[Caterpillar] Chapter 51 - Final Battle (Patreon)

When another portal opened in the skies above Metropolis City, nobody noticed it. Though the Parademons' rampage had not lasted for long before Doctor Fate's spell annihilated them, those few minutes had been enough for hundreds of people to die and for the entire city to be thrown into chaos.

"Where's everyone?" Naruto was the first to ask after coming out of the portal that Kurama had created to transport them.

Wonder Woman frowned and looked around as she even flew down from the skies, closer to the city below. She could see no metahumans fighting, no Darkseid, and no Parademons. There were just regular people, running about in a panic and the police forces looking as scared and unorganised as the rest of the civilians.

Naruto and Diana arrived only moments after Doctor Fate's forbidden spell had erased all traces of enemies from Metropolis City and even put Darkseid on the run.

"Give me a moment," he said and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, his pupils became a horizontal bar crossed by a slit and an orange pigmentation appeared at the corners of his eyes. He had entered Sage Mode.

Every life signature in the city appeared in his mind's eye as he focused on the sensing ability of his Sage Mode. There were so many people below (over 10 million) that he could never hope to single out a random guy out of them. However, metahumans' life signature was different from that of regular humans, to speak nothing of that of a god. Brighter, stronger, bigger. Sometimes even of a different colour.

"Maybe they managed to move the fight away from the city. It's definitely something that J'onn and Batman would think about in order to reduce crossfire casualties. Expand your senses towards the ocean," Wonder Woman reasoned.

Following her advice, he focused his Sage Mode sense towards the ocean. And there, a few miles away from the shore, a group of very powerful life signatures appeared on his 'radar'.

"It's as you said. They're out, in the open ocean, at 7 o'clock.'

A coat of yellow-red chakra appeared around his body and transformed his clothes into a garment of light and energy. Ten ominous black spheres appeared at his back as well. He had entered his Six Paths Sage Mode.

"You're faster, go ahead. Take my dagger and throw it at Darkseid, in his blind spot. I will teleport there in an instant with a very big surprise for him," he said and began to form a bijuudama into his left hand.

Despite the dire situation, Diana let out a smile at his words. She took the tri-pronged dagger from his right hand and raised her other hand at him, balling into a fist.

"You don't have a long time in that form while on Earth. Let's end this fast," she said.

"Yes. You take care too, don't get overconfident," he chided.

"Right back at you."

Sharing a smile, the two bumped their fists against each other. Then, a sonic boom echoed in the air as Diana burst at her fastest speed towards Darkseid's location.

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Wonder Woman arrived at the scene just in time to witness how Darkseid fired an Omega Beam out of his remaining eye and reaped the life of yet another member of the Justice League of America. Steel was disintegrated, down to the tiniest atoms. His sledgehammer was the only thing that had remained of him as he had dropped it right before the beam hit him.

A powerful voice resounded across the battlefield:

"In brightest day, in darkest night,
No evil shall escape my sight -.

As John Stewart said the Oath of the Green Lantern Corps, a brilliant green light started gathering into his power ring. Witnessing yet another comrade dying in front of him, he cursed his weakness. He cursed his own lack of will, lack of strength to attack with the intent to kill. Even after the Justice League was reformed by Superwoman and Batman into the Justice League of America which used deadly force and extreme means against incurable criminals, John Stewart himself had never broken the code of the Green Lanterns, that of never using deadly force.

However, at this moment, filled with righteous anger and determination, he told himself: 'No more! If the Guardians will strip me of my ring and exile or imprison me, then so be it!'

He could no longer watch any more of his comrades perish in battle. Too many had died already. Bearing that bitterness and extreme determination, he shouted the last two verses of the Oath at the top of his lungs:

"-Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware of my power - Green Lantern's light!"

Green light shone around his ring so brightly that his body could not be seen clearly anymore.

"Warning. Willpower exceeding Power Ring capabilities."

But John did not realize what he had just done at that moment: that his will had surpassed the limits of the most powerful weapon in the universe, that he had found the limits of what was supposed to be limitless! No, he was only thinking about one thing: killing Darkseid to save his brothers-in-arms.

The God of Evil abruptly released another wave of his Matrix of Agony, making all the heroes that were attacking him collapse from the air while screaming in agony. Superwoman had been among them too and she fell into the ocean as well, her body twitching uncontrollably from the excruciating pain.

Then, Darkseid turned his head towards the Green Lantern. His supernatural senses warned him of mortal danger. In front of him, John Stewart was a sight to behold. Darkseid had seen many and even killed a bunch of Green Lanterns with his own two hands. However, never before had he seen a Green Lantern exuding such power. It was when he locked his remaining eye on him to fire his Omega Beams that John also pointed his Power Ring at him.

It was as if a railgun was fired. A beam of light like that of a star-destroying cannon shot forth from his ring, a beam of light containing the transformed will of the man who even managed to surpass the limits of the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Momentarily, they were all blinded by the brilliant emerald light. When they regained their sight, everyone stared in amazement at the sight in front of them: Darkseid's left arm had been vaporized. But then, a deafening sound ruptured the sky and everyone abruptly turned their heads toward it. A split second before the Omega Beams impacted John Stewart's defenceless body, a white-and-gold armoured silhouette seemingly teleported in front of him. Diana had appeared in front of him at the very last moment with a shunshin, her golden shield raised protectively in front of him.

A deep sound like that of a gong resounded for miles when Darkseid's Omega Beam slammed into her round shield. But after a brief struggle, the Omega Beam dissipated. Wonder Woman's golden shield was made of Amazonium, the same as her Bracelets of Submission. It was one of the very few things in the Universe that could resist the effect of the Omega Beams.

Darkseid screamed in anger and he lunged at the Green Lantern hiding behind the Amazon princess. But his charge was met head-on by Diana and she slammed her shield into his chest. The shockwave generated by their collision blasted away all the members of the Justice League in the vicinity and threw them hundreds of feet away.

The outcome of the gods' clash left both Diana and Darkseid dizzy and sluggish. Nevertheless, even as she shook her head to remove the cobwebs darkening her sight, she grasped the tri-pronged dagger from her waist and flung it at Darkseid's still motionless body in the distance. The God of Evil took notice of the incoming projectile but he reckoned that due to her momentary dizziness, her aim was too poor to hit him. And it was as he had thought: the dagger whirred two feet above his head, not even close to hitting him.

But just after the dagger went past him, he saw the white-haired woman make a strange sign with the hand that was not holding the shield. In the very next moment, an enormous magic signature materialized behind him out of nowhere! It was such a powerful aura that Darkseid instinctively twisted his body in a desperate attempt to dodge whatever was coming at him. However, he was too late. As Diana activated the Hiraishin tag on the flying dagger with a one-handed ram seal, Naruto teleported right behind Darkseid's back with a massive sphere of purple-black chakra in his right hand.

"Bijuudama!"

It was as if a miniature sun was birthed in the sky. Not for the first time that day, everyone lost their sight, even the members of the JLA who had been thrown into the distance by the shockwave that had resulted from Wonder Woman and Darkseid's collision. It was not a foreign sight for the people of Earth. It was eerily similar to the detonation of an atomic bomb, both in appearance and in power.

The JL members retreated in a panic to a safe distance away and watched in disbelief the massive explosion and the gigantic mushroom of fire that rose in the air. They had no idea what was going on.

The explosion had barely died down when the 10 Truth-Seeking Orbs at Naruto's back all of a sudden transformed into long, pitch-black chains and wrapped around Darkseid's body. Nine shadow clones and the original Naruto all grabbed the ends of each chain and pulled with their entire Sage of the Six Paths physical strength.

The God of Evil was barely conscious at this point. The skin over his entire body had been melted off, revealing raw flesh. He looked like one big charred wound. If that was not enough, indestructible chains wrapped around his body as if they were alive and dug painfully into his flesh down, to the bone. A scream of pain and agony came from the depth of his chest and his Matrix of Agony burst forth with his rage. However, said ability did not travel through the chains as he had hoped.

"Diana, now!" Naruto and his Shadow Clones shouted simultaneously as they held onto the chains restricting Darkseid with their entire might.

Wonder Woman used a Body Flicker Movement technique to teleport to 60 feet behind Darkseid's body. Strapping her golden shield on her back, she grabbed the Sealing Scroll hanging from the belt around her waist. With dexterous movements, she unfurled the scroll in the blink of an eye and slapped her palm on top of it. A plume of smoke obscured her sight for a second but when the wind blew it away, a glass-like blue spear appeared in her hand. It was the Radion spear.

She raised the glass-like spear above her shoulder and took aim. As her body became surrounded by an aura of blue light, her long white hair started to rise in the air, defying gravity. Sparks of lightning started dancing across the spear's body until they engulfed it completely.

For the third time that day, Darkseid's instincts warned him of his impending death, just like when Doctor Fate cast his sacrificial spell or when Green Lantern fired his strongest Power Ring attack. But this time around, he could do nothing to avoid it. There was no dodging it, there was no running away from it because the Ten Truth Seeking Orbs that had been transformed into chains were wrapped around his body, immobilizing him completely.

Filled with desperation and rage, he fired one last Omega Beam from his remaining eye. However, he could not see her and lock his Omega Beams on her because Diana had purposely teleported behind his back before taking out the Radion spear. The deadly attack did not even come close to hitting her.

A deafening explosion boomed as an object several times faster than the speed of sound split the sky.

Darkseid's tough, divine body that had endured so much punishment and damage until then became as feeble as that of a newborn human at the contact with the sharp tip of the Radion spear. It pierced through his spine, into his heart and came out of his chest too, effortlessly. Then, it shattered. The shards of the Radion spear melted instantly at the contact with his blood, turning into the poisonous substance known to be lethal even to gods.

Blood leaked out from Darkseid's mouth and his remaining eye lost focus. Just a few grams of radion would be enough to poison a New God to death, to speak nothing of an amount as large as a spear fully made of it.

Finally, the God of Evil breathed his last. Even as he died, his face still displayed a frozen expression of helplessness and rage.

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AN: well, there you have it, a normal ending for the battle. I took out the True Darkseid from comics, leaving just the animated version of Darkseid. I do have to say that Superwoman (Supergirl) and the Justice League would have eventually managed to kill Darkseid by themselves too even if Naruto and Diana did not come to their help but their intervention sped up the process and prevented further casualties amongst their ranks. Darkseid killed quite a few of them already as it is.

I hope that this version of the final battle is more to your liking.