They came from the skies like falling stars set aflame.
Darkseid's Final Host descended in waves of metal, flesh, and void. Planet-cracking warships shaped like screaming faces blotted out the horizon. Parademons flooded the atmosphere like insects drawn to the scent of fear.
This was not an invasion.
It was erasure.
And the multiverse trembled.
The Battle Begins
In the wastelands east of Metropolis, thousands of warriors lined up—multiversal allies side by side, shield to shield, spell to spell, breath held as the coming storm loomed.
At the front stood Superman, cloak torn and body bruised, his eyes glowing with heat barely held back.
Beside him, Wonder Woman, armor scorched but heart steady.
John Stewart, ring burning bright.
Zatanna, breath short but chants ready.
And between them all, the still figure that had become the symbol of impossible hope:
Raga.
The Wheel spun slowly on his back, humming like a tuning fork for the divine.
Thunder cracked as Steppenwolf led the charge of Apokolips' ground forces. Behind him, monstrous new warforms—creatures shaped from dead gods and broken stars.
The sky was painted with fire.
The field shook.
And then—
They clashed.
The ground war erupted in seconds. Magic and science collided. Speedsters tore through enemy lines like comets. Lanterns formed titanic constructs. Titans bled. Gods screamed.
Raga moved through it all like a storm walking on two feet. He adapted to weapons not yet invented, to energies meant to silence souls.
Each time he was struck, the wheel turned.
And each time, he became harder to harm, harder to understand.
But as he fought, a pressure began building in his chest.
Something… was calling to him.
Not enemy.
Not ally.
But origin.
The Horrifying Truth
During a lull in the battle, Zatanna found him kneeling beside the fractured husk of a dead Apokoliptian engine-beast. His hand was buried in its core, where a glowing, scarlet crystal pulsed faintly.
"Raga?" she asked, panting. "What are you doing?"
He didn't answer at first.
When he looked at her, his eyes were distant. Hollow.
"This core… it's not a weapon."
"What is it then?"
He opened his hand.
The crystal floated up, spinning gently in the air.
"It's a seed," he whispered.
"A seed for what?"
He looked to the sky—where a second wave of Boom Tubes thundered open, spilling twisted echoes of himself. Hulking beasts bearing wheels… but corrupted, broken.
"They didn't just make me to adapt," Raga said. "They made me to duplicate. Each death I survive… spreads the code."
Zatanna froze. "You're not a soldier. You're… a virus."
"A universal override. A living infection of conquest."
His voice cracked.
"I wasn't made to win battles. I was made to replace them. Every god. Every man. One adaptation at a time."
He staggered back, horror dawning behind golden eyes.
"I'm the last equation."
Death Walks
The battle howled louder as Darkseid's true generals arrived—Grail, Kalibak reborn in armor of entropy, and a version of Desaad forged from dead timelines.
But something shifted.
A stillness crept across the field like velvet.
And in that silence, Death came.
She did not shimmer. She did not announce her arrival.
She simply was.
And every soldier—friend or foe—felt her presence.
Parademons hesitated mid-flight.
The Spectre paused his vengeance.
Even Darkseid, watching from above, narrowed his burning eyes.
Death walked through the battlefield with no weapon, no armor. Just herself. A black tank top, jeans, bare feet… and eternity behind her smile.
She reached Raga.
He knelt without thinking.
"I am… the infection," he said. "I am what they planned."
She knelt with him.
"You were designed to be," she said. "But you've made different choices."
"I can't control what I am."
"You can control what you do with it."
He looked at her. "Then help me. Tell me how to stop it."
Death reached into the air… and drew from it a scythe of starlight, glowing with the last breath of suns.
"I am not here to take you," she said. "I am here to walk with you."
She stood, offering him the scythe.
"Not as Death. But as your ally."
He took it.
The Wheel behind him spun wildly—not in response to harm, but in acceptance.
The seed within him pulsed once.
Then quieted.
The Turning Point
With Death at his side and the scythe in hand, Raga rose again.
He moved faster than thought, cutting through Grail's armor in a single swing. He struck Kalibak so hard the brute cratered the earth.
The Apokoliptian warbeasts recoiled—not just from power, but from the principle he now carried:
That even the weapon born to destroy everything could become a guardian.
That even Death could choose to save.
Darkseid, watching from his throne above Earth, clenched his fists.
"Then the final form must be revealed," he said.
And with that, he stepped down.
To end the war himself.