The Despero Intersection

Suddenly, the ground rushed at them, and in the blink of an eye, they struck it with the sound of an artillery shell, breaking through meters of pavement and rock to reach a subway station below, an empty subway car folding like cloth beneath them. Despero had disrupted her concentration enough to overcome her flight power.

With a mirthless laugh, Despero grabbed the stunned Amazon's long black hair and threw her like a toy to the station's floor.

The Amazon breathed deeply, stumbling to her knees, feeling her ankle protest at the attempt to rise. Despero, whose superior powers of recovery gave him the advantage, now stood before her, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her.

"YOU KNEEL BEFORE YOUR MASTER, WOMAN, AS YOU SHOULD. I LIKE THAT," he said, his eyes glowing now with a different kind of hunger.

Wonder Woman looked up and for an instant, her eyes widened. Had THAT been there before? she wondered in an instant of digression. She found it hard to believe she had failed to notice such an outstanding feature.

"YOU MAY STILL BE OF SOME USE," he said, reaching for her.

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J'onn's mind registered similar surprise, seeing Despero through his mindlink with Diana.

*She is affecting him, too,* he realized. *Enough to manifest it physically.*

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As Despero reached for her, Wonder Woman seized his thick wrists, and threw herself back to the floor, extending her legs to plant her feet on his hips. Pulling him in with her arms while pushing with her legs, she rolled backwards and threw him over and behind, to smash against the station's wall.

She stood up, and smiled. In her right hand she again held her golden lasso, the other end of which was still tied to Despero's wrist.

Grabbing the lasso tightly with both hands, the heroine pulled and twisted, and Despero was swung in a tight arch to hit the station's farthest wall with a loud crash. Spinning powerfully, she flung him at the opposite wall immediately. Focusing on strength, speed, and the grounding needed, and ignoring the groaning of her muscles at the effort of channeling the necessary power, Wonder Woman repeated the action again and again, throwing Despero from wall to wall, harder and faster each time, his body becoming a blur, as the whole station shuddered with the powerful impacts.

A wino who had been dozing in a nearby corner and was overlooked in the evacuation efforts, woke up with justifiable shock. Swearing to give up booze for real this time, he ran away with speed that would have made an Olympic coach proud.

Just when the whole place seemed about to cave in, Wonder Woman finally willed the lasso to contract, and with a brisk tug she pulled Despero's battered form towards her.

The enormous creature seemed unconscious, his face and body bruised and bloodied. Yet Wonder Woman could not afford to feel relief. Feeling her back muscles cramping with fatigue, she wrapped the golden lasso around the creature's torso and arms, and turned him facedown, moving to bind hands and feet together.

The ground below them exploded as Despero released a fearsome energy blast, a reverse shower of concrete and soil throwing Wonder Woman off her feet, unbalanced by the unexpected indirect attack.

Despero struggled to his feet, seething with fury as he strained against the slender length of golden rope binding him. The damage Wonder Woman had inflicted on him was vanishing already, yet he was unable to free himself from the apparently ridiculous obstacle. His shoulder and arm muscles grew even larger, the enormous bulging masses crackling with energy, but still the unbreakable golden lasso held.

He looked at where the stunned heroine lay, face up on the ground. She should die in horrible pain for her affront, he knew, yet his eyes drank with relish the sight of her shapely female flesh, Her costume had been charred into almost nothingness by his blasts, yet the exposed skin on her lush body remained smooth and unblemished but for minor fading bruises.

"IT IS TIME YOU BEGAN SERVING THIS WORLD'S NEW MASTER," he sneered, looming arrogantly over the Amazon, his powerful legs straddling her fallen body.

As Despero stepped over her, Wonder Woman slid forward, her left hand reaching for the creature's right foot set by her side, while her legs rose to wrap themselves from behind around his thick thigh, her booted feet locking above his groin. Trapping his foot tightly in her armpit, she clasped her hands on it, and forced her legs down with all her power, bringing Despero back and down to the ground before her. Adjusting her position, she locked her hands and arms, and leaning back, broke his ankle like a twig.

Despero roared in pain, and she coiled back her right foot and stomped it forward into the sizable target at his groin with furious power. Despero's eyes bulged and his mouth became a small circular opening, as the pain rendered him voiceless.

Jumping to her feet instantly, Wonder Woman twisted her body and Despero's trapped leg with it, dislocating the knee joint with a wet-sounding snap. Despero's torso rose as he screamed, to be sent back down immediately by a side kick to his face. With a grunt, the heroine brought her knee down onto the lower portion of his exposed rib-cage, feeling the diamond-hard bones give in to the impact. Sliding to straddle Despero, she grabbed the golden lasso still binding the monster's arms and wrapped it around his shoulders and neck, leaning forward in mount position, using one forearm to force Despero's face to a side, deflecting his blasting range. Breathing deeply, she began to deliver a staccato of straight punches with her free hand, dark blood splattering on her with each strike.

"YAAAARGHHHHHH!" Despero screamed, as his will sent the two of them flying up, to smash against the station's ceiling, the surprised heroine taking the brunt of the impact, before falling back to the station's floor.

Wonder Woman felt darkness threaten to shroud her mind, but she fought it, using her pain as focus to remain conscious, cursing her overconfidence. She had again underestimated his enormous power. Her body ached in agony and her head seemed about to explode, but she was still holding onto the lasso, refusing to let go, as they both rolled on the debris-covered floor, joined by the golden length of metallic rope.

*That is it,* she realized, as she gritted her teeth in determination, fighting to keep the struggling brute under control.

*J'ONN!* she cried out in her mind. *The lasso! It is the way in!*

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"This is the place. I think. Booster, there's a mountain of rubble here. Just where the hell are you?"

"Down here!"

"Oh. Great help."

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"GIVE UP!" Wonder Woman commanded, focusing her will through the lasso binding Despero, joining them in its mystic bond.

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J'onn winced as he trembled with the effort, brushing aside the pain of his healing injuries, his mind reaching through his mindlink with Diana into the strange pathway the magical lasso provided.

>>GIVE UP!<< he echoed, hammering at the fiery wall of Despero's mind.

Suddenly, they were in.

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There was nothing but anger and hate. The monomaniacal fire of obsession had grown and grown until it had consumed anything else there may have ever been. Conscious thought remained only as a tool for the expression of his hate, for the articulation of his anger.

The respective consciousness of Martian and Amazon, tenuously linked, were but inconsequential specks lost in a vast ocean of madness. They could only stare in horror at the intensity of the all-present loathing, aghast at the burning flashes of bitter recollection. The memories that colored the surface of his madness were only fuel for Despero's fury, focal points for his hate.

They sensed, as if they had lived it, the dread and hate projected from the hearts of people facing the birth of a grotesque mutant. They felt the dark shadow of death claim the parents, victims of fear and intolerance. and the sudden awakening of the fearsome power echoing such murderous resolve. They saw a planet devastated, a race slaughtered, revenge and hate becoming, more than a way of life, life itself.

*He was just a child...* J'onn felt Diana mutter to herself, her pain almost tangible through the shared mindlink.

They saw his power grow, his lust for death and conquest growing in hand, to be stopped only when facing the Justice League. They felt the shock of discorporation, and the spiraling madness of sensory deprivation annihilating everything but the central core of hate and hunger for the retribution he felt they owed him. That all life owed him.

Despero had become his hate, and his hate was all there was of him.

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"Bea, it's not enough! You are just slagging the rubble," Beetle shouted. "You need to vaporize the whole thing!"

"I'm doing the best I can!" Fire replied. "This isn't easy!"

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It was useless.

J'onn's mind surfed the waves of Despero's fury, anchored by the firmness of Diana's concern, as he desperately sought a handhold. Anything he could work with. But even deep inside Despero's defenses, there was nothing he could do. The creature's savage anger, his lust for retribution was too boundless, too intense, yet too basic and featureless to grasp. It was like trying to catch water with a sieve.

*I can't...*

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*NO!* Wonder Woman thought at J'onn, while she and Despero rolled on the floor, her tired muscles straining to hold down the struggling brute, as he roared his anger at the presence that had infiltrated his mind. Her eyes were closed, her consciousness focused elsewhere, but her training allowed her to keep up with the monster's struggles, her body aware of every shift of his musculature through the close contact of their tangled bodies.

*There must be a way!*

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J'onn felt like drowning in the immense depth of Despero's obsession, his senses recoiling at the conflagration of burning hate. Even Diana's hope seemed feeble in the face of such negative emotion.

Yet, when just about to give up, to ironically give in to despair, he found something. There was a shifting discontinuity in the emotional landscape of Despero's madness. From his lust for violence and death a different emotion manifested erratically, a desire not for blood and destruction. If he could isolate and magnify it, it could be his handle.

J'onn was shocked as he suddenly understood its nature.

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Wonder Woman understood, too, as she caught J'onn's realization through the mindlink. It was hardly surprising, having seen the physical evidence already. For an instant she wondered if J'onn was right and such things were indeed a passive manifestation of her powers. Surely males could not always be so single minded as that. But she immediately dispelled such digressions.

*Could you act on Despero's mind through this... weakness?* she asked.

>>Perhaps, if his hate were to give way to it in greater measure, but how...?<<

Wasting no time, the Amazon Princess grabbed Despero's head in both hands and put her mouth to his.

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PART TEN: LIFE IS BUT A (WET) DREAM

"I'M TRYING, DAMN IT!"

"Not hard enough!" Beetle replied, feeling his desperation grow by the second. Fire's power did not seem up to the task, no reinforcements had arrived, and Guy was still not answering the comlink calls. Things were not looking good. "Unless you can burn it all off fast, he'll run out of air or be cooked alive by the heat you're producing!"

"Uh, I'm kinda listening here, remember?" Booster piped in through the comlink.

"Booster! Set your force field to maximum!" Beetle advised. "We don't need another stir-fried Leaguer added to Fire's tally."

"That's not fair, you idiot!" Fire spat. "How could I know it was J'onn? He was invisible, carajo!"

"Well, Booster's down there, and you know it. So do something about it!"

"Don't scream at me!"

"I didn't carry your fat ass all the way down here for you to wimp out on Booster, damn it!

"FAT ASS?" Fire yelled, her flames flaring dramatically, the wave of expanding hot air throwing Beetle off his feet.

Beetle's eyebrows rose beneath his mask.

"Hey! Nice going, Fake Tits!"

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J'onn tried to sit up in surprise, making pain flare all over his entire nervous system. Yet it was as nothing compared to the intense shock filling his mind.

>>Diana! Why?<< he projected, in a flurry of jumbled non-verbal expressions of disbelief.

*We must overcome his hate,* her mind answered him laconically. *We must each do whatever we can.*

J'onn could sense it all through the shared link. He could feel her soft lips caressing Despero's mouth, open in equally stunned amazement. He could feel the fullness her breasts pressing against the hard pectoral muscles. Her legs straddled him tightly, and the skin of her thighs was soft and smooth despite the dirt and grime. The rudimentary semblance of self that remained of Despero's consciousness was unsure of how to react to the Amazon's initiative, yet the instinctive part of his nature had no such confusion, and J'onn could feel his desire grow, fighting against the flood of hate.

It was working, but not well enough.

Despero desired her, but not like this, J'onn saw. He had to be the conqueror. Had to force his will on her, to assert his superiority, to manifest his disdain and hate. His blind conviction fought against his physical reaction. J'onn felt Despero struggle anew against the golden lasso, even as Diana's kiss took on a peculiar mixture of tenderness and urgency.

J'onn knew that more would be needed, seeing how Despero's stubborn obsession fought against the growing bonfire of lust her actions fanned. But he was still not ready for what happened.

>>DIANA! BY THE TWIN MOONS! YOU CAN'T!<<

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She had not thought at first that it would need to go so far, but she knew she could not retreat. Amazons did not give up once committed.

She gasped. He was much, much bigger than what she had first thought.

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"SHUT UP! I'M DOING IT, OK?"

"-and why Fire? Was Cellulite Lass already taken?"

"CUT IT OUT! I'M DOING IT ALREADY!" Fire yelled while her flames flared white-hot, consuming everything in their path.

"What? Melting your implants? I'd sue that surgeon. My fat uncle's tits look nicer."

"SHUT UP!"

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The second wino rubbed his eyes with a dirty mitten, but they were still there. He leaned forward squinting, trying to make out the scene better.

He had at first been angered at whoever was making such a loud mess. But now he knew that it was just a dream. Or perhaps he was seeing things again. They all said he had to get off the juice, but he sure as hell never saw stuff like that while sober. And ugly as the thing below was, the chick was really hot. So what did they know?

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He groaned. He had never imagined it could be like that.

The pleasure was becoming painful in its intensity. A single point of infinite yet exquisite agony that made him tremble, yearning for release. Yet it still rose even higher, and higher, overwhelming his senses in a vortex of unimaginable sensation.

He felt his whole being pooling at the burning point of their union, and felt as if suffocating, desperate for air that somehow refused to fill his lungs, drowning in his need.

He roared, desperate for culmination.

And suddenly, his whole universe contracted into a single instant of exquisite delight.

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...Suddenly, his whole universe contracted into a single instant of exquisite delight.

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...His whole universe contracted into a single instant of exquisite delight.

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...A single instant of exquisite delight.

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...Exquisite delight.

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"You did it! FLABBY ASS, YOU DID IT!"

"Yeah, I did it," gasped the exhausted heroine, crumbling to her knees, and then falling with little ceremony on her back. "Now cut that out, will you?"

"Booster? Buddy, are you ok?" Beetle said, coughing as he tried to wave the dense smoke away. Even through the thick soles of his boots he felt the heat remaining in the thick layer of ashes.

"For any concerned, I'm almost dead," Fire muttered. "But don't bother to thank me."

"Booster! Wake up! Fire did it!" Beetle yelled, his fists striking at apparent nothingness. "DAMN IT! TURN THE FORCE FIELD OFF, YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE SAVED!"

"What?" Fire asked, trying to lift her head and failing.

"He's out of it! SHIT! He can still suffocate in there!"

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Wonder Woman rose to her feet, breathing out slowly, her cramped muscles complaining. The mindlink was gone, and only the echoes of Despero's final mind state remained.

It had been interesting, she thought, brushing aside sweaty locks of her disheveled hair. She idly wondered if that was exactly what all males felt at such moments.

Before her, floating eerily above the ground where her golden lasso lay empty, was a small red figure, surrounded by a faint energy aura. It was a shrunken, contorted humanoid parody, barely inches tall, the grotesque fetus-like body even smaller than the disproportionate head, which resembled a tomato in size and color.

It was hard to believe that such a fragile misshapen thing floating placidly in mid-air had been the enormously powerful creature she had just faced.

She had been quite surprised as his massive body had shriveled up suddenly. Too suddenly.

Men usually shrank after sex, Diana thought with an inner smile. But this was ridiculous.

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"Diana, you did not have to perform such a sacrifice," J'onn said uneasily, as she lifted him in her arms.

"Lives were at stake. It worked," she shrugged. "Did you destroy his mind? Is he-?"

"No. Even, uh, distracted, he was too powerful. He would have resisted any attempt to shut him down. Rejected any implanted command or constrain. But I could use what he had already accepted."

Diana raised an eyebrow, inquiringly.

"I shaped a mindconstruct to contain him, from his own thoughts and sensations, creating a loop in his memory. He is trapped in his own mind, reliving again and again the same single instant. One he will not reject or deny."

"I see," Diana said, understanding.

"When his mind closed in itself, his body instantly atrophied into its present state."

"I did notice that."

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"WAKE UP! FUCK! WAKE UP OR I'll KICK YOUR ASS!" Beetle screamed, hammering at the invisible barrier. Inside the force field, Booster was not moving, and his labored breathing was turning into short gasps.

"Beetle, you can't-" Fire began.

"DON'T DO THIS TO ME!"

>>Allow me.<<

Booster's wrist control clicked and the force field disappeared.

Beetle lunged forward and shook Booster wildly, while Wonder Woman touched ground a few paces away, the Martian Manhunter held in her arms. Seeing little result, Beetle knelt down and began to give Booster mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

"He is fine now, Beetle," J'onn said, scanning Booster, and giving his mind a small nudge towards consciousness. "Good work."