Versus: Issue 1 of 2

Months have passed since the greatest tragedy met upon Earth. Months have passed since The Death of the Justice League of the World. The greatest heroes that this planet had to offer slain by one man and boundless power. Months since a man fell to Earth and began the chain reaction that leads us here. Superman. Batman. United they are the Worlds Finest, but stands on opposite sides… Armageddon surely closes in on us.

This is not a world you know!

His eyes. His eyes burn red like the star that his home planet orbited around. A red sun. Rao. He’s angry, and he can’t turn off his heat vision. They say that the eyes are the windows into the soul, and this… He’s anger. Anger and rage epitomized. What did this to him? What caused this boundless rage to be unleashed? No matter. It’s here. In the now, and what can someone do to stop it from spreading across the globe? You make a stand. You stop it now. And who else could stand in the Superman’s way? Who is left?

Who else?

Draped in shadows, his armour glowing black in the fires that scour Kansas. America’s heartland, covered in fire and ash… The first wave destroying the one thing that he cared about. The first wave… It wasn’t the last. Wave after wave, striking at the heart of what he holds dear. Metropolis, gone… The Fortress, burnt out of its armoured hole like a troublesome wart. Lois Lane, dead. Ma and Pa burnt to death in their home, along with the rest of Kansas’ residents. The farm barely stands. Debris and skeletons lying across the landscape.

He takes a breath, trying to wake up from the nightmare.

Failing.

Failing and falling because, after everything that has gone before, the wars and the death, this is the end of all things.

Batman stands, opposite and old friend and grudgingly, new enemy, one he was always prepared for, his armour holding, his enemy wearing dark tatters of his own blue, red and yellow.

Failing.

What little respect they have for each stands. They stand on opposite sides of the farm, dust and ash blowing around in the wind. They each wait for the other to make a move. They know each other so well, friends for so long… So they wait. Why’d it end up like this? Last men standing. The remains of greatness… Against each other. They may have never looked eye to eye, but they had respect. Friendship even. Why now? Why this turn of events? The sky cracks open, rain begins to fall onto the charred fields. Too late for the heavens to wash away the cursed earth, too late for God to cleanse the wounds brought upon the world.

The armour he wears hides the scars, physical, mental. Sleek black metal and red insignia across his chest. The rain dribbles down his head, and he blinks. That’s all his enemy needed. A blink. A split second when Batman’s eyes were closed. The hero is thrown forward by the force of the punch, but not the hit itself. Kal stops himself a mere millimetre from his face, but the power of the blow… Like a concentrated vortex of might. He rolls across the dusty floor and then jerks up, his state of the art armour holding, the kinetic energy redistributed across the metal of his new costume. Superman rises off the ground, his eyes still glowing that burning, searing red, his once bright and colourful costume now burnt and in tatters. What hope does Batman have stopping the most powerful man on the planet? What hope indeed? He puts up his hands, trying to block a punch, but his arms are pushed down by his power, and then the Dark Knight lies there, Superman unleashing his fury upon him.

The armour can bear the brunt of the heat vision, the artic breath, even a combination of the two… Bruce Wayne grunts underneath the blows that Superman lays upon him, again and again, pounding on the armour, pounding with fists that can crush coal into diamonds, hands that have saved millions of lives, now turned to kill this man, a man once his team mate but now considered his enemy… Superman punches Batman’s armour, and grimaces. Then he hears the voice.
“Why?” Gritty and monotonous, the voice speaks to him directly. “Why Clark? Why turn on us like this?”
Superman takes a moments respite from his attacks on the dark vigilante, and Batman smiles beneath his armour. With a gloved hand, he places it on Superman’s chest, and a blast of green light bursts out of it, Green Kryptonite searing through the heroes’ Kryptonian skin, through internal organs and bones, scouring into his heart. Superman buckles and falls to the floor, and looks to the Dark Knight, his hand still glowing.
“You’ll never destroy the League. The League is the League until the last member falls. I don’t know what insanity has overcome you, but Godammit, Clark, why the hell are you doing this?”
Batman picks up the Kryptonian and flings him into the gutted barn that was one his original Fortress of Solitude. Superman falls into the wall, and rotten wood and debris falls upon him.
“It doesn’t make sense…” Batman shakes his head. “You were the greatest, everyone looked up to you, and yet here you are, a murderer…”
Superman looks up and smiles, blood pouring from his mouth, the damage done to his body slowly healing. “I murdered my first… Victim… When I was fourteen… You know nothing of what I am…”
A gust of wind sends Batman flying out of the barn. This wasn’t adding up. Superman has never killed, not to his knowledge, and under the care of Martha and Jonathan Kent, he has never… Contemplated murder… What was happening? He picks himself up and flies forward into the barn, only to be haymaker’d through the roof, and Superman flies after him, his skin now scarring, and the radioactive wound closed.
“I’ve always hated you Bruce. You always were the thorn in my side.” Batman looks down and feels his mask heat up, and then he presses a button on his hip, his invisible utility belt reacting to his thoughts and causing something to emerge from his armour. He throws the batarangs down hard and as it approaches Superman it begins to glow red, the same red as Superman’s eyes glow now. As the blade approaches the Kryptonian he begins to slow, not knowing why, but slowing none the less. He analyses the batarang but not soon enough, and as the blade slices through his flesh and scratches against the bone beneath, he knows. Red sun radiation. Had Batman thought of everything?