(Aden's P.O.V)

"Ok, let's try this again." I said while rising to my feet. I had two unusable arms. The left as mentioned earlier was likely very broken. Moving my fingers sent sensations of agony across the whole limb ending with a stabbing pain in my chest. The right shoulder was dislocated. I could easily set it back if I could use my left hand. My enhanced healing would likely get rid of the broken forearm in a little over two hours but…that was a lot of time when you're fighting someone. Especially when that person could destroy you quite easily.

I also forgot to mention Black Adam's lightning had left burns along the skin of my palms and wrists. All in all, I had lost the first round. That… didn't sit well with me. Black Adam floated down, hovering a few meters off the ground with a cruel glint in his eyes and a sadistic smile on his face.

"Ready to start begging? Not that it will do you any good, brat. I'm going to break you."

His voice was gruff now that I took the chance to listen to it a bit more. Instead of the fear he was expecting, I held up my arms.

"Look what you did to me."

I pointed out a bit sourly. The champion of the gods looked at my injured arms and snickered.

"I'm going to break more than just your arms. Your legs will be next and then, I'll snap your…"

"What? No,no… I'm not talking about the arms you idiot. I mean the sleeves of my coat. You think it's easy finding something as cool to wear as my costume, instead of the spandex you heroes and villains love so much?"

Black Adam pulled up short in confusion. I snorted while cocking my head to the side.

"It's already bad enough that you subject me to the sight of your hairline that clearly doesn't want to do anything with your forehead, but you had to wear a black onesie, with a white cliche' rendition of a lightning bolt like you're coming from a cosplay event. I can't believe that this is what Shazam has to deal with. Atleast he's a kid, so it's understandable but you...you have no excuse to walk around looking like all the wrong reasons someone goes to the gym."

Black Adam's face morphed into a picture of anger.

"You little fucking…"

"Nah-huh-ha. Are you sure you should be insulting me rather than dealing with that?"

I asked him pointing at something behind him. A massive humanoid face made entirely of wind currents was swirling above us, scowling like an angry god. Making Black Adam angry had been a distraction while I created this huge construct. Black Adam was so shocked by the sudden appearance of the construct that he hesitated when the mouth opened and started sucking him in. I breathed in and let out a sonic scream that pushed him towards the construct.

A boom tube appeared under me and I fell through. My surroundings changed as I instantly dialed the time difference in my dimension to 3 times as fast as in real life. The construct was not going to keep him occupied for long and I wanted to fight Black Adam at my level best. A single mistake and he had shown that he had no qualms about knocking my head off. I'm trying to avoid death. Which is why I'm going to cheat.

"Saisei, do your thing buddy."

The small dragon happily complied, sending me feelings of concern mixed with understanding that I was a badass doing badass things so he had no reason to be worried. A white flame washed over me and I instantly regained my stamina and health back. Key word being 'regained.' Saisei's healing powers were not centered on healing the damage down but instead reversing the damage inflicted on the body and resetting it to it's prime state. It was the reason why I couldn't go on a crazy 'break my body through torture exercise' and take advantage of his healing powers and my adaptive physiology to grow immensely powerful. But even with that, his healing came in handy due to how quick it was.

I stretched my body languidly, feeling everything was back to tip top shape.

"Thanks Saisei. Say hi to Breeze and Hakai for me. I'll see you all later."

I jumped across the boom tube and landed on the ground a few meters away from my last position. The connection to my construct was still there but it's form seemed smaller and misshapen. Around it a trail of black would flash from one side to the other using the shockwaves from his pure flight speed and superstrength to carve out chunks of the construct.

"I tire of this nonsense. Begone!"

Black Adam announced, darting in through the eye of the construct. A huge amount of energy was released within my creation, making me widen my eyes as the ridiculous amount of electric energy exploded out like a bomb, destroying the construct and making me shield my eyes from the light. As the light show died down, Black Adam's energy signature lost more than half of it's brilliance. I looked up and saw him huffing at the exertion, slowly floating down. The move had taken a lot from him it seems. I narrowed my eyes. Time to take him down.

Suddenly nausea hit and I was left reeling, stumbling on my feet as the world spun around me.

"You thought you could take us down? How far the League has fallen that they send in a child to do their dirty job."

A voice with a heavy accent said as a figure appeared from the swamp. The miasma in the area was clearly messing with my senses. How the fuck had I not sensed them again?

I fell to one knee, trying to stabilize my body and avoid puking all over. Calming breaths Aden. Calming breaths. There was a huff as Ultra-humanite appeared on the new figure's side. I lifted my head to look at them but the feeling of vertigo increased tremendously. That's also when his possible identity hit me. Count Vertigo. An evil son of a bitch that was under Batman's watchlist for possible Fratricide. Or Killing of his brother and his wife, leaving behind their little daughter to rule as the Vlatavan call constitutional monarch. And I also suspected that the Princess's 2 previous Assassination attempts that had aired in the news had to do with his fucker.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

They stopped near me, with Ultra-humanite levelling his weapon towards my head.

"Checkmate."

Count Vertigo said, his lips stretching out into a smug smile. Up close, after a delve into his soul with spiritual attunement, I understood that this dude had no redeeming qualities. It was a new function of Spiritual attunement that required the subject to be in close proximity. If they were 2 meters away from me, I could do a deep scan... showing me the purity of their souls. Most souls retained a grayish color, falling into the 'not evil not righteous' side of the coin. Count Vertigo's soul on the other hand was as murky as the waters of the swamp. That decided it for me. A dark grayish color that bordered on black.

My face went blank. I held out my hand to the side as they watched.

"Don't move!"

Count Vertigo ordered as his companion shoved the gun in his hands on my face. My adaptability was assuaging the feelings of imbalance plaguing me, enough to get to my feet unsteadily. Vertigo brought a hand to a device on his shoulder, and pressed it. Waves of nausea hit me but I remained steady. He widened his eyes, turning to the Albino gorilla.

"What are you waiting for!?? Shoot him!"

Ultra-humanite grunted and pressed the trigger. At this close of a proximity, there was no way I was going to avoid the energy beams... Fortunately, there was another option. I've always wanted to do this. Equity appeared in my outstretched hand just as I pulled on my inner energy, streaks of lightning enhancing my speed to crazy levels. The rapier transitioned into a Katana midway through the swing, slicing apart the energy beams which exploded before me, the shockwaves rendered useless by my air shield.

My hand danced in the air as I used energy sense and my increased reaction speed to block everything that the huge Albino gorilla shot at me. The two of them seemed almost...frozen. I bent my knees slightly, with Equity held to my side,then stepped forward. A loud bang! Exploded from my position, my eyes glowing with sparks of blue energy. The same erratic energy powering my muscles for more than regular speed.

The Katana shone through the air, a whistling sound ringing out after I had appeared behind them. Silence dominated the area before the weapon on the Gorilla's arm fell to the ground, followed by the Gorilla's arm as well, the spray of blood expected from such an injury was nowhere to be seen, Equity's edge having been so hot that it cauterized the wound.

"Aaarghhhm"

The animal supervillain knelt on the ground, shouting and groaning in pain. He looked at his companion, only for him to suck a deep breath. Count Vertigo's body flopped to the ground, his head rolling down the terrain only to be stopped by my foot. I looked at the head with a dispassionate gaze. I didn't want to kill him. Truly. But for the future of Vlatava. For the future of princess Perdita, now Queen Perdita and all the innocent lives, Vertigo had taken or hurt in his pursuit for the crown, this sacrifice had to be made. I was always talking about how my conviction to doing the right thing was correct. Sooner rather than later, I was going to kill. Would this escalate things? I don't fucking care. How could things escalate when masses of people were already dying due to supervillains. And now that I had my own way of seeing deep into their souls to judge whether or not they could change or atleast if they had a smidgen of light within them...I could actually do this. I could save this world. If it meant killing people like Vertigo then so be it.

"You're...a hero...Heroes do not kill!"

A regal voice that was highly panicked now, escaped the mouth of the Albino gorilla that had just beared witness to my actions.

"Hmmm?" I hummed, bending down and plucking the device on Vertigo's head before sending it to my hammer space. It might prove useful in training myself to overcome such effects in the future. With that done, I turned to Ultra-humanite. Walking towards him while twirling my blade.

"Heroes don't kill. You're right. But, who said I'm a hero?"

I saw as the realization dawn in his eyes that he could lose his life here. The terror in them increased as he crawled back, cradling his stump.

"Please...I was..."

He was scared. Scared of me. I don't know how I looked but I didn't know what to feel about his fear. I didn't like it. But I was conscious enough to know that when I did start liking it... that's when I should be worried. As it stands, an Avatar couldn't make a good superhero. That's because an Avatar's duty was to maintain balance. If that meant using extreme force and killing your foes when it was imperative...then the Avatar had to be willing to reach that level.

Aang was an exception. He was just a kid raised by peace loving monks. In that sense he was both strong and weak. Kyoshi on the other hand...she killed. And because of that, Roku wasn't left with a clusterfuck to deal with once Kyoshi passed away. Not like Aang had to due to Roku giving mercy to a ruthless and insane Firelord who went on to inflict war and pain to so many people over the course of a fucking century. I could learn from their actions and the results of their lives but at the end of the day, this was my life. My choices. And I chose to trust my gut. My judgement could he flawed but not my understanding. And my understanding told me to do what was right up until what was right stopped being right anymore. I don't know if I was mistaken but...I felt my spirit get lighter somehow. As if, using the life lessons of all the past incarnations of the Avatar to arrive to my own truth, made my spirit attain more substance.

All this went through my head as I neared Ultra-humanite. His back hit a tree, with sweat matting the fur on his face. I held up a hand and froze him with wind bindings, tying up his body on the trunk of the tree. Then I did a deep spiritual scan. His soul...was not as far gone as Vertigo but close. It also seemed bigger. Meaning he had lived for a longer time. Done with the scan, I levelled Equity at him.

All in all, only ten minutes had passed since Blood and I had been attacked by Black Adam, who was still out of it. I needed to end this fast and go, back up Etrigan. But not before Ultra-humanite answered a few questions I had. I needed to know the purpose of this attack other than the Injustice League acting as a smoke screen and Scape goat for The Light. Savage knew that Batman and the others knew of the Light. So the scapegoat thing wouldn't really work. Which meant they had another purpose.

"Tell me what you know before I turn you into Nearly headless nick."