The entire world witnessed the brutal end of Darkseid's biggest weapon and the leader of the resistance. They know that it signalled a new age--one without heroes in the light.
They know that the bodies of Superman and the Batman were never recovered.
This was made for the Superbat Reverse Bang 2022, in collaboration with Atanhi88’s fic Epilogue!
Rather than do individual mood boards for Batman and Joker, I decided to do one based on the Knightmare scene from Zack Snyder’s Justice League because I thought it was pretty amazing and I’m hoping somewhere down the line we see more of these two. Not holding my breath though.
(Warning: Knightmare timeline canonical character deaths mentioned, additional character deaths mentioned.)
Mera wonders if this dry, brittle agony is what the Deserters felt as their kingdom died out. All around her is sand and heat and destruction. Only a gas can of home to carry.
There is an empty cavern in her chest; her heart has been gutted and removed, leaving a hollow cavity where the loss of Arthur and Atlanna and the rest of her world echoes like lonely whalesong.
“Grief will eat you from the inside out if you let it,” the mercenary tells her one night, as they sit watch.
Night guard is done in shifts of pairs. There’s always two; in this apocalypse they can’t be too careful.
“And what would you know of grief? You murdered countless people for money.” Mera’s words are laced with venom. She thinks her tongue has become full of it. These days she finds she cannot speak without the bitter taste of it coming through.
Slade pays it no mind. “Even the worst people can feel grief, your highness.” He does not bother with the fishy insults the clown delights in. He mocks her only with her broken title. “I’ve lost plenty of family over the years. Most by my own doing.” He grows quiet then. More solemn than she’s seen before. “But not my daughter. My Rose, that was him.”
Him. They don’t say his name. Maybe because that’s no who he is anymore; not any of them. Not Kal El. Not Clark Kent. Not Superman.
No, his name might as well be Darkseid, because he is only a puppet. It does not take the sting of betrayal from his actions. From the losses they’ve suffered at his hands. At his eyes.
An apology dies in her throat; what would it matter? It would be insincere. Her grief and anger swallows up the brief flare of remorse his confession brings. Or maybe it is what’s left of her pride. Mera has become as brittle and cruel as this apocalypse.
“We’ve all lost someone in this war. We all have a stake in it. You let it get too personal, you get reckless.” He looks at her then, his one-eyed gaze sharp. “And then nobody is left to avenge your Arthur or your home.”
The words make her flinch. Her new greatest fear. All she has left to lose now; her vengeance and the faint, flickering hope of saving the past.
“What becomes of us if Batman’s plan works? Will it be my Arthur we save? Will it be me by his side? Are we saving our timeline or another’s?” She hasn’t given voice to these thoughts before, but in this vulnerable moment of confessions Slade has started, they spill out like overflow.
The mercenary shrugs. “Does it matter?” He sounds ragged. Weary. It does matter, but it can’t matter. That kind of altruism is ill-fitted on him, and he knows that best.
Mera has to remember she isn’t the only one hollowed out by this war. She isn’t the only one whose tongue is full of venom or whose chest is an empty cavity. It’s easy to forget.
Easy to be eaten up from the inside out, until she’s just a vessel for her grief and rage.
“No. I suppose it doesn’t.” She meets Slade’s pointed stare. The poison has left her words, the fight gone from her for tonight. Now it is only a bone-weary defeat she feels. “Maybe that’s the worst part.”
