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"So... any changes?" Jason asked.
Diana settled more comfortably onto his lap, her weight familiar against his thighs, the warmth of her body seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt. She had claimed this spot the moment she walked into his office, as natural as breathing, as inevitable as sunrise.
"No. Not much, if anything." She traced idle patterns on his chest with one finger. "Everything has been smooth. Space is quiet. No response from Darkseid after what you've done to his daughter and servants." A pause. "Earth is cleaner. Things have changed for the better, really."
Jason's hand found her hip, thumb rubbing slow circles against the curve of her waist. He had been gone...three days, Earth time, though Hell had stretched it longer...and returning to find nothing burning, nothing screaming, nothing demanding his immediate attention was almost disorienting.
"The world figured out how to function without me breathing down its neck?"
"Apparently." Diana smiled against his jaw. "Give it time. I'm sure something will explode eventually."
She adjusted herself on his lap, shifting until she was fully straddling him, her thighs bracketing his hips. Jason's hands moved automatically to her waist, steadying her, holding her.
"There was this... well." Her expression flickered, caught somewhere between amusement and something more complicated. "I'm not sure if you want this or not, but a group of people have been talking online. About instating you as president of America. Or the world." She paused. "Or King."
Jason snorted.
"Of course they have."
"Actually doing that is... uhh... not gonna be easy."
"Or possible." He squeezed her hip. "I'm already King of Hell. And King of Curses. That's too many 'King of' things in my opinion." His voice softened, his hands sliding down to grip her ass, pulling her closer. "While I do enjoy the authority... after we finish our work, after we make sure the world is at least safe..."
He leaned in, lips brushing against hers.
"I'd like to spend time with my girls. Just fucking. Just living a fun life. Instead of ruling a bunch of people."
Diana's smile was slow and warm, spreading across her face like dawn breaking. She leaned into him, her nose brushing his, her breath mixing with his.
"As long as I'm beside you," she murmured, "I know I'll be happy."
He kissed her.
The kiss deepened. Her legs tightened around his waist. His hands explored familiar territory, mapping the curves he knew as well as his own name. She tasted like ambrosia, like something divine, and he drank her in like a man starved.
The office became a blur of discarded clothing and muffled sounds. Diana's back hit the desk, papers scattering. Jason followed her down, his body covering hers, the weight of him pressing her into the cold surface. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper, her fingers tangled in his hair.
"I missed you," she breathed against his mouth.
"You were with me three days ago."
"It felt longer."
He didn't argue. He understood.
...
"You should visit Zatanna," Diana finally murmured. "She's been asking about you."
Jason's hand traced lazy circles on her bare back. "Jealous?"
"Never." She tilted her head up to look at him, and there was nothing in her eyes but truth. "I know what you are, Jason Anderson. I knew it the moment I met you. You're not the kind of man who belongs to one woman." A smile tugged at her lips. "You barely belong to yourself."
"Flattering."
Jason stood up wearing his clothes
"You're not coming?"
She glanced back at him, her smile sharp and warm all at once.
"I'm not the one she's been dreaming about."
...
Jason stepped into Zatanna's lab...or her magic sanctuary, or whatever she called it these days...and immediately noticed he wasn't alone. Raven stood across from her, both women hunched over a workbench covered in arcane instruments and scattered notes. Between them, resting on a velvet cushion inside a glass case, sat something that did not belong in any room dedicated to magic.
"Is that?" Jason asked, already knowing the answer.
Zatanna turned around, her face splitting into a bright smile. "Oh good! You're here!"
"Yeah, I'm back." Jason moved closer, his eyes fixed on the object in the case. "Is that a Lantern Ring? It looks..."
He stopped, searching for the right word. The ring sat inside its glass prison, unmistakably a Lantern construct but wrong in every way that mattered. No color shone from it. No light pulsed through its surface. It sat there like a dead thing, the metal a murky blend of brown and black, like rust and rot had claimed something that should have burned with fire.
"Different?" Zatanna finished for him, her smile widening. "Well, that's because it is! Remember how you asked me if it was possible to change the source of energy from one emotion to a whole bunch of negative emotions?"
Jason nodded slowly.
"I did it." Zatanna gestured at the ring with obvious pride. Then she turned to Raven, reaching out to pull the younger woman closer. "Actually, no. We did it. Raven was essential for this. Her domain was a core part of our work."
She looked back at Jason, her excitement bubbling over.
"You know how cursed energy never really clicked with me? It was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. But with Raven..." She shook her head, almost laughing. "It was like magic. She's mastered it almost to your level. She may lack your quantity and your skills, but her control is nearly as close as yours."
Jason raised an eyebrow at Raven. The half-demon girl said nothing, but a faint flush crept up her neck. He filed that information away for later.
He stepped forward, lifted the glass lid, and picked up the ring.
It was cold against his fingers. Not the cold of metal sitting in a cool room, but something deeper—the cold of absence, of something that should generate energy but remained dormant. He turned it over in his palm, studying the way the brown-black surface seemed to shift when the light hit it, colors that weren't quite colors bleeding into each other like bruises healing in reverse.
"What emotions did you use?" he asked.
"All of them." Zatanna ticked them off on her fingers. "We started with rage—the core of our testing, since the original ring is fueled by rage. Then we moved on to fear. Another ring exists for that, and we had samples from our testing. Finally, we started mixing." She spread her hands. "Hatred. Grief. Regret. Malice. Every negative emotion we could name and a few we couldn't. We poured them all in."
She looked at the ring with the expression of a parent watching a child take its first steps.
"And voila. We made it."
Raven finally spoke, her voice quiet but precise. "It still needs work. A general battery. Rules. A method of fueling it." She glanced at Zatanna. "Lanterns use their own emotions, but we can't expect someone to feel all of these at the same time. It's not sustainable."
"No," Jason agreed. "But we can teach them cursed energy. Use that to fuel the ring instead." He turned the ring over again. "As for the battery..."
"We tried so many ideas." Zatanna threw her hands up. "It's impossible. We can't make an infinitely regenerating battery of all these negative emotions. Even if we forced people to feel them constantly, we'd need millions of them. At that point..." Her voice lost its brightness. "Aren't we just the evil ones?"
"Hmm." Jason set the ring back in its case, the metal clicking softly against the velvet. "That would be the case. But you're thinking of using living humans." He looked up at her. "I'm not."
Zatanna's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Well." Jason leaned against the workbench, folding his arms. "I recently became the king of a somewhat judgmental place. One where I may have millions of dead humans constantly feeling negative emotions." A slow smile spread across his face. "For their sins."
Realization hit Zatanna like a physical force. Her mouth dropped open. Beside her, Raven's eyes widened, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips.
"Hell," Zatanna breathed. "We can use emotions of the damned souls from Hell as a battery."
She stared at the ring, then at Jason, then back at the ring. The silence stretched for exactly two seconds before she let out a shout that echoed off every wall of the sanctuary.
"WE DID IT!" She grabbed Raven, spinning her around in a circle. "WE MADE OUR OWN LANTERN RING!"
Raven made a sound that might have been protest or might have been laughter...it was hard to tell, her face half-hidden as Zatanna crushed her in the embrace. Jason watched them, the smile still on his face, the weight of the ring still warm against his memory.
When Zatanna finally released Raven and spun back to face him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, her hair escaping from whatever style she had started the day with.
"The Cursed Lantern Corps," Jason said. "That has a nice ring to it. Right?"
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If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !