"You claim your father's pathetic name, and you show yourself to be equally incapable." The Voice came in thunderous bursts that sent chills down Alex's spine. He opened his eyes, not remembering when he had shut them, and looked around. That had been a mistake. He was on the lip of a massive chasm. Below him, he could see a large mass of movement. A river, he thought, sitting up. The sky above him was a dark, sickly green, and hung heavy with black clouds that moved abnormally fast, even though he felt no breeze. "Where am I?" He tried to ask aloud, but his voice was raspy and hoarse, and he coughed instead, falling back to his knees. He felt so weak, drained, as if he had been running for days with no rest. "You know where you are. Surely the Amazonian whelps taught you enough to recognize my domain." The booming voice came again, but it was quieter now, and somehow, closer. Then, abruptly, another voice chimed in. "Let me kill him. I could not get my hands on his uncle, but he is within my grasp. He is weak, more so here than anywhere else. It would be foolish not to strike him down now. In single combat." This voice was closer, as if it were standing just beside him. Eyes widening in realization, Alex looked to his left to see a young man, clad in black armour, with a horned helmet, ebony skin, and eyes red as blood. He recognized the visage, but couldn't speak. The fear showed in his eyes. "I see you recognize your uncle." The other voice came again, "Maybe the whores of Themyscira did teach you something. This voice's owner now materialized next to the black-clad man. A young boy, it seemed, with six candles on his head in place of hair, the melted wax covering his eyes, "And no, Ares," The boy continued speaking, "We will not kill him. My plans are far grander in scale than merely killing one of my brother's mortal grandchildren. This one will serve us better alive." The black-armoured man, who Alex recognized now as Ares, the God of War, growled angrily and balled his fists at his sides, but said nothing. The young boy stepped forward toward Alex, and reached out with a pale hand, stroking his face. "You are weak here, in my realm. Too weak to fight, to pose a threat, to [i]resist[/i]." On 'resist' the boy grabbed Alex by the throat with a grip that was more powerful than he could have predicted, and began to choke him. Alex struggled, trying with all of his remaining might to wrench the boy's hand off of his throat, but he couldn't. The boy's shape had changed. He now stood as a horrifying monster, much taller than Alex, holding him dangling off of the ground by his neck. The monster's disturbingly long neck inclined towards Alex, it's hideous face stopping just in front of his. For a moment, the creature simply paused there, watching the life slowly draining from Alex's eyes as he stopped his struggle, then, as Alex's mouth fell open in a choking grimace, the beast heaved as if it were going to vomit. It heaved once more, and suddenly a thick black smoke exploded from the beast's mouth, blasting Alex in the face. The smoke moved with a mind of it's own, traveling up Alex's nose and down his throat, into his gut. It was terrible and acrid, but Alex had no choice but to inhale it. "Breathe it all in." The beast who was now a boy again, said with a smile as he let Alex drop to his knees near the lip of the chasm. Alex couldn't help but oblige. Ares said nothing during this exchange, watching with his arms folded over his chest. As Alex gasped in the last few wisps of black smoke, the boy approached him again at the lip of the chasm, laid a hand on his shoulder, and nudged him slightly, pushing him over the ledge toward the thousand-foot drop. As Alex fell, he couldn't scream. He had lost whatever was left of his voice to the acrid black smoke. He merely stared at the water in the canyon below him. No, he noticed, not water. What he had taken for waves earlier turned out to be a massive sea of people, decaying and dead, but still moving and swaying like a giant ocean of corpses. It was then that he knew where he was, and who he had just met. One body below him stood out from the rest. It was his, and it wasn't moving. It was laying solemnly in a hospital bed. It seemed terribly out-of-place here, and Alex realized he was falling directly for it. Alex held his breath for impact, and smacked straight into his body with the force of a fall from thousands of feet high. --------- "What did you do to him, Hades?" Ares asked, looking out over the chasm into the sea of the dead. The war god had intended to kill the whelp, but Hades always had other plans. "I merely planted the seed, Ares." The boy who was Hades said, "Cultivating it is your job. I will explain later." And with that, he disappeared, leaving the Ares to contemplate the arrangement the two gods had made. ---- Apollo awoke with a start, sitting upright and gasping for air. He took two looks to either direction and realized he was in the infirmary, and then he had to lean over the side of his bed to throw up. He groaned, hearing the intruder alarms blaring. All he remembered was being decked by Doomsday in the War Room. What was happening now? Why was the alarm blaring? How long had he been out? Slowly, he got out of the gurney and stood up, feeling more than a little exposed in the hospital gown. He stepped into the hallway to see what was going on. "Ditto?" He called, "Plastic Man? Hellfire? Where is everyone? What's going on?"