Gotham City:
A hand burst up through the ground behind Arkham Asylum as the rain poured down from above. This is where they buried the sick. The ill. The insane. They had shoveled what remained of his skull and brain into a bag, and then thrown him into a casket. No autopsy needed. Cause of death: Gunshot to the head. They buried him with no fanfare. But his hand, clad in black, burst up through the ground behind Arkham Asylum. Another hand scraped across dirt and grass, his fingers torn and worn ragged by digging. Finger nails splintered and peeled off grey skin. Black blood scabbed across his knuckles. He screamed as he pulled his head up from beneath the grass. It was a silent scream. Half his skull was missing, and inside his brain pooled the rain from the sky. His top jaw was a mess, teeth missing, his nose non-existent and his tongue a shriveled piece of meat. He pulled himself out, and looked at himself through nothing. He had no eyes. He looked up to the sky. Or, he pointed his head at the sky.
His skull restructured first. Yellowing bone cracking into place from nowhere, bending as shaping as needs be. Eyes formed next. White liquid began to pool in his sockets, until they were full, and then piercing black pupils like points rolled down from inside his head. Muscle wound round the skull next. Growing and growing until his face was thick with it. The muscle strands were grey, a dirty colour unlike anything seen before. Next came the flesh. White, thin flesh that grew from his mouth, nose, and eyes outward. It whispered into crevices of muscle, and then tightened when the process was finished. Hair, thick, full, black hair sprang from his scalp, eyebrows formed, eyelashes dribbled from eyelids. He smiled. He didn’t look human. His eyes made that sure. He had dead eyes. And rightly so, him being a dead thing.
“Yes,” he growled, as he cracked his muscles and back. “Yes.” Judson Caspian smiled for he was no longer fully dead. It was true that he was no longer alive, but he was no longer trapped in that void of existence like he had been for so many agonizing years.
The Reaper was reborn.
“You are not supposed to be here,” said Wonder Woman clearly. The Reaper turned to her slowly, and his smile didn’t go away. He wasn’t ugly, per se, but his handsome visage was corrupted by those eyes, and that smile, which Diana was convinced was full of dozens of small, razor sharp teeth. Maybe it was the moonlight.
The sky in Gotham was red.
“Wonder Woman,” hissed the Reaper. “I know of you. I met your mother once.” He put his hand out to her. “You are just as beautiful as she was. More so.”
“Do not talk of my mother, Caspian.” Judson Caspian. Pallas had told Diana of him. Of his career. Of his death. Batman had once mentioned him, but then hesitated. Bruce had hesitated. Bruce had allowed a chill of... Something to enter the conversation. She, at that moment, had felt fear. But right now, she was focused. She looked at him, her warrior’s instincts analyzing every aspect of his body.
He wore a cloak that hid his body. His hands were empty, but he wore black gloves. She watched as the material began to cover up the torn finger tips, until they were complete once more. He had no weapon, but something about him was strange to her.
“I once relied on human weapons. Man made to bring death. Guns. But I could kill you with my bare hands. Grant you death in a most magnificent manner. You could be my most glorious work.”
She had come ready for battle. Her sword was sheathed at her side, and her shield was strapped to her back. She held a spear, and her lasso was wrapped and clipped to her golden girdle. “I do not think I could allow that.” She pointed the spear at him. “I know what you are. A vessel of death powered by Hades. You are not alive.” She felt her spear in her hand, noted the perfect balance, and felt her surroundings around her. The direction of the wind. The rain fall. She hurled the spear at him, hard and fast, and it pierced his long flowing cloak, and jutted out of his back. “I have no qualms in making sure you remain in the ground.”
The Reaper looked at the spear for a moment. It was beautiful. Crafted perfectly. Balanced to perfection. He twisted it in his body, and it made a wet noise inside him. He then yanked it out, and then snapped it over his knee, which briefly appeared out of the cloak and then vanished again. He placed his hand once again into his cloak, and withdrew a white bone coloured mask, and then placed it over his face. She could still see his smile. “I do believe, Wonder Woman, you’ll have to try harder. . My Lord Hades, my new master, told me simply: If I denied death, I would not be dead. My own belief brought me up from the abyss. I believe you will die. So it will occur.”
Diana didn’t reply. Instead, she dove into battle.
He matched her blow for blow.
She thrust right, he threw up his arm and deflected the blow. She dodged left, uppercut upwards, and yes, his jaw did crack loud, bone did jut out of his cheek like a piercing, just visible beneath his mask, but he did not express any pain. He palmed her in the sternum, and set her flying back through sparsely marked tombstones, cracking the old stone and sending her sprawling across the wet grass. He grabbed his own jaw, and snapped his bones back in place. “You have no hope of defeating me, Wonder Woman.” He shrugged. “I am death. And soon, I shall be yours. Let me grant you a beautiful end.”
She didn’t reply. She drew her sword, and dove for him once more. She carved at him with a surgeon’s precision. He went to block her slices but she pulled back, and carved gouges out of his arms. He looked at the wounds. He smiled. He put out a hand to once again throw her back, but his fingers fell softly to the ground with a wet slice of her weapon.
“Hmm,” he grinned, and kicked her in the chest, cracking her golden girdle. She slid back on her shield, and grunted. He watched as his fingers reformed, and the ones on the floor withered away to dust. “You cannot kill me.”
She pulled her shield from her back, and brought it up. She stayed low.
“I do not think it fair that you do battle with weapons and aides, and I am left unarmed.” Inside the pits of the mask, his eyes twinkled in the darkness. There was a void in him. He moved his hand out, and out of nowhere, a long scythe formed in his grip. “This feels fitting.”
He swung down hard, and her shield, though enchanted by her pantheon, barely held. The scythe screeched across the gold metal, taking a long deep gouge out of the metal, and then hitting the wet grass. She drew up her shield, and slammed a sandaled foot into the wooden handle of the weapon, snapping it in two. She then sliced upwards with her sword, carving her opponents face in two. He staggered back. A long line of black blood oozed down the middle of his face. She didn’t hesitate in pressing her advantage. She was no fool. She sliced horizontally, slitting the villain’s throat, and then flew up, and kicked him in the jaw, sending his face streaking black blood in three different directions and his mask shattered to the ground. He raised the scythe up, though broken down the middle, still whole, held together by an invisible force. It moved impossibly fast, but she dodged it all the same. “Grruh,” he slurred, his mouth divided into two, his voice box severed.
She didn’t notice the red blood pouring down her arm, and pooling beneath her wrist guards and around the hilt of her sword. The Reaper suddenly snapped forward, lurching with deadly intent, and with one solid blow, shattered her enchanted shield. She threw her sword up in defence, and saw her hand wallowing in her own blood, and realised that she hadn’t dodged his scythe blow fast enough. She didn’t examine the wound. He went to punch the flat side of her weapon with a palm strike, but she twisted it in his hand, and it dug into his palm, slicing the space between his forefinger and index. He smiled as flesh knitted back together. “You delay the inevitable.”
He grabbed her around the neck, and squeezed. He moved with the speed of a God, and she knew that this was probably true, as he was powered by a seed of the former lord of the Underworld, Hades. Black spots began to form before her eyes. She was blacking out. “I will make you my most beautiful work. I will display you for the whole world to see, before my master destroys it. Gotham will become my exhibition hall. A whole realm of death for me to dip my hand into.” She gargled blood as her larynx began to crush. “What do you have to say to that?”
Her sword fell to the ground, covered in black ichor and her own ruby red blood. Between her lips air bubbles formed in the crimson liquid dribbling down. “Nno.”
Her hand grabbed the Reapers. He looked at it and smiled. “Is that all you’ve got? You’re going to grab my arm?” He squeezed tighter. “Foolish.”
“Nno. Distraction.” Her other hand was around his throat. Her lasso trailed from her hip to her hand. It was tight around his neck, but not tighter than his own grip.
“Clever,” he didn’t loosen his grip. “but you have nothing to gain from that. I told you the truth. I am the Reaper. There is nothing more to me.”
“And I…” She spat, as she struggled for air “I am the truth.” She hung limp in his hand. Darkness swirled within his cape. Tendrils of darkness licked at her damp body. “T-Tell me, really Judson Caspian, who are you?”
“I am the Reaper,” he replied again, impatient. “I am duh. Deh.” He put a hand to his mouth. He couldn’t get his words out.
“What are you?” She repeated. Demanded.
“I am the Reaper!” he shouted. “I am deeeeeeeaaaaaa.” He grew frustrated. “Deeeeahhhhh. Deht. God dammit!” He released Diana, but her lasso was still tied around him. She hit the ground hard, and gasped for air. A red welt surrounded her throat like she had been hung. “What have you done to me?” He kicked her hand in the rib, and she felt something come loose.
She laughed. “You aren’t supposed to be alive. Are you?”
“NO.” he screamed. “I’M NOT.” He looked at his hands. “I’M… DEAD.” His hands were shaking. She coughed from where she laid, blood mixing with rain and filling the grass. “I’m dead.” He collapsed within himself. He ceased to be. His cloak was all that remained of him, that, and the shattered, broken remains of his skull mask.
She smiled from where she lay, the rain covering her body. She looked at her shoulder, and saw the long gash that ran from the top of her shoulder to her elbow, and the bone and muscle that was visible. Her chest hurt, and each breath was ragged and wet.
She welcomed the darkness as it overwhelmed her.
She welcomed the darkness as it carried her away.
