(Aden's P.O.V)
"Ok, you ready?"
I asked my kids. Kori, me and the team were all standing infront of the beach. The kids on the other hand were in the air, above the water, floating in a triangle form with Vor in the middle, facing Breeze with his back turned to us and the twins slightly behind him.
What were we doing? Well the twins had found out that by channeling their immense spiritual energy into Vor, he could basically absorb both of the fire attributed flames and shoot it out in a multicolored beam attack from his eyes.
It was mostly due to him being part Quintes which offered him a wide range of advantages. From what I knew, Quintes had incredible energy manipulation capabilities. Vor's Quintes existence was a concequence of my Realm's own ability with energy handling. Quintes could absorb other energies and use it for various effects.
So taking advantage of that ability, the kids and I were running an experiment to see if we could make the best rainbow, (yeah you heard that right) we could using various things. For starters, the twin's energy in Vor, Vor's own light beams, my newly unlocked water bending skill and Breeze's precise air control.
Something told me could produce something beautiful. It was exactly the thing that Kori would shake her head at, sit back with a bowl full of pop corn and watch the show.
"Yeah dad! Let's do it! I wanna see it! I wanna see it sooo bad."
Breeze vibrated with energy. Laughter broke out from behind us.
"What? She's just so cute!"
I heard Artemis defend herself from a teasing Kid Flash.
"Quiet on the set."
Kori yelled from her position. I looked at her appreciatively.
"What?"
She asked me with a small smile.
I shrugged with a lazy smile.
"Nothing. Just a question...ever heard of role play?"
She went beet red and punched my arm while I laughed. The kids had basically grabbed me the second I had teleported in and asked me to play with them. Given that I hadn't seen them in over a month, I had decided to humor them.
I hadn't had time to even talk to Kori, something that I needed, badly. My eyes kept falling to her baby bump which was followed by the sensation of free fall and shivers across my body. It felt...it felt overwhelmingly, terrifyingly, incredibly right.
I was out of my depth. Sai, Kai, Breeze and Vor were at the least, toddlers. But this was a baby made the normal way. It means he/she would need to be protected, fed and cared for as it grew up, every single day.
I'm not complaining however, lord help anyone who ever thought of harming any of my kids. I would not destroy them, no that would be too easy. I would keep them around and tell Michael to go crazy.
The truth was that I was scared. I was afraid that I wasn't ready for this. That somehow Sai, Kai, Breeze and Vor had turned out so well due to a mixture of luck and kori. I was afraid I wasn't good enou...
A soft hand grabbed my own. I looked up and saw Kori softly smiling at me. She gently pulled my hand and placed it on top of the baby bump. The moment I touched it, I felt something resonate.
Something so incredibly powerful that their potential was seemingly infinite. A smile broke it's way onto my face. This baby would be strong. So strong infact that it wouldn't matter if I sucked at being a dad. Either way, they would be awesome.
'Goddamn that boy...he looks tasty Af when he smiles. The things I wanna do...'
I clammed my control down on the loud thoughts from Artemis that managed to pull me out of my musings.
A concequence of my abilities growing to levels I never thought possible was that even without trying, I would now pick up on some strong thoughts. And Artemis' crush was back. Her body basically tingled in delight every time I looked at her or smiled. Like now.
That whole situation itself was a concequence of now looking like the god of beauty. My face had changed so drastically yet remained the same in some weird contrasting effect.
When I had arrived a few minutes ago, the only one apart from the Kids who recognized me was Kori. And that's because believe it or not, while she liked that I had been elevated from a shaky 6 to incalculable in the looks department...she liked me for who I was. Her thoughts were pretty loud on that.
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But Artemis and to some degree M'gann, were sending out 'Fuck Me' vibes that Kid Flash was no doubt picking up on and getting slightly jealous. Maybe I should research on how to make a glamour spell? I have access to magic now. Chaos magic to be precise which means I can do anything as long as it is chaos attributed.
"Daddy! Stop flirting with mom and let's make the rainbow already!"
Kai ordered, hands on hips and her rudy cheeks inflated.
"Yeah old man! I'm gonna turn 10 waiting for you!"
Breeze added, which was like a dam collapsing.
"Yeah she's right, just because you don't know how fun fun is, doesn't mean we don't!"
My mouth opened in shock. Sai...had betrayed me!
And then the craziest shit happened. It was like they had recited or something.
"Yeah! Dad don't kill my vibe, dad don't kill my vibe, we just want a rainbow and you wasting our time, dad don't kill the vibe, dad don't kill the vibe, you don't know what fun is, why you got no life?"
"Was that Kendrick Lamar?"
I looked at Kori who was similarly shocked like I was.
"Who taught my kids to listen to hiphop?"
I heard a whoosh and reached out to space, cutting the distance between a fleeing Kid Flash and I. Kid Flash appeared in the air with my hand around his neck. I squeezed it a little.
"Ok, I can explain."
He hurried to say, eyes wide with fear.
"They are only 4 months and 28 days old!"
I wasn't that mad mostly just surprised.
"They heard me listening to Rigarmortis, (best Kendrick song ever by the way)."
I squeezed his neck some more.
"Sorry sorry." He patted my hand and I loosened the hold.
"Priorities, Wall man and you're wrong it's, 'Bitch don't kill my vibe.' It's a special track. Horizontal, stoned-in-the-sunshine music at odds with the fretful lyrics about fame and the state of hip-hop."
I told him my opinion.
"That sounds like you got it from an online critic article."
Artemis muttered from the side. They had all walked over to see me kill Kid Flash for teaching my kids 14+ content.
"You can't prove it."
I answered.
"No need to. You are normally not that articulate."
I looked at Artemis and smirked, sending her into a blushing mess.
"Did you forget I got something which might or might not belong to you in my hands right now? A certain paramour of yours I might add?"
For added measure I shook Kid Flash like magic 8 ball.
Protests of dude sounded out from the Speedster.
"Ok that's enough Aden, let Kid go."
Aqualad spoke up.
I shook my head.
"Not until he apologizes."
"Okay okay I'm sorry for teaching your kids to listen to Kendrick Lamar, the greatest rap artist ever."
"Now that, we can agree on."
I let him down and turned to the kids.
"Okay where were we..."
My eyes blinked. Seems like they had gotten bored. I found them in the water, playing by splashing water on each other. Rainbow making experiment forgotten. Kori had joined them as well. It was a beautiful scene.
"Now that's the right idea."
Artemis pulled M'gann and Kid Flash towards the ocean, leaving me and Kaldur on the beach as the others played around.
"You're lucky Aden."
The team's leader told me.
I placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I heard about what happened."
Tula was in a coma because she had saved queen Mera from a particularly nasty attack that targeted a person's soul. She was not dead but her soul was damaged greatly and Aqualad was not in a good state for the last couple of days. Based on what M'gann had shared.
"When she chose Garth...I thought, I thought I would stop caring and move on. But now that she's in a... now that she's the way she is...it's like, it's like I've grown even more possessive. I feel like fighting for her now more than when she was with him."
"Love is...chaos. It's likely one of the most chaotic things ever. You cannot explain it like you would any other emotion. Because while hope can give you the courage to push past your limits, love can basically lead you to do anything. Sensible or not. Evil or good. It makes no difference."
I squeezed his shoulder some more, making him turn to stare at me fully.
"Listen to me Kaldur, don't let this chance slip you by."
A confused look came upon him. I pointed to our backs.
From the backyard of our cottage, a girl dressed in a yellow top appeared looking confused. When she laid her eyes on Aqualad, I could see over a dozen emotions pass between them.
"Tula..."
Aqualad choked out, tears falling down his cheeks in a flood.
"Kaldur."
The Atlantean girl's hands trembled.
"Oh Neptune's beard... you're... you're alive."
"I know how important she is to you Kaldur. That's why when I teleported everyone here after the earth had been destroyed, I made sure to have the realm heal her."
I held up a hand to stop his next words as he immediately turned to stare at me in shock. I had avoided telling them what had gone down with the whole New God affair, because I didn't want to repeat myself again. There were a few people my intuition was telling me to wait for before I told them everything about the planet's destruction.
"We'll talk about that later. Right now, you need to go to her."
Only 4 hours had gone by since the destruction of their home planet. I was not looking forward to the conversation I was soon about to have.
And as if on cue, I felt someone invoking my name. Now that I was a god, anyone with sufficient power, influence or overwhelming need could call out to me.
I separated into my two godly forms. One of my two bodies had something important to deal with, namely taking care of the situation I had put myself in by allowing over 7 billion intelligent beings into my realm, i.e managing them.
The other body?
I stepped out into outer space or rather the chunk of moon left behind after earth had exploded. I flew down towards the ground, seeing a yellow bubble shield surrounding a very very familiar group.
At the head of the Justice League was Doctor Fate. Looking into the faces of the League, it looked like all of them had aged by decades due to the stress lines on them. Barry had his head clutched in his palms while seating on a rock. Hawkwoman had her hand slung over his shoulder in a gesture of comfort.
Captain Atom, Green Arrow with his crossbow held loosely in his hands and Hawkman stared off into space at the general direction of where the Watchtower had been. Also gone.
Batman and Zatara stood below a floating dr.Fate, the latter had his eyes boring through the environmental shield Dr. Fate had no doubt cast, into mine.
So it was fitting that the first thing I told them telepathically was,
"They are all alive. Everyone you love. They are safe within my dimension."
Barry Allen, the fastest man alive, broke down and cried in relief.