AU where Darkseid had a little too much fun with his OCs in the absolute universe and was planning a new kind of world. Plans got scrapped for this idea in favor of the ever-enticing universal domination. One thing leads to another, and the omega beam scepter, the breaking technology that harnessed his own omega beams into a portable scepter to give to his most trusted general to use against the biggest thorns in his side, got replaced with his Omega beam scepter, the half-finished whimsical artifact he was going to use to construct a new universe.
Surely that won’t end up being a problem.
And funnily enough it isn’t. Or at least, at first. When Darkseid got the alert that the Justice League had gotten wind of his universe-conquering plans, he grabs the wrong staff and hands it to Steppenwolf for a test run. No sense in dirtying his hands with weak Earth scum now that his omega scepter can do it for him. He wasn’t really looking to launch his evil plan to enslave the universe quite yet, so getting to use the Justice League as his personal punching bag is both cathartic and useful. Gods like him don’t hold grudges against mere mortals, it must be a cosmic common experience to get so much enjoyment at watching Superman get thrown into a building.
He loosely monitors the (goddamnit I said I wouldn’t start writing an actual story blurb what the fuck am I doing) scene, getting updates from Steppenwolf on the success of the new omega scepter. He is surprised to hear that the chatty Green Lantern, who acts as an initial shield for the team, was not in fact disintegrated into dust, but merely flung a good distance away. Miffed at the failure of his weapon, Darkseid orders Steppenwolf to keep a close eye on the Lantern while still using the scepter. Maybe the distance from Apokolipse to Earth was causing some omega-latency issues…?
Steppenwolf reports that the Lantern had gotten up, but seemed to be heavily distracted, reeling around as if seeing the world for the first time. After dutifully describing the Lantern buckling to his knees and hurling, Darkseid had heard enough.
If the omega scepter wasn’t useful as a weapon of mass destruction then might as well do as much disruptive damage with it as possible.
Darkseid orders Steppenwolf to prioritize blasting all the Justice League with the scepter and then retreat. Being a god didn’t mean he was above some good ol’ trial and error testing.
With their main defenses left unable to stand, and the device being shown to the league as non-lethal, hitting the rest of the wary Justice League was not as difficult as it could’ve been. (Remind me to talk about my hc on league battle formations) By far the hardest to strike were Wonder Woman and the Flash, and oddly enough the easiest was the Bat.
Batman seemed to prioritize working on reversing the boom tubes to care too much about something he could just add to the list of smaller injuries when the possible fate of the world was at stake.
Wonder Woman was suspicious of the new weapon, and the wise goddess must have figured out that not everything was as it seemed with the leaguers that had gotten hit. Leave it to her to see the truth of a situation, even if Darkseid himself hadn’t yet realized his mistake. Steppenwolf eventually managed to land a shot on her by forcing Parademon generals to fire at the exposed Zatanna who was trying to diagnose the issue with Hal. Already blocking hundreds of shots with her cuffs, she just didn’t have enough resources to block the omega beam that came at her from the side.
And of course trying to hit a ranged shot on a speedster was like trying to hit a minnow with a rock. It took bringing several more of the League down for Flash to switch his speed role to aid and rounding up on the more affected members, a pattern that was predictable enough for the general’s brilliant mind that some spam fire eventually brought the scarlet speedster down to earth.
Darkseid’s order to retreat was not popular for the army, eager to crack some skulls of the vulnerable league, but ever loyal to their god they retreated.
If a single one of them had heard the faint tone of mortification in the order, they wouldn’t dare even whisper about it. But far away, on a hellish planet, seated on his massive throne, a god stared in despair at the real omega-beam scepter, now broken in a fit of rage and embarrassment, as he realizes that he had sent his…indulgent prototype for his new universe out to fight the universe’s mightiest heroes.
I don’t tag characters that don’t show up in posts, nor do I tag ships that don’t show up. There are more characters that got mentioned, there are ships (congrats on wondermagic being the first one to kinda show up, not tagging yet until actual stuff happens sorry queens) but one main part of this au is that “heats” and stuff work very VERY differently. It was just a prototype scepter after all. Was never a huge fan of some consent-iffy parts of omegaverse so I made some adjustments. But anyone following this au will have to find out along with our heroes.
Characters that will show up for sure: (more might come)
Batman (a single interaction idea I had with him inspired this whole ass thing)
Martian Manhunter (Underrated goat I love his autistic ass I have plans for you my good sir)
Definitely more characters but keeping spoilers low
Ships: (more could come and I am not immune to suggestions of poly or rarepairs as long as it isn’t weird shit)
J’onn x the concept of family
When I write or post or do anything it is for my own enjoyment. I’m open to suggestions on ideas for things to do in the au if they fit my very obtuse and vague general plans, that’s a bit it I guess. If I don’t post for a while it’s because I didn’t want to, my days of scheduling writing are over. With that out of the way, guess this is my first actual “joining” of the DC fandom. Nice place you got here.
I lied, final FINAL notes: help how do you tag characters on tumblr if they have secret identities. I figure I shouldn’t tag green lantern cause there’s a million of them but do I tag Batman or Bruce Wayne help.
