Providence
October 1, 18:15
Take it from someone who had already died once; you don't get over it nor do you lose your fear of it. The experience of being cut off from all possibility was a gnarly one, and its effects still lingered even if you were lucky enough to be in my shoes.
Oh there was definitely some fear of death lost in general, but the fresh appreciation for life also grew in response, rendering that tiny loss moot. In fact, I daresay I feared dying more than most people.
And this could be attributed to the things I'd gained and accomplished since my revival. By ignoring the weight and effects of what I'd experienced and throwing myself into the many wondrous things my new existence offered, I'd achieved more than I ever thought possible.
Don't get me even started on the enjoyment. I had never been so happy to be alive.
Thinking of all these things made this scene of my funeral all the more worse. How I was still here watching Felicity, Cass, Mike and my friends as they lowered me into the ground eluded me. But I knew one thing; I didn't want it.
I didn't want to leave this–them, behind. There was too much to do, too much I hadn't done.
Whatever force had given me a front tow seat to my own funeral didn't allow me to move about. The same went for my words… they had been muted, leaving me to stew in my regretful and painful thoughts.
With every fibre of my being, I screamed in rebellion. A loud resounding no that went nowhere, that went heard by only me. The failure didn't deter me. I kept screaming and pushing with everything I had, and I soon noticed the image before me shift.
It grew darker, becoming more vague with my every scream. Hope the likes of which I'd never experienced filled me, and I redoubled my efforts. I fought back against the chains holding me without relent and something finally gave.
In the real world, I opened my eyes and sat up with a bellow, my whole body tense and coiled like a snake about to strike. While I blinked at the familiar sight of one of the Providence labs, the reality of the situation settled on me and—
Cassandra threw herself into me, her small and deceptively strong arms encircling me like I'd run away if she didn't hold me tight. Behind her, Felicity and Mike approached, the former's appearance and demeanor telling a story of exhaustion and panic.
How bad were things if I could tell she'd been crying from a simple look at the eyes behind her glasses?
For a moment we just locked eyes and said nothing, letting our gazes do the talking. After practically screaming myself back from wherever that place was, my repository of words had… short circuited if you will.
There were so many things I wanted to say, but none felt more appropriate than just appreciating the reason why I fought so hard to be here. Gently, I wrapped my arm around Cassandra, fighting back tears as Felicity moved to join the hug.
.
.
.
.
I didn't bother holding back the grimace when Mike displayed what he had to pull me back from—physically at least. Felicity clenched my hand even harder at the reminder and I gave her a placating look.
"It's okay. I'm okay now."
The images on the screen didn't matter. They were the past. Though I was glad the shock of the events had been too much for Cassandra to handle. That, or she had grown tired from all the crying.
Either way, she had fallen asleep shortly after I woke up and now occupied my former position on the bed, her smaller hand gripped tightly around mine. Such blissful unawareness on her sleeping expression would've been an impossible sight months ago.
However, the work I'd done with Felicity and Mike with the help of numerous psychology experts had broken down a significant portion of Shiva's mental conditioning. Cassandra was well on her way to becoming a normal young girl who didn't wake up at the slightest peep in the middle of the night.
There was nothing I'd rather do now than indulge in my family and all that entailed. Sadly, there was still unfinished business from The Light's mishmash of hare-brained schemes.
"The people at the site of the plant attack…" I took my eyes off the horrific injuries I suffered in the wake of Klarion's death and said to Mike. "The people in stasis…"
"All healed and returned to their homes."
"Including…"
"Yes, I used the resurrection protocol on the unfortunate ones and erased their memories of the ordeal."
A breath of relief escaped me and I deflated, thinking of the other locations with plants around the world. There were no doubt more casualties at some, if not all the sites.
Letting them all die after my bold proclamation of "I refuse to believe we cannot save everyone" made me feel like a fraud. It was the Pakistan flood situation all over again.
Back then, I rationalized it as too conspicuous. There were too many eyes on the situation in addition to the already problematic nature of how much time had passed since the deceased had been ripped from this world.
Performing a mass resurrection then would've definitely resulted in situations that could barely be described as undesirable. The ability that allowed me to break the established rules didn't protect me from those that decided I needed to suffer the consequences for breaking said rules after all.
And Lord knows this reality had too many of such entities.
They were a huge reason for the creation of the Oriole drones. I had millions of the little things now, all of them hiding in Subspace and awaiting my commands.
The ability to play with magic and technology like they were legos had finally allowed me to crack the enigma that was Subspace, how to enter and leave it, and perhaps the most important discovery of all, the ability to monitor realspace from beyond it.
This level of sophistication is what made the feat of protecting the children on a global scale possible. Together, the drones could take on any foe or achieve anything really.
They had been made to address not just situations that needed more hands than were available, but also as a means to deploy working models of any and all my technology wherever they were needed and at whatever scale.
These drones could form an impenetrable forcefield around Earth if needed for example, and as insane as that sounded, my current desire was to know the results of their first ever global deployment.
"Give it to me straight. The children… How many did we save and how many…"
Mike projected the numbers without hesitation. If he were human or less subservient to me, he would have tried to warn me, say that it wasn't my fault, not my responsibility, but thank goodness he wasn't.
He gave it to me straight, and Felicity's reaction mirrored the deep chasm that just split my chest.
The Oriole drones had done an impossible job. They'd pulled off a miracle, hundreds of millions of them. Sadly, they were not God. Of the over 2 billion child population on the planet, close to a million had been found dead or with serious injury by their parents when the split had been undone.
That number was expected to rise as more and more reports came in. Not every place or settlement had access to electricity nor internet connectivity. The casualty count on the screen wasn't static. It kept rising, little by little, each number representative of what happened when certain parties used the Earth as a playground.
This disastrous turnout made me think of the team and the Justice League. There would be a lot of explaining that needed to be done. The next few days and weeks were going to be hectic to say the least.
"Did anyone else get hurt in the blast?"
"Yes," Mike answered, and I braced myself. "The team and the Justice League are fine," he said, confusing me.
"Dr. Fate and Zatara sensed the impending explosion and had everyone retreat."
"And? You said someone got hurt, who?"
"Kent Nelson. After helping the others leave the blast radius, he entered it himself. Presumably to res—"
"Where is he?" I cut him off, quietly, and stood up, gently laying Cassandra's hand down.
Mike and Felicity shared a look before both of them focused on me. That confused me even more. Since when did Mike care about such things? And why was Felicity crying and looking at me with sympathy.
"I'm sorry," Mike's words hit me even harder than Klarion's cat did. "Kent Nelson died at 5:07 PM today."
No…
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.
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Watchtower
October 1, 18:20
A great many words, feelings, and memories sped through my mind the moment Mike's words hit home. Of all of them, it was his and Felicity's reaction and the reason for it that stood out like a lighthouse.
Kent's death was my fault. Simple as that. If they knew me well—and they did—they were fully aware that trying to convince me otherwise would fall on deaf ears. I may have become more flexible in my behaviour in this new life, but some stubbornness remained.
The only reason Kent's cold corpse lay on this table was the simple fact that I refused to let Klarion go. If I had rather chosen his enhanced familiar as the target of the spell, the events that occurred a few hours ago would have gone down a wildly different path.
Speedster or not, I would've been able to latch onto the cat and stayed glued to it with my ability to cling to things. And then, severing its connection to Klarion and hence, banishing the Chaos Lord would've been no problem.
I clenched my fist when this alternate set of events flashed through my mind. All of us at the scene would've gone home victors. But no, I had to keep my promise of killing Klarion the next time I saw him.
I wanted to say sorry but I didn't. Kent was gone, he wouldn't hear it. And sure, I could bring him back, but why would I violate him and his will in such a way? His desire to go see his long dead wife was not secret.
Since Kent had no living family, Red Tornado had taken charge of everything with regards to laying him to rest. There would be a funeral, but I didn't know when. For now though, Kent would stay in the Watchtower till Tornado decided to take him to a morgue.
The room, initially occupied by just me, my guilt, and Kent's body, gained two new visitors. One of them was Tornado, clear enough from the clang of his metal legs while the other was silent enough for my guess to be right about who it belonged to; Batman.
Both of them walked to the opposite side of the table. I paid them no heed and just kept staring at Kent, fighting the constant urge to look away from what I'd done. Still, I didn't ignore them, especially Batman.
I didn't need to read his mind to know why he was here.
"If you're here about the Injustice League, just know I have five of them in stasis. The Joker and Black Adam are dead. On The Light front, my agents are moving in on Luthor, Queen Bee and Deathstroke as we speak. They should have them waiting and ready for interrogation by the time I'm done with Savage. Belle Reve is also secure. My men made sure of that."
Batman remained unmoved as ever. "I came to offer my condolences."
That made me look up. "Oh… well, I guess… thanks? Sorry for dumping all that on you."
"What do you plan to do with them?"
"Who?"
"The Injustice League and The Light?"
"Interrogate them like I said. After that, hand them over to the authorities with a mountain of evidence tying them to everything. Ivy is the only one who may be handled differently. I believe she can be helped. I have it on good authority the way she acquired her powers was detrimental to her sanity. They do not excuse her crimes, but it does mean she needs help. I'll see about getting her said help and then from there, finding a way for her to repay the world for the damages she's caused."
"What about the Joker?"
Ahh, there it is. Couldn't resist, could you?
"He's dead, like I said."
"How did he die?"
"A bullet to the face. And before you start whatever it is you're gonna start, just know you're right. But I don't care. I'm too tired to debate morals and ethics with you."
"…This conversation is not over."
"For you maybe. For me it is. The Joker's reign of terror has ended and so has any future arguments about whether my actions were right or wrong. Because he's never coming back. He's the past, this is the future."
When most people in the League and the team's inner circle thought of Batman, he didn't come to mind as someone who would flip out in anger over a situation that actually warranted it.
He proved that today by matching my placid and dead stare for a moment that was a bit too long. In the end, he upheld his stoic image and simply walked out, leaving me alone with Kent and Red Tornado.
A flash of gold caught my eye when I gave the aerokinetic android my attention. He had the Helmet of Fate in hand. The urge to ask why came up, but like everything else, I didn't feel the need to and simply went back to staring at Kent.
"He wanted you to have this…" Tornado held out the artifact of Order and pushed it into my line of sight. "He said to try it on when you have the time as a favor to him. It was his last wish."
All the excuses I formulated crumbed before those last words. Opening and closing both hands to chase away the subtle tremors, I clasped them around the cold metal and stared at it, wondering what this was about.
There was only one way to find out. Moving as if I was holding something sacred, I raised the helmet above my head and brought it down—there was a bright yellow flash and then the world changed.
I could talk about the cramped space and the weird spotlight from… somewhere, but the most obvious and glaring thing about my new location was the presence of the two individuals that looked like a time traveler's photo album.
"Kent…" I called out and moved closer to the smiling old man grasping a cane and wearing his favourite black suit. "How?"
"Come on kid. You know how. Don't tell me my death has rattled you that much. You didn't even say hi to Nabu."
For a moment I didn't know how to react. I settled on a head shake and chuckle before looking to his left at the tall, dark skinned and well built man dressed like someone from ancient… you know, those kingdoms where sashes and robes stuff were all the rave.
"Nabu… it's good to see you. And you too Kent. Even though it's my fault you're here. …I'm sorry."
All I got from the grumpy lich was a grunt and from the old man, a loud, hearty laugh.
"None of that," he waved his hand. "You gave an old man like me hope for the future, a good death, and most important of all a chance to reunite with my Inza. You did nothing wrong."
"I… thank you."
I knew when I was beat. No use arguing with the person you were responsible for killing if they didn't even see it as such.
"You're going to stay here with Nabu until his body's done."
"Yes. After all, eternity is that… eternal."
At that, I could only laugh and cry tears of joy.
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