He surveyed the area; the giant monsters dead in a ring around the house. The blue-skinned parody of himself lying with a hole through its center…. And the Flash parody with the missing head… and then turned to Eyeball. He seemed to be actively calming down as he took in the identities of just who the man had been fighting.

  “....though, based on the nature of the mess, I don’t have a problem helping you clean it up.”

  He slowly settled to stand on the ground nearby… tension filling the air as all of them focused on him. Even with the right tools to handle someone moving that fast, he was a true powerhouse; and Eyeball could think of at least a dozen ways the man could bypass…. Yup.

  If a fight started, even as he aimed a weapon at him, Superman wouldn’t fly up… he’d dive down. The Cold gun effect would be useless. The whole group, and the earth they stood on, would be tossed like a projectile.

  His estimate of his odds against the Justice League went down another notch.

  “This building seemed like a likely candidate for the home of the person I made the ward to stop. On the other side of that door right there is someone I could use your help to deal with.”

  Superman studied the door for a moment. “I can’t see through it for some reason, but that’s common enough. Lead or just a magical barrier does the job. Who are we talking about? If you can take out Bizzaro and Reverse Flash, its hard to guess who that could be. Darkseid? Trigon?”

  “According to what I saw back in your museum… Doomsday.”

  The Kryptonian stared at him for a moment. “... We left him in the void at the end of time. Alone. In nothingness. How……”

  “Either you never actually did that, and they just made you think it, or the home-owner just made a new one.”

  Superman looked around at the strange structure. The weird animals that looked straight out of a fantasy. “....Mxyptlk. You think this is his house while he’s visiting our universe…. And….”

  He closed his eyes… opened them, and looked down at the dead bodies. “You think he’s been doing all of this. Toying with us all along.”

  Eyeball considered for a moment. It was possible this man was the enemy. But…. even if he was a creation of the mastermind behind all this, it was looking more and more like he was another victim. “Do you remember fighting Nazi supervillains during world war 2? Because if you fly out there about eighty light-years and listen, you can hear radio broadcasts about it.”

  “...That… That was before my time.”

  “No. It wasn’t. You and Mxyptlk showed up about the same time…. In the late thirties or early forties. Batman was around back then, too… and should be over a hundred years old right now.”

  He stared at the house. “J’Onn, this is Kal. Under no circumstances is that ward to come down. If anyone approaches it, take them out. Get a good read on my mind and you’ll understand. We have a possible Doomsday sighting as well. Warn everyone just in case he gets by me.”

  Eyeball stared at him. “...You seem to be going along with that easily. Mind if I ask why?”

  “I think quickly. Your theory makes perfect sense, and all of this is within the imp’s powers, especially if he’s lied to us about his limitations. He once gave his powers away to someone else…. And they did worse. Far worse than what you’re implying. That weapon that you used on Bizzaro. It can’t hurt Doomsday?”

  “Hurt, yes. Kill… it would take multiple, repeated, shots. I… honestly thought it could kill anything man-sized quickly and cleanly until I saw him. If I use it on him, he’s gonna come out that door, badly wounded, weakened…and extremely angry.”

  Superman nodded. He didn’t seem to care how Eyeball knew what it would take to kill the target. “It’ll have to work. Do it. If you can hurt him enough to make an opening, I’ll take it from there.”

  He studied the alien for a moment… and nodded. “Ascension, if you get a clean shot, take it, but try to avoid hurting boy blue here.” He hefted the grenade.

  If he threw it here, Doomsday would emerge with a hole in his gut, but otherwise fine. If there, his left arm and leg would both be crippled. For some reason, no matter where he threw it, it wouldn’t be able to take out his head. Could he somehow sense the fields collapsing and dodge it? Were his hide and bones actually somehow resistant to dimensional travel? That shouldn’t be possible. You could use this technique to make a hole in the densest possible material.

  He picked the ideal… and hurled the grenade, raising Titanslayer before the projectile impacted on the door. He could get one shot off before the two powerhouses collided, and if this thing had killed Superman before, best stack the deck as much as possible.

  One moment, they were looking at the front door of an absolutely absurd-looking house. The next… bits of door had vanished, and an enormous monster; grey-skinned, covered with white bony ridges; hurtled forward… a single impact from Titanslayer barely noticed, leaving an impact wound over the torso as it shattered a wall behind the target…. And a shot from Ascension finishing off the job of severing the creature’s left arm.

  When the two slammed into each other, the resulting shockwave drove some of Eyeball’s team back; only Eyeball himself and Ascension managed to stand firm, expecting it; and while the grey monster tried to drive Superman to the ground… between the crippled leg and the missing arm, he was able to grapple it into position… and hold it in place.

  Ascension stepped forward; drawing a precise bead on the creature’s head as Superman held the struggling beast in place… and then… a hole appeared. Through the left eye and out the back of the skull, the flesh simply vanished…

  The beast kept thrashing for a bit…. But as Superman focused in on it; visible beams of red energy slamming into the crippled monster’s wounded face..then narrowing down and focusing on the hole left by Ascension’s weapon, directly cooking the thing’s brain…. The struggles slowed…. And then stopped.

  It dropped to the ground, dead.

  He stared down at it, then at Eyeball.. And pressed his armored hand up to a pair of tiny holes that had formed in the helmet; which seemed to melt shut as he removed it. “That….. Was quite possibly the easiest time of handling that thing we’ve ever had. Fighting Doomsday is almost always a nightmare. Unfortunately, it’ll be more resistant to that gun next time, whatever it is.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Eyeball looked down at it, then up at Superman. “If we kill it for good, and then the puppetmaster who keeps bringing it back, there may not be a next time.”

  He looked at Eyeball…. Then at the house. “...I usually only kill when absolutely necessary. For Doomsday, it usually is. This… also feels like one of those times.”

  He turned, and started walking into the house… Eyeball and his team following close behind. He glanced over his shoulder. “I didn’t miss the weapons you and your people used, or their similarity to what was used against the Flash. We’ll be having a chat after this is handled.”

  Well. Perhaps his hands-off approach to Ascension’s anti-Oligarch campaign would complicate things, going forward. He might have to take a side. Which…. Would not be good.

  On the walls, there were… boxes. Enormous ones. They were mostly just cardboard and paper, vaguely resembling the sort of box a toy might come in, complete with a thin plastic sheet covering them; and while open, they had labels; Doomsday. Reverse Flash. Bizzaro. They even had absurd descriptions and pictures as if they were genuine action figures from a retailer.

  Another box, still sealed, bore the label ‘Sinestro’, and had a strange red-skinned man with yellow and black clothing…. Superman ignored it and kept going…. Though when he arrived at another sealed box labeled ‘Brainiac’, he stopped and stared at the green-skinned cyborg inside for a moment…. Before continuing down the hall. Behind them, as the duo walked forward, they could hear a distinct ‘pop’ sound of Ascension firing the Collapser gun.

  At the end of the hall in an office dominated by what almost looked like a wall-sized church organ with multi-colored keys, sitting in a large, plushy chair, sat a tiny figure… wearing a purple coat, and a tiny purple top-hat. He glared up at them as they entered, crossing his arms.

  “You’ve broken my toys! Ruined all the fun! Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get it all set back up when it goes off the rails?” The figure was ignoring Superman, and glaring at Eyeball.

  Eyeball glanced over a moment. The hero’s fists were clenched.

  It hopped down from the chair, and started pacing back and forth. “It took so much time and effort shaping this place, and it still keeps falling apart, and I have to keep putting it back together…. But its worth it! I get years, sometimes even decades, of fun.”

  He glowered at Eyeball. “And then you come along with the most crude, backwards piece of garbage ward and trap me here? Its the most stupid, primitive, ridiculous thing I ever saw, but its got so much sheer power behind it it still works! How many people did you have to kill to make that thing? Ten billion? A hundred billion?

  He shook his head. “You know, the moment that thing fails, I’m free. I can snap you out of existence. Or maybe add you to my toy collection. Maybe the new Green Arrow I make to replace the one that died could use a side-kick. And its going to fail, eventually.”

  Eyeball shrugged. “Or we could kill you.” Except… he frowned. Even a Collapser grenade would leave him mostly intact; the holes would be far smaller than they should be, and seal up immediately. His powers might be suppressed… but the only thing that would be warped away would be that stupid top-hat and one of his shoes. “Huh….”

  “Well then, go ahead and try. Don’t worry! Whatever you do to me, I’ll make sure you get to feel later!”

  Superman glanced at Eyeball. “He’s from the fifth dimension. Or so he claims. People have tried to kill him before. He always comes back, or isn’t really hurt at all.” He turned to focus on him. “He’s always been annoying. A prankster. Plays games. Tricks. I suppose I never realized just how big it was. I thought everything he did was undone when we sent him packing.”

  He turned back to the hallway, and looked around at the house. “Apparently not.” The sound of a ‘pop’ came again. Ascension was moving into other rooms of the house, and apparently finding things to remove.

  Eyeball nodded. “Well then. I’ve got two solutions. He doesn’t seem to have made this body super-strong, or super-fast. Just super-durable. If I shoot him, he’ll be fine… but physically any member of my team can overpower him, and for you it’d be trivial.”

  “Well, why would I need strength? I can normally just wish I had a giant stupid bruiser and poof, he’s there! I’m not here to fight! I’m here to play, make pranks, jokes…its not my fault if you don’t have a sense of humor.”

  He ignored the imp. “Option one. He becomes the power source for the Ward, empowering the very thing that keeps him helpless. Odin did something similar to that with Titan, back where I come from, and actually used it to power all sorts of incredible things. I didn’t get to see how it worked, but I can probably make something, especially if I get a few of the locals to help.”

  The imp suddenly went cold, staring at Eyeball in horror. “B..b….but…”

  “Option two. We make a pseudo-neutronium coffin, or whatever the hardest material you people can get. Dump him in it, with a ward attached to it in its own box… and drop it into a black hole. By the time the black hole manages to break it down, all of us will have died of old age, or stupidity.” If he got himself killed over Ascension’s anti-Oligarch quest, it’d likely count as the latter.

  Superman gave a slow nod. “That would likely do the job. To him, it would just feel like a few days. To us… and to his home dimension… civilizations would rise and fall. Someone might even find a good way to get rid of him for good.”

  The imp sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Well. I didn’t want to do this, because it takes so long to clean up. If you won’t back down I guess I’ll have to open the rest of the toybox… and open up some invitations. How do you think you could handle Darkseid, General Zod, Brainiac, and all of their armies… at the same time?”

  Superman backed up a step, and glanced over at the stranger.

  Eyeball chuckled, and took a step closer. “I would appreciate that, actually. I was planning on hunting them all down, and you could save me years, or even decades, worth of effort. I’m assuming you’re talking about a different Brainiac, not the corpse in the hallway?”

  “The corpse..? You…” He looked at the wall for a moment. There was a strange-looking device; the display meaningless to Eyeball. Apparently he hadn’t been paying attention as Ascension and the others cleaned up the inactive toys still in storage.

  “....You broke all of my toys. All thats left is… agh. Darkseid and Trigon, in their own personal little kingdoms. So much time and effort….” He looked at Eyeball. “...And you’d really kill them all, wouldn’t you. This stupid ward took billions of deaths… wiping out Apokalips would be no problem for you, would it?”

  “Apokalips will be easier to destroy if its boss isn’t around, so…. The easiest route would be if you summoned him up here to make us fight him before taking you away. Not as familiar with Trigon, but I’m sure I’d end up getting to him eventually.”

  The Imp looked resigned. “It… doesn’t matter. Trigon would be so weak inside this stupid ward that even you could kill him. I don’t suppose there’s room for negotiation? I could make you your own personal paradise. Send you home. Anything.”

  “Ahhh, yes. The idea of becoming your next toy and having my mind and body twisted over and over again for a century really sounds like a bargain.” He stepped forward; and when the Imp tried to strike him, surprisingly quickly… he caught the hand aiming perfectly… and slammed him into the floor, placing an armored boot on his back.

  “Wait! I always keep my bargains! Ask him!” He pointed at Superman.

  Superman glanced at him. “He can, and does, lie, though he generally prefers to be up-front about the rules, and follow them.”

  One moment, the tiny figure was sitting on the chair, trying to convince the two men of his sincerity. The next… he was lying on the floor, one of Eyeball’s armored boots pressing him against the… wood? Was it really wood, or something else entirely?

  He glanced at Superman. “So, who do I need to see about a nice, sturdy box?”