Epilogue: Until Do You Part

BOOM.

All along the street, glass windows cracked and shattered. The asphalt split in the center, the street sloping toward the middle as it collapsed, cars skidding down into the gap. From the epicenter came a roar of pain...a flash of golden light...and a wind blew, following the blast.

"Miss Lane!" Jimmy Olsen yelled, cowering behind a car. "We have to take cover, we're too close."

Lois Lane was standing. Staring at the action.

Grey breasts, ridges of sharp bone eruption from the sternum between the bountiful tits. The body was thick, muscles like a bodybuilder, not a trace of fat. Long white hair hung down from the head. White fangs gleamed from a lipless mouth. Spurs of bone caged the eyes. Lois could see blood on the bony spikes that emerged from the creature's elbows and knuckles.

Wonder Woman's blood.

The Amazon was in her full battle gear, gold-chased greeves and bracers, helmet and breastplate, a skirt of metal strips. In her left arm was a heavy shield, dented and torn with the imprints of the creature's fist. In her right hand, a sword, heavy adamant blade notched, dripping gore. Diana grinned, lost in the midst of battle, never taking her eyes off her opponent. Like two boxers who had gone the limit, weary but dangerous.

What idiot makes a Lady Doomsday? Lois wondered, her finger starting to pulse, heart thundering as she saw her love grapple with the beast.

A child screamed, to the left. For just a split second, Diana's eyes shifted. The tiniest mistake, the barest concern.

It was all the opening Lady Doomsday needed.

No roar this time as it sprang forward. Wonder Woman lifted her shield instinctively to block the blow, but her footing was off, and the beast brought both hands down on the shield. There was a sickening crack as the bones in the Amazon's left arm gave way, the **** of the blow forcing Diana onto her knees. The Amazon spun forward, the blade embedding itself in Lady Doomseday's ankle. The creature ignored the blow, and ripped the shield away. One foot stomped on the Amazon's unarmored knee, the leg snapping as the joint was crushed.

For the first time, Diana screamed.

Lois Lane didn't remember running. She had just jumped over the car and was moving. Violet light burst out around her, an aura brilliant and blazing. She leaped forward faster, feet no longer touching the ground.

The Star Sapphire hit the beast like a comet, the ring burning with the power of her love like a flaming torch. The beast staggered, one step back...and then stared at the reporter, utter hate in its terrible blue eyes.

If Lois Lane had mastered her power, there were a million constructs she could have manifested right then. Chains to bind it, weapons to harm it, prisons to hold it. As it was, for all the weeks she had held the ring, Lois had seldom called on its power...and never in combat.

One hand grabbed the reporter's ankle and pulled. Lois, off-balance, saw the ground coming up a fraction of a second before she hit it. The aura flared brighter, the ring instinctively spending its charge trying to cushion the blow.

Charge 86%

A great foot came down on the reporter's spine.

Charge 74%

Asphalt crumbled around the reporter as she was buried deeper into the street.

Charge 62%

Air. Blurrily, Lois saw the blue sky streaked with smoke, and realized the creature had lifted her up again. The ring could cushion the blow, but not all of it. There was still damage being done. Lois knew she was in shock, bones broken, maybe concuss—

Charge 50%

Lois coughed a haze of blood into the air. There was a ringing in her ears. Her eyes focused dazedly on the grey tits that towered above her. The green thong that concealed a grey pussy. Lois tried to move, but her body wouldn't respond.

Lady Doomsday's thighs tensed, knees bent. She leaped...

Laying there, Lois saw the humanoid form recede into the great blue sky...and then it began to grow larger.

Coming straight for her.

Like a missile. Like one of those smart bombs that the United States had dropped down chimneys in the Middle East. Lois had watched that footage, wondering at the precision, at the mind that would craft such banal horrors...and now here she was, watching her **** come down.

She thought of Diana. Her hand rose, shakily. The ring flared bright. Half a charge...all she had left. One shot.

The feet were pressed together, bony spikes emerging from the heels. A perfect killing mechanism, an engine of destruction.

She thought of Diana.

The rest was easy.

The full charge of a Star Sapphire Ring was equivalent to a multimegaton nuclear explosion, minus the fireball and radiation. It could wipe a city off the map. With care, it could crack a moon in two, or start a chain reaction that would set a volcanically active planet to self-destruction.

The most powerful weapon in the universe.

Wielded in the name of love.

The violet light that burst forth in a single, controlled burn ripped through the heavens. The glow could be seen as far away as Gotham. A LexCorp satellite, observing the battle, was vaporized. At the speed of light, the beam screamed through the silent depths of space...and when it hit the planet Mars, the **** of its fury would set in motion a chain of self-replicating organic molecules...though life would take millions of years to evolve once more, on that arid world.

What landed beside Lois Lane's body was missing a right arm, leg, and most of its face. Charred grey flesh clung to fused white bone. The sole remaining breast hung off of the underlying muscle by shreds of meat. Lady Doomsday ripped it off contemptuously. It rose slowly up on its one good leg, and dragged itself forward.

Lois lay in her crater, unable to move, no power left. She watched, curious, as before her very eyes the flesh started to knit itself together. Black carbonized flesh flaking off, to reveal clean grey hide underneath. One blue eye mad with hate.

"Get away from her, you bitch."

Wonder Woman was on her one good leg. Left arm cradled against her chest. Sword held low.

They leaped together. Lady Doomsday's fist extended, intent to crush whatever life was left in Lois. Diana's sword moving down in a perfect arc.

The creature's head bounced painfully off of Lois's broken chest, the grey half-burned body collapsing a few inches short of its goal.

Diana collapsed on her knees next to Lois.

"How di...you like...my entrance?" Lois wheezed. She was still in shock, but she could feel the pain now. Her whole body was broken. The reporter looked at Diana. She was so beautiful. Lois was so lucky. Cold gripped her, darkness closing in. Everything that Lois had went into the next few words.

Her last words.

"Love...you..."

Diana let her helmet fall. Tears ran down her cheeks. Her lips pressed against Lois Lane's...and the reporter breathed her last breath into her loved one's mouth.

Then and there, Wonder Woman made a vow that every god in Olympus could hear.

"**** will not separate us."