Joseph slipped past Trigon's massive swing, the demon's hands closing in as if to crush him like a bug. The force of the near-miss alone sent chunks of earth flying for miles.
For something so enormous, Trigon was fast.
That made sense. This was his realm. Time itself bent to his will.
It didn't affect Joseph the same way. The Nth metal woven through his suit—and integrated into his body—disrupted magical interference, shielding him from direct manipulation.
Even so, Trigon was still moving several times faster than he should have been.
It didn't matter.
Joseph was faster.
Being cut off from his home universe had made something clear: he had always been limited. Sharing the Speed Force with Barry, Wally, and Reverse Flash—each more experienced, or more favored—meant he was normally capped below ten percent of light speed.
Here, that limit was gone.
He tapped into it fully.
Not just the Speed Force—
the Strength Force as well.
Reverse Flash—Zoom—had been siphoning from that, too. Joseph had seen it himself while digging through the Outsider's mind, back when he'd seeded nanotech into the leaders of the Light, now the Secret Society of Supervillains.
Hunter Zolomon. A man from the future—or an alternate timeline, maybe both. Obsessed with suffering. Convinced that pain made heroes stronger.
Joseph would deal with him eventually.
But not now.
Now, he fought.
Hundreds of golden orbs filled the battlefield as Heaven-Splitting Flash activated, Nova Force blasting Trigon from every angle in a relentless barrage.
Joseph dove low, narrowly evading a kick the size of a multi-story building. The wind alone shredded nearby structures into dust.
He accelerated.
Speed Force and Strength Force surged through him as he drove Alien Excalibur into Trigon's foot. The blade flared, expanded several feet, and Joseph dragged it upward in a blazing arc, carving a line up the demon's body.
Channeling both Forces demanded absolute focus. It felt like standing in a raging ocean, currents threatening to pull him under. One mistake, and he could be swallowed whole—lost to the Forces themselves.
But he held steady.
Months ago, he might have faltered.
Now?
After killing Vandal Savage… after taking on the weight of protecting Earth…
He endured.
Joseph surged upward, reaching Trigon's face, and slashed through two of his four glowing yellow eyes before pulling back.
The demon roared.
"You insolent fly! I will crush you!"
Trigon's massive hands came together, closing in on Joseph like a human swatting a mosquito.
Joseph clicked his tongue.
The constant barrage from Heaven-Splitting Flash, combined with his Nth-metal blade, wasn't doing lasting damage. Every wound sealed almost instantly. Even the eyes he'd just destroyed were already regenerating.
Trigon wasn't wrong.
At this rate, Joseph was a fly.
Home-field advantage.
Unfair—but not unexpected.
A colossal fist tore toward him.
Joseph raised his arms.
The Strength Force surged through his anti-gravity field, pushing back against the incoming strike and slowing it just enough.
There was a cost.
Enhancing one aspect meant sacrificing another. In this case, his body's durability dropped sharply.
But with the Speed Force, Trigon wouldn't touch him.
Not here.
Not at this speed.
And even if he did, Shockwave's tech would absorb most of the impact, while the Fatherbox woven into his nanites would repair the damage.
Joseph felt the pressure build as Trigon forced his hands together, straining to crush him between them—
Then Joseph vanished.
He dropped out of the space in a burst of speed just as Trigon's palms slammed together with a thunderous clap.
The shockwave rippled outward—
and in the distance, a mountain of bones shattered into dust.
"You are the first to make me struggle so."
Trigon's two ruined eyes flared back to life, blazing yellow.
"Stand proud, New God. You are strong. But your strength is not enough."
A wave of red magic erupted from his body.
Joseph dismissed the Heaven-Splitting Flash orbs and braced as the demonic energy surged past him, warping the air and ground in its wake.
Absorbing it wasn't an option.
Only a fool would try that in Trigon's realm.
He still remembered what Grail's Omega beams had done to him—how the pain alone had nearly knocked him unconscious. Trigon was magnitudes beyond that.
Despite himself, Joseph smirked.
This—this was what it felt like to be alive. Real stakes. Real danger. The fate of Earth—of everything—hanging in the balance.
He wasn't a battle junkie—
//That is debatable, sir.//
Joseph exhaled through his nose.
Alright. Maybe a little.
But he couldn't deny the exhilaration of pushing himself to the limit and overcoming something that shouldn't be beaten.
On Earth, things had started becoming too easy.
With his power, every problem existed only because he allowed it. Not arrogance—just fact.
After a few months, even that had started to bore him.
It explained why he'd had such fun designing the Luthorbots. It also explained why he hadn't immediately dealt with the threat that was the Secret Society of Supervillains.
Sure he had their leaders mind controlled, but allowing Zoom to continue existing was another matter. He was probably unconsciously letting chaos play out just to feel something.
Maybe that was what happened to gods. Millennia of power and nothing left to challenge them.
Not that he excused it.
If any of them threatened humanity again, he would crush them.
Just like he would overcome the one in front of him.
"You're not the first to say that to me," Joseph said, Strength Force heat churning beneath his skin. "You know what I did to the last guy who said that shit to me?"
His eyes burned gold.
"I buried him."
The ground behind him erupted.
A colossal magma giant surged upward, matching Trigon in size as it clawed its way into existence like a living volcano.
Joseph's control snapped into place.
Strength Force fueled the geokinesis. Red Volcano's tech refined it. Anti-gravity fields held the structure together, while the Speed Force accelerated every movement.
The golem swung.
Trigon met it head-on.
Two giants clashed, their blows shaking the entire realm.
Joseph maintained control from above, jaw tight as the strain built. Holding something like this together—at this scale—demanded constant focus.
This wasn't going to work.
He'd planned to overwhelm Trigon with raw power. That had been a mistake.
In his own realm, Trigon wasn't going to tire.
Joseph's Nova Sense flooded him with the truth—magic on a scale so vast it was almost incomprehensible. Even a century of continuous combat wouldn't make a dent in those reserves.
Joseph could fight for decades. His body wouldn't fail him, not with the Source behind him.
But his mind would.
There was only so much psychic energy he could draw on before exhaustion set in—before Trigon found a way in.
Which meant—
It was time.
Joseph shrank Alien Excalibur and pulled the Helmet of Fate into his hand.
"Nova," he said, eyes still tracking the fight below, where the magma giant drove a heavy uppercut into Trigon's jaw. "Maintain the golem. Keep him occupied."
A pause.
"It's time I asked Nabu for help."
//Understood, sir.//
Joseph looked at the Helmet of Fate for a brief second. Doctor Fate had inspired his suit's design and now he was wearing the Helmet. It felt like a full-circle moment.
Joseph retracted his Spartan helmet into his body and placed the helmet on his head.
The battlefield vanished.
In its place stretched a vast expanse of blue and violet space, scattered with unfamiliar constellations—patterns he hadn't even seen in Gordanian data.
It was… peaceful.
Almost beautiful.
Better than the empty void he'd once used to contain Klarion before sealing him into the Chaos Nth Band.
Though, after a thousand years, even this would probably grow dull.
A presence filled the space.
Ancient. Vast. Unyielding.
A voice followed—deep and absolute.
"How dare an agent of Chaos wear the Helmet of Fate."
**
| Helmet of Fate Realm - ???
Nabu had once been human.
Born around 1836 BC to Vandal Savage—then known as Marduk, a demigod ruler in Babylonia—he had lived as a priest of Thoth, god of wisdom. In time, he came to be revered as a god of wisdom himself.
During that life, he witnessed the crash of a Thanagarian starship. From its wreckage, he recovered a fragment of the strange anti-gravity metal that powered it—Nth metal. From it, he forged his helmet. With his ally Teth-Adam, he used another portion to create the Claw of Horus, a weapon they believed would one day shape the fate of the world.
Then came the mistake.
Around 1800 BC, Klarion—the Witch Boy, a Lord of Chaos—offered Marduk a solution to control his increasingly independent generals. Nabu opposed it fiercely.
It didn't matter.
Marduk accepted.
Klarion summoned a Starro creature from the depths of space.
It did not obey.
Instead, it enslaved Marduk's army.
Nabu fought alongside his father and his sister, Ishtar, to stop the invasion.
He died in that battle.
His death—born of his father's alliance with Chaos—drew the attention of the Lords of Order. Nabu had defied Chaos even in his final moments. That made him ideal.
They claimed his soul.
Elevated him.
Bound him to his own creation.
The Helmet of Fate became his anchor to the mortal plane. Through it, he would act as Doctor Fate, channeling Order through mortal hosts. When worn, he would take control, while the host's consciousness remained trapped within the helm—aware, but powerless.
For millennia, that was his existence.
Host after host.
Order imposed upon chaos.
The last to wear him had been Kent Nelson. Together, they had fought against Child's global rampage—until Kent fell, struck down by a Chaos-empowered Solomon Grundy.
The helmet cracked.
Nabu's power diminished.
And once again, there was silence.
Until now.
But something was wrong.
When the helmet was donned again, Nabu did not take control. At first, he attributed it to the damage—the fracture in the Helmet of Fate limiting his influence. But as he examined the situation more closely, he realized that wasn't the issue.
The host was resisting him.
Actively.
That alone was unusual, but what lay beneath was even more concerning. The body carried Nth metal—not merely worn, but integrated into its very structure. And beneath that, there was a presence… a scent that Nabu recognized instantly.
Familiar.
Offensive.
Chaos.
Klarion.
Nabu's awareness sharpened immediately.
"Speak," he commanded, irritation seeping into his voice as he prepared to crush the boy's mind with what remained of his power.
Even so, he continued to observe him.
The boy was an anomaly.
There were echoes of others within him—faint similarities to beings Nabu had known. He was reminded of Wonder Woman, a warrior he had once fought alongside during the era of the All-Star Squadron. At the same time, there were traces of something older, something divine, reminiscent of the Egyptian gods who had once stood aligned with Order.
The black-and-gold armor evoked Teth-Adam, but that alone did not explain it.
There was something deeper at work here. Something Nabu could not immediately define.
Even so, the presence of Chaos remained undeniable.
And that, above all else, was unacceptable.
The boy would be destroyed.
Then he spoke.
In fluent Akkadian.
"Nabu, son of Marduk," the boy said calmly.
The language—ancient and long since faded from mortal tongues—gave Nabu pause.
"Lend me your power to save Earth from Trigon."