Broken(DC)

The confidence I once had in victory was gone. A simple win wasn't possible anymore we were going to lose many. What was even one Ravager worth? Doomsday alone had managed to fight Superman, and only his own death had stopped him.

"Kill them all," the Mad Batman commanded.

And they charged at us.

"You need to retreat! We don't know who these enemies are. It's too dangerous," Batgirl's voice came through the earpiece.

"We can't," I replied, knowing there was no way out.

Taking responsibility upon myself, I chose one of the most dangerous opponents the Ravager. Only I could hold him back. The odds of defeating him were slim, but there was still a chance.

Charging forward, I saw the other heroes follow behind me.

My danger sense screamed at me, my entire being alert to the threat these enemies posed. In moments, we clashed. My strike was caught effortlessly by the Ravager. His counterattack shattered my sense of reality, fracturing my skull.

My regeneration worked at full capacity, mending the damage, but for a moment, I lost myself, giving him the advantage. His blows weren't just brute force they were precise, methodical. He dodged my strikes with ease, countering painfully. This wasn't just a monster; if what our Batman said was true, this was an alternate version of himself, imbued with Doomsday's powers. That meant superhuman strength combined with intellect and combat mastery.

Even after such a short skirmish, my body was covered in wounds. For every injury that healed, two more appeared. I didn't waste time, though every moment I spent taking damage, I was also studying him. With each second, I began to understand his fighting style better, adapting to it. Slowly, I started to respond to his attacks more effectively.

I worried for my allies, but I couldn't afford to look away from this fight not even for a second.

By now, we were far from the main battlefield. The terrain around us had changed multiple times as we hurled each other across the landscape, trading blows with everything we had.

My body, which had initially reverted to its previous form, began to transform again, growing armor similar to my opponent's. But my skin remained red, my eyes still burning with fire. The flames around me, however, were useless he absorbed them, growing stronger with each burst.

His eyes lit up, and I grabbed his face with both hands, driving my knee into it. He caught my leg and hurled me over his shoulder, slamming me into the ground. Twisting my leg, I broke free and immediately rose, grabbing him by the torso.

I drove him into the earth and unleashed a flurry of rapid punches to his head, but his eyes ignited again, triggering an explosion that blasted me away.

Blood dripped from my mouth, and with horror, I realized my regeneration was slowing. My greatest weakness had come to the surface my resources were running out.

"Your allies will soon perish, and you won't last much longer," he said, noticing my weakness. Yet, he didn't charge. He stood there, facing me. "Your resistance is futile. You'll give up soon enough."

"Hmph. Look who's talking, Bruce. You gave up long ago. Why are you helping villains? You always stood for justice." If he wanted to talk, it gave me a moment to catch my breath.

"I realized the futility of my actions. No matter how hard I fought, the outcome was always the same it all repeats," he said, closing the distance between us in a single leap.

The brief reprieve ended, and the battle resumed. His superiority became more apparent with every passing moment. I couldn't understand how he had an endless supply of resources to heal his wounds and fuel his strength.

The hunger gnawed at me, terrifying in its intensity. My wounds stopped closing, and my strength was fading.

The Ravager sensed this and pressed his advantage, abandoning defense entirely to focus on relentless attacks. His strategy worked. I lay motionless on the ground, my body broken, my regeneration failing.

This was it. I couldn't defeat him. Soon, he would kill me. Since no one had come to my aid, it meant the other heroes were either still fighting or had already fallen.

He stood over my battered body, his hand raised for the final blow. Suddenly, countless lightning bolts struck from the sky. They were of various colors, as if the heavens themselves were enraged. Cracks began to appear in the sky, revealing only darkness within.

The Ravager turned his attention to the chaos unfolding around us. Some of the lightning struck me, but it didn't finish me off. Instead, I felt energy surge back into my body. My bones healed instantly, and my wounds closed.

I sprang to my feet and drove my hand into his chest. The beast within me tore out his heart and devoured it hungrily. It was as if a crushing weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Boundless energy began to flood through me.

With claws buried in his body, I tore him apart piece by piece. My vision blurred into a haze of blood.

I came to after a few seconds, tasting blood on my lips blood that clearly wasn't mine. Almost nothing remained of my opponent. This wasn't Bruce. It couldn't have been him I convinced myself of that.

Rising to my feet, I saw that chaos still reigned around me.

Lightning continued to strike, and the rifts in the sky multiplied. One appeared on the ground, consuming an area half the size of a football field. The lightning was just as destructive, obliterating everything in its path. What was happening?

I had lost my earpiece in the first moments of the fight. It's hard to keep it intact when blows are shattering even your skull. The manor was several miles away, and in the distance, I could only make out the faint outline of Gotham.

I was about to set off when, without warning, a bolt of lightning struck me, and everything around me vanished.

Suddenly, my mind clouded. When I regained clarity, I found myself standing in the middle of Hell. I recognized this place all too well. Looking down at my hands, they were eerily similar to how they had been back then.

But after a second, everything changed again. I realized I was back in the same place as before. The lightning had transported me there and back. I moved again, now trying to dodge the bolts, but they seemed alive, pursuing me. Although I was fast, evading something moving at such speed was nearly impossible. Only my sense of danger managed to warn me just in time.

Another bolt struck me. Once again, everything around me shifted. I was in a human body, sitting in a park. Near a building where people constantly came and went, a sign revealed that this was Gotham College.

Then it dawned on me the lightning carried glimpses of possible futures. Judging by the chaos unfolding, time itself had become unstable. I was pulled back into my body, standing in the middle of a crater left by a lightning strike. It seemed the golden bucket had been right something had happened in Central City.

The chaos around me grew more intense. Objects struck by lightning began to change form, and some vanished altogether. It appeared the lightning was altering not just people but everything it touched. If this wasn't stopped, the Earth would become a chaotic amalgamation of constantly shifting events. Explosions echoed in the air, and as I looked up, I saw a massive meteorite blotting out the sky.

It was hurtling toward the Earth. There was no way I could stop it. The deafening roar grew louder, and the heat scorched the ground, burning all vegetation. The air became heavy and hot.

The meteorite collided with the surface. The impact was so immense that the ground cracked apart, and columns of lava erupted from the fissures. I was at the epicenter of the explosion. My body was destroyed and regenerated multiple times, with the source of infinite energy repeatedly restoring me.

For a moment, everything froze, and then time reversed until the meteorite rose back into the sky and disappeared. The Earth was whole once more. Madness reigned in the chaos around me.

Before my eyes, my home world was destroyed and then restored, as if nothing had happened. Countless events played out, each bringing the planet to ruin, only for everything to reset. Time accelerated until it came to a complete stop, leaving only darkness and nothingness. Amid the triumphant chaos, my body endured the onslaught, as did my mind. All that remained was me and the void.

I tried to speak, but no sound came from my mouth. I reached out with my hands, trying to grasp something, but I caught only emptiness. Panic consumed me; I didn't know what to do. I suspected that, since the Flash could travel through time, he was responsible for what had happened but Batman could have done this too. He had brought alternate versions of himself into this world, meaning someone had helped him traverse dimensions.

A deep sadness overwhelmed me. I couldn't believe all my new friends and the family I never got to reunite with were gone. Deep in my heart, I regretted the words I never said to Barbara. She had left a mark on my soul with her resilience in the face of losing loved ones, her disability, and her mentor's betrayal. Yet she persevered, helping others. People like her were rare. I should have acted more decisively, but I had spent so much time away from others that even simple interactions had become a challenge for me.

Time stretched endlessly. I began to regret gaining this power. I couldn't die, nor could I go insane my body kept me intact. I felt every moment spent here. How long had I been here?

I tried to end my life, but my body healed any injury. When I couldn't bear the suffocating despair, I destroyed my mind by blowing off my head. It gave me a few seconds of peace, but then everything returned, again and again.

"Please, someone, hear me!" I screamed into the silence, hoping someone anyone would come.

"You humans are so eager to become immortal, but once you achieve it, you wish to rid yourselves of it," a voice said beside me.

A light appeared in the darkness, illuminating a small table with two chairs in the void. A young woman sat in one of the chairs, holding an umbrella, her movements deliberate as she arranged chess pieces on the board. I tensed but felt an overwhelming need to approach her тany company was better than the crushing solitude.

"Don't be afraid. You can sit with me," she said, her voice soft and inviting.

I cautiously approached and sat across from her. She was strikingly beautiful, her dark makeup perfectly complementing her mysterious aura.

"Tell me, who are you, and why does your voice sound so familiar?" I asked, a faint echo in the recesses of my mind tugging at recognition.

"I am known by many names, but most call me Death," she replied, moving a piece on the board. "And yes, we've met before. You've died many times, but I couldn't claim you as my own."

"Shall we play?" she asked, her tone light but her words heavy with implication.

"Yes," I said absently, still grappling with the idea that Death herself sat before me. She was nothing like the skeletal figure cloaked in shadows I had imagined.

"Those who see me are usually the departed. The living can only speculate about my appearance," she explained as I made my first move, advancing a pawn. She countered with her knight.

"So, you're here to take my last life, then?" I asked, my tone even but my thoughts racing.

"Perhaps," she replied, her expression unreadable as she moved another piece. "But as much as I might want to, I can't take you. Everything must end eventually, and I'll be there when it does. But I can't end things prematurely. I can only wait."

I found myself in a losing position, my pawns dwindling under her calculated moves.

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

"Aren't you glad for the company?" she replied, raising an eyebrow.

"I am. Solitude has found me again," I admitted.

"Such is the fate of those who outlive others. We endure, watching those with fleeting lives fade away," she said, her words carrying the weight of eternity.

I tried to lure her into a trap, sacrificing pieces to capture her queen.

"What comes next?" I asked, removing her queen from the board.

"Why do you ask me? I don't govern life," she said with a faint smile.

"But you came to me," I pressed, studying her face for answers.

"Hmm, fair enough. You've caught me. I have a proposition for you," she said, her tone shifting slightly.

"Let me guess a deal to sell my soul?" I ventured, glancing at the board. My situation hadn't improved; her pieces dominated the field, leaving me with little hope of victory.

"You could say that. I'm not interested in your soul itself, but in what it carries," she replied, gesturing toward me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Power. Your soul shared a part of itself with your body. You should have died, but your soul literally forced you to live, strengthening the vessel and making it invulnerable. Without it, you wouldn't have become what you are," she explained.

The game ended with my defeat she delivered a checkmate.

"So, the body wasn't like this originally?" I asked.

"Of course not, silly. Why would it be? It was completely ordinary, riddled with flaws. But you already know that," she said.

So I wasn't supposed to live at all only my soul made it possible. Could those dreams have been real? It seemed like he had gathered all his strength, concentrated it in his soul, and moved on to the next life.

"You understand correctly. Back then, you already avoided death and didn't go through reincarnation. Instead, you forcibly occupied an empty body, one abandoned by another soul," she said.

"And what's the price?" I asked.

"You'll go back to the moment when everything changed for you. You'll return to your family as yourself," she said, projecting the image of the burning Wayne Tower into my mind.

"What's the point? The world will just fall apart again," I replied.

"I'll guarantee that events will take a different course. You and your family will be safe. Trust me I have no reason to deceive you," she assured me.

I sank into thought. Here was a chance to undo everything, to save everyone. To fix what had been broken. All the deaths and destruction could be erased.

"What will happen to me?" I asked.

"Your powers will vanish. They will no longer be sustained by your soul, and your body will bear the injuries it had at the moment those powers disappeared," she explained.

Rage flared within me.

"I'll die immediately!" I shouted. I remembered that, under those circumstances, I wouldn't survive without my powers. Even with them, I had barely made it.

"Calm down. Let me explain. Do you remember the moment you took the Viper virus? I'll send you back to that moment but alter a few details. You'll still fall, but a chunk of concrete will land near you without causing harm. Your leg will remain broken from the fall that's the price. I won't be able to influence that time any further. While I have great power, my domain is death. Even this is a favor granted by my sister, who owed me. Trust me, the cost is already acceptable," she said.

To undo it all. It sounded so tempting, yet so unreal. There was no choice refusing would achieve nothing. I'd remain in this void until the end of time. If I agreed, I'd see everyone I cared about again.

"I agree," the words escaped my lips.

"Then wake up," she said.

Darkness enveloped me, and I felt like I'd been knocked out. Pain surged through my entire body, burning my skin and stabbing sharply in my left leg. Damn, I blacked out so suddenly.

I forced my eyes open with difficulty and saw that I was lying on a staircase landing, a massive chunk of concrete with rebar sticking out of it beside me. Lucky it didn't fall on me. Strangely, I wasn't hungry, though I should have been regeneration requires resources. My mind was in chaos, unable to focus.

I needed to get out before the place collapsed on me. Rising carefully, I leaned against the wall for support and started making my way down, step by cautious step. My body felt completely drained, utterly weak.