135 A Gray Speck Of Light #135

"I'm sorry, child. I do not know who brought you here or for what purpose," J'onn said, regretfully shaking his head at my enthusiastic barrage of questions.

"I know of your presence because it is my duty to search for such anomalies," he added as the scenery changed to J'onn levitating cross-legged in the Justice League's watchtower.

"I was scanning the earth for psychic threats when I sensed your arrival," J'onn explained as he zoomed on his head, and the scenery changed into a giant, spheric cluster of white and black specks, floating as they shined in a dark abyss.

"This is how I see the Earth in my mind when performing my duties..." J'onn remarked upon noticing my confused expression as I looked around, trying to make sense of the situation.

"Every speck of light represents the consciousness of a sentient being..." J'onn calmly said, and I nodded in understanding, prompting him to continue talking.

"If you look closely, you will notice countless specks fading away into the darkness, only for countless more to ignite as new life is born..." he added, zooming in on one particular speck of light slowly fading away.

"Why does it have red and yellow spots...?" I asked, despite having an idea of what the answer would be as I wasn't sure, and the martian telepath was quick to answer.

"This is the conscience of one unfortunate young man. The infernal thing you call Gotham had robbed him of everything..." J'onn replied, heaving a sigh tinged with sadness.

"Having lost his home and family, he was continuously persecuted by those around him simply for being weak and unable to fend for himself..." J'onn explained, going silent for a second before going on.

"By the time Gotham deemed to set him free of his suffering... it had drained everything he once was, everything he could have been..." he went on with a forlorn expression.

"By the time of his passing, Grayson Whitlock was not but a bundle of anger, fear, and hatred..." he continued, regretfully shaking his head as he trailed off, and I started connecting the dots already.

"At himself, at Gotham, and its inhabitants who took part in his suffering ignored it or were simply ignorant of it," he concluded, and I took it as my cue to interject.

"You don't mean...?" I said, trailing off, as I was unsure how to phrase my thoughts, but J'onn seemed to understand my meaning nonetheless, and he continued.

"Those negative emotions were so powerful that they lingered in his mind even after his psyche passed and joined the collective consciousness..." J'onn remarked as the white light faded from the speck, leaving only yellow and red.

"Soon, a new consciousness, one foreign to this plane, arrived and unwittingly occupied Grayson's husk..." he explained as a new gray-colored speck fused into the now yellow and red husk.

"It was infected by the negative emotions still lingering in the husk from its previous owner..." he continued as the gray, red, and yellow combined, resulting in a chaotic show of lights.

"You have come a long way since then, child," J'onn said, smiling as he put a hand on my shoulder. "The hate made you distrustful of others and unwilling to open up to others, especially those whose mission was to protect..." he explained as the scene changed, showing how I avoided everyone like the plague when I arrived here.

"It why was you dislike Batman and his proteges... because the former Grayson blamed them for not helping him..." J'onn remarked, and the scenery changed, showing my multiple encounters with the Bat Family and my hostile attitude towards them.

"You mistook it as hatred towards heroes in general, and you tried to apply the same on Super Girl..." J'onn added, and the scene changed again to me scowling at the Kryptonian blonde.

"However, your hostility quickly turned to lighthearted teasing once you spoke with her..." he added, showing my expression, barely holding back my laughter while threatening to sue Super Girl.

"In the end, you overcame that hatred when you finally found those unwilling to look away from your suffering..." J'onn said, showing my first meeting with Richard, then Patrick, then Benjamin, and I couldn't help but smile.

However, my smile stiffened as Harley Quinn's grinning face appeared at the end, causing me to give J'onn a blank look, to which he merely chuckled and shrugged.

"That was not my doing... I am merely acting as a medium, projecting the content of your subconscious mind into images..." J'onn explained matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Then there was the fear. Fear of those stronger than you. Fear that you have no control over your destiny..." J'onn remarked, showing how I had immediately fled when Firefly started burning people.

"The former Grayson had no control over his destiny as most people he knew prayed on him... changing his life for the worse at their whims..." he added, showing how multiple people would mistreat the former Gray.

His father would beat him. Kids his age would bully him in school. People he didn't know would give him disgusted looks because of his dirty, skinny appearance.

He eventually dropped out of school and fled Logan's apartment, but that wasn't the end of his suffering as several gangsters realized how much of an easy prey he was.

They would find him no matter where he fled and rob him of whatever money he gained by doing odd jobs for people and begging here and there until he finally snapped, resulting in his unfortunate demise at the hands of the gangsters.

"The fear turned into an obsession with gaining power and money, which is why the mercenary's corpse still lies in your dimensional storage..." J'onn explained, showing me standing over The Beast's corpse, hesitating before touching it and making it disappear.

He gave me a blank look, to which I could only chuckle while awkwardly rubbing the back of my neck.

"Through your teacher's guidance, you overcame that fear as you gained the power to control your destiny..." J'onn continued, showing my training sessions with Richard, then how I'd use what I learned to fight thugs.

"The last hurdle was overcoming the man you feared the most... Batman..." J'onn said, his face a mixture of various emotions as Batman's shadowy figure appeared, causing him to sigh.

"You overcame it as you realized that even Batman was not invincible..." J'onn said as he gathered his bearings and put on a composed expression to hide how he felt about that specific incident.

"You realized your potential, that you could grow stronger than those you once feared, ridding you of your obsession with power..." J'onn said, smiling softly at me. "Which is why the mercenary's corpse still lies in your dimensional storage... undefiled..." he added, and there was a hint of approval in his smile.

"Then there was the anger, the most festered and troublesome of the three..." J'onn said as the scene turned black. "The former Grayson had too much anger, accumulated over years of abuse..." he added, showing how the former Gray would get beaten by his father and others.

"His anger was not directed towards one thing or person. It was at everything, and everyone, the entirety of the world, if you will..." J'onn explained, showing how the former Gray would huddle up and start cursing at everyone before going to sleep every day.

"He did not know who or what was the cause of his suffering. Himself? His weakness? His father? Other kids? The gangsters...?" He added, showing all the above mentioned.

"He did not know, so he cursed the very world as everything in it seemed to despise him and relish in his suffering..." J'onn went on. "He had no outlet to let it out, no one to speak to, and no one to vent on as his abusers was more powerful than himself..." he continued.

"He had no choice but to bottle up the anger, let it fester in his mind and take root, slowly overwhelming his psyche..." he concluded, showing how the former Gray's speck began changing, rotting, and turning into what it was before his passing.

"When he finally let out his anger, he died for it, and it bigoted even more rage..." he said. "When you occupied the husk, it remained dormant, as you were still weak, thus had no outlet to channel it..." he added.

"However, when you grew stronger... that anger..." J'onn remarked, showing the scene of Logan sitting on top of the former Gray and raining punches on his face.

"It came out as you finally had an outlet and the means to let it out..." J'onn remarked, and the figure of Logan beating up the former Gray turned into two, slowly morphing into someone else.

The first was me sitting over The Beast as I beat him to death, and the other was the same with me trying to beat Abbot to death before Nightwing's timely intervention.

"You didn't realize it as the anger was deeply rooted in your mind... it was already part of your being..."

...

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