DC : The Template System

Max shouted, stretching his arm toward Darkseid as the center of his technique.

The ground trembled violently, cracking beneath their feet. Chunks of earth and rock were ripped from the landscape, rising into the air and swirling around Darkseid. At first, he easily destroyed the incoming debris—fists shattering boulders like glass—but the swarm grew relentless. Soon, the sky was filled with a spiraling mass of stone and rubble forming a colossal sphere.

Max jumped down , feet planted wide, hands pressed together in a prayer seal. Blue chakra flared around him like a blazing aura. Veins bulged on his face from the strain as the gravitational force expanded.

Moments later, a massive crater marked where the land had been torn away. Floating high above was the sphere—hundreds of meters wide, a miniature moon forged by Max's jutsu.

Silence fell.

Then, the sphere cracked—glowing red energy leaking through fissures in its surface. With a thunderous explosion, the entire mass detonated, sending debris raining from the sky like a meteor shower.

Max raised his arm instinctively to shield his eyes—too late.

A sudden shockwave knocked the air from his lungs as Darkseid slammed him into the ground at blinding speed. Dust and debris were blown away by the sheer force of his movement, a sonic boom trailing behind. Boulders fell with dull, echoing thuds as the battlefield shuddered beneath the impact.

Darkseid lifted Max by the chest, bringing him face to face. His eyes glowed crimson with lethal intent. Max, bloodied and bruised, coughed—but managed a smirk through gritted teeth.

"Gotcha."

Suddenly, a massive wooden dragon erupted from beneath the battlefield, coiling around both combatants. Its maw clamped tightly onto Darkseid, draining his energy. The beast's bark-blackened body darkened further where it touched him, sapping his strength like a parasitic vine.

Darkseid's eyes narrowed—just as the Max in his grasp crumbled into wood. A clone.

High above, the clouds parted.

The real Max hovered above a massive descending meteor. Wind howled around him as he outstretched his palm.

"Shinra Tensei!"

The gravitational force behind it increased exponentially as the meteor accelerated. Max didn't stop there—his Perfect Susanoo materialized with a deafening roar, pushing the meteor from behind. The size of the meteor dwarfing the sussano, its arms adding momentum to the falling rock.

With a final shout, Max and his Susanoo thrust the meteor down.

It collided with Darkseid in a blinding eruption of force and fire.

BOOOOM.

Dust flew into the air.

Back in the city…

The heroes stood in stunned silence, watching the distant horizon where a massive meteor had just plummeted from the sky. Even from this far, the shockwave and dull thunderclap were impossible to miss.

"Can Darkseid pull meteors from space too," Green Lantern asked, brow raised, "or was that Tobi's doing?"

"If that was Darkseid," Barry muttered, arms crossed, "then he was seriously holding back when he was beating the hell out of us."

"So wait—Darkseid can just yeet meteors from orbit?" Shazam asked, eyes wide.

"It was Tobi," Cyborg cut in. "He summoned the meteor to hit Darkseid. I saw it happen on satellite imagery."

"Whoa, that's so cool! He has to show me how he did that when he gets back," Shazam said, clearly impressed.

Ignoring the fanboying, Green Lantern added, "Well, looks like Samurai Guy wasn't bluffing about holding back. He's the real deal."

"He's quite the formidable warrior," Wonder Woman said solemnly. "It's a shame we can't fight alongside him against this… Darkseid of yours."

"Yeah," Flash agreed. "We'd probably just get in the way."

"I really wanna see that fight up close," Green Lantern muttered.

"No. We stay here," Cyborg reminded them. "That was the plan—Tobi weakens Darkseid, draws him here, and then we hit him together."

"…Buzzkill," Flash muttered.

"I can show you the live feed, though," Cyborg added, tapping his cybernetic eye.

A beam of light projected into the air, forming a holographic display of the battle site. The screen showed smoke rising from the devastated landscape—chunks of rock scattered everywhere from the impact of the meteor. Slowly, the dust was starting to settle.

Green Lantern blinked. "Huh… Yeah. That works too."

-------------------

Max panted heavily as he hovered above the battlefield, watching the dust slowly dissipate from the aftermath of his last attack. His chakra reserves were running dangerously low. The relentless battles—each more intense than the last—had taken a toll on him. Ever since being pulled into the Flashpoint timeline, he hadn't had a moment of rest. He had been spamming chakra-intensive techniques left and right, pushing even Madara's monstrous reserves to their limits.

Yes, his arsenal was vast. Madara's Template have him with countless jutsu, but most of them had proven ineffective against Darkseid the others were too weak to even bring up. Only bloodline-related techniques had managed to make an impact—but those burned through chakra at an alarming rate.

The irony? The only technique Max had ever personally learned from scratch was the Rasengan. And he'd stopped there, thinking the rest of his arsenal was wide enough to cover any threat. Now, he regretted not pushing further… not evolving the Rasengan into the Rasenshuriken.

Genjutsu had also turned out to be nearly useless in this world. It required the opponent to have chakra—which no one here possessed. He'd even experimented with terrain-based genjutsu, illusions that affected the environment rather than the mind. Those could technically work on non-chakra users, as they were simply visual deceptions cast over a defined area.

But they came with a massive drawback ,the caster had to remain stationary to maintain them. And even then, someone like Superman—whose vision could pierce down to the molecular level—could easily see through the illusion. Fooling him would require a level of visual detail so precise, so accurate, that it bordered on impossible.

The only genjutsu he believed would truly work here was perhaps the Infinite Tsukuyomi… but that came with its own cost—and even then, he wasn't sure it could dominate someone like Darkseid.

The only technique Max had seen truly affect Darkseid was his Wood Release. His Wood Dragon had been able to momentarily restrain the tyrant, even managing to absorb a portion of his energy. But even that came with consequences—Darkseid's energy was corrosive. The moment the dragon latched on and began absorption, its wooden flesh began to rot and wither, as if poisoned from the inside out.

That left Max with only two remaining options.

His next plan was simple, yet incredibly risky: get close enough to touch Darkseid's head... and rip out his soul.getting to close to him would be dangerous bordering on suicidal—but if it worked, it might end the fight in one move but even if that doesn't work.

Then he would have no choice but to use the one time transformation—to become Jubidara.

The rubble trembled. A massive boulder shifted, then lifted into the air with ease—hoisted single-handedly by Darkseid. His palm glowed ominously red, and before Max's eyes, the boulder was consumed by the same crimson aura, crumbling into dust that scattered in the wind.

Darkseid rose into the air, floating until he was at eye level with Max. His glowing hands moved calmly behind his back, his expression unreadable—but his presence alone made the air feel heavier.

The earlier meteor strike had actually made him feel pain.

When Darkseid first began preparations to invade Earth, he'd sent parademons to scout for resistance. Among the data gathered, two beings stood out as potential threats: the Amazon... and the Kryptonian, whom he fully intended to bend into his greatest super-parademon.

But now... another name had to be added to that list.

The previously masked hero is .... different.

In sheer versatility and abilities alone, he had already accomplished something none of Earth's defenders had: he made him,Darkseid feel pain. It was fleeting, a whisper of sensation . That fact alone made him unique.Which is why It would be a shame to waste such a specimen,he shall turn him to a parademon.

End of chapter.