A piercing pain surged through my entire body, vanishing as abruptly as it had come with a flash of light. Blinking, I found myself falling through crimson skies, as if beneath a bloody sunset. The terror that struck me in that moment—still not fully comprehended, devoid of coherent thought—triggered a cascade of events: a deep, rumbling roar and the howl of wind filled my ears, while a sharp, needle-like pain stabbed through my skull. Flashes of memories that were clearly not mine began to flicker before my eyes. They could have been mistaken for dream memories, but they were too logical, too sequential, too detailed—without a single trace of the usual dreamlike absurdity or abrupt shifts to a "new plot." Though there weren't many, they still overwhelmed me for a time. There I was, standing before a scientist as he explained something to me. There I was, learning to control my strength. There I was, being trained in combat. And then, from the most recent memories, I was being briefed just before that bald man arrived... and beyond that, what I had already witnessed in a conscious state.
But I didn't have time to process the memories. I didn't have time for anything. I only caught a glimpse of the jagged rocks appearing in my peripheral vision before the impact.
Surprisingly, it was painless.
Almost imperceptible to my body.
The fall simply stopped against the hard, yielding surface beneath me, which didn't harm me at all. Around me... an infernal landscape unfolded. Black rocks, ashen sand, sulfur clouds billowing from cracks... and actual rivers of lava!
I sat up and stared in bewilderment.
The mirage didn't vanish.
I looked at the jagged rocks beneath me—sharp, clearly hard, and dangerous. At my suit, which resembled a racing jumpsuit but was far more form-fitting, made of an unknown material that felt dense like leather yet silky, metallic but not restrictive. At my new hands, where even beneath the fabric, coiled muscles bulged, rivaling those of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Henry Cavill. I stared and wandered through memories—both recent and foreign.
A moment or an eternity? I don't know how long it lasted. I wasn't counting seconds, nor could I have—too stunned. But however slowly the process unfolded, it concluded. I overcame the shock, and coherent thoughts soon followed.
Different possibilities, mundane and otherwise, surfaced in my mind. A lucid dream? A dying delirium? Poisoning? The list probably excluded only the option of "someone's prank." Alas, pranks aren't this convincing. And I'm not just talking about the arms, bulging with muscles twice as pronounced as my own, or the face in that polished panel, looking 17-20 years old instead of the 30+ I was used to. The problem ran deeper. You can apply makeup and a mask, set up decorations, do a lot of things, but you can't make it all look like a natural cartoon. Stunningly detailed, beautiful, but vividly colored—not real. And that's exactly what it was. The skin of my hands, the hue of the soil, the texture of the rocks, the sky above, the rocky debris beneath me, the sulfuric stench, and the sulfur deposits around the cracks in the ground—all of it seemed drawn in a comic. Three-dimensional, tangible, yet still drawn.
This couldn't be faked.
At least, not with the level of technology available to people of my time.
"Where am I?" The question burst from my chest with a bitter sense of bewilderment. I didn't know what to do; my mind was empty, filled with a kind of oppressive ringing. Panic? Fuss? What for? What had happened was too disorienting for me to muster the moral strength for such nonsense.
I lowered my gaze to my chest and flexed my arms, watching the coiled muscles bulge beneath the sleeves. I wouldn't say I neglected sports—I wasn't passionate about it, but at certain times, I brought myself into a fairly toned state. Not Mr. Universe, of course, but I could easily do a hundred lifts of an 8-kilogram dumbbell with each arm without stopping, as well as a hundred and fifty sit-ups, a kilometer run, and other variations on the theme of "shaking off the fat." In short, though not professionally, I knew what muscle building was. However, even in my best years, when willpower confidently suppressed any excuses for laziness, I couldn't boast of such a physique. It seemed there wasn't a single gram of excess fat on me, and even muscles I hadn't known existed before were now trained.
And then there were the abilities... I still remembered how to use them. How to take off, land, accelerate time for myself, freeze the air with my breath, emit laser beams from my eyes...
The motor skills, the sense of familiarity, the slightly forgotten but easily restored reflexes. I just didn't know how to describe it, but...
All I had to do was focus on a boulder lying a short distance away and concentrate on these sensations, and I immediately understood how to strain my eyes to achieve the desired effect. A brief, dull ache, like pressure, and my vision turned crimson. I felt that if I released some internal valve, something deadly and destructive would burst out of me. The final thought—and two crimson beams, distinguishable even in this crimson vision, struck the boulder. They struck and began to rapidly melt it, dragging it across the ground as if not laser beams, but a stream of water from a hydrant.
A second and a half—and the boulder spread into an elongated puddle of boiling rock, fusing into a homogeneous mass with the local volcanic soil. I deactivated the eye beams just as easily as I had activated them.
My thoughts were tangled, struggling to make sense of what had happened. The evidence was undeniable, and ignoring the facts was impossible. I was the result of an experiment to clone Superman, Project "Superior," the third in the series after "Match" and "Kr." Lex Luthor had told me that he had integrated his modified DNA into me. Some Dr. Donovan had boasted that I would surpass the Last Son of Krypton. Then Superboy attacked the lab, and I was teleported... And yes, I could shoot lasers from my eyes, felt no discomfort from temperatures that melted stone in seconds, and could survive a fall onto a rock without a hint of discomfort, even shattering the rock with the force of the impact. And if I trusted the foreign memories of the training process, I should also be able to accelerate tremendously relative to the surrounding world, see through objects, and freeze anything with my breath.
A new effort with my eye muscles confirmed that, yes, if I wished, neither stones nor the thickness of the earth could obstruct my vision. An exhale, combined with the now-familiar sensation of opening some internal valve, also confirmed everything, causing the melted section of the rock to first explode into fragments and crackle in a cloud of white steam, and a moment later, become covered in a crust of transparent ice.
The reflection in the newly formed surface once again showed me the face of a handsome teenager, 17-20 years old. No moles, no stubble, no age-related acne, a straight and not too large nose, deep blue eyes, no Asian cheekbones, no Negroid lips, no vulgar features, but also no childish chubbiness or signs of infantilism. A truly handsome male face, pleasantly serious, as far as I could judge male beauty. In short, if such a person approached me late at night, I would definitely not mistake him for a hooligan or a spoiled brat, but rather for someone from a professor's family—educated and cultured, unlike what often happens when children do everything to become the disgrace of their parents.
Taking a large fragment from the edge of the dent where I was still sitting, I clenched my fist and, without surprise, watched the stone crumble to dust. No resistance, no strain on my fingers—just after reaching a certain effort, the feeling returned that I could engage something more from within myself, and after that, all visible strength of the stone vanished.
Everything fit. I was a complete copy of Superboy, who had sent me into that teleporter, except my suit was more futuristic, but even the contoured shield with the "S" symbol on my chest was present, albeit in a silver shade rather than red.
The question of transferring my consciousness into the body of a character from a fictional universe was, to say the least, unsettling and shocking. Not to mention, the possibilities and prospects were mind-blowing, as the power of a Kryptonian—especially when you know how to use it without accidentally pulverizing everything around you with a single clumsy movement—was indescribable. However... my re-evaluation of life was abruptly interrupted.
"Ghraa!" A slithering roar emerged from behind the terrain folds, revealing something like a giant, swamp-green leech about ten meters long.
It had a massive maw, black fins, and... it was flying through the air.
"Ghra-arla-lgr!" And it wasn't alone. Dozens of them—a full swarm of flying mega-leeches—rose above the rocks, baring their maws hungrily as they flew toward me.
"This doesn't look good..." These... things were rapidly approaching. Moreover, I saw that behind the first wave, a second emerged from behind the rocks, and something told me there would be a third, a fourth, a fortieth. At that moment, I made the strategic decision to get the hell out of there, but...
"Are you kidding me?!" While I was gaping at the flying leeches (or creepy flying eels, whichever you prefer), their kin had silently managed to sneak up on me from the other side. I was completely surrounded.
"Shlaaaagrrrraa!" The flying monstrosity roared-whispered and... froze in midair.
The world around me stopped. All sounds ceased as if cut off. Dust particles carried by the wind hung in the air; wisps of sulfur smoke from the ground froze in wavy tendrils; the creatures flying toward me remained motionless. It would have been beautiful if not for the eerie note of outright horror permeating the scene.
For the first few seconds, I didn't understand what had happened, but then it dawned on me—I must have involuntarily activated my speed out of fear. I could move easily—no air resistance, no strain, though breathing became slightly more difficult. But then I simply held my breath, and... nothing. The urge to breathe didn't return, not after ten seconds, not after twenty, not after a minute... Only my shadow moved around me.
"Alright..." I had no desire to get acquainted with these unclear but obviously predatory creatures, so the idea of escaping resonated deeply within me.
With that thought, I recalled the flight lessons I had undergone while still devoid of any self-awareness, controlled telepathically as a clone. A couple of seconds later, I soared into the air, rapidly gaining speed. The sensation of flight was amazing. I think, like all people, I had dreamed of flying, and to some extent, those impressions were close to what I was doing now, especially the choice of direction and speed at will. But what no dream could simulate was the method of flight. Something that was an integral part of the Kryptonian organism and completely absent in the human I had been before. It seemed to emanate from my entire body, seeping into my pores, but... it didn't seep or flow out. It's hard to explain. It was like gaining a new limb, completely unlike any familiar one, yet controlled by the mind like all the others, present in all other parts of the body but not part of them. This very thing lifted me into the air, moved me up and down, left and right—solely at the will of my mind, without a concrete understanding of what or how it happened, but reflexively and familiarly, like moving my fingers. And somehow, it was also what formed my heat vision, X-ray vision, freezing breath, and all the other tricks of my body, from super-speed to inhuman strength, but already... not entirely independently. This was truly hard to describe.
I flew upward, closer and closer to the dirty brown clouds, then plunged into the thick, smoke-like haze. It was foul, stifling, and filthy, immediately beginning to condense into droplets of black, oil-like moisture on my suit. But worst of all, when I flew through the cloud, I didn't see a starry sky ahead, but the same rocky wasteland crisscrossed with lava rivers, indistinguishable from the one I had taken off from, except that pieces of rock were simply floating in the air here.
And there were flying eels here too.
"Goul-ll!" A new swarm greeted me, rushing forward.
When I exited the acceleration, I couldn't say how, but it was almost certainly from shock. And my attempt to dart back "down," which had been down just a few seconds ago, changed nothing—they were waiting for me there too. And all of them were flying toward me...
I had to repeat the escape.
And then again. And again.
"Damn you!" After ten minutes of being chased by these delightful toothy creatures, who clearly intended to have me for dinner, I was outright panicking.
I couldn't maintain super-speed for long—my concentration faltered, and that thing that allowed me to fly, accelerate, and do everything else "supernatural" (probably that very "Kryptonian aura" that comic authors used to explain all of Superman's superpowers) simply relaxed, like a stomach that you try to suck in for too long. Flight didn't interrupt this relaxation—it required a different effort that didn't demand relaxation, but I couldn't constantly move in a frozen world, only in short bursts. And that would have been fine—this "short burst" was enough to break away and hide behind the terrain folds, where, logically, the pursuers simply couldn't see me, but these creatures somehow could see! And they constantly pursued! I tried to escape and hide, but it was all useless—I was being hunted like a pack of hounds, and with each minute, the pack grew larger.
"Gryl!" Meanwhile, another toothy maw unexpectedly appeared right around the corner—literally within arm's reach!
"Damn it all!!!" My vision flooded with a red "filter," and simultaneously, with a slight sting, the maw in front of me charred and burned to the tail in an instant, literally incinerated by a through-hole. "Yeah, bitch, burn!" I was still shouting in fright at the remains of the corpse that had begun to fall.
But that wasn't the only eel behind that rock I had flown to. And... I snapped. After all, I'm a cool American copy of a cool Kryptonian guy! Why the hell should I run from these Chernobyl mutant flying eels?!
So, grabbing the nearest large rock from the ledge, I accelerated again and unceremoniously smashed the head of the second eel, which was part of the ambush waiting for me.
And it was simple.
I didn't even feel the impact.
The overgrown leech simply splattered into a bloody mist with half its body. A very... unique experience.
But there was no time to reflect on it—I was already flying toward the next one to repeat the process. And, alas, my fears were not unfounded—the "frozen" freak suddenly began to move right before my strike, and not alone, but together with the others. And let me tell you, that was creepy. Really creepy. But... it was also good because it helped me re-enter acceleration.
In the end, I finished them all off, but damn, it was hard—maintaining super-speed, flying, and at the same time hitting with the feeling of "opening the valve," that is, with Kryptonian force. I simply lacked the habit and experience. These were different actions, like walking, dialing a number on a phone, and lifting a dumbbell. Walking and dialing a number isn't difficult; walking and lifting a dumbbell with your arm is also more than doable, but lifting a dumbbell and dialing a number at the same time—now that's very difficult, and if you're also on the move, having to weave between obstacles... I wasn't ready for that!
Fortunately, I got lucky, and the mistakes I made didn't require payment—yes, when a "frozen" leech suddenly starts moving right in front of your nose, it's creepy, but between the two of us, the leech was more freaked out, since its potential meal "suddenly" turned out to be not where it was supposed to be. And there, on a mix of fear and adrenaline, I would accelerate again and smash it with a piece of rock. Generally, judging by how easily the heads of these things were crushed, I could probably have hit them with my bare hands, but for some reason, I didn't want to touch these freaks with my bare hands. Not so much out of disgust, but more on reflex. In the sense that... well, a punch with your hand is always weaker than a hit with a good stick or rock—it's that primal knowledge ingrained in us since our ape ancestors, who once picked up sticks and rocks and thus became the dominant species in the world...
The problem was that after wiping out the ambush, I didn't get rid of the pursuers—and there were a hell of a lot of them. That is, before the last convulsions of the previous monsters had even faded, a new batch was already approaching.
"This is getting less and less appealing," I said, throwing a rock at the nearest creature... I missed, but judging by the thud, I managed to hit someone else I hadn't even seen. Considering that I could throw pebbles far... "No, I really don't like this!"
The heat vision, now without any straining sensation, tinted my gaze crimson and began to burn through the monsters' bodies precisely where my focus was directed. In response, dozens of them began to neatly slice open, char, or even explode with a loud "pop."
And here, I must admit, I didn't exactly start enjoying the process, but I did feel a certain interest and a complex cocktail of emotions. You know, where you're a damn Superman in some creepy dimension, mowing down creepy creatures. For the full ambiance, all that was missing was some brutal death metal soundtrack, a magic sword, or at least a double-barreled shotgun with a chainsaw. I wouldn't have refused a gorgeous beauty to save, either.
"Khh..." The last eel-leech from the hundred that had just been chasing me finally scattered its charred brains, and I imaginarily wiped away imaginary sweat.
No, I wouldn't mind cosplaying as Dante or the Punisher, and becoming a real Superman is cool. Feeling literal monsters disintegrate into dust at your gaze is an indescribable sensation, but... I'd still like to understand how all this happened. And how to get out of here. And what to do in general—also. But one little problem didn't go away...
"Gryyyyylllllhhhh!" A new horde was coming at me.
"Bastards!"
About an hour later.
"How many of you are there?" This was already the eighth wave. Or the tenth? "Just die already!"
Gripping a sharp, meter-and-a-half-long rock fragment more comfortably, I "pushed myself off space" and, pouring all my fury into the effort, accelerated my body to a speed where the forward tip of the fragment began to crumble and ignite. About a minute of subjective perception at full acceleration, and a fraction of an instant in real time, after which a flock of "sky eels" scatters in pulverized chunks of meat, not so much from the collision with the rock as from the shockwave it created by breaking the sound barrier.
The useless remnant of the rock that couldn't withstand such trials flew into the head of another creature moving toward me closer to the ground, thus avoiding the aerial execution, while I descended in search of a new projectile.
Flying through a formation of monsters without a projectile was pointless—those I directly crashed into burst like overripe tomatoes, but the others, even those closest to them, took no damage because my body created no shockwave. The Kryptonian aura (I wasn't entirely sure that in the real world this would be the correct term for the mechanism of Superman's abilities, but the word "aura" sounded better than "that thing, you know, the one that does all that stuff"), by which I flew, completely enveloped my body and suit, thereby somehow crudely sending physics on a tour of the genitalia of half the universe. As a result, I needed something that would make physics work, and that something could only be large rocks. I felt that my aura slightly extended to them at the point of contact, but it didn't cover the entire object itself, and that was enough for me to create vacuum explosions for my pursuers.
"Gylr!" Another toothy maw eagerly announced its appearance, this time not emerging from behind the local mountains but descending from the infernal clouds.
"Yeah, bitches, come here!" Having already torn out the piece I needed from the ground, I rose to meet them.
A few more hours passed.
"Hah... so, are we done?" I crushed the head of another flying nightmare with my bare hands.
During that time, I had managed to beat them with huge chunks of rock, run from them again, roast them with my gaze, freeze them with my breath, completely lose my mind, and start simply tearing them apart with my bare hands... Plus, I found out that I physically couldn't shoot a heat beam from my hand, even if I formulated the thought very well and "moved" that sensation of an opening valve in the right... I don't know... configuration. What I could do with my eyes, I couldn't do with my fingers. And similarly—an exhale, combined with a slightly different form of opening that same valve, caused a gust of storm wind to roll through the air, instantly enveloping all the space in front of me in white steam with tiny ice crystals, but if I repeated the same thing without exhaling and focusing on my hand—no reaction, no effect.
And yet, no matter how elaborately I slaughtered these flying leeches, it felt like there were no fewer creatures because of it. Moreover, any animal, even the most beaten-down honey badger, would have either run away from such a stubborn "prey" or started eating the corpses of its kin, of which I had already piled several impressive heaps, but these creatures persistently charged exclusively at me, completely ignoring the piles of meat already lying around.
"Grouuu!" Meanwhile, the surroundings responded with a malicious roar.
"We're not done..." I sighed, turning another couple of freaks from the new wave into icy statues.
Several more hours later.
"... " I really wanted to curse, but I couldn't find the words. Not even profanities. These things just wouldn't end! Not at all! No matter how many I killed, a new wave always arrived. And no matter where I tried to escape, they flew after me, as if somehow sensing me. And they didn't care about their own wounds or the deaths of their kin. And that was bad. Very bad. Even though my body showed no signs of fatigue—as I understood, the suit could gather energy from the environment, and it was enough for me to live and even fight actively—but my consciousness and mind would eventually need rest, not now, but in a day or a week, they would. I had already zoned out a couple of times and couldn't maintain concentration. And that was really bad. Because these things... could bite through my skin. Yes, with difficulty, yes, wounds and even holes in the sleeves of the suit healed fairly quickly, but the fact remained! And given that these monsters didn't end, it seemed I had a problem.
And many more hours without sleep or rest.
"It seems there are fewer of them..."
"Raaau!"
"Or not, my mistake..."
And again...
"Maybe bury myself in the corpses? Or dive into the lava to end it all?"
To say I was fed up would be an understatement. I had no idea how much time had passed in this slaughter—probably two or three days of fighting. The corpses of flying eels already covered the natural fields, paving all the bizarre twists of the chase that had taken place. I had killed tens of thousands, if not millions, and they just kept coming and coming. This was definitely unnatural, and considering that their teeth could pierce Kryptonian skin... probably magic. But that didn't make me feel any better.
But after a few more hours of slaughter, when I stood in one place and decided to exhaust them in this area, the monsters finally seemed to run out, though they left behind natural mountains of smoldering, stinking meat. Although... I had long since stopped breathing to avoid that smell.
And just as I allowed myself a glimmer of hope, I heard some suspicious stomping.
"Sigh..." A heavy sigh escaped me. If it was stomping on the ground, maybe I could fly away and hide somewhere? Worth a try...
Alas, hiding didn't work. Though these "stompers" were somewhat less mobile than the flying leech-eels, they kept track just as well. And as for mobility—I wouldn't say they lagged far behind the fliers. In short, all I could do was sigh and wait for a new wave of monsters—unlikely to be anything else, but since the fliers had run out in the area, that meant I could also reduce these to zero and perhaps finally rest. Having made this decision, I simply settled onto the ground, waiting for it to reach me, crawl to me, or however it moved...
But the pursuers turned out to be somewhat more "interesting" than I expected. No, in the crowd there were also just clusters of tentacles and maws, and pumped-up brutes with varying numbers of limbs, eyes, fins, and who knows what else, vaguely but still resembling humanoids. But my attention was drawn not to them, but to some tall, lanky creatures riding on some of the monsters.
They didn't look great—two pairs of eyes burning with crimson fire on a red face didn't make them charming, but first, they were riding, meaning they used the local fauna as tools; second, they wore pants, boots, and something like desert robes. That is, clearly artificial things. This, in turn, meant they were intelligent. And they reminded me of someone... Ah, and there was a suspicion that such cuties, if they belonged to the "good," did so only in the sense of "grab as much of others' as possible, and what you can't grab—break." Good, in the sense. But there wasn't much alternative, and trying to establish at least some communication was better than not trying at all.
But at first, we didn't manage a dialogue. In the sense that the "riders" stopped, exchanged a couple of remarks in an unfamiliar guttural language with smirks, and... waved their hands at me, clearly indicating to the other monsters their target.
The herd of infernal filth howled-squealed-hissed-bubbled and, as one, lunged at me, while the four-eyed, red-skinned riders watched with interest.
To say that I didn't like this move would be an understatement. However, these guys remained the only option to find out where I was. And so, I needed to talk to them. But apparently, I would first have to kill all their pets (or whatever they were), so my hand automatically tore a large piece of rock from the ground and immediately hurled it with all my available strength at the center of the attacking mass.
However, despite the situation, I somehow managed to think not exactly rationally, but at least to calculate my actions a couple of steps ahead. Thus, although I knocked down a dozen large creatures with the throw, I decided to hold back some of my arsenal and, instead of accelerating with the use of heat vision or supersonic flight, decided to start by limiting myself to super strength.
After several days of continuous battle, even the most peaceful person would abandon any complexes about using force and learn to strike decisively. My body had also been trained to fight, and although these weren't entirely my knowledge and experience, I had time to master them.
The first monster to reach me, close to human size, was simply torn apart by my counterblow, which crushed its skull with the end of its spine so that the bones of the skeleton, from the received impulse, tore through the muscles and skin, scattering around. I tore off a tentacle from the second while simultaneously kicking through the body covered in many eyes. I ripped open the gaping maw of the third, which was about to bite, literally tearing off the jaws along with pieces of the skull and using the body as a club to fling a group of other monsters away. The fourth took another blow between the eyes, crushing like a squashed pumpkin. The fifth...
"Guys, can't we come to an agreement?" I said, tearing off a clawed limb from another creature and ramming it into the mouth of yet another, finally attempting diplomacy.
"Grrrrrlkhraaa!" the crowd of monsters pressing in from all sides replied, but the riders... I could no longer see them behind the bodies of the surrounding freaks, but I was ready to swear that my super-hearing caught snickers.
And you know, after tearing apart who knows how many more angry, psychopathic freaks, I started thinking that I could "politely talk" with one or two humanoid monsters. And also—that if I flayed their comrades in front of them, they would definitely appreciate my level of politeness and, dare I say, courtesy, and agree that they needed to be friends with me and provide valuable information.
But I didn't get to carry out these actions for one simple reason: one of these jerks flicked his hand, instantly stopping the remaining living creatures, and finally deigned to speak. And yes, they were jerks.
"Well, well, not bad for mortal scum, you managed to defeat these lowly ones," the voice of the speaking monstrosity was as appealing as his appearance. That is, slightly more melodic than the scrape of a knife on glass. And the words themselves... I had heard the Great and Mighty, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow... emaciated? No, not the right word. Wrong? Not that either... Hard to understand, and the timbre of the voice and its "beauty" didn't make the analysis easier.
"Listen, I don't want to fight anyone. I don't even understand how I ended up here; maybe we can just go our separate ways if you're not eager to help me?" I already knew we wouldn't part ways. The one who literally exuded contempt at the level of the most hardened thug multiplied by a haughty aristocrat, or even the not-to-be-named-at-night Young Master-cultivator from Chinese xianxia...
"Fight?" the jerk justified my "hopes." "We are the sons of the Great Trigon, not these animals. We won't stoop to mere blows," the surrounding lackeys of this obvious leader fawned and jackal-like laughed. Though from their bared mugs, it was clear that, given the chance, they would gladly join the "animals" and quite "stoop," but they obviously didn't want to tangle with a creature that had torn apart something three times larger and more armored than themselves. Just a minute... Did he say "Trigon"?
Before I could finish this thought and utter the sacrament "Fuuu—," while recalling everything the writers had come up with about one of the main evil and insurmountable mystical threats to the universe, another event occurred:
"Leave him!" a pleasant female voice sounded from above, and down to us descended... Raven?
A short girl in a blue cloak with a hood, the same blue... well, it most resembled a closed swimsuit with sleeves and fingerless gloves, though it left the armpits exposed, from the lower edge of which began tights descending to low, equally dark blue boots. The clasp on the cloak was made in the form of a red round stone in a golden setting, and the same stones were sewn onto the backs of her gloves. And her skin was red, and on her face, two pairs of crimson eyes shone brightly.
This was 100% Raven—one of the key characters in the "Teen Titans" series, and I'd be damned if she didn't look exactly like the Raven who appeared in the series of full-length DC Universe cartoons, where there was no Young Justice League, and the senior one formed during the repulsion of Darkseid's attack on Earth...
I wouldn't say I was a big fan of DC Comics' work—yes, I loved their products, but mainly because my childhood coincided with the releases of the Superman, Batman, and Justice League cartoons, meaning that, like the average child, I got pleasant impressions from them and later didn't deny myself the pleasure of reading or watching something new about the adventures of the heroes I knew. However, this wasn't a mania of the "learn everything and clutter the shelves with collectible figurines" kind. Yes, I felt strong enough nostalgia to glance in that direction, even after growing a stern beard and mustache, but I wasn't a fan who followed the release of every product from a beloved brand and spent months digging through encyclopedias, striving to study every nickname and every adventure of every character. Essentially, DC Comics didn't differ in priority for me from Marvel Comics or some Japanese anime—both the second and the third were pleasant entertainment, allowing me to briefly escape from the gray and dirty reality, as well as the shameful attempts at fantasy by domestic cinema and animation during the twenty-year "rising from our knees" under stories about how we were getting off the oil needle while annually increasing its sales wherever possible.
In other words, I could easily not know half the characters in this universe, and even if I had seen them, I could easily not know their names or who they were (as was the case, for example, with one Black guy who liked to fly on manhole covers), but! I couldn't fail to know the most popular series and full-length films. And until now, I had been sure that I was in the world of "Young Justice," since the projects "Match" and "Kr" were from that series. And although I didn't remember a third clone there, I also hadn't really watched the third season, and everything else matched, even Superboy's outfit. But now I saw Raven, and not the Raven from the original Teen Titans series, but the Raven from the series of full-length films...
"Don't interfere, sister," one of the red freaks sneered as I tried to gather my thoughts, "you won't be able to save him anyway."
"He's not a sinner; you have no power over him!" And she didn't think of backing down.
"He is in the Father's domain, and thus—under our power," the main one bared his teeth in response. "Disappear and don't interfere if you don't want to get burned."
"Better yet, join us!" a second one echoed. "The Father will be pleased that you've finally come to your senses."
"Yes, it's time you understood your place," the third one chuckled.
"I'll decide my place myself," Raven said darkly, then slightly turned her head toward me: "Go, I won't be able to hold them off for long."
"You can't hold us off at all, stupid witch!" the main "talker" laughed and, abruptly jumping off his mount, dove toward me.
Thus, I didn't get a chance to engage in any dialogue, but I reflexively "flared" at him with my eyes, cranking the power to the maximum, but... His body turned into a cloud of smoke. I mean, it didn't burn, but simply transitioned into another aggregate state, while retaining two pairs of flame-burning eyes, and my heat vision beams passed harmlessly through this cloud.
I should have accelerated at that moment and dodged, but I was simply stunned—both by the opponent's "invulnerability" and by the realization of who I was dealing with. As a result, instead of this sensible and farsighted action, I only spasmodically increased the power of my heat vision. Somewhere "in the background," a female cry of "Watch out!" was heard, but... it was already too late: the freak, not wanting to burn under the stream of deadly radiation, literally crashed into me.
In the first moments, I didn't feel anything and even thought that it had missed. But then... wild pressure, weakness in my legs, blurred vision, and the feeling that I was swelling from within.
The Kryptonian aura went berserk—it was being torn, deformed, dissolved... by something invading my body. Something... hot, chaotic, and painful. And simultaneously, my skin burst into flames, my bones were pierced by a long, unrelenting pain, and a bell tolled in my head as if a red-hot needle was driven from the crown to the base of my spine.
The fact that I was screaming at the top of my lungs, unable to contain the agony, I realized only after a few seconds, when the blinding shock of the pain slightly subsided. Probably, if I had been an ordinary human, I would have died instantly, but I was no longer human and so, instead of passing out from the pain shock, I not only remained conscious but could continue to think. And strain my aura... Without a specific goal, without understanding what to do, without even a plan, just on the instinct of resistance and the desire to push out the filth that had invaded me.
"Surrender, mortal, you are too weak," a smug demonic voice echoed through my entire being.
And, you know, when you're in AGONY, the only reaction to the advice of pompous scum is rage!
How I came to hate that voice is beyond words, but what's more important, the fury flooding my mind allowed me to slightly dull the pain and... somehow helped my aura. At first, I felt that it became harder for that hot thing, which tried to dissolve it... taint it... I don't know... burn and invade every cell of me, from which this aura emanated... this thing found it harder. My aura trembled, oscillated like water under a gust of wind, but it managed to stop the spread of hostile energy, freezing with it in an unstable equilibrium that felt like it was cutting and burning me alive. Waves of agony rolled in almost unbearably, and if I had been my past self, I definitely wouldn't have endured it, but the Kryptonian brain didn't shut down. And gradually, grain by grain, I felt my body adapting to the influence, the aura stabilizing and beginning to absorb the incoming energy. Moreover, the body adapted, as if taking on some of the invader's properties... or the antiphase of these properties. And then, at one fine moment, the "needle" left my head, and the aura enveloped the foreign substance from all sides and began not just to absorb its radiation, but to absorb it quickly and rapidly, as if a hungry person were devouring a coveted piece of meat.
I couldn't say exactly how long this torture and confrontation lasted, but when my vision cleared, I found myself facing the same gang, only the recently living monsters lay like broken dolls, and in front of the talkative demons appeared some kind of cell made of red-black energy bars. Inside the cell sat a female figure in a blue cloak, slumped on her knees, whom these freaks were arrogantly addressing in guttural voices.
I s-l-o-w-l-y got to my feet, clenching my fists, feeling how my "aura" had become... No, not different, not quite... And not supplemented... Just it... um, had gained sensitivity and, ahem... the ability to interact with something that I hadn't even sensed before and of which these freaks consisted or used. And also—that this something had appeared in me as well.
"Oh, finally! Took you long, Velial, have you lost your touch and struggled so much with the soul of a mere mortal?" one of the female monsters sneered.
"I'm afraid your friend won't be answering you anymore," I felt the entity that had tried to enter me but had run into the upgraded aura of an upgraded Kryptonian and thus had been severely damaged and "nibbled on" finally destructuring and breaking apart, turning into a "hollowed-out" shell... something like a sunflower seed husk. Which I spat out.
"What..." another mid-tier demon began, but... I engaged acceleration and... simply burned the entire company with my gaze, adding to the "valve effort" a new... um... energy... this was more instinctive than conscious. But however it was, the demons were literally burned.
"Feel like an inquisitor, burn the demon!" My voice came out hoarse—I had been screaming for who knows how long... and I was speaking in a strange guttural language that, in theory, was probably not even intended for a human throat.
Actually, it would be nice to get out of here, hide in some hidden corner, and think over everything that had happened and the depth of the mess I was in. In short, the plan remained the same. But... I glanced at the cell that had begun to dissolve along with the demons' deaths, in which sat the red-skinned girl. Even if I was mistaken and she wasn't Raven, she had clearly tried to help me, and although the enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend, right now she was my only source of information, so I thought it was worth trying to communicate. Having made this decision, I finally exited acceleration and proceeded to act.
"Uh, hello?" I found myself in the air without even noticing, it was so much more convenient than walking, and descended beside the girl.
"(8_8)..." The expression on the red-skinned girl's face was... complex. The corners of her mouth were downturned in what seemed like a permanently ingrained expression of inner sadness, her small, slightly upturned nose was frozen, not breathing, and two pairs of wide-open, crimson-light-emitting eyes stared at me in silent shock.
"Do you understand me?" Admittedly, I felt pretty stupid. And I had no idea what to do next. I mean, how to behave with a character from my childhood when meeting them in real life? How to act when they look unnaturally bright for the world you're used to, but are clearly not a contour drawing? How to act when they're also an extremely cute girl, even with two pairs of eyes, whom you, as a simple viewer, genuinely loved? No, of course, in my past life, I had many beloved female characters from various works who all fit comfortably in my heart, but it's one thing to love a fictional character and quite another to meet them face-to-face in reality and behave in such a meeting. I could love many cute waifus, but to meet and talk like this... this was my first time. And I was genuinely nervous. And that's not even considering the days of slaughter in literal Hell and the fact that she clearly hadn't had a good day either.
"(8_8)..." She cautiously nodded at me, not changing her expression at all.
"That's good..."
"... " We looked at each other and were silent. A—awkwardness.
"Uh... Do you happen to know how to get out of here?" Well, yes, it was a lame question, but what else was I supposed to ask a cute demoness in front of whom I had devoured one of her brothers and taken down two more? Start a conversation about the weather?
"(8_8)" However, the topic I chose was clearly not appreciated.
"Yeah... Our conversation isn't going well..."
"I..." Her eyes all together flicked down and to the right, "thank you for your help," she cautiously said in a low, slightly cracked but pleasant voice, "but we need to leave. The master of this place may notice the death of his offspring, and then... it will be bad."
"Alright, but where to go?" And she didn't mention the demon's name, although... I had read somewhere that a demon can always hear if someone "calls" them by name. Not a fact, but... why test it!
"I... can show you," she rose from her knees, clearly confused, and only after gathering a little courage did she look up at me again. "However... I don't see why you should trust me," in context, it was clearly implied "and why I should trust you." Obviously, the postulate "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" raised certain doubts not only for me.
"You tried to stand up for me and tried to warn me about that guy. Considering that I don't even really know where I ended up, and you're the only being in the last few days who hasn't tried to tear my head off, I have a certain credit of trust from my side," and also, since you stood up for me yourself, it means it's not just "because gladiolus," and you need something. Something that makes you reconcile with the risk.
I shook my head. The train of thought was, of course, logical, but somehow too misanthropic and cynical. The surrounding landscape, of course, didn't push me toward philanthropy and humanism, but still.
"Alright," the double eyes lowered again. "Then I'll cast a concealing spell on us now, and then—follow me."
"Okay..." I nodded, and the girl waved her hands, enveloped in Darkness, and, concentrating this Darkness from her hands into a thin film, as if wrapped us in it. Well, and it seemed to "absorb," disappearing from visible perception. But I felt this effect with my aura. And the aura began to absorb this thing. Something told me that the concealing cover wouldn't last long on me, and learning to somehow restrain the aura and make it "not devour" everything in a row was definitely not the time or place now, even if it was theoretically possible, in which I wasn't at all confident—this is beyond the body I consciously release it, but at the skin level it's always there...
"All right, let's fly," and, enveloped in a film of violet light, the sorceress soared.
"And where are we going?" I positioned myself next to her. "And, maybe introduce yourself?"
"To one of my hideouts... and, as far as I know the rules of politeness, the man should introduce himself first," and she turned away, seemingly a little sulking. And wrapped herself more tightly in her cloak. This... like awkwardness? From a half-demon witch? Although why not? Here we already have all sorts of nonsense happening.
But her question was interesting. I was about to thoughtlessly give my name, but then I realized I couldn't. In the sense that it was gone. My name. You know how it is when you forget a word—and no matter how hard you try. You know you just remembered it and it's a simple word, but you've forgotten it—and nothing. That's what happened to me. I remembered my life: school, university, work, my first girlfriend, and the sports ground near my house, but I had completely forgotten all the names of my relatives and loved ones.
And entering acceleration didn't help! No matter how much I strained my memory, making the world around me freeze, nothing came of it. A minute passed, then a second, then a third—and no result. I couldn't remember anything "mine" except the name of the project from Lex Luthor's laboratory. However, calling myself "Superior" could work as a superhero alias, but not as a personal name for communication! And what to do, I once again didn't know... There were no problems with names from books, games, TV, or even just strangers I had met in my life, but with my own name, there was a complete block. But I had to answer something... And preferably not Superior...
Spasmodic attempts to invent a name for myself also didn't go very successfully. Random ones looked stupid, names of historical figures turned out even stupider, and the idea of borrowing something from books turned out to be completely bleak. I seriously began to fear that during these days of forced brain shutdown, when it worked only in the survival and killing paradigm, I had genuinely become stupid. And how else to call it if nothing smarter than Clark Kent stubbornly didn't come to mind? But even though I was, to some extent, Superman, calling myself by his name, when he was alive and well here, was something pathetic and shameful, and something else that would be associated with my role...
"Henry Cavill," I said, coming out of acceleration. Because, strangely enough, yes—I really did look like this actor, and this name didn't evoke such crippling shame in me as the thought of calling myself Clark Kent. Plus, having considered this option from all sides, I found no downsides.
"Raven," she sighed heavily, finally confirming her identity. "And now be quiet, I need to concentrate to prepare the unlocking magic..."
The "preparation and flight to the place" took about five minutes, and the speed wasn't particularly high, but it became clear how the girl had come across me at all—I had practically been fighting right above her head. As for the hideout itself, it looked like a cave (which it was). We flew up to a piece of unremarkable rock, the sorceress waved her hand, I felt some strange fluctuation of a strange thing with my "mutated aura," as a result of which a hole formed in the rock, into which, obeying the gesture of my companion, I flew. Another gesture and fluctuation—and behind my back was solid rock again, and in the corridor, "flames" flared up in the form of tongues of dark blue fire. They gave little light, and there was no heat at all, but even an ordinary person could avoid bumping into the wall with such lighting, and I, perhaps, could even read with minimal inconvenience. Obeying the guide's gesture, I moved forward, thus entering the main cave. And yes, it was a cave with a rather uneven and roughly carved floor, walls, and ceiling. And a stone table. And a couple of chairs. And a bed, also stone, on which at least something like, um... something between tanned hides and fabric was laid. In general, a rather spartan setting, to put it mildly. The only thing that stood out in this place was the bookshelf carved into the wall, or rather, the books that stood in it. Although they looked frankly sinister and creepy, they differed in the craftsmanship of the covers. Some covers were even forged from some kind of metal and decorated with precious stones... And bound with chains with some kind of seals on them.
"Quite... cozy," yes, it was a stupid phrase, but I had to start the conversation somehow.
"Thank you," she replied dryly, avoiding looking at me.
"And... do you live here?" The room could hardly be called livable. No, I noticed a passage blocked by another hide, but rushing around and looking to see what was behind it would have been not very polite on my part. Very not. Moreover, from the atmosphere of this room, it was clear that there was no talk of any comfort.
"More like hiding," Raven replied, taking a couple of steps toward the bookshelf but stopping, not reaching it, as if she also didn't know what to do and how to behave.
"From those three?"
"Not only," she immediately replied, as soon as my voice faded. "The local ruler... his name is Trigon. He believes that battles and pain are the best ways to learn... to be a demon."
"So the local monsters attack you too?"
"Demons."
"Pardon?"
"They were lesser demons and demonic animals," Raven explained. "You are in the domain of one of the Archdemons..." She hesitated for a second, though she still didn't turn to me after taking those couple of steps. "And no, they don't attack me... without orders."
"Hmm, apparently I did die in that machine and wasn't a very good person..." And what else was a normal person supposed to say in my place?
"No. You're alive," two pairs of crimson eyes did briefly glance in my direction, "as I can see," and turned away again, hiding in the shadow of the hood. "And there are no sins on your soul," the girl continued. "At least, not heavy enough to be 'pulled' into this place..."
"Well, you seem to be explaining, but it's not getting clearer..."
"Sorry... I haven't talked to anyone... normally for a long time," her fingers trembled slightly on her hands, and my Kryptonian hearing, as I focused on this, clearly caught the frantic beating of her heart.
In general, finding myself in a calm environment, I was able to notice that I heard perfectly well what was happening beyond the walls of the cave and, in general, many different sounds that, as a human, I could distinguish at best in complete silence. Now they were all accessible to me and stood out just as easily as the speech of a specific person with whom you are talking in the same room. At the same time, I really heard the rumble of lava rivers, the hiss of sulfur streams, the crackling of stones, the howl of the wind—literally everything that was happening, probably within a good kilometer in all directions, but my consciousness simply didn't perceive these noises, as ordinary people's consciousness ignores the familiar sound of a computer fan or the chirping of birds outside the window. To focus on something specific—to pick it out from the general noise—was possible, but it didn't bring any deafening effect. And it couldn't, as I now understood. The sounds were all distant, most of them quite quiet; I could just pick them up with some paranormal-aura method of the Kryptonians, but this didn't make them stronger, and they didn't start pounding my eardrums with the force of an artillery shell, which was the only thing that could, in theory, threaten the integrity of Kryptonian flesh. If I didn't concentrate, then in the background for me there was just some unobtrusive hum of "nature," little different in perception from what I heard walking down the street when I was an ordinary human.
However, all this was unimportant now.
"Those creatures called you sister, and you say that lesser demons don't attack you on their own," remembering how nervously Raven reacted to the possibility of revealing her origins to her friends in the old series, I understood that the topic I raised could be painful for her, but I needed to continue the conversation somehow, at least to show that I didn't consider her a monster. "Am I correct in understanding that you're a demon, not of the lesser kind, and you have some conflict with your kin?"
"... " The sound of her heartbeat intensified, and the girl took several deep breaths through her nose, though trying not to betray this gesture in any way. "Yes. You're right," the words clearly came hard to her, and after saying them, Raven froze, waiting for my reaction.
"Alright... What do we do next? What's the plan?"
"You... are asking me?" The face of the girl who turned to me took on a very... strange expression. Even more shocked than there—by the dissolving cell, where she stared at me in bewilderment as if I were the eighth wonder of the world.
"Well, obviously, you're much more familiar with this place than I am, having ended up in this world a couple of days ago and only doing my best to fend off a crowd of demons."
"And you... won't try to kill me after learning that I'm also a demon?" Two pairs of eyes, in which no white or iris could be seen behind the mystical glow, blinked.
"I already heard those three calling you their sister," I shrugged, nodding at the wall. "Nothing has changed. You tried to help me and didn't try to kill me. Besides," another shrug, but this time slightly awkward, "I myself am a living weapon," I saw no point in hiding this information, but opening up to show my trust was more than reasonable.
"A weapon?" Raven blinked in bewilderment again.
"I was artificially grown in a laboratory. According to my creator, he wanted to create the perfect continuation of his genetic line, a living embodiment of the triumph of reason and science over the brute strength of beings naturally endowed with supernatural power. But when they finished uploading basic knowledge to me via telepathy and were already preparing to transport me to the place where I would live further, the laboratory was attacked, and as a result of the blow, I was thrown into an experimental teleportation device based on alien technology. It worked—and I ended up in this world."
"So you... have been locked up since birth and never seen the outside world?"
"I..." Well, yes—I had never seen with my own eyes the world where this body was born, except on a screen. "I have images in my head... And don't look at me as if I'm mentally retarded—I was taught not only by uploading knowledge via telepathy, but also in the normal way... And I know what demons are if that's what you're thinking. I don't feel aggression toward you not because I'm ignorant on the subject, I just judge those I meet by their actions, not their origins."
"Then..." For some reason, my words upset her; she even turned away again, "you definitely won't want to have anything to do with me when you find out what I've done."
"Are you talking about killings in this world?" I didn't understand such a reaction. "Were you forced to kill people?"
"No," she shook her head. "In this world, there are souls of people. Sinners. But I didn't kill them."
"Then who..."
"... My mother," Raven whispered quietly. "Her and... all my friends."
"... " I didn't know what to answer to that. At all.
"A lot can be said," she began after several long seconds of silence, lowering her head. "I think it started with my mother," she sighed with bitterness and long-standing sorrow. "She was young, rebellious, and trusting. And as a result, she fell into a cult..." The words fell in chopped pieces, as if squeezed out of her, and Raven... she wasn't looking at me, but I literally felt with my skin that the sorceress was now watching every wrinkle on my face. Watching and... expecting the worst. "They decided to perform a classic ritual of offering a bride to Satan," the red fingers on the girl's hand, hidden from me by her body, trembled slightly. "Guess who became the happy bride," bitter sarcasm broke through in her quiet voice. "I doubt anyone expected success..." She sighed again, this time with a touch of fatalism, and then bitterness sounded in her voice again: "But the ancient ceremony turned out to be quite real. And so, my mother, with her characteristic lack of judgment, without hesitation, gave herself to the one who appeared from the smoke... It got worse from there," a new, almost inaudible but distinguishable sigh to me. "My mother escaped from the cult and hid on her own. Then she was saved by people from another dimension. The people of Azarath. A world of beauty, harmony, and tranquility. Where... well, there's no point in arguing, I didn't belong there. And... apparently, I inherited my mother's lack of judgment, because I decided that if I learned about the monster that created me, I would better know myself," Raven's head lowered even further. "I performed a magical ritual. And he came... Azarath burned in flames. All the people who taught me, who cared for me from birth, perished in seconds in Trigon's infernal flames. And my mother too. I became his Trojan horse for Azarath... Then he took me to his infernal world," Raven closed her eyes, then fully turned to me. "Now you know."
Her voice, facial expression, the tilt of her eyelids over two pairs of eyes... all of it screamed some kind of... I don't know... proposal? Question? Desire? I knew Raven's story, or rather, several versions of it, differing in details but sharing one thing—the girl was needed by her archdemon father as an Antichrist to bring him to Earth, and her own opinion didn't interest him. I had heard this version in that very full-length cartoon, whose sorceress's appearance my interlocutor so strongly resembled. But... hearing it now—hearing it live, from a living being standing before me and addressing me—I piercingly clearly understood that she had truly lost everything, survived a catastrophe, and was literally thrown into Hell. She didn't yet have the Teen Titans who became her new friends, didn't have a life on Earth far from her father and brothers; she was completely alone, and by her own words, she hadn't spoken to anyone for a long time except those self-satisfied creatures, from whom it wasn't worth expecting any understanding or moral support, let alone dreaming of it. And how long had she been living like this? A year? Two? Ten? Outwardly, she was about eighteen, maybe twenty. She was about ten centimeters shorter than me, but her chest was developed, and all her body proportions were far from childish. Even with all my desire, I couldn't give her fourteen years, as it was at the beginning of that old series. And also demonic blood... How much slower did she age? Did her aging stop upon reaching certain physical conditions? And even if not, even if she hadn't been here for a decade but only a year or even a month... How much had she had to endure? What had she gone through? What pain had she experienced from guilt, loss, and life in hell?
"I know," I echoed, not spending even a second on my thoughts. "You brought destruction to an entire world. Out of your own naivety, you became an accomplice in the murder of millions," at the sound of my words, Raven shrank and slumped, as if struck, but... not unexpectedly, but expectedly, and even as if desired. "However... this changes nothing."
The crimson eyes looked up at my face again in undisguised surprise. Truly, she hadn't talked to anyone for a long time...
"I understand what you did," I met her gaze, stepping toward her. "I understand how terrible it is... Even if... I'm unlikely to fully comprehend and feel it as you do. And I definitely won't come up with words that can ease your pain. But I understand that your guilt in this is the guilt of a victim, not a perpetrator. And you still didn't attack me and tried to help. So..." Now standing directly in front of the girl, I slowly raised my hands and cautiously embraced her, pressing her to me and feeling her body tremble under the cloak, "I'm not sure I'm the right person... well... who can help," I said, leaning toward the red ear of the demoness who hadn't made a single attempt to resist my embrace, "but I won't judge you."
"You..." came quietly from below in a soft, slightly cracked voice, "don't need to say that. I would have helped you anyway..." still trembling, though desperately tensing her muscles and maintaining her posture, Raven murmured.
"I'm not saying this to earn your help," I replied without moving.
"... " She was silent, only her forehead slightly stirred, touching the fabric of my suit, and nothing more. No movement, no words, only the trembling of her body in my embrace slowly subsided, and her galloping heart slowed its pace. "Thank you..." she whispered after a few minutes, and... her hands timidly embraced my torso, and the pressure of her face became stronger.