Darkseid's injuries weren't exactly life-threatening, but they weren't trivial either.
He was acting erratically. In the old days, even at his most volatile and unpredictable, there had at least been a pattern to it. Steppenwolf and DeSaad had spent billions of years at his side—they knew his rhythms.
Not anymore. He'd started killing on a whim, slaughtering anyone who crossed his path. Saw someone he didn't like during the day? Dead. Woke up in the middle of the night from a perfectly good sleep? Jumped out of bed. Dead.
The handful of magic-specialist gods on Apokolips couldn't dispel whatever curse-like affliction this was. All they could do was wait for the boss to heal himself through sheer divine force.
When Kanto went snooping for intelligence, he found Steppenwolf so stressed his hair was practically turning white.
Diana was also aware that Darkseid had been "injured," but Highfather lacked the courage to act on it. He couldn't confirm whether the intelligence was genuine, and New Genesis missed its best window to strike.
"I urged him to deploy troops—even a probing attack would've been something! You know what he said?" Diana grumbled. "He said I was young and needed to watch out for Darkseid's tricks."
Highfather's caution was entirely justified, actually. In the multiverse, good and evil were both indispensable—one side completely annihilating the other simply didn't happen. At the critical moment, some higher power would inevitably step in and force both sides to stand down.
Besides, waking Darkseid up wasn't that difficult. It just cost some of his divine reserves. Thea alone knew several methods, and Steppenwolf—as Yuga Khan's brother and a New God every bit as ancient as Highfather—surely had trump cards of his own. His reluctance to step up was probably less about inability and more about keeping those cards hidden.
None of that needed explaining, though. Thea played along with Diana, agreeing wholeheartedly while subtly reinforcing the image of Highfather as timid and strategically hopeless.
At the same time, she quietly resolved to leverage her knowledge of the Underworld to buy off Metron when she got back—have him whisper in Highfather's ear about Diana. Reckless, impulsive, whatever worked.
Play both sides like that, and if those two still somehow hit it off, it'd be a miracle.
Her mind worked fast. A quick dart of her eyes and she'd already cooked up another "brilliant plan."
"Since you're leading the Magic Legion, you should take that robe I had before." Thea said it casually, pulling out the Divine Punishment Robe. The silver-white garment was a top-tier divine artifact for any spellcaster deity. With the hood drawn up, it projected an aura of mystery and stillness—an unmistakable keep your distance energy radiating from every fold.
Diana hesitated briefly, then accepted it with a smile. Thea had a point—a Magic Legion commander wielding a shield and sword didn't exactly look the part.
"Come on, try it on!" Thea wasted no time pulling Diana's clothes off.
They were close enough that boundaries barely existed between them. Changing in front of each other was nothing. In moments, Diana had slipped into the robe.
"There we go—now you actually look like a mage. That old getup was really..." Thea gave the Valkyrie a head-to-toe once-over, deeply satisfied.
Mage robes were designed to carry spellbooks and all manner of casting reagents—loose and flowing was practically a job requirement. The moment Diana put it on, those aggressively pronounced curves vanished beneath billowing fabric. Pull up the hood, and you couldn't even see her face—just a few stray locks of hair peeking out. Perfect.
Highfather was a warrior god. His wife—the one Steppenwolf had killed—had been a warrior god too. Diana's statuesque build was exactly his type. Thea intended to strangle that particular notion in the cradle.
"Excellent, excellent!" Thea clapped her hands in approval.
"It's not exactly practical for combat..." Diana's brow furrowed as she threw an experimental kick. The movement that was usually as swift and fluid as a hunting leopard was noticeably slower.
Thea had arguments ready, adopting her best let-me-explain-the-facts expression.
"Think about it. You're the Goddess of Courage, Protection, and Perseverance now. Do you have any idea how much damage you'd cause to Earth at full power?"
Diana blinked. The question wasn't complicated—it took her barely a second to realize her strength had long since surpassed anything the planet could withstand.
Thea pressed on. "Look at Martian Manhunter. His flight speed inside the atmosphere can hit seven thousand kilometers per hour (~4,350 mph). He could go faster, of course—but the planet can't take it. Same goes for Superman."
"Our power has to stay within a certain range. Otherwise, forget Darkseid—Earth would tear itself apart."
"This robe will keep you from going all-out. Wear it."
Just like that, Diana accepted the garment without further protest.
The Valkyrie sat on the sofa looking a little lost. She'd trained so hard, pushed herself so far—and now one careless moment meant her strength had blown past the safety threshold. She stared into space, unsure what to do with herself.
To distract her, Thea sighed. "You've got it better than me. Right now I can't even throw a punch in open space without risking half a galaxy..."
Diana narrowed her eyes at her. Look at you. So pleased with yourself.
Thea scratched her cheek.
"Pleased? I feel like everything you just said was one big humble brag."
"Absolutely not!" Thea denied it flatly.
Then she remembered why she'd called Diana back in the first place. Damn it—wasn't she supposed to be investigating Diana's origin? How had they gotten this far off track? She forced a topic change.
"How exactly were you born? Didn't Hippolyta ever tell you?"
Diana didn't know why she was asking, but the two goddesses had exchanged far more embarrassing questions before. This was tame by comparison.
She thought for a moment. "Mother said I was born from clay blessed by Zeus. But Antiope said I was born in a hollow tree. Priestess Angelie said I arrived at the temple with a bolt of lightning. And then there was that other one who..."
She rattled off four or five different versions before trailing off, tilting her head at Thea as if to ask: So which story do you think is legit?
Thea was fairly certain the women of Paradise Island were, to a one, spectacularly unreliable. Spinning tall tales for a young Diana must have been their favorite pastime. Absolutely.
She'd have to conduct her own examination.
Diana was still wearing the mage robe and hadn't changed back—nothing underneath but underwear. Thea decided to begin the examination immediately.
Death energy coated her fingertips like a cool, slippery fish, gliding from Diana's lips to her throat, down her chest, across her abdomen, and to places best left undescribed.
Where there was death, there was also life. Thea's divine power left Diana slightly intoxicated—cool energy meeting a feverish body. The examination scene was... intensely sensual.
The process demanded care, focus, and thoroughness—exhausting work, mentally speaking. By the end, Thea was overheating too, and for the sake of accurate results, she had no choice but to remove her own clothes as well. Too hot. Couldn't be helped.
Front, back, left, right, top, bottom—and two new positions unlocked along the way. It wasn't until the following morning that the examination report was finally complete.
"Ha—Zeus, that old lecher. 'Fashioned from clay,' my foot. He saw a beautiful woman, slept with Hippolyta, and you're the result. You are absolutely not made of clay—unless Zeus is two whole tiers above me!"