Established facts left no room for denial. At this point, any explanation would only make things worse. Bruce kept his head down and pretended he hadn't heard a word.
Thea let out a pointed sniff and continued. "In that world, Ares slaughtered the gods and forged a helmet from their combined divine power. That helmet amplifies the wearer's strength a hundredfold. He was the undisputed God of War."
Diana and Bruce pried themselves out of their mutual embarrassment and listened.
"The Justice League was wiped out. Diana sacrificed her life to knock the helmet off Ares's head... and died in Batman's arms." She gave Bruce a very deliberate look.
"Could you maybe skip those details? I am begging you." Bruce didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Oh—honestly, telling it makes me uncomfortable too." Thea waved the thought away. "Anyway, in the end, this Batman put on the helmet, defeated Ares, and became a killing god himself. He calls himself the Merciless. Our target is that helmet. With those same-source divine powers fueling him, Zeus could last another ten thousand years, easy."
Thea summarized the mission briefly. This time, Batman didn't need to tag along. She planned to go with Diana alone—just like when the two of them had first set out from Paradise Island to fight Ares.
The only complication was that both of their power levels were simply too high. Thea could only send a projection, and Diana would go in avatar form.
Transport still required Daniel's help. Using Bruce as the reference point for targeting, Daniel quickly locked on to the coordinates. Simultaneously, a disturbance was created in the former Batman Who Laughs' world to draw Barbatos's attention. With preparations complete, the two women teleported across in a flash.
Another world of ruins. The survivors here outnumbered those of the Batman Who Laughs' world, but their spirits were equally shattered.
Flying overhead, the two women saw countless ordinary people dressed in rags, kneeling before statues of the Merciless, begging for their lives.
The Batman who had become the Merciless was this world's sole deity. Every drop of mortal faith was consolidated in one being. He alone maintained order. He was the law. He was the judge.
Everything and everyone was measured by his standard alone. Those who met it lived. Those who didn't, died.
Thea found herself reminiscing about the last time the two of them had set out together to fight Ares.
Diana, on the other hand, was furious. This Batman was abusing the power of the Greek gods—crude, brutal, operating on sheer force with zero logic. She intended to deal with this tyrant personally.
"Can you see where he is?" Diana asked, adjusting her equipment as she flew.
Thea had slipped back into her archer getup, holding the trusty longbow she hadn't used in ages. As a projection, this body had minimal combat capability. She could only coast from the backline—just like old times against Ares.
At Diana's question, she scanned the horizon while her main body coordinated the search. They located the target quickly.
"Going by the position... it looks like Paradise Island." Thea sounded uncertain.
Diana went quiet for a moment. Then a single word ground itself out between her teeth: "Go."
She took the lead. Thea followed obediently behind.
An hour of flight brought them to the target location. Both women knew this place intimately. It was Themyscira. Compared to the devastation blanketing the rest of the world, Paradise Island still maintained its basic form—but it was utterly devoid of life. The silence was unnerving.
This wasn't their first trip into a parallel universe. Thea kept her tone matter-of-fact. "There's only one being here. Everyone else is probably dead."
Diana's voice dropped another two degrees. "I know."
The words had barely left their lips when a deafening rumble shook the ground in the distance and a figure shot out of the earth like a cannonball.
It was a towering silhouette clad in dark-blue full-body armor, Wonder Woman's eagle insignia blazoned across the chest, an Energy Greatsword in one hand, and a bat-winged helmet crowning its head.
Ares forged that thing? Then why does it have bat wings? Did he have nothing better to do? Thea kept her critique strictly internal.
"I'll take him." Diana's voice was iron.
Thea had no objections. She stepped aside to play support—or, more accurately, to coast.
"Another world's Diana?" The voice inside the armor sounded rusty, as though its owner hadn't spoken in a very long time. The cadence dragged, and the helmet made every word hollow and resonant.
"Daughter of Zeus—halt! War is not a game. Fear it. Respect it. For I AM the God of War!"
The Merciless appeared to have some... mental health issues. He started out addressing Diana, then drifted into muttering to himself, working himself into such a fervor that he literally ignited—dark-blue flames roared to life around his armor, turning him into something that looked like a deity striding out of antiquity.
Diana had been ready to raise her shield and charge, but his rambling nonsense threw her off. She glanced back at Thea.
"He's probably lost his mind too. Kill him, grab the helmet—mission complete." Thea had zero interest in watching this drama queen perform. Just remember: all Batmen are unhinged. The specifics didn't matter.
Diana couldn't have agreed more. She stomped hard off the ground, cleared dozens of meters in a single bound, and brought her sword crashing down from overhead.
The Merciless, armored and imposing, didn't flinch. Utterly indifferent to the blade descending on him, he swung his Energy Greatsword at Diana's midsection.
Both sides went straight into kill-or-be-killed mode from the very first exchange.
Diana's avatar and the Merciless were roughly matched in raw power, but her combat sense was on another level entirely.
Compact and agile, she deftly caught the greatsword on her shield and snapped a kick at his head.
The original Diana of this world had knocked this very helmet off Ares's head. She could do the same.
The Merciless reacted fast. With his greatsword pinned, he threw his left fist at Diana instead.
A bright, ringing clatter—courage condensed into a green chain that Diana flung outward like a lasso, binding his left hand and wrenching him toward her. In the same motion, the Sword of Hephaestus drove upward at his helmet.
"I am the God of War!" Something flickered behind his eyes, as though some long-buried memory had surfaced. He lowered his head and charged like a bull.
The slash missed. Diana didn't panic. She sidestepped his rush, reached out with both hands, grabbed the bat-wings on his helmet, and tried to wrench it downward.
Afraid she might rip his entire head off, she held back on the force. The first attempt didn't budge it. The helmet seemed fused to his skull. By the time she realized she needed more strength, the window had closed. She disengaged with a quick retreat.
Three or four exchanges blurred past. The Merciless had no mastery to match his divine power—just raw human martial arts backed by godlike force. Diana held the clear advantage across the board.