Chapter 68 – "Red Doom Rising"
The sky above Central City darkened with no warning.
Thunder rolled like the sound of war drums, though no storm clouds marked the horizon. The air cracked, electric, unnatural.
Then came the signal.
"Barry," Cisco's voice buzzed in over the comms, tight with urgency. "They're back."
Barry's jaw tensed. "Where?"
"Old industrial zone.. They're doing something—energy readings are off the charts."
Barry turned to the gathered team, now resting after hours of sparring against Supergirl.
He looked at Oliver.
Without a word, they moved.
The rest of the heroes stirred to follow—Supergirl, the Legends, Batwoman, Team Arrow—but one didn't rise.
Dante.
Still on the cold floor of the training hall, his legs crossed, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on his knees. A faint trail of smoke rose from the still-lit cigarette next to him, untouched. He didn't stir.
Not yet.
---
They arrived fast.
Supergirl landed first, heat vision ready. Sara twirled her staff. Diggle readied his weapon. Cisco opened a breach for Firestorm. Oliver stepped into the shadows with his bow drawn. Barry vibrated just enough to phase through debris.
But it wasn't a battlefield.
It was a trap.
The Dominators stood motionless at the center of the hollow warehouse, tall and skeletal, their long fingers laced with glowing tech. They weren't here to fight. They were here to control.
And then it began.
A pulse.
Like a siren inside the mind.
Everyone clutched their heads. Kara let out a gasp. Nate dropped to one knee. Sara's eyes dilated.
Barry stumbled, then steadied.
Oliver groaned, shaking it off.
Everyone else stopped moving.
Their eyes glazed.
Controlled.
Barry's heart sank. "No…"
The Legends turned toward him.
Team Arrow followed.
Even Supergirl.
Controlled by the Dominators' neural pulse.
Cisco's voice broke through on the comms, frantic. "Barry! They're all compromised. It's neural syncing—they're puppets now!"
Barry moved, fast, intercepting Ray's shrunken suit blast and redirecting it into a wall.
"Cisco!" Barry shouted, ducking an arrow from Dinah. "Get Dante. Now."
---
Cisco turned, dread in his throat.
Dante hadn't moved an inch.
Still sitting.
Still silent.
But then…
The room shifted.
A sound—low and impossible to describe—vibrated through the steel.
Red lightning, raw and unchained, began to gather around Dante like a storm circling its eye.
It licked at the floor, arcing across the room, singing the air with static.
A wind howled through the building, though there were no broken windows.
Then, the ground beneath Dante cracked.
A lotus flower bloomed beneath him—
Red.
Bloody.
Veined like a heart, pulsing with life and rage.
A symbol of something ancient, dark, and beautiful in its violence.
Dante opened his eyes.
They glowed red—like burning coals in the night.
His voice was no louder than a whisper, but Cisco heard it over the scream of lightning.
"I'm going."
In the blink of an eye—he vanished.
Time bent.
The wind reversed.
Barry barely managed to phase out of a direct blast from Firestorm when the atmosphere changed again.
He felt it—before he saw it.
The hum of the Void.
A split second later, a sonic boom shattered the silence.
Dante stood in front of them, between Barry, Oliver, and the controlled horde of heroes.
He didn't speak.
He didn't look.
He moved.
And the world moved with him.
He launched forward like a missile of red lightning, trailing black sparks. His body became a blur—a shadow wrapped in flame.
He struck first.
Sara Lance was disarmed, knocked out with a single open-palm strike to the temple. Mick was launched into a concrete pillar. Zari's air totems shattered under a twisting kick. Ray was ripped from his exosuit before he could blink.
Ten seconds.
Ten.
And every single member of the Legends lay unconscious.
He turned next to Batwoman, who had moved to flank him. She fought well—her punches precise, her reflexes deadly—but Dante wasn't fighting like a man.
He was fighting like a force of nature.
A red blur.
Three hits.
One to the gut. One to the ribs. One to the throat.
She collapsed, gasping, her mask cracked.
Team Arrow charged.
Roy. Dinah. Diggle. All of them.
Dante moved sideways through the air, a ghost made of lightning. Arrows missed. Screams echoed.
Then they were down.
All of them.
Barry watched, stunned.
Oliver pulled him back, bow raised. "Is he still on our side?"
Barry didn't answer.
Because even he didn't know.
Now
Only four remained standing in the field of unconscious heroes.
Barry.
Oliver.
Dante
And Supergirl.
But Supergirl wasn't the same.
Her eyes glowed with alien light, consumed by the Dominator's hold. She hovered off the ground, hair whipping in the wind, body tense.
She didn't speak.
Neither did Dante.
For a moment—there was only silence.
And then they moved.
Supergirl was first.
She crashed toward him like a cannonball, heat vision blazing.
Dante countered—his hand caught the blast, absorbing it into the black of his suit like water vanishing into oil.
They collided in the sky.
Shockwaves tore through the warehouse.
Oliver and Barry shielded their eyes from the light.
Fist against fist.
Blow for blow.
Each strike from Kara cracked steel. Each counter from Dante sent ripples through time itself.
Barry stared in awe. "He's matching her…"
Oliver lowered his bow. "No. He's outpacing her."
Dante dodged a punch, spun around, and sent a palm strike into her chest that created a sonic boom.
Supergirl flew backward into the wall.
But she got back up.
Her lip bled.
Her smile wasn't hers—it was the Dominators' rage.
Dante landed softly.
His eyes burned.
His voice was still calm. Almost…sad.
"I didn't want to fight you."
Supergirl launched again—screaming.
Dante vanished.
Appeared behind her mid-flight.
And struck her neck.
A pressure point.
Because all creatures have them and no matter how strong you are if someone hit it in the right timing and power
The other person will lose his consciousness
And the same happened here
Supergirl body tensed—then went limp.
He caught her before she could hit the ground.
Slowly, gently, he laid her down beside the rest of the fallen heroes.
And then he turned to Barry and Oliver.
Breathing calmly.
The storm was gone.
The red lightning faded.
The lotus beneath his feet burned away into ash.
Cisco's voice came through the comms.
"Mind control signal gone. The Dominators vanished—like cowards. Everyone's unconscious, but stable."
Barry walked up to Dante, staring at the wreckage around them.
"You didn't hold back."
Dante shrugged. "They weren't themselves."
Oliver nodded. "But you were."
Dante looked away. "Only barely."
Barry placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You saved us."
Dante didn't answer.
Instead, he walked past them, through the broken wall, disappearing into the night like a ghost from a story only a few would believe.
He walked like nothing happened but in reality that took everything he got and more to the point he actually felt his inside burning
But he acted like nothing happened
Like always
---
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