22 Roanoke part - 6

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"Klarion," you hear Dick utter the name of what is quickly becoming your now most disliked being in well...all of existence.

"We should have known it'd be him behind this." That's Fishnets, and she still sounds annoyed.

"You know this fuckface?"

"We've run into him before."

"And how'd you beat him?"

"We didn't." The Superboy replies ominously. "Fate did."

What does that even mean and who the hell is Fate?

"But we learned from last time, we won't make the same mistakes." You'd have believed the Martian if her words and emotions didn't reek of desperate hope.

Dim moonlight reflects off the smooth surface of Ravager's blade. "Well that's reassuring," she says before sheathing it once more.

It does nothing to ease the anger bubbling inside of you, like a boiling vat of oil moments away from exploding into a fiery inferno.

This isn't natural, you can recognize that. It's like a spell over you, almost oddly familiar and then you remember all those nights ago when you killed a giant that wore a Spartan's helm and had magma for eyes. The anger is different, but how clearly it rings out banishes any doubts you had that whatever this Klarion was, it assuredly isn't human.

"You guys remeber the plan," you dimly recognize Dick speaking.

"Wally you'll distract him from behind…Zatanna and Aqualad pin him down magic, MM and Superboy you go in from the front full-throttle…"

The battleplans are drawn up and adjusted by the moment, everything but all you can think is that they have no idea what they're up against. You could end this before anyone realizes what even happened.

All it would take is a snap of your fingers.

It'd be so easy, what could this Klarion even do to stop you? When Time stops, for those precious few moments you as well be God himself.

Omnipotent. Omniscient. Unstoppable.

You brought all of Gotham to its knees twice over with such power, what could one petty little villain do against that? Pride rears its ugly head and draws a curtain of invincibility around your shoulders. You didn't need any of these heroes, just like you had never needed Batman or Selina to save you, or Ms. Ergrane, or Slade, or Rose -

The train of thought is shattered like glass falling from a skyscraper, and the facade of invincibility goes with it leaving you bone-weary.

A hand falls on your shoulder, and you barely restrain yourself from lashing out, but there's already a hand wrapped firmly around your wrist in an ironclad grip. Ravager glares back at you, mask curled into an unseen snarl.

Her attempt at restraint is symbolic at best. If you want to, you could have torn her off without a second thought. But you'd never do that, if there's one person you'd never hurt, it'd be her. The anger subsides like a volcano after erupting and leaves only ash in its wake.

The team of costumed heroes watches you with thinly veiled concern and wariness, ready to bolt into action at the first sign of your anger tipping over. You turn slowly to face them.

"On your signal, Robin," you concede begrudgingly.

Klarion has no idea what's happening before a deluge of magic and water falls upon him.

"Holy Carp!" The supposed mastermind behind shattering the world into two separate dimensions yelps childlishly and skitters back, clinging tightly to the cat in his arms. "You almost hit my cat!" he decries shrilly.

A rock the size of a prius courtesty of Miss Martian comes flying directly into his blind side. The Witch Boy flicks his hand and it crumbles into a thousand lttle pebbles against a shimmering red shield. Said shield immediately flickers and shudders under a barrage of strikes from Superboy. Klarion turns his nose up in disgust at the sight and sends the Kryptonian flying into the trees with a blast of burning red magic.

Aqualad's water whips fizzle and evaporate with the slightest contact with the now circular dome that enshrouds Klarion. Fishnets utter an incantation of her own and a myriad of violent multi-colored orbs crash into the shield. The Witch Boy turns to examine her with a bored eye.

"Peh, is this the best that you can do? Baby magic." His own incantation crashes down at her feet and sends her sprawling a dozen feet away. She doesn't get up. Artemis's arrow is caught without even a glance and the archeress is similarly thrown out of commission with piteous ease.

You can feel the pain and anger from each of the team as though it's your own, and it spurs you forward into position. With a deft wave of your hand, Kid Flash springs into action careening directly behind the mage before they could react. But somehow, Klarion does, and Kid Flash cries out in pain as black miasmic energy tears into him.

You'd been right, they aren't prepared for Klarion. But, you are, and the time they'd given you would hopefully be enough. The weapon in your hand almost seems to hum in agreement, the blood-red liquid within glowing angrily. Penguin's goons had called it Apocalypse tech, you couldn't see a better time to put it to the test.

Ravager doesn't even need a signal to burst into action delivering a hail of bullets and explosives against the shield while unnaturally evading each counterattack a heartbeat before contact. Klarion's frown turns into a childish shout of anger, and that's when you strike.

The weapon whirrs to life and its frame begins to vibrate in your hand and then a dark beam of crimson energy explodes forth tearing through the shield.

Klarion shrieks in pain, an inhumane sound that silences all sounds of combat. The shield collapses. You crater forwards. The Witch Boy turns around and meets you with a blast of magic. Time shudders and one heartbeat becomes a dozen. You slip through the attack, and then, you're in front of him and you revel in the fear in his eyes as your hands wrap around his thin neck. The tabby in his arms yowls and flees to the ground. "Teekl, you mangy, urkh!"

His arms slap against your own ineffectually and the magic dissipates against your skin. You smile a gleeful hideous smile as you pull with all your might. Bone breaks and tendons snap and Klarion sputters incoherently, black blood dribbling from his lips. With one last vicious twist of your arms, the tension gives way, and Klarion's headless body topples to the ground.

You hold the head high for all to see unmindful of the horror emanating from every node in the link, except for Rose. Exhilaration pumps in your veins. Finally, it's over. The villain's dead. The good guys had won.

But then, why doesn't it feel like you won?

And then the strangest thing happens. Klarion begins to laugh.

The head turns of its own volition, and you find four ruby red eyes staring back at you. The demon's face breaks out into a smile and the mask of skin that it wore shudders and crinkles as it displays off rows upon rows of fangs and incisors.

The headless body rises of its own accord and with a clap of its hands, the disembodied head in your hands dissolves and reforms.

Klarion laughs, whole once more. The orange tabby leaps up into his arms once more and the death-defying villain coos comfortingly. Then he turns his attention to you.

You can hear each and every hero hollering their metaphysical lungs off for you to get back and retreat, but before you could do anything, Klarion claps his hands and the red orb comes to encircle both of you, cutting off the world and any support.

The shadows circle around his feet like living dark tendrils, trailing over the sphere's contours. Any pretense has been cast aside. This is what Klarion truly is. The four eyes roam over you independently of one another, and then he cocks his head, but his head keeps turning until it's completely upside down.

His smile only gets bigger and he rubs his hands together in excitement.

"Finally something interesting! A godling! I haven't killed one of you in millennia!"

Your knuckles turn white around the hilt of the sword. "Think you have a couple of screws, come over here and I'll set them right."

"And a sense of humor, too? By carping Chaos this is my lucky day! Don't you think so, Teekl? Don't you? No? Oh, who asked you anyway?" The tabby scrambles away and Klarion's attention returns once more to you. "We're going to have so much fun, you and I," he says with bloodthirsty glee.

"Just what are you?" you ask in an effort to buy time.

He, it, gasps dramatically in response. "You don't know who I am? I am Klarion! Culler of Civilization, Scourge of the Sacred, and a hundred other equally terrible alliterations!"

You give him a blank look. "Never heard of you."

The shadows explode forth in a rancorous tide, stopping well short of impaling you, and the four eyes split into eight. His voice turns gravelly and dark, and the air reeks with the smell of sulfur and rotting corpses. "I am a Lord of Chaos!"

"Not much of a Lord of Chaos if I could take you down." The snarl of anger is the moment you need. The anchor sinks deep into your stomach, iron burns on your tongue, and the golden threads shimmer. You snap your fingers and Klarion's eyes widen in surprise as time slows.

Klarion's mouth slowly morphs into a blood-curdling sneer.

For the first time in your life, you're too slow. Even as seconds transform into hours, a single lone tendril of shadow tears through reality like paper and like pulling open a zipper exposes a gaping rippling wound of crimson darkness. There are no golden threads on the other side, you realize.

And somehow, someway, Klarion sluggishly disappears through the gap but the moment his form steps through the portal, all effects of your manipulation of time seemingly disappear.

And in perhaps the most shocking display today, he blows a raspberry at you. "Loser! I won't fall for that twice!"

...Just what the fuck is this guy?

You've never thought of yourself to be impulsive, in fact, the opposite. Doing things out of hand has never been your style, you'd always preferred meticulousness with just the right amount of winging it. But right now, the only plan you have is to embed your fist as far into this idiot's skull as inhumanely possible.

Cadmus, wait! You hear Ravager shout, but it's too late, you've already taken off head-first through the portal.

One moment you're on solid ground deep within the forest of Roanoke, the next you're floating in space, or what looks like space. All around you is darkness, and the only source of light is the dim glow of blood-red stars miles away. You stumble for a moment before righting yourself. There's no ground here, nowhere to find your balance, but Klarion looks completely at home here.

"Since you had your turn on your home turf, I thought it'd be fair for me to get one on mine," he begins conversationally stroking the orange tabby in his arms. "after all, we immortals have different rules than those silly insects."

You should have felt insulted on Rose's behalf for that, but you'll make it up to her later.

"What do you mean, us?"

Klarion cocks his head in his increasingly naturally unnatural way. "You don't know? Are ya stupid or something?"

"Quit. The. Games."

"Hmmm, how about...no? Games are fun, so let's play."

A dozen arms forged from shadow sprout from his back and then Klarion's lunging forward, fangs bared and bloodlust in his eyes.

The first one cuts through reinforced steel like it's not even there and hot lifeblood spills down your arm. The second nearly spears through your knee.

Klarion laughs maniacally as you dodge and weave through the relentless tide of attacks. "Isn't this fun?" he cackles. "I'm having so much fun."

It's just your luck you're stuck in the middle of outer space with a deranged demon-boy thing. And to think today started out so nice.

This is Dick's fucking fault, you decide in between frantically avoiding mass impalement.

Even without the power of Time here, you hold your own. Klarion's imprecise and clumsy movements make it clear he prefers to sit back and let his magic do the talking, which makes you wonder all the more he just hasn't tried to blast you into smithereens yet.

You don't ponder it for long. You draw the Apocalypse weapon once more and Klarion scuttles away from the deadly blast. Your sword is in hand a moment later and cutting through shadow the next. Klarion shouts in pain. The orange tabby yowls in sympathy and jumps to scratch at your face. With a derisive movement, you catch it by the scruff of the neck and send it through the still-open portal.

"Teekl! You monster, he's just a defenseless pussy cat."

A cat. Robin had said the Cat was the answer. You have to get to the cat. Ignoring Klarion's continued indignation over your assault of a defenseless animal, you clamber out of the portal and back into reality. The sounds of swirling shadow and a daemon's angry curses follow you.

The burning sphere is still up once you return to familiar solid ground, and so too do the golden threads and the voices of the team that had gone silent since you entered the portal.

But none of that matters. Your eyes focus on the diminutive orange tabby cat at your feet.

"Kill the Cat," you hear Zatanna shout in the back of your mind. "He can't stay on our plane without it."

"Thanks, Fishnets."

"My name's not-" You forcibly cut the link before she finishes her response.

Your blade comes up high. To your back, you can hear Klarion scrambling out. "Teekl!"

The blade drops. Steel shatters and you're thrown back by the sheer backlash. Dazed and in pain, you slowly right yourself to see the tabby glaring at you with beady red eyes and Klarion smiling at a cat who had just caught the canary.

"You know when I said Teekl was a defenseless little pussy cat?" he shrugs his shoulders. "Well, I lied. Teekl, show him what the familiar of a Lord of Chaos is really capable of."

And before your eyes, the cat begins to change. Flesh shifts and grows beneath its thickening coat, once small paws, grow to the size of your head with claws a foot long apiece. From the tip of its tail emerges the head of a snake, and its hind legs become covered in fur. A tumor bubbles upon its back and in a gory display, a bleating ram's head emerges.

Klarion watches with thinly-veiled satisfaction as he approaches his monster and scratches its three heads fearlessly.

"Don't you like it? I wasn't the most original with the adjustments, but isn't Teekl just ab-so-lute-ly terrifying? You're going to kill all of them, aren't you? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!"

The head of the lion, the goat, and the snake all round on you with a singular purpose. The mental link goes dead, and the Chimera lunges forward.

The Chimera, a creature that should have been consigned to the pages of Homer and spoken of only in the same sentence as other myths, is here, and it's out for your blood.

The tiger head -isn't it supposed to be a lion's head?- opens its maw wide revealing lines of serrated bone-white daggers and fire burning at the back out of its mouth.

You crash to the ground just avoiding the jet of super-heated flame that evaporated all the moisture in the air. The chimera swivels on its hindlegs and the snake's head lashes out, fangs bared and dripping deadly poison. With unnatural agility, its wraps around your blade and bears down on your gauntleted fist which you doubt will do any good against this monster.

Your free hand comes down upon the top of its head with bruising force. Something gives with a loud crack and the snakehead falls limp, venom dripping from its open mouth. The soil bubbles and leaves corrode into black tar as it makes contact with the ground.

The goat head bleats in anger and rattles its horns at you with the threat of turning you into a Cadmus-sized kebab. Luckily all it does is throw the whole creature off balance.

Klarion groans in annoyance. "Teekl, You're embarrassing me, you mangy cat!"

Is this some kind of game to you? you almost ask. The Daemon boy jeers on the monster like an irate sports fan hate-watching his team, loudly bemoaning every time you succeed in evading death, and raving with foam at the mouth for each time your own strikes make contact.

This is just a game to him, and you're just a little piece of entertainment, a piece on his little board to move as he wanted. Just like you'd been for Selina, a little pet-project and distraction, just like Penguin tried to make you into, and just like how Bruce had tried to mold you into something you weren't.

You don't like it when someone tries to make you feel small. It only makes you angry. For someone who calls himself immortal, Klarion should have known better.

It's in the midst of holding the tiger's jaws open to stop it from chomping down on your head that the mental link with your oh so helpful team comes back online.

"Cadmus, you have to get out of there."

You grit your teeth, digging your feet into the ground and suddenly go limp and the monster tumbles over head-first, exposing its belly. Unnatural flesh parts and black bubbling blood pollutes the ground under a swift sword stroke. The Chimera howls in pain, but aside from the wound, it looks like all you've accomplished is making it angrier.

"Is that concern I hear, fishnets?"

Fishnets, clearly, still hasn't warmed up to her name. "You dumb idiot that's a lord of chaos. He can tear you apart if he wanted to."

"Yeah well, I'm the lord of I don't give a fuck. Now stop nagging and help me!"

"What do you think we're doing," Superboy shouts aloud.

His punches, powered by the sun itself, bounce ineffectually off the shield. The torrent of rocks, and super-sonic hits from Miss Martian and Kid Flash similarly do little.

A serenely cold voice cuts through the chaos of the mental link. "Then try harder," Ravager orders.

But, no matter how relentless the hail of bullets, or how numerous the torrent of spells and physical blows, the shield, and Klarion by extension, brush it off with the only barest flicker of annoyance on his ghostly white face. Maybe he wouldn't have ever turned his attention on to them until the bolt of lightning tore down from the sky and fled a boy in its place.

"The gem, get the gem!" Captain Marvel hollers with all his might through the network of minds.

The gem? You survey the ground around you in between dodging fangs, claws, and the odd bleating goat's head. There it is, situated ominously in Klarion's shadow. A golden gem with a myriad of runes carved into its surface, but it's jagged and broken like someone had smashed it against a wall and left it in a dozen pieces.

The demon boy follows your eyes and frowns.

"So rude," he tuts and claps his hands, turning to face the heroes. "to interrupt my games. I'll just have to teach you a lesson."

Had you not been busy with the Chimera, maybe you could have been able to stop him. Maybe. Your muscles burn, your lungs feel like they may just pop, but the Chimera keeps coming, and then suddenly it stills and retreats near its master.

Shadows coalesce around his frame, and the disguise of humanity shudders and breaks as skin, flesh, and bone, peel back to reveal rotting maggots and screaming souls. The attacks stopped, horror, and terror is all you can feel from the mental link, even fear lingers in Ravager's mind.

The guttural sounds of iron grinding against flint and the buzzing of locusts leave the demon's maw. His voice is what the devil would sound like, you think. And from each of his ten-fingered hands, emerges a deadly miasmic jet of energy that races outwards. The world is consumed in fire and all you can feel is pain from the others, unending and unrelenting pain. Then it disappears as suddenly as it had come.

Rose. You've felt anger, you even have an idea what rage feels like, but right now, you feel downright apocalyptic.

Klarion returns to face you wiping his hands in satisfaction, not a hair out of a place, and his slightly insane smirk back at full brightness.

"They're not dead," he tells you casually. "not yet at least. By the way, I have no idea why you care for them. Mortals are so...fragile."

"What are you talking about?."

"Don't insult me with lies, you reek of attachment, especially for that little assassin girl."

"You touch a hair on her head and I swear-"

"Why would I waste my precious time with a small fry like her when you're here? Now enough talking, Teekl, fetch!"

The world becomes frighteningly clear as you stare death in the face.

You take stock of your situation. Two broken swords. Innumerable serrated knives scattered across the ground. Out of ammo and explosives. Nothing left for you besides your bare hands.

And of course the sometimes useful ability to manipulate time.

Klarion giggles and claps his hands together in glee. The tiger's head roars and bares its teeth, the goat bleats in unholy anger and the limp snake's head hisses, fangs dripping amber poison.

You snap your fingers. The temperature plummets. A heavyweight settles on your shoulders. Klarion's visage morphs into a rictus of surprise as comprehension dawns on him but he's too slow to do anything, "No fair!"

Time stops.

The Chimera really loses the terror effect when it's been rendered as dangerous as styrofoam, you muse.

This isn't The Chimera that all the stories told of, you know. For one, the real one had the head of a lion, not a tabby, but besides that, from the heads of the goat and snake protruding from its body, the fire and venom it spewed, and sheer terror it inspired, it may as well have been the real thing.

And now it's completely at your mercy. Its glassy eyes are blind to your approaching presence, and even as you wrap your arms around its neck, it remains immobile, held tight by Time itself. You turn to Klarion, and nearly flinch back when you see his eyes glaring into your own, following your movements. That shouldn't be possible, you think with a tinge of worry, but the rest of him, is frozen solid and that's enough to ease your fear, and more importantly, stoke your hubris.

"That's a fine cat you have," your voice takes on the lilt of a back-alley mobster. "it'd be a shame if...something happened to it."

You twist your arms. The tiger's head turns unnaturally. Klarion's eyes burn with hellfire.

Turning to the goat's head, you take a firm grip of both its horns and with a jerk of your hands, snap them at the base, and with deliberate slowness plunge them into the Chimera's stomach.

Unbeknownst to you, a muscle twitches in Klarion's cheek.

Once upon a time, a carpenter had said, pride comes before the fall. Unfortunately, you aren't a carpenter so you never learned such an important lesson. So engrossed in your victory, you don't notice when Klarion's fingers break through amber when his face contorts into a snarl.

All you know is that one moment you're standing at the precipice of victory, and the next you're careening to the ground. Your vision burns, then the entire left side of your body feels like it's been dipped in magma. Your concentration shatters, and the golden threads of time are released.

The Chimera falls to the ground, the tiger and goat's head limp and broken, but one remained, the snake. And you can do nothing but watch as it reaches out once more in its death throes and digs its fangs deep into your calf.

The pain is nothing like you could imagine. A piercing scream wrenches free from your lungs.

You're going to die, you realize, on this godforsaken island at the hands of this daemon. If there's an afterlife you're going to spend it in complete embarrassment. Drowning in a bathtub would be better than this.

"YOU ALMOST KILLED TEEKL!" You hear Klarion roar dimly from your curled-up position.

I think Teekl killed me, you think. Instead, you only get out a slurred. "Fuck you."

He appears above you, hellfire brimming on his fingertips and animalistic rage shining in his eyes.

"You're going to pay! I'm going to turn you into atoms and then turns those atoms into smaller atoms, and I'll keep doing that until every last trace of you is WIPED from existence."

You have to give the guy credit, he is methodical.

"No, you won't, Witch Boy."

"NABU," Klarion snarls. "get out of here you old fart, this is personal business."

You have no idea who Nabu is, but since he's single-handedly the reason you're still alive, you'd really prefer if he stayed.

"Your anchor to this mortal plane is broken. Your time is up." True to Nabu's word, the Chimera gives a final rattling breath before finally going limp.

Fear creeps up Klarion's features, and his body flickers for a heartbeat.

"No, no, no, NO! You, you, killjoy! At least let me kill the godling first!"

"No. His fate is not yours to decide." Your savior floats into view. You can barely make them out through the haze of pain, but you can see the prominent golden helmet with eyes that glowed like starlight, long black hair, and a faintly familiar form.

"F-fishnets?" you choke out between laughs and spitting out the blood pooling your lungs.

She turns to examine you dispassionately. "Zatanna Zatara is not here now, godling. We are Fate, and Fate declares that you will live."

You give them a shaky thumbs-up.

"I always knew you cared...Fishnets."

You imagine beneath that frankly ridiculous golden helm, her eyebrows are twitching uncontrollably. You would have payed a lot to see that.

Fate's hands curl into an intricate diamond and pushes out. A golden ankh materalizes and falls upon Klarion. The demon shrieks and cries out about the unfairness of it all even as his form begins to flicker rapidly.

"You'll regret this Nabu! And so will you, godling! I'll be BACK-" and like the flick of a lightswitch, Klarion disappears.

It's over.

But what does that mean for you now? Are you just supposed to lie hear until you die?

"Fate does not plan for you to die here, Cadmus Othrys."

"Good to know."

"You will sustain yourself while we undo the Witch Boy's magic and reunite the world."

Even with your face contorted into a rictus of pain, you raise an eyebrow. "I'll be here then, I guess." Coughs wrack your body and blood spills across your chin.

"Impertinent godling," you hear the Nabu and Fishnets mutter. You don't see what Nabu does with the gem, but you can faintly hear the chanting of an incantation, and then the world is consumed in light with the force of a supernova.

When it fades, the clearing has more people in it than it did before. You stare listlessly into the sky, doing what little you can to staunch the bleeding. It's weird, you muse, the snake had only bitten you for a moment but there was so much venom that all you could see was a yellow sheen of liquid as you looked down at your body.

The ground rustles footsteps and the moon is shrouded behind the head of a shadowy figure looking down at you, you catch the barest hint of a cape flapping in the wind.

"This is him?" the stranger asks in a rich baritone looking down at you with piercing blue eyes.

Another joins him, slightly shorter and with a sword in hand. A golden rope lays tied to her waist, and her gaze is no less piercing than the man beside her.

Others join them, a man that may have been green if you aren't hallucinating, another with lightning bolts stuck to the sides of his head, and one with sickeningly familiar ears peeking over his cowl.

"Holy hell. Diana is that..." The Flash points downwards to your ruined left side.

Wonder Woman, at that moment, looks like the gods she claimed descent from. The expressionless mask she wears reminds you of a marble statue, all carved edges, but lifeless and cold. Her lips thin into a bloodless line.

"Ichor. The blood of the gods." Her words are solemn as though she had just signed your death warrant.

You close your eyes and the world is consumed in darkness.