Young Justice: Gotham City
July 25th, 2010
In…one…two…three…Hold…one…two…three…Out…one…two…three…Hold…one…two…three…In…one…two…three…
My mind was a dark void, lit only by a gently flickering candle flame burning at the very center of my consciousness. Beyond that tiny sphere of light, dark shadows danced along endless, uniform bookshelves, just barely hidden through the gloom.
Hold…one…two…three…
The candle flickered in time with my heartbeat and I gently fed it with the mantra to which I matched my breathing. My thoughts and memories were there, they were just hidden. Cast in shadows. Out of sight and out of mind, like my tutor had always said.
Out…one…two…three…
Blacks did not tend to be good at the mind arts. Though not all of us were equally affected, the Black madness dwelt within all our hearts and minds, making certain disciplines difficult, if not impossible to learn. However, protecting our secrets had always been a core foundation of our family’s strength, and occlumency was simply too valuable a skill to ignore. And so, over decades, centuries, and even milenia, we had developed our own secret methods that used the madness instead of trying to suppress it.
Hold…one…two…three…
Typically, the first step of learning occlumency is to clear your mind. That is the foundation upon which all other skills are built. There are a multitude of methods to do so, but only one ever truly worked for my family. One can not simply ignore one’s enemies, just as they can not ignore oneself. You must burn out the rot, the scum, and make sure the fire catches all the way down to the roots. If one is not in control, he needs only to burn out all that distracts and clouds his vision to see the truth.
In…one…two…three…
Even with my eyes closed and my focus turned inward, I could feel my wand gripped loosely in both my hands. The ember of phoenix fire within it danced in time with the flame in my mind, sending waves of phantom heat up my fingers and loosening tight muscles I hadn’t quite realized I had.
Hold…one…two…three…
I’d met a phoenix once. Professor Dumbledore, my transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, was truly blessed to have such a wondrous magical creature as a familiar. Unfortunately, ever since the bird had decided it didn’t much like me during my sixth year, I’d had a lot more trouble getting tips on refining my transfiguration than I had before. For five years I’d been his favorite Slytherin, but then one stupid bird jumped away from me and suddenly he was poking his nose into my business where it didn’t belong. My wand certainly had never had any problems with what sort of magic I cast with it––must have been a less judgemental bird.
Out…one…two…three…
I fed that thought into flame as well. Now was not the time for past anger, nor for reflecting on what could have been. My heart beat was slow and steady, my breathing perfectly even, and my mind as clear as could be.
Hold…one…two…three…
Typically, this would be when I began to rebuild my occlumency shields. A clear mind was all well and good, but that just meant a legilimens would need to exert a tiny modicum of effort to peer through the darkness and find the memories and thoughts lurking just out of sight. Sure you’d notice the intrusion right away, but if someone was already in your head it was usually too later. Neither would it help with fighting off compulsions and other mind-affecting magics like the imperius curse or veritaserum. For that you needed proper barriers, and other more active defenses.
In…one…two…three…
But that was not what I was doing today. Instead, I shifted my mental focus down and out, an exercise that had taken me more than a dozen attempts over the course of two weeks to manage the first time. It was easier now, but still required perfect mental clarity and utter focus.
Hold…one…two…three…
The darkness and the flame vanished, though I could still feel it burning at the back of my mind. What I found instead was a shimmering, prismatic spark of light that simultaneously shone with all the colors of the rainbow and none at all. Well, not just a spark. My Spark. The fragment of eternity that had saved my life, carried me away from my world, and given me new powers that I was only barely starting to understand.
Out…one…two…three…
It was quite possibly the most beautiful, majestic, and breathtaking thing I’d ever seen in my life. The first time I’d managed to gaze upon it, my physical body’s breath had literally hitched and it had disrupted my concentration badly enough to throw me from my mind. Now, after several attempts, I’d managed to maintain my even breathing and razor-sharp focus even though part of me was screaming to just lose myself in gazing upon the glory that now dwelt within my soul.
Hold…one…two…three…
Though how it worked was still an utter mystery to me––and I feared it would remain as such for decades to come––I was slowly starting to figure out and map what my Spark could do. I’d found where it stored the blueprints for the creatures and artifact I could summon, as well as the connections I’d formed to the Lands of this Plane. I’d also found room for several other forms of blueprints, though without actually ‘learning’ such a blueprint I doubted I’d be able to figure out what they would be for.
In…one…two…three…
Though I’d as of yet failed to actually figure out how to travel between planes intentionally, I had learned some interesting tidbits. For instance: each time I bound myself to a land on a single plane, it would become exponentially more difficult to bind the next. Binding Slaughter Swamp had taken a single moment of connection. Binding Shadowcrest had taken days and a powerful emotional connection to the places through Zatanna’s experiences growing up there. And now, though I’d spent a lot of time in several other very magically and emotionally significant locations, it would take much, much more than that to acquire a third connection without traveling to another plane.
Hold…one…two…three…
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I’d also learned a bit more about the actual processes behind forming connections, both of the land and blueprint variety. I was almost certain that, with some tinkering, I’d be able to gain a few new blueprints in the near future. Certainly one of Zatanna––I wasn’t exactly sure how that would work, but if the worst did come to pass it would be…reassuring to have insurance.
Out…one…two…three…
My next exhale came out more like a gasp than a breath and I hurriedly refocused on not focusing on anything––a rather difficult mental exercise to say the least. I would also have to try doing so with a few more simple items and perhaps a few magical creatures as well. Being able to summon four post-owls at will sounded very useful, and, while this place had fewer interesting magical creatures than my own home plane, I was sure I’d be able to find something to experiment with.
Hold…one…two…three…
Now, after taking a few basic precautions, it was time to try something I’d noticed a few hours earlier during my morning meditation. I mentally moved through my Spark, drifting past the indistinct shadow of Solomon Grundy and an Inferius, past the bonds connecting me to this Plane, past the shadow of my Yew wand, and finally––
It happened so quickly I barely had a moment to react. Existence tore open around me, jerking me straight out of my meditation and making me slip off the thick cushion I was kneeling on. Instead of slamming painfully into the hardwood floor, I slipped out of reality and into nothingness, an endless expanse of energy and oblivion that seemed to continue on for an eternity and yet faded into blinding mist after just a handful of steps.
I flailed blindly, then managed to compose myself. I could feel this place eating away at me. Life did not belong here. Matter did not belong here. Only the blazing fire in my chest sending tendrils of life-giving heat through my limbs and extending a bare few millimeters past my skin saved me from being instantly obliterated by the vast currents of energy I couldn’t truly sense but could hear the echoes of spiraling about me.
I knew what this place was. Just moments ago I had been slowly picking my way through the barest fragment of this place that had bound itself to my very being. I’d done it, if mostly by accident. I had entered the space that dwelt between universes. I was…planeswalking.
My heart caught in my throat as I suddenly realized that I was utterly lost. I couldn’t see or feel anything around me. This space felt completely empty, but something clouded my vision, turning what should be an endless sightline into a stifling fog. The heat in my chest beat back the inexorable encroachment of oblivion, but moment by moment I could feel its strength drain away.
I tried to turn around to where I had just been, but there was nothing but more fog in front of me. No sign of the world I’d just left and the house I’d been kneeling in just seconds ago. I could just barely feel…something. A sense like the ringing of a colossal bell, the smell of a home-cooked meal, and the becoming heat of a bonfire. But it was so, so very far away, and I was just a tiny Spark lost in an eternity of nowhere.
Panic tried to take hold of my heart and weigh down my limbs, but I fed its clawing grasps into the flame, sputtering and flaring but still burning within my mind. I felt for my Spark. It had gotten me here, and by all that was holy it absolutely must hold the path out as well, or else there was no way multiple Planeswalkers had managed to visit Zatanna’s world over the milenia.
My mind brushed against it and I found two intertwined theaters leading out into the fog. Slaughter Swamp and Shadowcrest, two faint bonds of meaning and mana guiding me home. I grasped them tightly and tugged, dragging myself through the aether and back into reality.
My knees slammed painfully into soft, muddy earth, and my nose was instantly filled with the fetid smell of rotting plant matter and bloated corpses. I looked around and nearly sobbed with relief as I recognized my surroundings. I never thought I’d be so glad to see a bunch of dirt, scraggly trees, and stinking water.
Just to confirm that I hadn’t somehow managed to find a different, identical-looking swamp, I pointed my wand––protected from the chaotic energies by means of swiftly clasping it between my palms and wrists––and murmured a command. A trio of inferi––one produced from pure mana and two created from corpses––rose silently from the shallow water.
I sagged backwards onto the ground, completely uncaring of how the muck began to instantly soak into my shirt and get all over my precisely styled hair. Thank Merlin, Morganna, and all my Black ancestors. That had been both the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I’d ever done.
I could still feel my Spark, the connection clearer and brighter than it had ever been. It felt…slightly drained. Protecting me in the nothingness between worlds had taken a lot of energy, as had tearing my way in and out through the Planer boundary. It would recover, but I gauged that it would be a handful of hours before I would be able to safely try that again.
I directed my inferi to hide back in the shallow waters, and just in time too. A golden ankh––Kent really seemed to like that shape for some reason––appeared in mid air less than twenty feet away from me and Kent flew through it like a comet, his cane clutched tightly in his boney fingers and his body glowing like a miniature sun.
I sighed and waved weakly at my teacher. “I’m alright. Nothing to worry about.”
Kent instantly relaxed and floated down towards the ground. “Ah, Hydrys! Just the man I was hoping to run into, if you catch my drift.”
I laughed. “Better the Planeswalker you know, huh?”
“Exactly. So I take it you’ve figured out how to Planeswalk then?”
“Probably?” I guessed. “It's going to take some practice, and I have absolutely no idea how to navigate to anywhere that isn’t here, but its progress!”
“Well, even if you haven’t quite got the hang of it yet, I’m sure you will in due time.” He paused, considering things for a moment. “Tomorrow, how about you bring Zatanna along to our lesson and I’ll find us a cake. I don’t spend nearly enough time with my niece as it is, and I would never turn down a reason to celebrate.”
I flashed him a thumbs up; a muggle gesture, but a very useful one and talking sounded like hard work right now.
“Excellent. Well, I’ll leave you to get cleaned up then. Till tomorrow, young man.”
“Till tomorrow,” I echoed back, sitting up to watch him fly away.
Kent paused in mid air and turned around. “Oh, and you’ll be happy to learn that I passed along those forms to Queen Mera this morning. It will probably take a few weeks for everything to go through, but I expect you’ll be able to visit the Conservatory by mid-to-late August.”
That was indeed good news! In the grand scheme of things, a month wasn’t that long, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of other things to fill my time with. Tomorrow night was going to be a full moon, and so I’d finally be able to get started on really working on my new home’s wards.
I’d already applied a few of the basic ones, and Zatanna and I had done a lot of cleaning, tidying, and made lots of repairs, but all the major wards required a proper foundation, and tomorrow night was going to be the perfect time to form it. I’d already found the granite boulder I’d need, and a nearby farm from which I could stealthily source seven goats.
Kent vanished back through his ankh and I slowly, laboriously climbed to my feet. This place needed a bit of a makeover before I tried doing that again, I decided. Some cushions, a lot less muck, and definitely a few more wards. And maybe an extra dozen inferi, just in case. I doubted I’d feel nearly as exhausted if I hadn’t spent so long trying to get back, but it was very possible that in the future I’d be very happy to have some extra bodies to throw at an enemy I was running away from.
And anyway, it wasn’t like this place didn’t have an abundance of corpses––more than enough to stock both my home and the swamp with undead minions. But I could do that later. Once I’d had a nice hot shower, and gotten myself a change of clothes. Also perhaps a nap was in order. A long nap. I had a long night ahead of me tomorrow, so it was best to catch up on sleep ahead of time.