Shadow Monarch in DC

The onslaught continued, Igris a blur of violet and black lightning circling a Doom who was, for the first time since the fight began, purely on the defensive, catching what he could, deflecting what he couldn’t, absorbing the rest with a body built to withstand annihilation. And then, in one final, blinding convergence of speed and steel, Igris closed the last of the distance and drove the demon king’s longsword forward with the full weight of every ounce of momentum he had built.

The blade sank hilt-deep into Doom’s chest.

Silence rippled outward from the point of impact. Doom stood frozen, the sword buried to the crossguard, lightning still crackling faintly along its length, and for a moment the entire arena was silent, certain that the fight was over after that attack.

Galatea, at the edge of the field, let out a low, satisfied breath."Doom is done for."

From the platform above, Arthur simply sighed.

"That was not enough, I’m afraid."

Below, something changed.

Doom’s massive frame shuddered, and where the blade had pierced him, black shadow-matter began to boil upward and outward, it was not injury, it was growth. Bone shadow spikes erupted along his shoulders, his spine, his forearms, jagged and glistening, layer after layer of new, adapted armor rising to meet the exact threat that had finally, truly, wounded him. His hide thickened, and with a motion almost lazy, one massive hand closed around the sword buried in his chest and yanked it free, hurling it aside as though it were nothing more than a splinter.

Igris’s eyes widened behind his helm. He knew, in that instant, with the same clarity that had guided every strike before it, that his gambit had failed, that he was no longer facing the same opponent he had spent the last several minutes learning.

Doom threw back his head and roared, a sound that cracked stone and sent shadow soldiers stumbling in the stands, and then he attacked.

Igris raised his hand to block.

It didn’t matter.

The first punch came through his guard as though his hands weren’t there at all, the force of it staggering him backward three full steps before he’d even registered the pain. The second caught him across the ribs and lifted him off his feet entirely. He hit the ground already reeling, already trying to rise, and the third blow met him before he’d made it upright, driving him down onto one knee, half his shadow-formed body simply unraveling into smoke and ruin under the impact, his helm’s visage cracked and torn away on one side, revealing the features beneath.

He did not fall further than that one knee. He would not allow himself that.

Doom stood over him for a moment, fist still raised, and then, slowly, without a word, without the roar of triumph one might have expected, he lowered it. He turned, and walked away, leaving his opponent kneeling amid the wreckage of the arena floor, defeated, but not completely destroyed. That was his way of showing respect.

A murmur rolled through the watching Marshals. Whatever else had happened, everyone present understood they had just watched two of the deadliest beings in the Shadow Legion push each other to the very edge of what either of them could survive.

Ultra was the first to move, crossing to Igris’s side and offering an arm to help him rise. "That," he said, "was one hell of a fight."

Igris accepted the help, his remaining eye glinting with rueful humor even through exhaustion. "I lost."

"You made Doom adapt to your every attack," Bellion said. "No one else in this arena can claim that."

Even Galatea, arms still crossed, inclined her head toward him with something that looked almost like respect. "You fought well, Marshal Igris."

Above, Didi watched the last of the wreckage settle, her expression thoughtful. "He really is a problem," she said to Arthur. "Your knight did everything right. That adaptation is, frankly, cheating."

Arthur’s mouth curved, faint and knowing. "Believe it or not," he said, "that was a weaker version of Doomsday. One I killed alongside Kara before he’d finished becoming what he was meant to be." His eyes lingered on the massive, silent figure retreating to the edge of the arena. "If I had taken one that had been allowed to reach his full, perfected form, he would be far more dangerous than what you just watched."

Didi let out a slow breath. "I will admit, Monarch of Shadows, that is a genuinely terrifying thought, even to me."

Arthur restored the arena and then lifted the regeneration restriction on Igris then he raised his voice, carrying it out over the arena floor to where Igris still knelt amid the ruin, and where Doom stood silent and unreadable at its edge.

"Both of you fought well," he said. "Igris, your skill with a blade remains unmatched in this army, and today you proved it against an opponent that should not have been touchable at all. And Doom, you proved once again your overwhelming strength. There is no shame in this outcome for either of you."

Igris bowed his head where he knelt. Doom, in the only answer he had ever needed, simply bowed his in return.

Arthur turned back to the rest of his gathered Marshals, his gaze settling on the two who remained.

"Bellion. Ultra." the last match of the tournament laid bare before them. "It seems it falls to the two of you."

Bellion stepped forward without hesitation, his expression calm, resolute. Beside him, Ultra rolled his shoulders once, a slow, easy grin spreading across his face as he cracked his knuckles.

"Finally," Ultra said. "I was starting to think I’d have to fight for this without even breaking a sweat."

Bellion’s answering look was flat, unimpressed, and entirely unsurprised. "You say that before every fight we have alongside the Monarch."

"Maybe, but I never got to spar with you." Ultra said.

Bellion unfurled his wings.

Four of them, vast and black as the space between stars, feathers edged in faint violet light, spreading wide enough to cast a shadow across half the arena floor. He drew his blade in the same motion, the long, the weapon shifting almost lazily between the shape of a sword and something looser, more sinuous like a whip when he let his wrist go slack.

Across from him, Ultra rolled his neck once, and grinned.

There was nothing subtle about Ultra. Where Bellion looked like an angel of death, Ultra looked like a proper Kryptonian. He stood with the easy confidence, he had never once doubted his own strength.

"Four wings and a fancy sword, I always wanted to test the difference between us." Ultra said, cracking his knuckles.

"I have fought beings who talked less and were far stronger," Bellion said. "You will forgive me if I am not impressed by words."

"Good." Ultra’s grin widened, and his eyes ignited fully, twin points of glowing red. "I was getting bored of talking too."

Neither of them waited, the moment the bell rang, the moment the words left him, Ultra simply appeared with no windup, no visible transition between standing still and being a blur, closing the thirty feet between them in less time than it took to blink, one fist already cocked back and swinging in an arc meant to end the fight before it had properly begun.

Bellion wasn’t there.

His wings had already carried him upward and sideways in a single beat, a controlled burst that put him ten feet clear of the strike, and Ultra’s fist met only the empty stone where he’d stood, the impact detonating outward in a shockwave that cratered the arena floor and sent a visible ripple of pressure rolling across the crowd of watching shadows.

"Missed," Bellion observed, dropping back down at an angle, his blade already whipping out in a long, low arc that should have opened Ultra from hip to shoulder.

Ultra caught it on his forearm.

The steel screamed against shadowskin that did not break, sparks showering off an impact that should have severed his arm and didn’t, Ultra laughed delightedly, before his other hand shot out and closed around Bellion’s wrist.

"Nice trick," he said. "My turn."

He threw him, not with a punch, but with raw, contemptuous strength, hurling Bellion bodily across the arena floor hard enough to tear a furrow through the stone before Bellion’s wings snapped open mid-flight, arresting the momentum in a single sharp beat, shadow feathers scattering violet light as he came to a hovering stop a dozen feet above the wreckage.

"I appreciate a soldier who commits," Bellion said, unruffled, straightening.

"Oh, I’m gonna commit a lot more than that." Ultra said.

Ultra’s eyes flared, and twin beams of heat vision lanced upward, tracking Bellion’s hovering body with a speed that should have made evasion impossible for any other shadow soldier bellow the rank of Marshal. Bellion’s wings answered before his mind had to, a controlled roll that let the beams pass a hair’s breadth from his shoulder, the heat close enough to singe a few loose feathers as he dove, closing the distance in a streak of black and violet, his blade already reshaping in his grip, the rigid length of it going suddenly fluid, elongating, becoming a whip of dark, crackling steel that lashed out in a wide, sweeping arc aimed at Ultra’s legs.

Ultra jumped it, laughing.

"Cute."

Bellion was already adjusting, the whip snapping back and reforming into a rigid blade mid-recoil, driving upward in a thrust aimed at Ultra’s descending chest even as the former tyrant came down from his leap, both of them converging on the same point in the air with lethal intent.

The blade found its mark.

It should have gone through him.

Instead it skated along skin, before Ultra’s palm slammed into Bellion’s chest and sent him rocketing backward through the air, tearing a long gouge through the arena’s outer wall before he managed to right himself.

Ultra touched the shallow cut on his chest almost curiously, then looked up, grinning wider than before.

"You actually injured me," he said.

Bellion rose from the rubble, wings flaring wide once more, four black shapes cutting sharp silhouettes against the violet sky, his expression as calm and unreadable as it had been since the fight began.

"I told you," he said. "I have fought much stronger foes."

"Yeah?" Ultra rolled his shoulders, the air around him beginning to hum faintly, the crimson glow behind his eyes deepening. "Survive this then, esteemed Marshal."

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