"Darkseid is Coming" - 11/26/2021

"Darkseid is Coming..."

11/26/2021

I was part of a group of young-adult superheroes, and we were based on an oil rig, out at sea. Apparently, my power was that of super strength, and I'm not sure if all of the others in my group were DC Comics heroes, but I know that we were a world where Superman had been long-since considered dead. We had received word that the supervillain Darkseid was preparing to invade the planet, and we were doing everything we could to prepare for the inevitable attack.

The initial encounter, though, would prove to be a psychological one.

While his ships were approaching the Earth from beyond the stars, Darkseid, himself, was already far ahead, unleashing strong, telepathic attacks on each of us, at random time intervals. Every now and then, we would hear our voice in our heads, or see his visage looming in the shadowy corners of our compound. There was one point, where I was walking through a tight corridor, and when I looked over to one side, I could see a gigantic projection of Darkseid, standing in a far corner with his arms folded behind him. He was so large and imposing that this telepathic manifestation had to hunch over, in order to keep from being stifled by the ceiling. Despite his size, the thing that left the greatest impression was the haunting, crimson glow of his eyes against the darkness within the room.

This psychic torment was running rampant over my team, sending most of us to the borderline of complete breakdown, because there was no way of getting him out of our heads. There was an early, physical attack on the compound, by his underlings (though I don't know if they were his parademons). We made light work of them, but during the skirmish, one of our members went murderously savage and began taking on the rest of the team. Almost simultaneously, we'd gotten the alarm that the full-scale invasion was kicking off, on the other side of the island off of which we were stationed. The leader (and strongest) of our team was a lightning-based character who seemed very Thor-inspired, in terms of physicality. He decided to have us split up, so that a group of us could work on taking down our formidable, brainwashed ally, while he and the others went to engage with the invasion. There were at least a dozen of us, in total, and it took nearly half of us to subdue our teammate and to, then, talk him down from his rampage by appealing to his emotional side and reminding him of the strong bond that we all had within our group. 

After he was free of Darkseid's mental influence, we all dashed off of the rig and to the island, to join the rest of our group in battle.

We made our way over the water, by various means, and approached a large, unfamiliar temple that was settled on the coast. Upon our arrival, and after searching desperately for our team, we began to find the liquified remains of some of them, scattered around the temple grounds - one of them, after I'd tripped down an embankment and landed, on my hands and knees, in what I initially thought was a puddle of mud but turned out to be an ankle-deep pile of entrails and excrement.

After moments of sheer terror, I became completely enraged at this discovery. 

We continued our search for any of the others who were left, and made our way into the temple, which seemed more like the inside of a theme park attraction in its set up. I believe there was, actually, a coaster-type ride that snaked through the halls of the temple, as well, but I don't remember much of it.

Finally, we found Darkseid. He was standing, motionless and unbothered, with his back to us, apparently having just been waiting for us to show up. He began to make it clear that the mental attack on our teammate upon the oil rig was a rouse, in order to split up our forces so that he could more easily have access to our strongest, Thor-like member, who he'd planned to take under his control, as well. We, then, saw a platform being lowered, nearby, showing our leader being bombarded with rays of energy, as he struggled against them, obviously trying his hardest to resist the psychic onslaught from taking him over. 

Initially unsuccessful, though, our leader launched himself off of the platform and brought down a vicious attack on what remained of our team. An absolutely insane battle ensued (of which I can't remember many of the details), and it spilled out of the temple and into the city streets of the developed, modernized island. We were toppling buildings and causing unimaginable damage while fighting the head of our team, with Darksied just tagging along and watching the fray, for the most part. 

Eventually, though, we were able to break the psychic hold, just as we did with our earlier ally, focusing on the bond between us and the damage that Darkseid had already caused to our unit. Through no small feat of willpower, our leader was able to break free of the enhanced brainwashing from the interstellar villain...and he was pissed at having been made a vessel for Darkseid's dark power.

Instantly forgiven - by myself and the rest of our crew - for anything that might have transpired, leading up to this point, our head guy joined forces with us, once again, and we rushed Darkseid with everything we had. Again, the battle was epic. Darkseid was just beastly, in his power and character. Enraged, himself, at our 'daring' to thwart his plan, he fought against us ruthlessly, taking on a sort of 'street slang' in his dialect, as if he had been from New York, or something, instead of from outer space. It was really jarring but, for some reason, just made him all the more scary.

In time, though, we had begun to overpower him. The last part of the battle, that I can remember, was Darkseid having been pinned on his back, in the middle of a destroyed city street. Our leader and I were raining down tandem attacks on the invader. I was standing over top of his downed body, and the other hero would blast him with a maxed-out surge of energy. Then, in the moments between blasts, just as Darkseid finished screaming in electrified agony and began to try to lift himself from the ground, I would drop the hardest punches I could muster down upon his chest and face, smashing him over and over and driving him further into the shattering concrete beneath him, with every blow. The chorus of Darkseid's screams, the repetitive cracks of thunder and the shockwave-inducing booms from each of my ground-and-pound punches were echoing all throughout the city, and it's the last thing I can remember from the fight.

The last thing I remember from the dream, itself, though, was a "stinger-type" of clip - as if it were a post-credit scene, after a movie - of some random, industrial rubble being lifted high into the air. (Maybe the oil rig, from before?) The further it was raised, the more clearly I could see the red and blue figure that was holding it up over his head, proving to us that Superman was, in fact, not dead, and he was back to help us defeat Darkseid, once at for all.

(Just an all-out incredible battle. This dream was both psychologically terrifying, and so satisfyingly action-packed. The kind of dream after-which you wake up and just say...."whoa." I had a blend of mugwart and ginkgo before bed, that night, which I'd been experimenting with, periodically, for the last few weeks, and my dream activity has been pretty much off the charts. Lots more dream entries to come, from over the last couple of months. Just been a little too busy, over the holiday system, to write them all out, in full!)