brown water. 

“Scott Free, the prodigal son.” Desaad chuckled at a private joke. “I see you’ve met my latest experiment. I’ve always held that the bond between torturer and victim is a deeply spiritual one. This takes out all the guesswork and causes pain to the soul itself. Bet you never knew the soul was a nerve.”

“Just kill me, you sadistic maniac,” Scott muttered. “Just get it over with.”

“Over with? Oh, no. You’re going to make good on all the bad you did.” Desaad knelt down and wrenched Scott’s hair, painfully raking his neck along the teeth holding him in place. “I’m going to break you. And that moment, that moment when you realize the will of Darkseid is incontestable… I’m going to broadcast that on every channel. I’m going to make an example of you.” He stood. “After that, I suppose you can work as a laborer of some sort. Maybe join the Lowlies in Armaghetto. It’ll be a hard life, but it is life. Anti-life, rather.”

Barda snorted.

“And as for you,” Desaad started in on her. “Scott’s fate is set in stone, make no mistake in that. But you can add a detail or two. Submit to Darkseid, wholly, willingly, and Scott will be spared. Don’t, and he’ll be destroyed.”

Barda scowled. “You think I care?”

Desaad kicked Scott in the face. The bright, clear sound of his face snapping up the blow…

“No!”

“Never bluff when you’ve got nothing to lose,” Desaad said. “It’s tacky. Now let’s get started, shall we?” 

***

Darkseid’s palace did not truly soar. Although its height was impressive, it was also as paranoid and unimaginative as the rest of Darkseid’s regime. Everything above-ground was a massive defense grid, with the true palace underground. The dungeons were at the deepest part of the chasm, a drop three hundred feet down that Desaad traveled by shuttle.

Just for kicks, he threw Scott out when they were two stories off the ground. Scott considered getting up, but it was far easier just to stay down until the dog-torture landed over it. Each of its four limbs corresponded to one of him, and they latched on at his wrists and ankles. Soon he was drawn up under it, with additional restraints at the chest, waist, knees, and elbows.

Desaad stepped out of the shuttle. “I think you’ll find that escape is quite impossible. Pain, on the other hand, is quite inevitable. Please, feel free to scream. In fact, it’s encouraged!”

Scott felt something touching his mind, at first tentative and curious, then with growing first. He did his best to tune it out, screen it, but without relent he felt himself being cored by the strange sensation.

“Meet the teletorturer.” Desaad was rubbing his hands together gleefully. “I’ve been saving him for a special occasion. It’s been ages since Darkseid gave me a New God. All that’s left of him now aside from screaming particles is the mother box invading your mind.”

You think I care?

Scott jerked. “What was that?”

“I call it the father box. It’s the heart of my little toy. Harder, father box. Show him what you do.”

You think I careIcareIcareIcare?

“Stop it.”

“Did you think she was bluffing?” Desaad asked. “Oh no. She got what she wanted from you and now she goes to Darkseid’s harem smiling.”

“You LIE!”

YouthinkIcareIcareIcareicareicareicare

“Turn it off!” Scott yelled.

“Why?” Desaad pulled a flask from his voluminous robe’s sleeve and took a pull from it. “Where the mother box obscures reality with things like love and beauty, the father box reveals the truth. In fact, it makes it so you never believed those lies at all.”

youthinkicareyouthinkicareyouthinkicareyouthinkicare

***

“Do you think I care the reason you submit to me?” 

Barda stubbornly repeated herself. “I’ll never love you.”

“Good. Of all the things he’s taught you, I hope you’ve learned that love is weakness. Take her to the bathhouse. Clean her up. Then bring her to my chambers.” 

***

Scott bit his lip until it bled. The pain overrode the queer feeling spreading over his neocortex.. .for the moment.

Listen to me, he thought at the presence that was looming behind his skull. I know of mother boxes. I know you’re alive. I know you don’t want to do this.

thinkicarethinkicarethinkicare

Your master wouldn’t have wanted this. You have to help me. You have to

thinkicarethinkicarethinkicarethinkicare

***

Barda made no effort to resist as the ragged wet cloths were moved over her body, scrubbing off every pollution. The Parademons stayed well shy of any areas that might offend her, frightened by her flexed arms and fisted fingers, but their touch still felt like sandpaper after gentle Scott. Despite the cleanest water and purest soap on all Apokolips touching her body, she felt more dirty than before. For Scott, she could feel dirty. For Scott, she could be dirt.

***

Scott’s head jerked upright. Across from him, Desaad was chiseling a rock-apple to pieces and crunching every one between his jagged incisors.

“I don’t think I like this torture method as much as more conventional methods. Not as much screaming. No real terror. Just… describe it to me? Creeping uncertainty? That’s quite boring to watch.”

“Happy to disappoint you,” Scott choked out.

Barda had said she didn’t care about him. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He’d been with her, in the catacombs. She’d shown him she cared.

Did she?

“No,” Scott mumbled, horrorstruck.

The memory of his first touch to Barda’s skin, her tentative response, the rising passion… it was souring, curdling, tainting his mind!

Stop this! If you keep this up your functions will be damaged beyond repair! You’re a mother box, not a torture device. Release me! Release me!

The father box was cold and unsympathetic to his pleas. To reach it, he’d have to push it back into its own circuitry. Impossible.

Didshe Didshe Didshe

But if he didn’t, Barda would be… the thought of her memory of him being obliterated under that tyrant’s cruel power was unbearable.

To save Barda, Scott would have to escape his own mind.

***

Putting on the red bikini of the Pleasure Corps again was less painful than she thought. Scott had more her feel beautiful in it and the leering gazes of the Parademons as they dressed her would have felt no worse if she were in her more proper armor. 

She faked a lunge at them, just to get the respect she was due, and they scrambled for their staff weapons. Satisfied, she let them lead her through the winding caverns of Darkseid’s headquarters. The lava provided the only source of light, and it kept the palace so muggy that even the Parademons were sweating like pigs. Barda flicked a droplet off her forehead contemptuously. She would not face Darkseid as a whipped dog. Do what she must, she would be a soldier.

Each step of the winding staircase dragged at her feet and the Parademons had become overconfident enough to jab at her with their spearheads. She let them. Getting used to the pinprick pain now would make the night go smoother later on. Finally, they crossed a forcefield-bridge over a river of lava and arrived at the massive doors to Darkseid’s chamber.

It began to groan open, like a mouth. The Parademons turned tail and fled, the forcefield-bridge shutting off behind them. A moat of lava. Barda arched an eyebrow. Inventive. But Scott could’ve beat it.

A truly cyclopean stalactite had been hollowed out to form Darkseid’s bedchamber. Windows provided the only ventilation, letting in a spectacular view of lavafalls along the distant walls of the pit. They provided the only light, casting the room in a low hellish hue. It looked as if the entire place had been painted in blood.

Despite herself, Barda felt slightly curious about Darkseid’s furnishings. There were small tokens of… affection? from some of his senior staff. Old armor, stuffed beasts Barda recognized from propaganda films of decadent and hated New Genesis. And a portrait of a woman that took Barda’s breath away. Whether by Darkseid’s whim or not, it was actually painted beautifully. The woman depicted in it was achingly pretty, although as severe as any turned out by Apokolips.

The overbearing weight of Darkseid’s footsteps were the first sign of his presence. Although he was no brighter than the shadows that truly furnished the room, his eyes’ dim light gave form to his craggy shape. Barda turned away from the painting to regard him coolly.

“Your mother?”

“Suli,” Darkseid replied, not acknowledging her jibe. “My love.”

“Thought that was Tigra.”

“Tigra is no more than a diversion, as you are.” With surprising dexterity his fingers found the catch on his uniform. He disrobed and Barda turned away from the sight of his repulsive form. “Shall we get started?”

***

Scott centered himself. Himon had taught him this. A simple trance could block out pain, aid in escape, even mimic death. With a deep breath, he delivered one last mental jab to the father box and went under.

Comatose, his body sagged.

Desaad squinted. “What’s this?”

***

Inside, Scott took stock of his headspace. He’d been thinking of the father box as invading, but what it really was, was an infection. He could see it clouding over various bits of his psyche. Desperately, he resorted his consciousness and threw everything non-essential at the father box in an attempt to distract it. Foolishness! It didn’t even slow it down.

Something essential then. Barda. His love for her, his memory for her, everything. Himon had told him that the mother boxes were programmed to give unconditional love… perhaps a jolt of the same would reawaken that part of its programming. He had nothing to lose.

Balling up the thought of Barda into a spear, he stabbed at the father box. He felt it surge, trying to contain everything he was throwing at it, trying to engulf it like an amoeba feeding, but it was too much. There were barriers to prevent Scott from doing what he had to do. Mental exercises defeated them easily. They were all based around personality preconceptions and Scott’s first lesson had been to mentally bend himself there. 

Not a man, not a mind, no body, no eyes, no hands, no feet… Desaad had really pathetically set those blocks up. Within moments he was projecting himself into the mother box, his mind synced to its. Although he had never seen a mother box before, the damage was obvious. Portions of it had been severed, floating in mindspace like electronic jellyfish. Others had been added, leeching onto the mother box’s benevolent consciousness. Scott flayed those off with sheer willpower, then used their remains to build bridges to the amputated psyches. 

A long, cold night passed as he left the mother box behind and returned to his own body. It was like his skin had fallen asleep. He forced his eyes open like stubborn window blinds, finally seeing Desaad’s own eyes boring into him.

“You left, Scott Free. Where did you go?”

“Just around the block.”

Desaad drew a pair of razor-pliers from within the folds of his cloak. “I’m told that you’re something of an escape artist. Well, we’ll see how you do with your fingers cut off.”

Desaad moved the pliers to Scott’s index finger. 

“Okay, okay! I’ll talk!”

“I’m not asking any questions,” Desaad said, bemused.

“I am.” 

The bonds holding Scott’s feet in place clicked open. Desaad looked down just in time to see a foot snapping up into his chin. He somersaulted backwards, landing and spilling a tray of surgical tools to the rocky ground.

“For instance, did you know that computers never really delete information? It’s just lurking around their hard drives, waiting to be restored.” Scott’s arms were freed and he stepped out of the dog-torture. “Thanks, mother box.”

Desaad picked up a scalpel and pointed it at Scott, who advanced carelessly. 

“You know, I’ve had it right up to here with miserable little bullies like you telling me what to wear, what to eat, how to live, what to think, how to love or not to love at all!”

Desaad lunged for him. Scott caught his hand at the wrist, twisting the scalpel out of it. Beneath the robe, Desaad’s body was pitifully frail and thin. Scott laughed victoriously and threw Desaad into one of his own chairs. Desaad was so winded by the impact that he couldn’t resist as Scott quickly buckled him in. 

“Remind me of the plan again. You were going to broadcast my breakdown to everyone in New Apokolips?”

“A joke!” Desaad said. He forced a laugh. “I was just playing with you! You know I would never do anything like that! I was just wanted to put a good scare into you, you know, ha-ha… c’mon, let me out of this chair, we’ll talk about this…”

Scott picked up a control pad attached to the chair by a long cable. “These controls are rather intuitive. Where’s Barda?”

“Darkseid’s chambers!”

“Where’s that?”

“The stalactite. You’ll never get to it! The bridge is guarded night and day!”

“Then I guess I won’t take the bridge.” Scott turned the chair on. Electricity flowed into Desaad’s body, making him dance like a bean on a hot plate. “Desaad, I’ve always been a fan of your good conduct. Oh, that was lame. I’m glad no one but me was around to hear that.”

The mother box pinged and ejected from the deadened dog-torture like a tape from a VCR. Scott scooped it up. He turned on the video camera, facing it towards Desaad as he left.

“I’m going to need a boomtube into that stalactite.”

The mother box pinged and whooped.

“No boomtube function. Okay…” he turned to look at Desaad’s shuttle, a thick battering ram of a vehicle. “Tell me, can you hotwire that?”

***

It wouldn’t be so bad if the stone of Darkseid’s hands were polished or rounded, but instead it was all sharp edges that cut her skin as he unwrapped her brassiere. Barda took an impulsive step backwards, almost hardening into a fighting stance, and Darkseid chuckled. Swallowing her revulsion, Barda thought of Scott and kissed him. The memory was hard to keep clear when it was Darkseid’s mouth burning hers, his lips tearing at hers. She pulled away.

“The rest of it,” he said, eyes darkened to fiery red irises. “Now.”

Barda crossed her arms over her breasts. “Release Scott. Then, we’ll…”

He backhanded her to the floor, so hard that lights flared blindingly behind her eyes. When her head cleared, Darkseid was standing over her. “Did you honestly believe my lust for you was so great that I would give it power over me? Give you power over me? I would rather see your beauty washed clean off than cede one iota of control for it. In fact, I think I shall.” His eyes bloomed brilliant waves of omega particles, lighting up the room. “And I think your love shall rot away in my dungeons until even the memory of your name has faded from him. Then, and only then, will I kill him. Feel proud, little one. You have indeed spared Scott the sting of death, only to earn him the ravages of anti-life!”

Barda crawled away, knowing there was no escape from the omega beams charging behind her. Her jaw felt like it would fall off and lights were still flashing across her sight. She smiled to himself.

“You’re a fool if you think your prisons can hold Scott Free,” she laughed over her shoulder.

“Is that who you put your faith in? Scott Free? A New Genesis whelp?”

Barda turned over, spat out blood. “Scott is as much of Apokolips as you or I.”

“He didn’t tell you. Scott was born on New Genesis. He comes from a race of spoiled, lazy, decadent slugs who have never known discipline or hardship in their entire lives. He is the accursed spawn of the Highfather himself.”

Barda ripped a tile from the floor and threw it at one of the Darkseids spinning in her vision. It hit the Darkseid on the right, which apparently wasn’t the real one. “You’re lying to me. Scott could never have come from those swine! He’s a good man!”

“Scott has never given anything to Apokolips. He has never fought for her, never worked for her, never thought of anyone but his own selfish interests.”

“He thought of me,” Barda said quietly.

“He used you. To sate his own lusts. And now he’s abandoned you.”

That’s when the shuttle crashed through the wall. Darkseid turned, prematurely emitting a half-formed Omega Beam that went wild when the shuttle rammed into him. Inside, Scott jammed on the brakes. The shuttle’s momentum still carried him and Darkseid through the wall, out over the vast drop of the pit. Darkseid clung to the hood of the starship, the hellfire of the Omega Beam fading from his eyes.

Through the windshield, Scott stared at him. He held up a finger. Pressed a button.

Windshield wipers slapped Darkseid’s grip away and he pitched into the abyss, emitting not a sound.

“I just knocked Darkseid buck-naked out of his own room and dropped him a couple hundred feet,” Scott said to himself. “Been meaning to do that before I turned thirty.”

Although the long fall would slow Darkseid down, the stop at the end wouldn’t. Scott had about that long to back the shuttle into the stalactite, pick up Barda, and get out. He felt reborn. Revitalized. He had a mission, he knew what he had to do, and he was doing it.

“Barda, come on!” He threw open the door. “We’ve overstayed our welcome here by at least a decade.”

Barda looked at him. Even as she felt herself literally drawn to him, walking the distance between them, she searched him for a trace of New Genesis. She’d never seen anyone from New Genesis from before. His hair was growing back rapidly, already a coarse stubble that she ran her hand over she reached him. Scott was dead-set on the bruise that covered her left jawline and cheek where Darkseid had struck her. Gingerly he cupped her chin, tilting her face to better see it in the light. Was there something unusually gentle in his touch, something that wasn’t just Scott but instead…

“Are you okay?” Scott asked, his voice pregnant with meaning as he wrapped a jacket over her, covering her bare breasts.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She took his hand and surreptitiously stroked his fingers, as if she could divine their origin from the feel of them. They were dexterous instead of blunt, nimbler than ever her own slender fingers. Even the whorls seemed a bit too circular, a bit too soft. “How’d you escape?”

“I made a new friend.” He pointed to a box sitting on the dashboard. “Mother box, Barda. Barda, mother box.”

“You have a mother box?” Barda hissed. The mother box whined in alarm as well.

“Found one, you sure you’re okay?” 

Barda nodded. 

Something thudded against the doors, jolting them. Darkseid’s paranoia had proved to be his undoing. In his absence, not even the Parademons he’d ordered there could get in. Stupid and fearful, it would take time for the Parademons to realize they could just circle around and attack the stalactite from without. Scott wasn’t going to give them that time. He closed the doors, fired up the engines.

“Alright then. I’ve been planning this escape since I was ten. The defense grid is focused on the fore of Apokolips. We slip around back, we can lose ourselves in the engines and skip clear in the ion trail.”

“You’re going to run over the surface?” Barda had done a tour in a gun crew. There was one stationed every square mile. “We’ll be shot down in moments!”

“We’re not going around Apokolips.” Scott pointed the shuttle at the mouth of a cave from which a particularly large lavafall was flowing. “We’re going through it.”

He hit the gas. The shuttle took off, the sound of its engines roaring not quite covering up the noise of the doors being broken down. Parademons spilled out after them, clawing over each other in an attempt to be first to kill the intruders. Those who got too close fried themselves on the shuttle’s exhaust. The mother box pinged nervously.

“Easy, mother box.” Scott kept a steady hand on the yoke. “Barda, brought you a present.”

He held out her Mega-Rod. 

Barda took it and thought she could almost forgive him for being a New Genesis spy… and not telling her.

***

They scraped through the mouth of the cave, nearly losing a wingtip or two on the way. It widened instantly, but not enough for the Parademons. Barda and Scott could hear their high-pitched wails as some of the unlucky soldiers scalded themselves with lava in their rush to crowd through the entrance. 

“Where will we go?” Barda asked, buckling herself in. “There’s not a world for a hundred light-years that doesn’t pay allegiance to Darkseid.”

“We could always go to New Genesis. They’ll give us sanctuary… I hope.”

“Those lazy, slovenly, contemptuous…”

“If Darkseid hates them, they can’t be all that bad,” Scott argued. “Don’t you trust me?”

Barda didn’t answer.

“Is there anything you haven’t told me? Anything at all, about yourself?”

“Nothing important.”

The tunnel curved to the left and Scott followed, the Parademons braying behind them.

Barda swallowed down her emotion. If Scott didn’t trust her, that was fine. If he didn’t feel the same way she did about him… she would survive. Adapt. Prosper, even. Just… without him.

A sound of metal on metal grinding. The ship’s hull… and teeth.

“Barda, Parademons!” Scott said as a yellow fist punched through the hull.

Barda was out of her seat in an instance, hurling her Mega-Rod end over end. It took off the fist at the wrist and ricocheted back into her hand as the bleeding stump withdrew. The victim’s fellow Parademons cackled and widened the hole. Barda hammered their fingers with the Mega-Rod, but mere pain couldn’t slow them down. Soon, a slobbering maw as leering through the hole at Barda. She grabbed it with her free hand and twisted it as far as her wrist could go… far further than its neck could.

The Parademons howled, louder and hungrier, ripping apart their dead comrade-in-arms as soon as it was pulled out of Barda’s sight. She grimaced and swatted at the next Parademon to grope for her. The beasts were pounding at the hole, trying to widen it downward, and she couldn’t get a good angle to fight back.

Ahead of them, a brilliant flare of light! Scott squinted as the flames of the firepit burned bright. Mother box pinged. 

“There’s an access hatch at the bottom of that thing? Well, when does the flame cut out?”

The geyser of flame stopped. Scott hit the afterburners and dove the shuttle into the firepit, sending Barda flying heads over heels. She grabbed hold of the wall, fingers denting the metal, and clung tightly to it as the acceleration peeled off the Parademons on the hull. 

“Scott, how long until that firepit starts up again?”

“Two minutes.” 

“And how deep is it?”

The bottom of the pit was a fingered circle alit with sparks.

“Don’t ask, babe.”

BOOM!

Scott turned, a second too late, as Granny Goodness slammed her Mega-Rod across his chin. He went down, helpless to do anything as Granny throttled down the engines. The shuttle came to a stop, pointed downward, and its artificial gravity hiccupped. In the front, Scott and Granny fell to the bottom of the ship, landing on the windshield. In the back, the artificial gravity kept Barda upright as she met the volley of Parademons surging out of Granny’s Boomtube.

Scott looked up, expecting to see stars, instead seeing Barda standing on the ‘wall,’ cleaving through an endless stream of Parademons. He reached for her… a futile gesture anyway… and Granny rapped her Mega-Rod across his knuckles.

“Bad boy! Naughty boy! Hurt great Darkseid! Broke your Granny’s heart!”

Scott rolled away from her, scooping up the mother box as he did so. “You don’t have a heart, Granny.” He fought his way to his feet, favoring his injured hand. “And soon, you won’t have any blood for it to pump anyway!”

“You think you’re so clever.” Granny hefted her Mega-Rod. “Didn’t see this one coming, did you?”

“Actually, I was counting on it.”

She charged, swinging her Mega-Rod. He ducked under it, sliding across the windshield on his knees. Grabbing hold of her cape and yanking on it so that she fell backwards, her considerable bulk testing the capacity of the windshield. It began to crack and Granny froze, long enough for Scott to jab his mother box against her Mega-Rod. Quickly, the circuitry responsible for generating Boomtubes was salvaged and incorporated into the mother box. 

Granny clutched at his ankle; Scott deftly stepped away and stomped on the stressed windshield. Granny whimpered as it almost gave way.

The mother box pinged.

“Damn straight,” Scott said.

It short-circuited the shuttle’s controls, sending sparks flying in accompaniment to Granny’s wails. Then it closed the Boomtube, splitting an unfortunate Parademon in half. Barda mopped up the rest, her clothes tattered, her skin covered in Parademon blood and speckles of shattered armor. Scott shut off the artificial gravity. She dropped, landing squarely in our arms.

“This is where we get off,” Scott said as he opened up another Boomtube. Below them, the firepit was charging for a new blast.

“Scott! Scott Free! You wouldn’t leave your granny to die, would you?”

“Granny, remember when I told you that if you hurt Barda, I’d kill you? I’m a man of my word. Dry up and blow away, Goodness.”

Scott never looked back as he carried Barda through the Boomtube. And Granny never stopped screaming until the flame of the firepit scoured the shuttle clean, leaving nothing left but bones and the echoing sound of a vile woman whose life had come to an end.

***

The Boomtube deposited them on the surface of Apokolips, one of the few rocky plains left unindustrialized. The desolation stretched on for miles, buffeted only by the hails of ash from whatever shrubs or pathetic greenery were burnt away by firestorms. Scott set Barda down, his back strained from lifting her, and started to program in coordinates. It was quite a serene action. The firestorm in the distance, the oppression of the desert surrounding them, it all burnt away from a few of mother box’s pings. The only thing he felt was Barda’s hand at his back, massaging gently. They’d done it. They’d won.

Scott opened his eyes. The first small thumps of a Boomtube being generated were quaking through the mother box.

“Kiss this place goodbye, Barda. In a few minutes, we’re history.”

“Why wait?” Darkseid asked. 

Scott whirled on him, hands balling into fists. “Barda, get behind me!”

Barda stepped in front of him.

“Oh, right,” Scott remembered. “Found some new threads, eh? They’re very slimming.” He smiled at his own mockery. “It’s too late, Darkseid. In just a few moments, we’ll be far away from this place. And we’re never coming back.”

“I’ll not stop you,” Darkseid promised. “If courage and bravery took you here, some of it was mine. Stay, warrior. Let me complete the destruction of Scott Free—so that you may live with the majesty that is the power of Darkseid!”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” The mother box rattled in his hand, barely able to contain the portal it was generating. “I’ve had enough of your majesty. And so has Barda.”

“Has she?” Molten eyes turned to Barda, shrunk her down to the size of an ant. “Does this whelp speak for you now, Barda? I thought you wanted to fight your own battles. For all your time here, haven’t you grasped that there’s no such thing as freedom? We all serve someone or something. Even I serve the tenets of anti-life. What will you serve, Barda? The saccharine lust of this foolish mortal as you live out a purposeless life at his side, your own wishes suborned to him?”

“It won’t be like that,” Scott said. “We’ll be a family. A team.”

“Then let her speak. Or have you nothing to say about your own fate?”

“Tell him, Barda.”

Barda set her jaw. “I don’t need this place. I don’t need you.”

“Yes you do. You need discipline. You need control. Do you think Scott can give it to you? Do you think you can give it to yourself? No. Only Darkseid can grant life meaning.”

The Boomtube opened, shaking the earth under their feet. No one moved for it.

“Barda, come on,” Scott said as he took a measly step towards the portal. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. The moment we’ve been dreaming of!”

“The moment he’s been dreaming of,” Darkseid rumbled. “Stay. Stay and I will make you a goddess. You want to be a Fury? I’ll make you their general. You wish a man? I’ll give you ten, each the equal of that pitiful specimen who even now considers abandoning you.”

“I would never—“ Scott protested, then clenched his teeth. “Barda, please. Don’t listen to him. He’s evil. This whole place is evil.”

Barda turned to him. Her eyes said it all. “This place… is my home.”

Scott shook his head, slowly, then with growing conviction. “No. No, you can’t believe that. He’s tricking you! Can’t you see that’s what he’s doing?”

The Boomtube coughed as it stayed open, the noise of it filling the land like a hammer hitting an anvil, like funeral bells. 

“You can stay too,” Barda said, so soft it was hard to even hear.

Scott went for the Boomtube. She grabbed his hand.

“Darkseid, tell him he can stay! We can make it right, we can make it better! Together, we can--”

“Don’t touch me,” Scott said, as simple as that. “I said let go!”

He jerked his hand away. It all made a terrible kind of sense, a feverish dream logic that fit together only on Apokolips. She was with Darkseid. Maybe she had been from the very beginning.

Oh, she’d played him for a fool. When had he turned her? When had she started plotting against him? After this first kiss, before they made love, maybe when Desaad was torturing his memories of her away. Scott wished the torturer had finished the job. Wished he was still in that damn contraception. Anything was better than being here, now, watching Barda turn her back on him.

An anger Scott didn’t even know he had was rising in him. “If you want to be with him, than be with him! But don’t pretend you care about me. Just don’t.”

The Boomtube beckoned. He walked towards it.

“I hope you die, Scott Free!” Barda shouted after him, the arrogant New Genesis spy who’d made her think he loved her, who’d broken her heart just as he’d betrayed her home. “I hope you’re buried wherever you end up!”

“And I hope you live,” Scott said, not looking back lest she see the tears in her eyes. Apokolips bitch. Made him feel like a fool. For her, he would’ve done anything, and she’d repaid that loyalty with a knife in the back. “I hope you live forever on this hellhole.”

And as Scott left, the Boomtube dwindling to an echo and a fury behind him, Darkseid’s smile could not be described with sufficient horror.