The World's First Monk (OCs, Isekai, LitRPG, Fantasy)

[Sahqoreyth]

Chapter 43: The Root of Ruin




Final Boss Room - The Rotfang Depths
​

Drake didn't have time to grasp how fucked they were. Dagorath simply attacked. The Monk's divine eyes read every stat related to the spells the unhinged God shard cast in an instant of their arrival. The first was Time Stop. Ninth Tier. Cast as one of his immediate and legendary skills, similar to what Ungoliant had. Rose and Elowir froze in place, while Drake remained unaffected. The insane shard of a murderous God, pointed directly at him with a grin that could've rivaled the Joker's.

The Chronognomon still let him move, but he just wasn't fast enough compared to stats that high. Gods constantly gained experience, but even they hit the level curve eventually. Still, almost twice what was considered the mortal 'maximum' of two hundred was more than enough to outpace the High Human Monk. Drake activated the Chronognomon, as Dagorath fired his spell.

Ninth Tier

Disintegrate

Instant cast
​

Dagorath's arm flared before Drake remembered he could've flicked the spell into nonexistence. But that would've required a shift in stance, and he'd burned his free and only action on turning his belt on. More than that, the mask was showing him things. Things from the past. An image of Dagorion, clad in the very mask now on his face, stormed by him towards Aeluinor but Drake didn't see what happened next. Time normalized as the obelisk the Chronognomon spawned appeared, nullifying the Time Stop in the circular area.

Elowir reacted the quickest, and acted first, using one of his own instant, legendary skills. He drew on the corrupted roots of his species' ancestral home, raising them into a layered shield that Disintegrate burned through. This close to the source, this caused massive disconnection to large parts of the Dungeon.

"Blades of Shielding Light!"

Elowir and Drake's eyes shifted, as their Light Sage got involved. Three ghostly facsimiles of the God's Paragons appeared in a trio before them, blades held downwards as a barrier of Laurelin's light encased them. Much like a certain card from a certain King of Game's dueling deck, the blades would protect them from damaging attacks for about fifteen seconds.




As the Disintegrate was blocked and Rose raised a period of much needed invulnerability, Drake finally acted. His Patron had quietly warned him against using Quivering Palm on this Dagorath. Given the level disparity, he'd been counting on that, but she assured him he had what he needed to survive this fight. Thus, he followed Elowir's lead. The Art of Doing Nothing emphasized that when one did actually do something, it mattered. Thus, Drake reasoned, they needed to separate Aeluinor from the overpowered God shard. That made his target, the roots.

The Monk stepped with the wind, as he opted for his Hidden Blades, and the earthen version of Harmonic Edge. He manifested the focused earth Ki around the magically enhanced orichalcum. They would stun what he hit, and apply bleeding damage over time. If what he hit was weak, like a vine, that effect would simply tear through it with each second that passed.

He clocked Dagorath watching him as he combined fire with earth on his blades, and spun through the ancient Ki-filled vines. He knew as soon as he stopped, Dagorath would strike, thus he raised his hood and activated his mirror as he finished his extreme gardening. Exact copies of himself appeared this time, hoods up and smirking confidently. The God shard responded by opening an equivalent number of glowing orange holes in reality above the Monks, but they slammed shut, as Elowir Counterspelled the Meteor Swarm.

Dagorath's response was just as quick. He burned an extra action on trying to Counterspell the Counterspell, and failed against the ancient Balance Druid's spellcasting proficiency. The shard's face shifted to a snarl of irritation, and he simply used yet another legendary tier action before casting something called Enuncia: Murder at the Vireolith. It seemed to ignore Rose's shield since it wasn't classified as physical or magical damage. Rose was ready though, and with something new. Something she'd created on her own, after listening to her Monk explain how he punched magic into not existing. She'd essentially created a caster version of that same principle, magically disrupting the flow of the caster's Ki, and thus also their magic. Since she manipulated Ki as often as he did, Drake had encouraged her to attempt it. Original spells and skills weren't unheard of, but the system rarely created fixed, reusable options for them.

Some, like Drake's Serious Punch, formed after an individual used the same combination enough times, while other examples included skills that changed to suit the user, and depended on how they had been used previously.




The mad shard of the God of Monsters shuddered with rage as once again the annoyingly competent 'heroes' defied his power. Before he'd even realized it, he'd burned through each of his extra actions, but he knew that with time, he would overpower them. He would recover those time-defying actions rather quickly, and Mortals had much harsher limits.

Drake had his clones activate Fury of the First Dragon, and then each one used Duel in the Heavens at once. Dagorath parried every single strike, as his body had the supernatural speed to react with his God tier eyesight. But Drake only needed one hit. Eight clones struck eight times each, but only two managed to actually break past Dagorath's defenses, and land a hit. The first did little damage, but the Buff's effect worked even on Gods, and sent him flying towards the direction Drake wanted.

The second hit sent him down, straight towards the Chronognomon's obelisk. Dagorath was fully capable of reading what it did, but it seemed he hadn't bothered to until he was about to crash into it. The Phantom Dagorath desperately stopped himself in the air inches from the obelisk, but as he turned, Elowir struck.

Natural magic boomed as the ancient Balance Druid unleashed his flurry of spells. Multiple Starfires hammered Dagorath forward towards the obelisk, and the final follow up rapid-fire Star Surge spells pushed him into touching it. His back sizzled with raw time magic, and the obelisk flared an ominous orange as it forcibly removed the shard's health and power. Not with damage, but by making the overall pool smaller. It also lowered his stats, magic, and even his level. Drake surmised that this was mainly due to what he was. A disparate shard of a God that'd been separated for millennia at this point. Against a 'normal' monster, it usually stole health points that he could then redistribute, but seeing this he now wondered if it reacted differently depending on a monster's type.




This too, was a plan of Vincent's, to deal with something vastly stronger than them. Ideally it would involve more party members, but it worked because it was simple: Drag the big bad evil thing into the time obelisk, then hammer it. Hard. Being drained applied a pretty gnarly Debuff, one granting all attacks against the drained creature ten percent more damage. Dagorath's level rapidly fell as the obelisk drained him from where his back had touched it, and yet, though he was not a God, he had the stats of one, and managed to pull himself off the obelisk, collapsing on the ground. Roots connected to him on the dungeon floor, and he managed to right himself, but the damage had been done.

The ordeal brought him down to level ninety, and he faced the trio, disoriented as his body tried to compensate and adjust to the sudden loss in stats. His ghostly nature also added to this stun window, as the system stuttered, trying to compensate for what the stats of a drained shard of a God tier entity would have. Even monsters were not designed to go above, and then back below, one hundred.

This pause gave Drake the opening he'd been waiting for. Vincent and the others had apparently been ambushed by the Vanwi once they'd stepped into the portal, but they still had backup.

"FAAALKOOOORRR!"

The massive white and black Luckdragon appeared behind the Monk Hero, and the dimensional echo's eyes widened, and flared with fresh crimson energy. For the first time, it spoke. "Im…Impossible! That was MY design!" Drake was glad for the reaction. He hoped upon dying, the real God of Monsters would see what a proper dragon actually looked like from this shard's memories.




Drake smirked. "There is nothing new in the Multiverse. And everything is Canon." He looked up at his Luckdragon. "All I have, I give to you! Falkor!" He designated the recipient of the energy the obelisk had stored, as was his right as the one wearing the Chronognomon. The aura of gathered energy surged into his draconic familiar. "Obliterate." He pointed at Dagorath, who hadn't noticed Rose and Elowir moving to shield what was left of Aeluinor in the face of a dragon superior to anything he could hope to create.

Falkor swelled in size, and strangely, the room expanded with him. Vines shifted, earth moved, and Drake had the sense that they were rising through the earth around them. Vaguely, he realized Laurelin was doing it, and he sensed her nearby, but far, far above them. Falkor burned every drop of his designated power on an intense torrent of golden dragonfire that completely tore through Dagorath as Drake further empowered it with firebending. He tried to shield himself, but the actual power level of Falkor's attack, using all the energy they'd stolen, was in the hundreds according to Drake's eyes.

When the light faded, nothing remained of the God of Monsters' ghostly shard. The obelisk crumbled into dust, and Drake noted the rather long cooldown time on the belt's activation had begun. The system dinged, and Drake grinned, as Falkor rumbled in approval. The system gave them so much experience that it boosted them to ninety. Actually, he noted, halfway through ninety. Still, the remaining gulf to ninety one was…soul crushingly larger than what he'd barely had time to mentally adjust to after Muraeneth and Ungoliant. By his measure, another Final Boss would only give him a single level, and barely get him very far into ninety two. Seeing these numbers confirmed what he'd suspected of the people he'd met and seen over that level one hundred threshold. There was a method of grinding he was as yet unaware of.

They'd definitely been lucky with this dungeon run, since Ungoliant and Muraeneth had given what their true levels were worth, plus their minions, and as he calculated that he hadn't gotten a full four and a half hundred levels worth of exp from Dagorath's shard, he'd still had more than Chronogrin. He was in the home stretch now. Ten more levels, and he'd finally know what all the hype about one hundred was.




As far as what he gained with it in terms of skills, Invisibility, from his Way of Shadow choice, was now Greater Invisibility, and his eyes widened as he got what seemed like the culmination of his original Path of Elements. Elemental Avatar, which would turn his body into, theoretically, any element he could bend.

As silence reigned over the space and Aeluinor pulsed, Drake went quiet, as the past image of Dagorath returned. He recognized what the murderous God had done now. Feamatie. A failed attempt, on a divine creature that was never meant to permanently die, such was its design. Barring direct damage to its core, Aeluinor was effectively immortal, though its petals had been intended to eventually shed and regrow.

The attempt shattered the young Dagorath into three pieces. The strongest retained its body and power, but Drake saw an aura of negative energy infusing him. Pure cosmic evil. A darkness born of Arda. It quickly moved to consume the shard of Dagorath, but that shard, in that instant looking very much like the son Laurelin deserved, had further split himself, into an all too familiar mask, leaving the phantom Dagorath defenseless, and mostly mindless.

The true God of Monsters infused it with darkness, and attached it to Aeluinor before departing, and Drake noted that it was Aeluinor itself that had hidden the mask in that moment. As the corrupted shard twisted the grove into what would become the Rotfang Depths, corrupting its natural guardians, the mask eventually vanished, swallowed by the system as it was classified as loot, and eventually, it was successfully looted by the elves. Though not even the strongest Identify could reveal the true importance of the artifact.




Drake exhaled, and the mask willingly fell off his face. He caught it, and stared at it as his sight narrowed, his clothes shifted back to their proper white and gold trim colors, and the power boost it granted faded. Even Prismrend returned to being a staff. He flinched, as he felt Rose's hand. Sound returned to his ears, as he realized he'd been so drawn in by the mask, he'd stopped hearing completely.

"Drake? Are you…alright?"

He smiled, genuinely, and that seemed to relieve her worried ear tilt. "I am. I'm great, in fact…this mask…might just be holding the real Dagorion. Or what's left of him." He explained what he'd seen, as Elowir listened with quiet interest, leaning on his staff for support. That fight had taken more out of him than he was letting on, but pinning the shard to the obelisk had been quite clutch. Another few rounds against that kind of absurdly unfair God tier action economy, and they likely would've died.

Shouting cracked the silence of the glade, as the rest of the Annihilators appeared through the once more present portal. "Tanks, deploy secondary shielding skills! Healers, ETA on your barriers! Continue backwards movement!" Vincent had kept them alive and in formation, but as the last Annihilator came through, Aslan, at the tip of the spear, what followed next was one of the as yet unseen Vanwi. Yet, Drake noticed immediately something was off.




They weren't…attacking, exactly, they were shambling forward. Menacingly. But to Drake's eyes, it looked like the system currently did not know how to classify the risen adventurers. Or their entrapped souls within their sap-covered bodies. But they weren't appearing as hostile, and the Annihilators had since stopped attacking them. They fell back around Aeluinor, as Drake brought Vincent and the captains up to speed. All around them, the Vanwi formed a softly groaning, rather foul smelling horde, and behind them, came the Thalanir.

Those who would have been Vireoliths were still very much hostile, yet they seemed hesitant to advance through the throng of Vanwi as walking forward meant crushing beings they had considered to be allies with their massive feet. Unable to advance or order the Vanwi to move, they ringed the edge of the horde, eyes burning with rage at the adventurers. Several started grabbing various rocks or loose branches to throw at them, but they soon ran out of ammo.

Before anyone could retaliate, the ceiling was ripped off. Like the top half of a broken egg shell, something was lifting centuries of dirt and vines and plant matter up, and off. Drake chuckled, as the dirt fell largely on the raiders. He'd sensed Laurelin nearby, but looking up, he hadn't quite realized she'd been literally present, and in a big way.

She was gigantic. Golden, incorporeal, and yet tangible enough to make out her features. Drake assumed this was closer to her true form as a Goddess, or at least, a form she'd taken during the genesis of this world. One of her blazing golden eyes flickered at him as he met her gaze, while every other sentient present, including the monsters, knelt in reverent awe.




"Drake. I must borrow your body, for this…and it will have consequences. I apologize, but…it is necessary for what must come."

He understood the underlying 'threat', but he wasn't enough of an obstinate jackass to ask what would happen if he refused her. He was her Paladin, after all. "I offer myself freely, Goddess. Whatever you need."

He felt her appreciation, as a sliver of her divine essence flowed into him, and for a moment, Drake had a hard time telling his thoughts from Laurelin's. He tried not to instinctively panic, and instead focused on the goal…which was, unsurprisingly, Aeluinor. In perfect synchronicity, the Goddess raised an open palm, and Drake did the same as he floated above the hemorrhaging plant. He could see it properly now, the torrent of Ki that the shard's absence had left. An ancient wound that had too long gone untended.

With a pulse of gold that radiated from the Monk, the pistil regrew, untainted, and the orange-tinged vines ran with gold, before fading into a natural, healthy brown. The pulse ran through the entirety of the Rotfang Depths, melting the raider's frost, and regrowing Aeluinor. Vines wrapped up and around every Vanwi and Thalanir present, wrapping them in pulsing golden coccoons, likely what the Nimrathil were always meant to look like. The system marked them all as allies, as the Nimrathil changed them, and Drake could tell it would take some time before whatever they would become next, would emerge.

After what felt like moments to Drake, Laurelin lowered their hands, and the possession was ended. Drake just felt…calm, in the wake of her leaving. They'd come together to accomplish something important, he was sure. It wasn't all that different from what he and Falkor did. As he examined himself, he didn't notice any negative effects or debuffs. But as he met the eyes of his Annihilators, he suddenly understood what Laurelin had meant by 'consequences'.




As an atheist on Earth, he knew that look in far too many of their eyes, and it made a chill run down his spine. He recognized it instantly, as it had been disturbingly common among those who claimed to be Christian, yet blindly, devotedly, and unquestioningly obeyed MAGA and every antithetical action they'd taken, funded, or otherwise supported at Dear Leader's behest that directly went against the teachings of their Christ.

It was blind, religious zeal. Absolute faith in the figure before them, in the wake of watching him perform a literal miracle as the hand of their Goddess. It didn't matter that here on Arcadia, there was a good reason for their dogmatic faith, hard evidence before their very eyes, to say nothing of the good he'd accomplished with her powers. He was acutely aware of how divine figures could be twisted by the powers that be. Ancient Rome had possessed a deep and accurate understanding of 'the Mob' and Drake had studied it in his past life, amazed that so many people could buy a story that, to him, had always seemed like yet another fairytale with truly shit tier lore. He expected Arcadia's version to be much more competent, and subtle.

He was going to have to get a jump on this, and Florian would be the key to making sure whatever Arcadian society turned him into, it ended up being beneficial to the masses.




"Drake." Laurelin's voice in his whirling head ceased the chaotic trains of thought. "This moment…is a turning point. And about as far as my foresight of future events could go. Aeluinor has a gift for you, in addition to the Final Boss Chest, of course." Drake's eyes shifted, and he chuckled as he saw Falkor already wrapped protectively around it, as no small number of the Annihilators stared at it with undisguised hunger.

"What you choose to do with this gift…alters many things. You can now speak with plants as easily as you can with animals. I will leave you to converse…I must comfort these poor souls around you, for they have a choice to make too." He felt her matriarchal concern for them, but he knew they were in good hands. His brain was buzzing around her mention of prophecy, and choice.

Very much aware of his raider's eyes upon him, Drake floated to the base of Aeluinor, and knelt, speaking softly. "Heyyy there…how're you feeling?"

Despite having the new spell, a free cast that lasted until his next long rest, ready and active, the plant did not respond with words. He'd been expecting something like Critical Role's Sun Tree, or Henry Crabgrass. What he got was a series of images, slow, deliberate, and tinged with…exhaustion. Aeluinor understandably had mixed feelings towards him. It recalled his ice, his warping of its pathways, and the reverberations he and his raid had caused each time they killed a minion of the dungeon. Then, most recently, and, he noted, painfully, the eradication by fire of the divine energy tumor that had been controlling and warping it for millennia.




A moment passed. The raiders shifted restlessly, but Vincent and Rose were keeping them from ruining the moment with their loot lust. As if to emphasize their point, Falkor, now at a level ninety dragon's size, placed a heavy claw atop the ornate elven-looking Final Boss Chest.

Aeluinor offered nothing more, and seemed ready to sleep and recover, to make use of this much needed uncorrupted Ki and resume its primary function. "I understand your exhaustion, and you have earned your rest…it's just…Laurelin said you had a gift for me. Or something."

The grove literally groaned, but Drake finally got actual words.

"A change…of race…an altering…of self." Another, lengthy pause. At least thirty seconds, but Drake waited through all of them patiently. "Choose…wisely."

Drake swallowed. Yea, a race change would do it. His immediate choice went to High Elf, but he needed more information. Laurelin's implication and tone made him wary. A simple shift from High Human to High Elf should not be consequential enough to warp timelines.

"Can…can I ask what races are available?"

Aeluinor went quiet again. For one minute. Three.




Finally, it responded. "The templates…that populate the Multiverse…are within my skill to recreate. Mother…has gathered many." A trickle of amusement flowed from the exhausted flower. An image of Drake himself, mocking Dagorath's shard as Falkor charged up the death blow. "Everything…is Canon."

Drake's eyes widened. "So…so if I said Vulcan…" Aeluinor hit him immediately with images of him with those pointy curved ears, longer eyebrows, and permascowl. Many of the images had him in his robes, more precisely folded and presentable, aboard what looked suspiciously like the deck of a starship. His mind whirled. Any race. Any race in the known Multiverse. Yea. That…that would fracture timelines. He tested a few more potential choices.

Tyrannosaurus Rex. He saw a comically large dinosaur moving through Kung Fu forms at the head of an army of what looked like mostly Lizardmen in Monk Gi.

Sylvari. He saw a plant version of his face, confident, smirking, as he faced down Tharvoss with Prismrend in hand. In that one, his robes had turned plant-like as well, blooming with crystals akin to Prismrend's.

He tried something more vague. Yoda's species. Yet, sure enough, he saw himself as a baby Yoda, which made sense given he was, at most, just over thirty, comically flipping about battlefields full of giant monsters, kept alive by his absurd proficiency with the Force. The only limits seemed to be Gods, or entities on their level, like an Elder Dragon of Guild Wars 2 or a Titan out of Warcraft.

Spoiler

​

"Oh…this…this is going to take a minute. Rest, Aeluinor. When I next speak with you, I will have my choice."




Drake was unfocused, for what came next. He didn't even properly process what he got from the Final Boss Chest, let alone what everyone else had. Even though he and his clones had passed it all out. Pretty much everyone had at least one Artifact Tier weapon or armor piece now, and many of the drops were amulets, rings, or other such trinkets that typically restored health on activation or improved their regeneration. Vincent was already calculating how much less stress the healers would have to deal with now, but Drake was too distracted to do more than grunt in surprise. There were just too many choices, and, he realized, this choice affected more than just himself.

He eventually explained things to Rose, as she and Tala admired their new, matching, extremely-useful-for-healers boots that'd been more like extra drops from the chest, but still ridiculously strong given it was a Final Boss's. As in the Wallow, everyone had gotten a class-specific item, but after that, everything else was fair game.

The two blondes shared a look as he finished. Rose spoke first, taking his hand. "No matter what you choose, you'll still be you, Drake. And I will still love you. Scales, fangs, and all." He smirked, as he realized she expected him to become a dragon or something, like Falkor.

Drake gave her a look. "But this affects our children too, Rose. I appreciate that, I do…but be realistic. You don't want a half-Elf half dragonthing any more than your father will." That, made Tala chuckle, mainly because he was right. If he'd been a beast race, Vaelithar Valcrest and his wife likely would've objected more strongly to Rose's choice, but Elves and Humans had intermingled since the dawn of society, and more than a few saw their species as special or somehow elevated above the others because they were the God's favorites.




Rose shook her head. "He's already accepted you, and even if you become a…Tyranno…whatever, that won't change. As far as our children, I…" She paused, and wilted, and Drake and Tala shared a look as she got real. "I don't care what they look like Drake. So long as they're yours. But I do want them to have a father…and I worry every day…every time we get stronger and closer to going to Tharvoss…that Dagorath will just rip you apart when you face him. If one of his insanely powerful underlings don't manage to do it first." She met his gaze again, and his heart lurched as he saw tears forming. He'd had a feeling something had been bothering her. "Just…pick something that will bring you back to me, alive, and I'll be happy. And…there are ways to change, later. If you have to. I…just want you to survive what's coming."

He gently grabbed her face, wiped the tears away, and kissed her. Then he stared her straight in the eyes. "I will. And this…gives me the best chance of doing that." His mind was made up, now.

On the part of Drake's nerdy ass, he had essentially narrowed down his choices to two, given that his main goal was surviving an encounter with a God, and not becoming so radically different from the local Arcadians that he was no longer seen as one of them. And both of his choices would keep him looking Human. His first pick, had been a Viltrummite. Extremely durable, super speed, flight, strength, capable of space journeys, and all without the societally ingrained Fascistic Eugenics rhetoric and galactic-wide hate that poor Mark Grayson had to contend with. Imagining one of them with actual Martial Arts, the abilities he already had, was just...severely cool.

But thanks to Rose, his choice was cemented. He needed to be ridiculously overpowered, if he wanted to make it back to her intact from his encounter with a hostile God.

He knelt before Aeluinor again. The massive blue petals edged with gold rustled in acknowledgement of his presence.




"Aeluinor. I've made my choice. Kryptonian."

A Nimrathil pod rose up and around him from the ground, and the last thing Drake heard as he went unconscious was the hysterical giggles of Laurelin in his head, though they quickly grew fainter. He smirked as pod fluid surrounded him. It seemed his Patron was on board, and given her skill with prophecy, he was glad she had no immediate objections to introducing, potentially, a lineage of superbeings to her planet. Like Kal-El before him, he fully intended for his line to shield Arcadia for generations to come. Assuming they inherited his power.

As darkness took over his sight, he paused in mild panic, and wondered exactly what kind of sunlight Arcadia even produced. It had always seemed like a yellow sun's to him, but he regretted not asking one of the architects of the planet how exactly that worked, before making his decision. It was probably fine. Sunbeam was a spell, as was Sunlight, though that was more of a skill used by high level Farmers. They'd both appeared to be of yellow origin, and with that comforting thought, Drake fell into unconsciousness.

 

[Sahqoreyth]

Chapter 44: A Date With Doom​

Hello there.

I, Drake Long, am a nerd.

The kind of nerd who answers 'what race in all the Multiverse would you want to be?' with: Superman.

With good reason. I am here to parlay with a murderous God after all.

Now, some of you are not nerds. And that's okay. We love the normies. Some of you, might not understand how Superman works. It's okay, it's not that complex. Probably.

So, mostly for my benefit, we're going to run down how all that 'yellow sun, red sun' stuff works, while I float in this…really warm Nimrathil pod. Imagine floating in a pool surrounded entirely by like, warm honey. That's what this feels like. I'm really trying not to open my mouth though.




Yellow suns. Ideally, this is what Arcadia has and or runs on. But my odds aren't great. The Milky Way's star composition was about seventy five percent red, thirteen percent orange, and maybe nine as yellow, like Earth's. The rest of that percentage pie includes the white, blue, and various other stars and compositions. I assume even normies know more or less what the yellow sun does to Kryptonian biology. Bulletproof everything. Flight. Heat vision. Etcetera.

Orange does something similar, but with lesser effects, a red sun means I'd just be an average joe with a great jawline, but blue? Blue is the lottery win. Blue suns supercharge Kryptonians to worrying levels. God-surviving levels. Maybe I can convince the Gods to fly us near one.

But Arcadia doesn't have a star. It has a Laurelin. And it's not unprecedented that her light counts as yellow, given her origins.

The last fruit of the tree Laurelin became Arda's sun. Which if I recall Lord of the Rings correctly, was yellow. Hell, it might even be stronger than yellow. It's divine in origin. If she cast Sunbeam on me, like she did on Execror, would I like, level up?

What if I got Rose and Tala and every Light Magic user I could find to hit me all at once? Am I just immune to Light Magic now?




I digress. I'm sure we'll be experimenting. Now for the 'how' of these brokenly OP superpowers.

Kryptonian cells take solar rays, and turn it into a source of energy. That energy is stored in their cells. This is what powers the invincibility, heat vision, super strength/speed, etcetera. The more energy they have, the more powerful the abilities. Without energy however, even Superman turns into a Clark. I once Googled 'why doesn't Superman just live in the Sun?' and it turns out, he did. Eventually. But that's a tangent.

The cells act like a battery, but usually, just existing on a planet with a star is enough to keep them charged. On Arcadia, which has a magic system instead of a star, I'm guessing it'll work like a second magic pool. But with much more volatile energy.

Or, the system might just convert what I absorb into magic, to keep things simple. I'd never run out of magic again pretty much with that kind of recharge rate and my current items, and I also wouldn't need to have a whole other system created just for me, and my eventual descendants.

If I know Galdurath at all though, it'll be its own pool.

Which raises the question, does my pocket plane's sun count towards my cell recharge? I doubt it…but for all I know, it's a high tier Light class sun-related spell woven into a magical artifact. It's caused multiple sunburns. I've looked up how to craft those demiplanes and they are insanely complex. Hence the ridiculous price tag on them. The kinda price tag that bankrupts a Pizza Baron. But if it did work? I could Naruto the hell out of it. I could be beachside absorbing solar rays, sipping something alcoholic while my Mirror Images twelve v. one'd Dagorath with unlimited Kryptonian powers. I expect them to also share the solar energy pool the way they did the magic one. Or I could leave them beach side, and basically supercharge myself. I need to look into turning that sun of mine into a blue one...





Drake's thoughts continued off on multiple evolving sun-based tangents for quite some time.

He didn't know who he was talking to, his Mirror Images, perhaps. On Earth, he hadn't had a split personality, but had alternated between states of mind. One for driving. One for work. One for his limited free time. He didn't consider it a sign of insanity; they were him. He was them. They were all the same persona. Jabbering away to himself helped him organize his thoughts, relevant lore, and plan out the numerous repercussions of introducing a true Kryptonian to Arcadia's ecosystem.

His brain continued like that for some time, until that comforting warmth lulled him into unconsciousness.

Another Place - Another Time
​

Drake didn't remember his mind falling asleep, but given what was before him, he knew…he had to be dreaming. It was, he was fairly sure, the city of Kandor. One of the few pieces of Kryptonian civilization that had survived the planet's destruction intact. He looked up, and saw the shine of a 'glass' container, lit by a yellow sun beyond it. That was strange, since Kandor had stayed under an artificial red sun, if he remembered his lore correctly. His eyes widened slightly, as he wondered if he was somehow, once again, technically on Earth.

Not his, of course, but nerd that he was, he was aware of certain leagues of heroes that kept an eye on multiversal developments. A Kryptonian with a patron Goddess as bright as any star was sure to draw attention. What cemented his suspicion of his new location however, was the flying forms of what were likely other Kryptonians, zipping about the city. And unlike the comics, they weren't all wearing blue and red spandex.

He tried using his cloak to fly, but it only levitated him slowly through the air, as if it didn't have enough magic around it to reach its usual speed. He could also feel it drawing on his magic, and eventually, he decided to walk. His system was seemingly gone, but vaguely, he felt his body still surrounded by the Nimrathil's goo, yet despite his awareness of this being some sort of dream state, he was not able to give himself, or activate his own, newly acquired superpowers.




A feminine voice rang out above Drake, as he continued heading towards the city, which was not getting closer, and remained the same size in the distance.

"There he is."

Drake looked up, and his mouth opened slightly, as that unmistakable red and blue spandex combination filled his vision. He was not, however, looking at Clark Kent. This man had a much darker skin tone, that same impressive jawline, and an unreadable expression as he took in Drake looking up at him. His cape was trimmed with silver. Bands of gold, matching the golden 'S' of the House of El on his chest, wrapped around his arms, legs, and waist. His boots were as black as his close cropped hair.

"Drake Long." He spoke in a commanding baritone. He gestured to his partner, one Drake wasn't super familiar with, but at least, knew the name of. "This is Doctor Multiverse. She has reached across Space and Time to bring us together here, in this moment. A…literal meeting of minds." The doctor in question had a similar skin-tight outfit, mostly white, with black around the neck and center torso that sparkled like stars. Her skin tone was lighter than President Superman's, but not by much, and she was sporting a half shaved half wild hairstyle Drake's brain automatically categorized as 'butch lesbian'. He'd never really cared for it, but the good doctor was rocking it.

The leader of Justice Incarnate placed a hand on his chest, "I, am-"




"Calvin Ellis." Drake interrupted him, mostly…because there was something off about this situation, the setting, the yellow sun, and how the good doctor's powers worked, as he understood them. Admittedly, it had been a while since he'd bothered remembering the multiverse-scale Justice League's heroes.

To facilitate something like this, if he recalled correctly, she would've had to have met him first, and apparently she had no other Multiversal counterparts. So she'd either gotten stronger than Drake's Earth canon, or she'd met his body before. He had gotten it fully formed, so that wasn't impossible. It even made some kind of sense, if Laurelin had needed the vessel on hand for when the Universe guided her to the soul she'd sought.

"Or perhaps I should say…President Ellis, Superman of…Earth-23." He left out any mention of DC and their respective 'universe'. Bad things happened when characters gained too much awareness of the fourth wall.

Deadpool, of course, being the exception.

For all he knew, their personal histories in what he perceived as reality were completely different from what his fellow Earthlings had written about them, but so far, the trick to interacting with Multiversal shenanigans seemed to be rolling with it and not getting too bogged down in details.

Drake bowed, fist to palm, and low. "I am honored to meet you both. I hear good things about your…Justice Incarnate." He flinched, as when he looked up again, Superman and his Multiverse-traversing coworker were standing before him. Within arms reach. They'd closed that gap in under a second. He hadn't heard nor sensed it. That was when he finally noticed his Godsight was more like his old vision had been. Muted. Somehow. Like everything else.

The absurdly muscular black Superman crossed his arms, and a light smirk broke his expression. "Well now. Seems we have someone not entirely foreign to the Multiverse. Good. That will speed things up." He gestured to their tropical surroundings, and Kandor in the distance. "This…is a mental projection space caused by our currently shared Theta States, and linked by Doctor Multiverse. It is an ancient Kryptonian practice known as Torquasm-Vo." Drake's eyes widened. That was some early 2000's era Superman lore, which coincidentally, was around when he'd lost interest in comic books and had been drawn in by the endless, inevitable pull of Shonen, mostly thanks to Naruto, and a recommendation from a good friend.

Drake's face fell as he briefly wondered how his old friends were doing. Laurelin said time was moving faster for them, relative to Arcadia. It'd been years since his demise already. But he focused then, on the task at hand. "I understand. I'm guessing you're putting my mind through this trial of character to make sure I don't go rampaging across the Multiverse with Kryptonian powers?"

Doctor Multiverse smirked. "I told you." She said simply to Superman, with no follow up or context.




Calvin Ellis chuckled. "I'm guessing you already know how badly that can go…and while I am inclined to take the word of the good Doctor and your Goddess…I must be sure. It is, after all, my family's biological profile she borrowed for her 'records'. She said there was a one in over a thousand chance it'd even be used, for her purposes. But here we are."

Drake nodded, filing that bombshell away for later. "I understand completely, Superman. What do I need to do? Are we going to have a mental battle with giant robot suits?"

Ellis shook his head. "Nothing so simple. I was going to explain the scenario in detail, but I think you'll actually understand the stakes if I put it plainly." He gestured at Kandor. "A city of Kryptonians. Your new people. A city…under threat. By one of the few things that can actually kill them."

Drake went still. "Oh. Fuck." He muttered under his breath. Doctor Multiverse gave him a faint smirk, all but confirming his suspicions.

There were really only a few things that could kill Kryptonians in yellow sunlight, without getting Kryptonite involved.

He had a feeling this would be the most obvious one.




President Superman continued. "I'll spare you the origin story, and focus on the specifics of this setting. A creature stalks the preserved Kryptonian wilds surrounding Kandor. A creature created through relentless, forced evolution in the ancient wilds of Krypton, a warrior that was bred to oppose Darkseid. I assume you know that name. This creature has recently awakened, and is heading for Kandor even now."

Drake nodded, trying not to nerd out over his guess being correct. "And…I think I know the creature's name. What do I have to do to prove myself? Stop Doomsday? Does it even count as saving people if they don't actually exist?"

Superman and Doctor Multiverse shared a look, and the Doctor addressed him now. "Who said they don't exist? For this test, consider them as real as you or I."

Drake shrugged. "That's all I need to hear. Consider them saved." He smirked confidently, but his eyes gave away the panic of facing literal Doomsday as his favorite prey. The duo shared another look and then floated into the air.

The darker toned Kryptonian's tone lacked humor. "Doomsday has left a trail of death and carnage in his wake across numerous planets in every reality he was created in. If you can stop him, after just harnessing your powers, I will be…genuinely impressed. Protect what matters most. Prove yourself worthy of the blood of Krypton…and you will be allowed to keep it. Die well, Drake Long."

Before Drake could even quip a response, or ask about what powers he had, and whether he'd have access to his skills from Arcadia, the pair had flown off and out of sight. Probably to some sort of hidden extradimensional viewing box where they could make comments on his performance. Drake sighed, but before he could finish that heavy breath, heat surged through his entire body.




He looked at his veins, which were absolutely burning with familiar golden light, and he let out a yell, more of a roar really, as the stalled effects of the transformation, which he really should've been unconscious for, rolled through his aware psyche. All at once, it returned. Like a switch being flipped. He couldn't access his status, but he felt his magic. Any part of his visual HUD suite was just gone. He knew he could utilize his skills, but there was more to it…he felt fucking fantastic. Lighter. Stronger. Like gravity was a suggestion, and if he didn't focus on staying earthbound he'd just float away.

He tried it, just letting go, and he began levitating into the air. His body did a full flip, before he found his center of balance, and held it. It was a strain on his abs, but not an impossible one to maintain. "Now I know how Clark kept that six pack…" He muttered, as he could tell that flying like this, without his cloak's ability, would definitely strain his core if he did it long enough.

He tried moving forward, and grunted in discomfort as he rocketed through the underbrush of the alien jungle, before he finally aimed himself higher, and broke free of the canopy. He stopped himself, with difficulty, as a roar filled the air, probably in answer to his own from a few moments earlier. He looked back at the path of destruction in the jungle and grimaced. "I…need to do this far away from the city…" The last thing he needed was property damage. Ellis had claimed it was a generated space, but DC had an annoying habit of making fantastical illusions more real than initially advertised. Ideally, this version of Kandor would never know Doomsday had even arrived.

He flew higher again, and then headed to where the roar had sounded. The higher he went, the more sounds his new super hearing picked up, from alien crickets to the daily conversations of the Kandorians in the still distant city. It was just a jumble of noise, but he focused on one in particular.




He'd be loud. Smashing a wide swathe through the jungle. Stomping. Fleeing animals. The dying snarls of any predator that tried to rumble with an ancient alien doctor's attempt at creating the ultimate life form to defeat the ultimate dark lord. With a bit of focus, Drake could tune out the other sounds and listen for what he wanted. Sure enough, he heard his quarry before he saw it.

Drake headed for the source, muttering irritatedly. "It's gonna be like fighting a level nine opponent in Smash with moves I vaguely know…" He sighed. If this recreation was any kind of accurate, he was probably going to get his ass kicked. He formed a strategy, and was glad he had a pretty good understanding of Doomsday, down to what the beast was made of, and what could actually 'kill' him.

A heavily genetically modified life form either from or introduced to ancient Krypton, he'd been killed and resurrected thousands of times by a mad scientist, each time coming back stronger, adapting better, until one day he reached his peak, and turned on his creators. Who'd absolutely deserved it. He had little to no blood, and barely any organs. His body was mainly just ridiculous amounts of ever-adapting muscle and bone. But, Drake theorized, even his ridiculous body had to have points where the energy that powered him, any kind of solar radiation, was stored and connected. With Superman tier strength, he should be able to affect them with his strikes.




Drake rocketed through the air towards the walking disaster headed for Kandor.

In seconds, he landed in front of the hulking genetically engineered monstrosity that was infamous for being able to kill Superman. His skin was dark gray, his body was composed of ridiculously well-toned muscles, and all along his thick frame, protrusions of sharp white bone broke through the skin, most notably around his jaw, shoulders, forearms, and knees. His knuckles were not unlike Wolverine's claws, but he had all five, and even if they broke, they just grew back stronger. Rapidly.

His only clothing was a torn pair of ripped green pants, probably what remained of his prisoner outfit. He was bald, save for a few white wispy strands of hair, and his eyes were pure red, marred only by two entirely black pupils.

Doomsday snarled as he took Drake in. "Mmmmeat…" His voice sounded like something between a growl and falling gravel. His nostrils flared. His eyes widened, and his pupils dilated completely, turning his eyes almost black with an ominous red glow underlighting them. "Krypton meat…" Saliva began leaking out of his mouth and down his bony chin crest.

​

Drake tried not to panic. To stay calm, in the face of a monster that had broken, sometimes literally, some of the greatest heroes of the DCU. His heart was racing as Doomsday stepped fully into the light, but his mind was calm. He was Kryptonian now. Doomsday himself confirmed it.

That meant he had a chance. Flatlining Doomsday was not impossible. The trick, was making the bastard stay dead.




Doomsday lunged, but to Drake's eyes, even his enhanced speed was in slow motion. And, Drake noted, when he reacted now…it was almost like moving normally. Not entirely unlike how the Flash perceived things, but now, his body could actually move and react in time. He read Doomsday easily, dodged the punch enhanced with sharp, jagged, bony protrusions, and countered on his jaw with a truly beautiful uppercut to the soft part of his lower jaw, behind the bony protrusion on it. His knuckles still came away bloody, and he shook his hand, as his super strength and the Fury of the First Dragon Buff sent Doomsday sailing into the sky.

"Let's see how you adapt to a vacuum, asshole…" Drake took off after him, but as he approached, Doomsday reacted. The monstrosity turned in mid-air as he came in for another super-punch to the face. Thanks to his Godsight, Drake watched in slow motion as those bony knuckle claws came within millimeters of slashing his abdomen, but the force from his punch managed to just barely smash Doomsday away before he could connect. He roared, more angry than damaged, as he now sailed even higher up through the air.

Drake followed, relentlessly smashing him and barely dodging the counters. He repeated this at least twenty times, bashing the enraged screaming alien monster around the upper atmosphere of the bottle with the power of his Buff before his eyes widened at the reaction speed of Doomsday, and he had to purposefully whiff to avoid being stabbed by a blade of bone that extended from his forearm. Doomsday laughed maniacally, as he started falling back towards the ground, giving absolutely no fucks about the imminent fall damage.

Drake's punches had landed…but they hadn't even remotely hurt him. They'd just managed to piss him off. Fury of the First Dragon did not last forever, but the up time was such that Drake had never noticed it run out in a fight. Now, minus his system display, he couldn't track how much time he had left on it. He hadn't been counting either. Being face to face with literal Doomsday had scrambled even his intelligence. Every time those ridiculously massive arms came close to hitting him, visions of rather graphic comic panels jumped through his brain.




Drake knew he wasn't real. He knew it was all a test. But that fucking laugh got to him, as his quarry fell earthward, and seemed to purposefully angle towards the city. Doomsday looked up toward Drake as he fell, and he could've sworn the beast was smirking. That, was when he felt the heat build in his eyes, and with a grim smirk of his own, Drake zoomed through the air again, appearing below Doomsday. Regular Heat Vision wasn't enough to force that much monster to rise back towards orbit. Even if Superman himself went full power with it, he'd probably burn through his energy before Doomsday would've entered the vacuum of space. He had to weigh well over a ton with that much muscle mass.

Drake, however, was a firebender, and manipulating energy was what Monks did best. It took a few seconds for him to figure out how best to bend his Heat Vision, but eventually he settled on shooting the eye beams through a hole made with both his hands, which greatly increased their output, and burned far less solar energy. He was technically drawing on his magic to enhance it, which was how it worked for most of his Ki abilities, but he couldn't see how much was being burned. He had to go by feeling. Doomsday roared as the intense beam of red, tinged at the edge with gold, smashed into him, burned his skin away from his arms and chest, and propelled him skyward once more.

Drake kept the heat on until they entered space, and the lack of air in the vacuum made firebending impractical. There wasn't a ton of space between Kandor's skyline and their container's top, but it seemed that this recreation accurately recreated enough space for a proper orbit and a lack of gravity. He also didn't know how much solar energy he had, if he was technically even using any, or a set of numbers indicating his remaining amount.

As with his magic he had to rely on feeling, and he tried to isolate this new energetic boost from what his magic usually felt like. It wasn't too hard, given how new the solar energy was to his senses. He felt it permeating every cell and he saw it too, constantly refilling. He had no doubt that his Goddess was fueling that change in his cells. Probably to enlarge their capacity for storing sunlight as much as possible while they were still freshly created.




Doomsday didn't need to breathe, but that alone wasn't why Drake had forced him into space. His superpower was adapting, especially mid fight, but there were certain limitations that even adaptation could not overcome. One, canonically, was being reduced to a skeleton by Imperiex. It'd taken Lex Luthor and Superman's DNA to bring him back from that.

Drake wasn't willing to burn that much energy though. He had a vague awareness of what Laurelin was doing and he hoped his mental antics weren't causing her more strain. The main benefit to going into space was the lessened gravity. Even with Doomsday's reaction speeds, all those muscles couldn't do shit if there was no way to use them, or move with them. Given who he was facing, Drake did not doubt that Doomsday would adapt a way around that, probably through evolving flight similar to a Kryptonian's in the void.

Drake had to beat the absolute shit out of him before his body figured out how to move in zero gravity properly. Kryptonians, as it happened, had truly super ridiculous lung capacity, and traveled through space by just holding their breath. Not unlike Viltrummites. It was weird, not having to breathe, and Drake could feel it slowly burning through his power. But at a rate that was almost negligible.




As before, Drake circled around the beast, but this time, he cut off any attempt to counter him. Literally. There were a surprising amount of rocks in this vacuum space between the 'planet' Kandor was resting on, and what Drake assumed was the 'glass' of its container, but he made good use of them, once more combining fire and earth on his hidden blades.

Using zero gravity to ridiculous effectiveness, he spun through the void around and over Doomsday over twenty times in a single second. By the time he was done, every bony protrusion the monstrosity had, had been sliced off, as the beast had been forced to tank the hits and block. Once his main weapons were gone, Drake started stabbing.

Doomsday's body truly was a marvel. Unfortunately for marvels, they tended to have a lot of points where their body's Ki gathered and crossed. Since Doomsday lacked typical organs, his body being mostly solid muscle and bone, those points of conversion were all over him, albeit not where they'd normally be on say, a Human. Drake could tell he had vast reserves of solar energy in his cells, like a Kryptonian. Enough for millennia, according to the lore. He needed the bastard to burn through all of it.

A regular martial artist would never have been able to so much as affect those nodes of energy under that much genetically engineered and enhanced muscle, but Drake's martial arts now had sun-drenched Kryptonian tier power behind them. As each fist smashed into Doomsday's largest nodes of energy behind the Hidden Blade stabbing into him, he roared, and countered with a massive release of said solar energy, from every single energy point across his body.

Drake went sailing back, but just as quickly, he returned, barely burned. The heat was easily dissipated with his firebending. But that release had actually informed Drake quite a bit. It revealed where the majority of Doomsday's bodily energy was, and, it seemed to be an instinctive reaction to his body's energy flow being violently disrupted with outside Ki. Superman could do something similar, he recalled, though it left him 'Human' for a time until he recharged. Doomsday's energy levels had not visibly changed after his own flare of energy.




Drake sighed, and triggered a flare again, zooming back in under a second after each burst knocked him away. Doomsday was not idle each time he came close. His bone spikes regrew irritatingly fast, and he could apparently launch them like a bony Hookshot from wherever he pleased. Drake was still fast enough to dodge them, especially in a vacuum. He'd grabbed the bony appendages from Doomsday's knuckles, and then put both feet together to slam Doomsday in the abdomen and send him hurtling away. He floated miles across the 'planet's' orbit before his body finally hit some kind of bone growth limit, and Drake hit him with enhanced Heat Vision at that point, severing the lengthy bone tendrils with a single, focused eye laser and throwing them back towards the ground.

His tactics were working. The expulsions of energy and rapidly growing something as complex and dense as Doomsday's bone was draining his solar energy reserves. After about the fiftieth brutal stabby beatdown leading to a reactive expulsion of solar power, Doomsday finally managed to guess at his strategy and forcibly contain the energy, and to Drake's consternation, that holding in of energy started propelling him through the void.

He was close to figuring out movement, if not flight as an ability. "Alright fucker…lets see you heal through this." The words came out, but vanished into the silence of space without air to travel through. He liked to think Doomsday heard him anyway, as the beast seemed to get angrier. Drake's palm began to quiver, and he ratcheted up the speed with his superspeed. He didn't know if that would make it deadlier, but he hoped it would make the internal reactions more numerous, and fast. Time was very much a factor against an opponent like Doomsday. Already, he'd healed through multiple burns from Heat Vision, and every single deep stab Drake had landed to set off his solar energy.

He also activated the Way of the Inevitable Fist, not that managing to hit Doomsday was very hard. Drake had noted that even if the difficulty of hitting something was easy, like for example a giant sap-covered tree monster, actually damaging it or otherwise affecting it relied on different aspects of Arcadia's system. A system he wasn't even sure they were still operating under.




Hence, his use of his once-per-long-rest Buff. Doomsday saw him coming, and his eyes narrowed as he seemed to register the danger, and its source. Drake's right hand. For the first time in their encounter, the beast actually tried to dodge. Some part of his natural predatory instincts likely sensed the all but guaranteed death that would tear even his thick body apart from the inside, with compounding damage. Quivering Palm affected bone and muscle as much as any organ. The problem thus far had been Doomsday's healing factor. Drake had wanted his energy reserves lowered before he even attempted his daily skill.

Drake's eyes widened as he closed in, and realized the 'dodge' had actually been more like a feint. Bait, to lure him in. Drake barrel rolled past his strike with his flight, noting that Doomsday was now moving in the void significantly faster, and proceeded to hammer the gray-skinned beast in the largest concentration of energy, a source he had thus far, very much on purpose, avoided stimulating with Ki strikes.

Doomsday's central core of energy, the place that stored the majority of his solar power, which kept him functionally immortal, like with most humanoids, flowed through and around the abdominal region. After being violently urged into evolving to protect his meridian channels from being violently ruptured, they'd naturally gathered in the one place that hadn't been struck with Ki, mostly because until now, Drake hadn't pried his admittedly impressive guard open enough to not get dangerously counter struck by aiming a punch for his abdomen. One wrong move and he knew very well Doomsday would snap his arm. He also didn't need the beast figuring out how to control the energy in his core either.

The feint had left an opening, and Drake exploited it in a sliver of time so miniscule, few societies even had terms for it. Doomsday was already shifting to counter, but the palm had made contact already. Drake snarled as the immortal bastard's nails extended to gouge his arm and retracted before Drake could break them. Blood floated into the void as Doomsday sailed away, enraged and screaming in silence. Drake eyed the wound, and while his clothes seemed fine, probably due to not really being real, his self was very much wounded. Unfortunately, no Health Point meter or even basic numbers appeared to assess the damage.




He burned his once-per-encounter Regeneration, and that thankfully restored his arm. Unfortunately, as a solo act, all he had left for healing was Heal, the leech from his Hidden Blades, and the Life Giving Fist. But using the blades and fist now, as Doomsday continued to adapt to the void, risked taking more damage than either would heal. He expelled the bastard's notoriously potent poison into the void with his Monk abilities, and the nasty liquid had a dark green tinge to it as Drake spat it out of his system.

His eyes narrowed. Doomsday, in the distance, was floating back towards him, slowly, but at a rate of worryingly increasing speed. His expression was pure unrelenting fury, and it was like his unstoppable drive to kill Kryptonians was propelling him through space. "Prismrend." Drake said into the void, opening a hand. His weapon did not appear. "Fuck. Alright. Guess we rely on our skills, now. Showtime, boys."

He made a cross with both hands' pointer and middle fingers, and to his pleasant surprise, all twelve of his Mirror Images appeared. His items still worked, but not the hammerspace that held his Artifact Weapon, apparently. Whatever mental fuckery he was being subjected to seemed to be separate from his actual Mirror Image Mirror, as several of his images were still back in Primus, in the waking world.

He hadn't given the images colors this time, and they mostly resembled him, but he found parts of them still had just the faintest bit of colored accent somewhere on their person. He attributed this to the Aurium he'd used to upgrade the mirror, as that was now what the literal mirror was made of, and the prismatic coloration seemed to no longer really be a choice.

All White was, of course, still all white. And grinning ear to ear. He said something that Drake couldn't hear, but it ended in 'Hahaa!', as he assumed a heroic pose.




Drake pointed at the oncoming enraged behemoth and moved his finger in a circle, and the clones nodded. Then he pointed at the glass above them. They nodded again. They all knew the plan. As one, they pointed at different parts of the glass, and one by one, covered the parts letting in that sweet, sweet yellow sunlight with their newly acquired Darkness spell. In seconds, the container covering Kandor was blacked out, and the Drakes grinned in unison as they all saw Doomsday's stupidly infinite energy reserves finally stop refilling. He'd spent enough energy by now to notice the depletion, and now, it would not refill.

The beast's eyes widened and the multi-casting was enough to make him lose focus on 'flying', reducing him to once more floating through the void, screaming in silent anger. As one, the Monks zoomed towards Doomsday, forming a ring around him. Surprising no one, red went first. His Divine Shield skill activated, and while the daily skills were still limited to one use, Drake had found his encounter based skills had a use, and cooldown, specific to each copy. This, was mainly how they would now 'kill' Doomsday. As many hits as they could land, in one hundred and forty four seconds.

Divine Shield granted twelve seconds of complete damage immunity, and Elemental Avatar, what seemed like a Monk Class capstone skill if Drake had to guess, would also damage the bastard. Doomsday could heat himself through freezing temperatures, and didn't need to breathe, so suffocation was out, but fire? Fire would burn him, no matter how resistant his skin became. He'd heal automatically, and he'd be forced to burn energy to do it. Drake was pummeling him uninterrupted for twelve seconds as fast as he could, while sped up by his airbending, which also helped dodge any fatal strikes.

Any hits that sent the beast too far made the circle of waiting Monks just shift and move with him. The others always remained out of reach, and when Doomsday tried slashing at one, red made him pay for it with a burning slash to his arm.




The gray skin and sliced bone knitted back together even faster than before, and Drake tried not to panic. This was the strat with any massive health pool having, auto-regenerating sack of evil hit points in any game. Force them to burn their skills, or in this case energy, and then whittle them down before you die. It didn't always work, but Drake had a lot of factors going for him, like foreknowledge of his abilities. Doomsday himself had gone from barbarian anger, to quietly enraged anger, as he just stared at the original while red hammered him with frankly anime levels of rapid fire punching.

Drake couldn't hear it, but red was absolutely shouting 'ORA!'

Doomsday eventually snarled and swiped at red, but with twelve uninterrupted seconds of protection from his shield of 'nope' even Doomsday's strikes couldn't break through, or counter. His massive strikes were simply rendered ineffective and that, more than anything, had driven the change in his expression. The moment the shield faded, Doomsday struck, and faster than he had before, in space. Faster even than he had on the ground.

Red let out a silent 'ooof!' as a bony knee speared his abdomen, and then a brutal serrated elbow did the same to the nape of his neck and spine, piercing through it as Doomsday brought it down with brutal efficiency. The clone faded, and even as Doomsday roared with his small victory, orange zoomed in just as fast as red, and made a show of dodging Doomsday three times with his airbending enhanced movement. Luckily for Drake, the stance simply granted that speed boost. It didn't actually require air to take effect, the bonus just applied to and increased his base speed, which was now ridiculously overpowered.




As Doomsday moved for another finishing one-two combo, orange activated his shield of divine light, and the monster's cold rage turned hot again in frustration as he was once again denied by divine holy magic. Orange made him pay for red's demise, and was weaving heavy magma-covered strikes into his rapid punches and kicks. As before, the wounds and burns healed nearly instantly, but Drake could tell with his Godsight, it was slower. By a very, very small margin, but their strategy was having an effect. He just hoped twelve clones was enough to wear Doomsday out.

He also couldn't see the build-up of Quivering Palm's damage, to know if activating it would be enough to shatter Doomsday. He'd have to just keep landing hits, and hope after twelve of his clones striking as fast as they reasonably could, that would be enough damage.

The pummeling party moved back into the upper atmosphere as orange's shield timed out. As before, Doomsday struck with startling speed, but orange was ready for him. And Elemental Avatar was an instant activation. Doomsday's knuckles met only fire as they plunged through the part of orange's body that would've housed his heart, had he not become flame incarnate.

Doomsday roared in agony, the sound echoing across the containment unit as orange roasted him alive, his entire body turning white hot, and encompassing Doomsday like a fiery full body cloak. The monstrous humanoid tried to stamp him out, but the magical flames just burned him for even attempting it. Orange held him there, burning like a new sun in the darkened sky. Drake winced slightly, as Kandor and her citizens had probably noticed them by now.




The duration of his capstone skill was an entire encounter, which in Arcadian terms, meant until all hostile monsters in the area were dead, or gone. Doomsday screamed in agony, his flesh constantly trying to heal, simply burned away as soon as it reformed. It was naturally resistant to fire, but fire this hot could still burn it away eventually, and once orange had done that, Doomsday's screams had become louder, as his bare muscles were roasted and healed simultaneously. "Yellow." The original ordered, and the next version of him flew in at superspeed, and struck with enough force to almost blow orange away. He reformed around Doomsday instantly, and Drake saw his regeneration, without a source of solar energy, was now indeed several seconds slower.

Since Elemental Avatar had three charges, despite being an encounter skill, Drake suspected all of his clones would not be able to use it. He hadn't had time to test it properly yet. "Green. Blue. We need as many hits as possible. Quickly now, before he adapts to the pain."

Two more of the Mirror Images joined the fiery fray, and Doomsday was being smashed around like a big gray pain pinata. New spikes were growing out of his body, but Drake's clones did not shy away from them. They shattered them, or cut them with their Hidden Blades. The space around him became littered with shattered malformed fragments of bone. Doomsday's eyes had closed now, and it seemed like his brain was protecting him from the shock of constantly having his nerves burned off. Burgeoning flight, and pain suppression. Drake really needed to make sure this Doomsday died here, and didn't escape. Construct or otherwise, those two new abilities would make him even more deadly.




The original Drake sighed, as he sensed approaching newcomers. He'd hoped the Kandorians would just either ignore the battle above them, since he was slowly winning, and not get involved. But Kryptonians were nothing if not inquisitive. He really should've expected it from a culture of scientists.

"Hello there." He called, as the Kryptonians stopped in the air before him. There were about thirty, all in form-fitting armor that Drake recognized as being part of their security forces. They stopped abruptly, as they saw him.

"You…are not Kal-El." The one in the lead answered. Their eyes shifted to the screaming, immolated form of Doomsday. The leader's eyes widened. He could've passed as Clark Kent himself in terms of looks. "Yet you fight the Ultimate without fear." His eyes began burning red. "We have helped Superman before. We will help you now, with Doomsday."




As he finished uttering the beast's name, and before Drake could politely decline, Doomsday exploded with energy. This was bigger than before. Purposeful. The expulsion of energy blew orange, yellow, green, and blue back from him. With a roar of pure rage, Doomsday flew through orange's fiery body, straight into yellow, piercing him with both fists, and his knee spikes. The clone roared back, detonating with an explosion of rock and fire before he dissipated. He'd summoned a Dragon Pillar right on Doomsday's chest, and it left him impaled by a rapidly cooling magma spike.

Doomsday flexed and the spike shattered, his body quickly healed around several of the pieces. From the sideline, brown hardened and spun those shards of molten rock violently out of his body with earthbending, and then began using the remaining Dragon's Pillar pieces to shred Doomsday as orange returned to immolating him.

Drake held up a hand as the Kryptonians began to move. "I should warn you…he seems to have almost figured out flight. And he's fast. Faster than us. I'd rather not endanger you folks…"

The leader smirked confidently at him. "We can keep up."

Drake shook his head. "The Sun is blocked out too. If you're injured, you won't heal quickly…and Doomsday will take advantage of that."

The smirk just widened with way too much confidence for a DC background character. "I'm glad you're concerned for our safety, stranger, but I promise you, we will not hinder your efforts."




Drake sighed softly, and then shrugged. "I have no authority to stop you…so if you're going to try hitting him, do it when we distract him. The more we hit him the greater the chance I can permanently break his body. But to achieve that, he needs to be struck hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Are you up to that?"

The Kryptonians nodded, and saluted him in the American style. Resolute, fearless, he wondered if they truly understood what they were stepping into. Drake didn't insult them by asking if they were sure. They were here. They, presumably, understood that death awaited them. Even with Quivering Palm, Drake wasn't entirely sure he could kill Doomsday. The damage would, theoretically, keep hitting him for every strike they landed once activated. But so far, his already ridiculous healing factor was now keeping up with fourth degree burns, despite all the energy he'd burned already. His skin burned off as fast as it grew back.

"When I give the signal, fly past him and land as many hits as you can in the space of a second. Don't linger, don't look back, don't stay in melee range. Let my copies take the focus, and the counter hits. If you're injured by him, just go home. Even one second of lost speed will guarantee your death. The hits don't need to be massive, they just need to land. Do you all understand?" The Kandorians replied with impressive synchronization, but it was probably easier when they could all perceive and react at superspeed.




All of the clones were fighting now, falling through the atmosphere as they slammed Doomsday between them with giant, serrated molten fists. He healed through all of it. Orange was still burning him, but with less intensity. Their magic was not infinite, after all. Drake felt their magic reserves were maybe just over half, at this point.

"Orange!" Drake shouted, as he and the other Kryptonians flew towards them. "Plan Laz0r!" The burning eyes appeared above Doomsday's full body flame aura and blinked in acknowledgment. Suddenly, Doomsday stopped burning, and the surrounding clones let him plummet. Orange hung in the air, as those on magic regen duty switched stances.

The group of about thirty Kryptonians zoomed under Doomsday's falling form, and Drake noted the more severe burns were healing very slowly compared to his lesser wounds. From underneath him, they fired in unison with their Heat Vision, which did count as consecutive hits for every pulse of energy their eyes burned into him. They rotated then, the Kryptonians quickly grokking the plan and following Drake's lead. The laser carousel began picking up speed as they carved away Doomsday's ridiculously massive musculature with Heat Vision enhanced by multiple fire-attuned Monks.




Drake spied white beneath the heat beams and the sizzling muscle tissues. "We might be able to burn through him! Full power!" The various eyebeams focused on a single line around Doomsday's body then, and the gray skin kept burning away as the back side of his midsection was thoroughly roasted. His rib cage expanded to try to stabilize his center and his arms covered his core but the eye laser onslaught was relentless, and focused.

"Left side gone!" Black called. "Right side too!" Said blue.

"Focus on the spine! More!" Drake ordered, and as one, he and his clones began enhancing the beams with a balanced separation of positive and negative energy, elevating them to a state of pure plasma, while the Kryptonians seemed puzzled at how significantly they were empowering their vision attack with just a hand motion. A few of them tried to copy the Monks, and from above, orange intensified their beams as well. Much to their surprise.

"Almost there…" The original Drake said, encouraging the others as his eyes remained focused and burning. Doomsday's muscles were wriggling like so many worms, but as soon as they emerged, concentrated heat energy reduced them to atoms. The actual spine itself was massive, more akin to a Stegosaurus vertebra than a hominid's, but it too slowly eroded while trying to constantly regrow. Just as it was about to snap and burn away, Doomsday screamed.




Thus far his noises had been mainly grunts and snarls or cries of pain, but this scream had a hint of understanding in it, the recognition that even this nearly unkillable juggernaut was approaching death.

Or at least, a stasis induced by the act of having his spine severed. Were it to be reattached, Doomsday could probably revive himself.

Pure solar energy burned around Doomsday as a visible aura, and as skin and muscle began to regrow at a much faster pace, Drake gave the signal to his clones to cease and retreat back. The aura flared out directly at brown, vaporizing him in a second, and Drake tried not to panic. That'd certainly looked like energy bending, but compared to his, it'd been more like energy flailing. And it had still one-shot his copy, which was of course wearing the same armor as the original Drake. Thankfully, it seemed Doomsday lacked the intelligence to differentiate which Drake was which at this point, probably largely thanks to the state of severe rage and pain he was now in. The expenditure had also left him lethargic, and Drake seized the opportunity.




"Don't let up! It's hurt! Back into space!" Original Drake shouted, and the Kandorians followed without protest. Drake met their leader's eyes and the two shared a nod of understanding. "Orange! Roast'im. Everyone else conserves magic. Blue's ETA is two minutes!"

Blue, for his part, was flying to the largest water source the dome had, and bending as much of it as he could into containers, and into space. The water would boil and freeze almost instantly but they could change its physical state easily.

The beatdown continued and in the cold darkness of the starless void, Doomsday reacted slower for the first time since they'd started. Drake's eyes revealed the reason: intentionally expelling all that energy to rapidly heal himself and vaporize brown had drained far more of his cellular batteries than Drake had affected with his own strikes. His entire midsection was now just thickening red cords of muscle and bone, but it was still thinner than it should've been. In this wounded state, the Kryptonians hammered him relentlessly, and slowly but surely, Doomsday began to die.




Each Kandorian got four passes at him and aside from flailing halfheartedly in the void, Doomsday simply could not catch them. After the fourth round of thirty or so Kryptonian beatdowns, about a hundred and seventy passes against Doomsday, Drake held them back and they fell into the circular pattern around Doomsday alongside his clones. To their credit, they'd only had to peel off from hammering Doomsday a few times. Drake had no doubt Quivering Palm's threshold was close, after that. But he wanted to push for more anyway. He just had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't going to be enough. Much as he appreciated the Kandorian's willingness, it felt like they were repeatedly air bombing an endgame tier city in Civilization with low level planes. Still, many of them had actually managed to land far more hits than his clones had per pass, and that was what he'd asked of them.

As Doomsday's face twitched, the first sign of waking from this lethargic state, Drake assigned each clone a part of the body to expel remaining energy from, and limb by limb, they drained the unstoppable weapon of his remaining fuel by goading him into expending his power in his rekindled blind rage. His body sensed Kryptonians as they approached, and the beast could only react. Each expulsion left him slower, and the cords of muscle reforming along his lasered abdomen finally stopped growing.

His energy expulsion was still deadly, but Drake and his clones were ready for it now. Doomsday's eyes had turned pure red now, his jaw, a favorite target of the scions of Kandor, was now seemingly permanently askew, and his bone growths were out of control and leaking poison. Some still regrew as fast as they had when the battle had begun. Others, mostly on his back, had fallen out of his skin completely, leaving open wounds that black and All White exploited.

By the time blue-tinged Drake arrived, water in tow, Doomsday was finally unconscious. As soon as he'd slipped into that state, his body's regeneration had gone into overdrive, though the lack of energy throughout his spent limbs meant some parts of him healed, and others remained seriously burned. Drake clenched his fist and activated Quivering Palm. Doomsday's body spasmed in the void of space as it ruptured. What passed for his blood, what little he even had, spurted out of every part of him simultaneously as his veins were torn apart. As the built up damage ripped through him and overwhelmed his healing factor, his chest finally stopped moving.

Drake could see the reactions from the Palm were tiny, yet quite effective, as they ripped Doomsday apart at a molecular level. It seemed this was what applying it at superspeed caused. At that level…that kind of damage might actually be enough to keep him dead, Drake theorized.




Once more they returned to the upper atmosphere of Brainiac's 'bottle', mostly so they could talk. Drake addressed the Kandorian leader, his eyes not leaving Doomsday's body for a second. More than once the beast had been assumed dead, and people had paid the price for that assumption.

"We'll be slicing his body apart now, into hundreds of different pieces. Have different people scatter them to the far corners of the universe, as far as possible, and have only one person responsible for each piece. Chuck his head into a Black Hole. Oh, and any bone fragments you find on the ground? Get rid of them. Treat them like hazardous waste. That's your best chance of never seeing this menace again."

The clones had already gotten to work as the original spoke, and Doomsday was already reduced to the same state as Monty Python's Black Knight after his duel with King Arthur. Limbless, and now deep frozen in the coldest, thickest magical ice that blue could make. He too had activated Elemental Avatar, and apparently, if this version of Doomsday ever woke up, Drake would be able to sense it. Assuming it persisted outside of this mindscape.

The lead Kandorian officer, who turned out to be Superman's cousin, saluted. "We'll do as you say, and quickly. Thank you again, Hero. Kandor will not forget this. I do have to ask, though…what…are you exactly? I know you are Kryptonian, but your abilities are…of the realm of Magic. And yet…also more."

Drake just smirked. "I'm what's called a Monk. I specialize in manipulating energy, and the Martial Arts. That's all I really did here. Earth has quite a few Monks, I believe. If your people are interested, you should seek them out and ask to learn their ways."




From above and behind them, slow clapping filled the air. The Kandorians vanished, Doomsday vanished, the ground below, and the containment shell above also disappeared. After a moment, so did Drake's images. The muted feeling returned. President Calvin Ellis, Superman of Earth-23 floated down to his level, still slow clapping. "I thought for sure Doomsday would rip you apart. But you exceeded my expectations. Doctor Multiverse bet against me. Said you and your Multiversal counterparts were usually worthy, and victorious. You moved the fight from the city, had your copies take any fatal damage, and let the Kandorians defend themselves, instead of relegating them to the sidelines. Worthy indeed, at least to my eyes. Doctor?"

She offered Drake a fist to bump. "I never doubted him. Energy manipulation, huh? I didn't think you'd get him to burn out, but once he started flaring energy himself, it was over. Not bad, Drake Long." Drake, still processing that he had multiversal counterparts apparently, bumped her offered fist, and looked back at Superman.

"I'm glad I exceeded your expectations…" His eyes shifted to his still clenched fist, and it glowed with gold shining in his veins in response. "This helped me get a proper handle on these new abilities." He smirked confidently, but his eyes were grim. Aeluinor's reconfiguration of the Vanwi, the former adventurers turned sap monsters, had confirmed something for him. A suspicion he'd had for some time, that had only grown after the debacle with Skalos and the Changeling.

Monsters…were still people.

Or at least, some of them were. Those who had once been turned. Drake knew that their God did not entirely wipe their memories of their numerous deaths, and give them truly new lives, as Laurelin and Galdurath did for the souls in their care. This was the difference between them, and monsters like goblins, which formed from pure negative energy. It also explained why such monsters, former Arcadian species, tended to be much higher level, and grew faster than their pure evil counterparts. He'd seen Arcadians turn monster…but now Aeluinor was turning former monsters into something new. He'd need to see just how similar they were to their old selves, but if they could be redeemed…well, he already knew what Laurelin would want.





Drake moved his eyes from the fist that would soon be stained with plenty of monster blood, to Superman. "These abilities…will really help my world right now President Ellis. So. Thank you. Lives will be saved because of your decision."

"I should be thanking you, Mister Long." His smirk mirrored Drake's and his eyes were just as grim. "We will put your tactics for combating Doomsday to good use." He offered a hand, and Drake shook it.

"If Justice Incarnate ever needs an ace up their sleeve, you know where to reach me." Drake offered.

Superman's smirk shifted to a genuine smile. "We may just take you up on that. Until we meet again, Drake Long."

Darkness returned, rolling over Drake's vision like a Powerpoint slide transition. A familiar, warm blackness, surrounded by Laurelin's power filled his divine sight as his mind was freed. He was back in Aeluinor's Grove, and his Annihilators were still gathered around outside. Drake let his mind fall into proper rest for the first time in a while instead of entering a Monk trance, and Aeluinor completed its task as the multiversal grant of approval for the Kryptonian biological template's use reached Laurelin.