The liberation of Tamaran proper ended up being swift and brutal. The apokoliptians that came with Kalibak, having grown lazy and bored with an easy victory, did not expect a proper enemy, much less one with the complete element of surprise and with several fighters just as strong, maybe even stronger, than their leader. The parademons exterminated, and their lieutenants taken out, all that was left was get to Kalibak, and kill him before his pride gave way to his cowardice and called Apokolips.
The problem was that we couldn't find him. Or rather, find out his exact location.
Kalibak, for once in his miserable life, had been smart when it came to his base; that, or had someone to think for him. He knew he couldn't match us, and so hid himself in a fortress deep inside Tamaran's crust, but no specific location, and it had no entrance per se, only a teleporter system.
Which was the reason our merry group, a couple days after taking out the last major parademon army, was brainstorming in the main hall of the Fortress, in
"Can't we just get your Durandal friend here... there... whatever, to get us straight to Kalibak?" Patrick asked. "I mean, if he can cross the galaxy he can get us to the center of the... Tamaran, right?"
"I'm afraid I can't reach his current location." Only because Kalibak had something stopping him from opening a portal right over him, something magical I was certain he didn't even have an idea protected him, possibly DeSaad's work. The possibility of a third party didn't occur to any of us until well after Kalibak died.
"That's it? The galaxy-spanning robot from the future can't get to some lion-alien bastard?"
"As simple as that."
"We can just dig him out, no?" Grundy asked. "Wouldn't be hard to just shove our way down until we hit something resembing a wall."
"Starting where, though?" Ayame pointed out. "How could you find the place if VEGA can't, GPS? A water stick?" She was being sarcastic, of course, but Grundy considered it, if not literally.
"Maybe if it's enchanted or something like that..."
"And even if we knew, it'd still take us time to dig, time I'd rather not waste." Clark replied. "I may fly faster than a speeding bullet, but I can't do that through an entire planet's worth of rock." Technically he could, the issue was he wouldn't.
"And that still leaves out the geographical damage that would cause, you know."
"An idea is an idea."
None of us expected the usually quiet John to say what he said next. Until that moment, even as he fought parademons, he had largely kept to himself, not truly stoically but still quiet. Again, we didn't him to basically explode.
"I say we shake the entire planet and crash his house over his head, force him to come out if he doesn't want to get crushed!" John proposed. His memory of Apokolips' invasion and occupation, plus being forced to fight the same monsters and see the atrocities they had committed, not that much worse than those he had seen, was taking a toll on his patience and cool. Had I known beforehand he'd take it badly, I'd had left him back on Earth, but I didn't, and thus had to deal with it.
As for his 'idea', we could actually pull it off, and quite easily at that if I, Grundy and Clark put our backs into it, but the magnitude he was thinking about would be catastrophic for Tamaran, to say the least, and even though he didn't specificy, we all had an idea, enough to piss Komand'r and Galfore off.
"It's my world you're talking about!" She growled at John, to which him, to her surprise (and everyone else's, for that matter), growled back.
"If we do nothing, he'll cause something far worse to happen!" His tone was a mix of anger and desperation. Again, he didn't want what Earth had gone through to happen again. Seeing the entire group focus on him, he forced himself to calm down. "That day, I watched good people get torn to shreds by monsters from space just for being on the wrong place at the wrong time. Here, I saw a mass grave that would make Himmler green with envy, and another, and another one. I just..." He sighed. Clark put a hand on his shoulder.
"John, easy."
"Relax man."
"Himmler?" Galfore asked.
"Part of a dark period of Earth's history." Pausanias replied. "Better for you to not know."
"I don't want it happening again, not here, not on Earth, not anywhere." John repeated. "And what if you said is right and he just leaves..."
Still, as excessive and misjudged as he was, he had something akin to a point given the situation. All our efforts, as... effortless as they had been, would be for nothing if Kalibak managed not only to survive but to escape, not just to make him pay, but also to make sure he wouldn't call Apokolips'. Neither me nor Clark were confident of our capability to fight their full might, at least not yet.
It was Rachel who found the solution to our problem, one so simple I mentally kicked myself for not realizing it sooner.
"We have to provoke him. Make him come out of his fortress and face us." She said.
"Force him to commit to a fight, then kill him." Rachel nodded at that.
"Would he fall for it, though?"
"Kalibak's a coward and not fully stupid, but he's still a brute, an animal, one who just happens to walk on two legs and talk. All we need is the proper bait."
"And the belief he can leave instead of fight." Pausanias interjected. "If we can force him to go to where we want him to, make it seem like he can escape, we'll have a massive advantage, and it'll avoid a cornered rattlesnake situation?"
"Rattlewhat?"
"Leave an animal with the possibility of escape, it'll do its damnest to fly. Corner it, and it'll fight, even to the death. In our case, Kalibak is the animal."
"Ah, the classic hunting strategy, trick the beast before ambushing it." Galefor nodded approvingly. "A proper end for a monster like him."
"That's fine and dandy, but still leaves out the fly problem. No fly, no fish." Patrick pointed out. "Oh, and if it ends up working, I'm not eating."
Galfore, who had been sitting until then, stood up with a wince. Even with my medical tech and his physiology, his wounds would take a while to heal, although that was more of a testament of Kalibak's 'skill'."I don't mind risking my life, so long as he doesn't outlive me for long."
Komand'r, as I expected, stepped forward before the others said anything.
"I'll go."
Galfore. "Komand'r..."
"I have to do it, Galfore. That bastard's been alive for too long, and besides he probably wants to finish what he started. He's been itching to wipe out my bloodline the moment me and Koriand'r left."
She also wanted to be the one to kill him for fairly obvious reasons, but she kept that to herself, not knowing I already knew and planned to help her on the task.
"Okay, bait, trap, all that crap, we have it." Patrick summarized. "Now how do we make Kalibak see it?"
Rachel smiled at that.
Whatever Kalibak had to stop VEGA, it didn't nullify pure magic. Sadly, she couldn't teleport or open portals, but what she could do was make Kolibak see Komand'r
"Kalibak, I have returned to kill you! You, black-haired bastard spawn of Darkseid! You're nothing but a rabid lap dog who can't do anything for itself, who yearns for something it will never get from its master! What I find hilarious is that your master is also your father! You are truly pathetic if you have to do tricks just to get his attention!"
The list was significantly longer than that, but I think this is enough for you and, most importantly, Kalibak.
Kalibak, as you know, was a deity, a lesser, minor one, but a deity nonetheless, and a New God to boot. That, coupled with being direct progeny of the God of Tyranny, meant he had an unhealthy amount of pride for someone so pitiful and cowardly half of the time. If that pride was struck enough, his fear, intelligence and common sense were completely overrun by anger. Add in the fact he was already bestial to begin with, and you get a choleric thug whose anger overrode everything else.
The sight of Komand'r standing tall and proud, and hearing her calling him a mindless monster unworthy of any form of dignity, be it from his slaves, his people, or mosty important of them all, his father, pissed him off, to say the least.
As in, he literally flew through several meters of solid rock out of sheer rage, mace raised high.
"ORANGE-SKINNED ALIEN WHORE!" He roared after landing, looking around for Komand'r with spittle coming from his mouth, common sense dulled to the point he didn't see a portal open above him and Komand'r flying out. "I WILL TEAR YOUR FACE OFF AND FEED IT TO MY DOGS!"
"Up here, bastard! You will have to get to me first!" Komand'r shouted back before flying away
"BITCH!" And with that the chase was on.
Kalibak couldn't fly, that or he didn't know how, but he could run and jump far enough to make it look like he flew until he fell back to the ground. Komand'r had to keep a slow, steady flight (relatively speaking) to make him chase her, while also forcing herself to not turn around and charge at him.
Then, after thinking he tired himself out enough, we opened a portal right in front of him leading to an arena (any other word for it wouldn't cut it) of our choosing: the ruins of Tamaran's capital. It was fitting that the one who tried to destroy Tamaran would meet his end in the very first place he attacked
Imagine his shock when he saw John, Mecha, Ayame, Pausanias, Kara and Patrick around him, with Komand'r glowering from above. With them he'd thought he could escape. As for why me, Rachel, Clark and Grundy wouldn't participate fight, several reasons: not wanting to give him dignity, make him feel inferior for refusing to even touch him, test how they fared against an opponent like him even in his state... and give him false hope that he could get out of there alive. Which was the whole point.
He could have taken on each of us one on one, but not all of us at the same time, much less with us heavy hitters and him focusing on fleeing rather than fighting. I will spare you the details of the fight, but despite his viciousness and strength, and even though none of them came out unscathed, Kalibak ended up not merely defeated, but broken, literally, as you will find soon enough.
Which still wasn't enough for Komand'r. She wanted him to suffer a slow, painful death, to suffer as others had suffered at his hands, and it was clear that the others shared the sentiment.
"We really want to kill you, we really do." John muttered as he glared at the downed alien. The way he hefted his hammer made clear he had to stop himself to smash Kalibak's head to a bloody pulp.
"Yeah, you have to die, man." Mecha agreed.
"Why... don't you finish me off, then?"
"Because you are not ours to kill." Ayame replied before Komand'r stepped in front of him, carrying Pausanias' sword. It could only petrify living creatures when wielded by its owners, but anyone could use as a mundane sword, if you could consider a nearly unbreakable kopis forged by Hephaestus himself mundane. Kalibak, anger turned to terror, tried to stand up, but he couldn't. That was because Komand'r had cut them off first.
"My... my legs!" He all but cried when he looked at the bloody stumps.
Komand'r promptly kicked him in the mouth to shut him up. "How many legs have you cut off, you bastard?"
Pained and with blood coming from his mouth, Kalibak could only mewl in pain.
"Hold him up, please." Komand'r growled. John and Pausanias grabbed Kalibak and hefted him, the brute too weak and scared to do anything but moan as
I saw Clark's jaw tighten and his eyes narrowing, and so did Patrick.
"Chickening up, Big Blue?"
"No, just thinking if I should do the deed myself." At that Patrick, genuinely shocked given his wide eyes. "I just... I don't know, want to make sure he'll stay dead." Despite his words, however, it was clear he was still uncomfortable being witness to an execution, if of someone who thoroughly deserved it and who he had helped putting in that state.
"Many things can still move after being decapitated. Kalibak isn't one of them."
Clark sighed. "Still. And after this, what do we do next? Darkseid might not love him, but he's still his son."
"What shall happen shall happen, but Kalibak cannot be allowed to live to see it, and if Darkseid really cared he would have done something by now."
Unfortunately, he did.
We turned back to the improptu execution, right as Komand'r finished listing everything Kalibak had done to her people, that he didn't deserve to be killed so quickly. One single cut to the neck, a quick movement of her hand, and Kalibak would be no more.
The key word being 'would', because several giant green hands appeared literally out of nowhere to punch John and Pausanias away of Kalibak, and another one to grab him just before Komand'r could cut his head off.
"This fight is over."
I did NOT expect THEM to come, at all.
A squadron of some twenty odd aliens drapped in black fatigues with green, glowing parts, led by a human I did not expect to meet, directing the angriest sneer a mortal could muster at me.
John motherfucking Stewart.
Patrick described it the best.
"Well, now THIS is what I call an unexpected turn of events!"
Kalibak get's a Deus Ex Machina... except not really, because next chapter, a flashback episode, will explain why did John come to a planet outside the Corps' jurisdiction, why and how did he arrive, and more,.