Disclaimers: DC owns JLA and all created by Shiegel & Shuster.

Batman created by Bob Kane. New Gods created by Jack Kirby. No money is made with this story.

Excuse grammar/spelling mistakes. English is not my primary language ;)

Hope you like it.

"Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell

We know how to do it and we do it real well

Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell

Voodoo medicine cast my spell."

- Mötorhead.

JLA: THE THIRD HELL

BOOK I: Fragments

Chapter 1: A New Genesis for a New Evil.

Fifteen years ago.

At the end, it was an old story. At the end it was an old enemy.

It had to happen sooner or later. Earth was one dangerous place. Some of the most powerful creatures of the universe lived there. You know how much of a threat could that be for some beings.

But this enemy usually watched, rarely made a move without thinking about the result of his actions. A smart, very powerful foe.

The deadliest of them all.

So, finally, the terrible day came.

And the hordes of Apokolips attacked Earth in one, sudden, violent impact. Thousands of cities, millions of good, working decent people died in seconds because of Darkseid´s destructive madness. The Dark God had at least found the equation of the Anti-life. And he was so inmediate, so effective that his success was inevitable.

Heroes.

So many of them fell under the parademons´ fury. Almost all of them died. And those who did not want to surrender, those who wanted to keep fighting... Well, Darkseid had a cure for that.

And to demonstrate he was serious, The Dark Lord of Apokolips destroyed Metropolis in one single, savage one massive explosion produced by gigantic anti-life bomb, Metropolis was gone forever. Everyone who lived there, in just a second, died. A battle was fought and the Dark God was victorious.

After that, the heroes that had survived the war finally understood. They understood that they could not afford more innocent people to die. They could not afford another slaughter like the one in Metropolis. So, they surrendered in misery and shame. And then, they started to disappear one by one.

They simply... left.

Darkseid would never hesitate to destroy another major city. No more heroes. There would never be a Justice League anymore.

Never.

Again.

Earth became a desolate, hot place. Darkseid needed only one year to turn the beautiful blue planet in a second Apokolips.

"The third hell". That´s the name the survivors gave to Earth.

A fitting name.

And this was just the beginning of a new, frightening era. No more Super-beings. Long live Darkseid. Hunger, filth, disease was a common thing between the survivors. More than the fifty percent of the planet´s poblation was obliverated. The others were turned into slaves.

"Long live Darkseid".

Now, if you look at the sky you´d see it is always dark and red.

Flying around there are always parademons, ready to destroy whatever they think they must. Ready to kill. Ready to fullfill their cruel master´s intention.

"Long live Darkseid".

And if you listen with attention, you could almost hear a dark voice in the wind. A voice that could make you go insane.

"Welcome, my friend." it says.

Hear it.

"Welcome to hell."

LONG. LIVE.

DARKSEID.

Today.

Sometime in time there´s a tower.

Somewhere in Earth there´s a tower.

Somehow, we know it exists.

In that tower there is a man sitting in a big, old chair. He is looking at the wall. He does not say anything. It is useless. No one talks to him, no one comes ever to see him.

He is alone.

He has been like that for almost twelve years. He eats and sleeps when he has to. But most of his time he looks at the wall and says nothing. His sad eyes are wet sometimes because (yes!) he cries.

We know he is waiting. But we don´t know what he is waiting for.

Once, some time ago Keystone City was a nice place to live.

Now look at it.

A destroyed filthy pit, full of metal and chaos everywhere.

Old people, useless for Darkseid´s plans, dying of hunger on the streets.

Parademons rule the sky. There´s a big factory where the old center of the city used to be. In that place, thousands of human beings work as slaves only for Darkseid´s pleasure. And there, with all those people, works a man that some time ago was almost like a god. A man that could move so fast you could not even feel him around you. A man so fast that time was a different reality to him.

But today, that man works like an ant in a hole. He is not a god anymore. He is just a dirty person that suffers as any other man. He has got no memory of what he was. He has got no feet either. He remembers an accident some years ago. Some nasty car (car? Was it a car?) accident where he lost his feet. Even though he works using walking sticks. And there is no simpathy for him. No one shows that in here.

But this man sometimes dreams. Dreams that could be a product of his deluded mind.A red suit. Adventures. And a world that was like a slow motion movie when he ran across it.

A dream so powerful, so bright so full of life, that for him it is a nightmare.

Paradise Island.

A place that once Darkseid almost destroyed. A great battle was fought there and amazons died for nothing. But a single woman resisted and won the battle.

Almost alone.

Now, that place does not mean anything to the Dark God. But from there, someone rises after fifteen years of exile.

A warrior.

A princess.

A Goddess.

She knows who she must contact. She also knows she could die in this mission. A mission of her own. But she does not care at all while she flies as light as a breeze, as beautiful as the early morning. A dream came true to the man that looks at her.

A heart so pure you could only love it. A will so strong you could never bend it. She flies. And wishes to find the only man that could give her hope again.

The Oracles had spoken to her. She knows.

Yes.

"What´s new, Griska?" - asked the captain of the parademons that were flying around the big plant near to what once was Gateaway City.

"Nothing, sir. I think the sighting was a false alarm. There are no super-beings on this area."

Captain Vradda smiled and turned to the rest of the Parademons. They were forty in that squad.

All of them deadly, dangerous and cruel.

A true elite of Darkseid´s best.

"It seems there is no problem around here. We are going to make one flight of recognition. I do not wish to fail to inform Lord Darkseid. He does not like the idea of this super-humans still being around..."

"There´s not a single one in this mudball!" a parademon whispered to another.

"Let´s go."

With amazing order the Parademons elevated from the ground and started their silent flight around the plant. That big, deformed place made of metal was designed to extract radioactive material from the deepest capes of the planet. Soon, it would be ready to start it´s destructive work. What Darkseid wanted with that, no one knew for sure. But no one dared to ask and the Dark God did not have to give explanations to anyone.

The Parademons were finishing their flight when it happened.

Something, a rocket maybe, came out of nowhere. It hit Captain Vradda. The explosion killed him and other five parademons around. Their bodies fell to the ground covered with flames. Nrishna, the second officer, started shouting orders to the surprised warriors but he was not heard.

"Cover! Cover! We are under attack!"

Nrishna tried to connect to their base, only fifteen miles away from there. He used his bracelet that had a special signal device. But it did not work. Something was interfering with the transmision. Nrishna watched in terror as eighteen parademons were electrocutated in the air. The smell of their cooked flesh was filling Nrishna´s nose and mouth. He had never felt such panic before.

He insisted with the bracelet but it was useless.

"Help! Help!"

The rest of the squad was annihilated by some kind of toxic gas that came out of nowhere. Nrishna moved away as fast as he could and saw, from a safe distance, how they fell, one by one. Then, he discovered a silent bomb had exploded above them filled with that killer gas. He flew away but his men (men?) were not so lucky.

Soon they were all dead at his feet. Nrishna was the only one left alive and he landed between the bodies. He could not understand what had just happened.

"Darkseid, what kind of thing has done this?"

That was when Nrishna felt the sting of fear.

And then...

Nrishna saw one last thing before dying. A big black shadow. Something that came to him in the darkness, growling like a bear but it looked like a gigantic...

Bat.

Of course, Nrishna thought it looked more like a Bäldiir, a bat-like creature only found in planet Apokolips.

Something sharp cut the parademon´s throat. And something passed through his body, impaling him.

"LONG LIVE DARKS.. -urkkkk-!"- Nrishna tried to shout.

"Get out of my planet.".

Those were the last words Nrishna heard.