Young Justice: Salem
July 28th, 2010
The tip of my wand wavered between Abra Kedabra and Klarion. Klarion was almost certainly the bigger threat, but he was behind a shield and that red dome looked rather impressive. Abra Kedabra was likely the weaker of the two, but he was mostly exposed and rather preoccupied with Red Tornado.
I could…maybe…I shook my head. No, I could leave Abra Kedabra to the others. At least for now. Getting Klarion away from Kent was the priority and I doubted that anyone else had the strength to tangle with Klarion. I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to tangle with Klarion, but I had to give it a shot.
This wasn’t going to be a friendly spar or a formal duel. If I wanted a chance to win, I needed to go all out and I could deal with the consequences of that later. I didn’t even think I could kill Klarion if I wanted to. He was a literal force of nature in the body of a child. Even if I managed to destroy his current vessel, the Chaos Lord himself would be fine.
Abra Kadabra…Well, I would try to be slightly gentler with him. If nothing else, he could serve as a valuable source of information, or perhaps an unwitting ally. But if it was him or me, or even him or Zatanna or Kent, it was never going to be him.
“Don’t get between me and Klarion,” I warned hurriedly. “Focus on Abra Kedabra and try to grab Kent if I can get him away from Klarion.”
Deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in and…I twisted on my heel and vanished from the platform with a soft crack. A moment later, I reappeared on a platform several hundred feet away, one positioned almost directly behind where Abra Kedabra and Klarion were standing. I stumbled slightly––the platform was at a slightly different angle than the one I’d been standing on before––but managed to keep my footing.
Klarion had his back to me, his hair and suit tinted red by the barrier. His cat was wrapped around his neck like a scarf, its tail held up vertically beside one of his ‘horns’. I had timed my apparition with another one of Abra’s lightning spells, and the crackle of electricity hid the sound of my apparition.
I raised my wand and drew on Slaughter Swamp. I only had one shot at this before Klarion and Abra Kedabra knew that they were dealing with more than one attacker. I had to make it count.
That shield spell around Klarion and Kent was powerful. Even through the ambient mana that filled the Tower, I could feel the power of the spell. Kent’s golden barrier had been more powerful than most shield charms I’d ever run into, and this was the magic of a Chaos Lord, not a mere mortal wizard.
I knew a lot of spells. Several of them were good at punching through shields or even ignoring them entirely in some cases. However, most of those were relatively limited. Just busting open the shield wouldn’t be enough. There was no reason to expect that I’d have time to follow up a shield-breaker with a second spell.
There was only one spell I knew that could both punch clean through any and every magical shield known to wizardkind and do enough damage to maybe deal with the being standing behind it. Well. It was a good thing I’d already been sentenced to life in Azkaban, huh?
Klarion had hurt my teacher. Klarion had made Zatanna scared and upset. Klarion had gotten in the way of my lessons. Klarion had to go. My mind was focused and my heart was steady. I could almost see the page of ‘Magick Moste Evile’ open in front of me. You have to mean it. Emphasis on the vah and the second dah.
“Avada Kedavra,” I whispered purposefully. Though this was only my second time ever casting the spell, the words rolled off my tongue like my own name. The cat hissed loudly and Klarion began to turn around, but it was too late.
I was almost blinded by the flash of green light that roared from the tip of my wand, the air screaming as something vast and invisible tore through the space between Klarion and I. The shield around him burst like a soap bubble, red light boiled away by a nearly invisible flare of green, and then it was on him.
I had aimed for the center of Klarion’s back, and his half-turn resulted in the spell impacting his side instead. I could still remember Sirius collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, the memory as clear as day in my mind even as the rest of the trial felt more like a blurry, half-remembered dream.
Unfortunately, that was not what happened here. Instead, the spell erupted against Klarion’s side in an explosion of green flames and crackling strands of blinding lightning. The cat yowled loudly and jumped away as Klarion was thrown bodily across the platform, his entire body flickered like an illusion as red cracks spread out along his body and face from the point of impact.
I sagged as a momentary wash of exhaustion threatened to overwhelm me, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the first time I cast the spell. Furthermore, I felt almost giddy. Channeling so much magic all at once left my skin feeling electrified and my wand was singing of life, death, and battle.
I blinked rapidly, clearing the spots out of my eyes. Squinting, I could see Klarion lying motionless on the edge of the platform he’d been standing on, while the cat was crouched behind Kent’s slumped body.
Abra Kadabra was looking around wildly, but it seemed as though Red Tornado and the others had him thoroughly occupied, so I ignored him for the moment. A smile stretched across my lips. Well, maybe I wasn’t so unprepared for the dangers of this world. Klarion was powerful, but death came for all things in the end.
I prepared to summon Kent to me when suddenly Klarion’s entire body dissolved into black shards. They blew around in an invisible wind and then came together, reforming moments later back in Klarion, wholly unharmed and staring right. At. Me.
“That actually hurt!” he exclaimed, his voice whiny and high pitched but blazing with malice that had nothing childlike about it. He reached backwards and red light began to gather around his hands. Then he thrust both arms forward and a howling, bestial mouth formed from eye-searing flames flew towards me.
I didn’t need to know much about Chaos magic to know that I wanted nothing to do with whatever that spell was. With no time to raise a shield stronger than a protego and no experience with how powerful that spell might be, I twisted on my heel and apparated away, reappearing a scant several meters away from Klarion––too close for comfort but far enough to dodge or shield––on the same platform as him and Kent.
I stumbled again––all these stupid staircases and platforms were at different angles and, even though the magic on them made it impossible to fall no matter what part you were standing on, it made apparating very annoying. “Accio suit!” I barked, and Kent went skidding towards me across the platform. Summoning people was considered to be pretty risky, but I was pretty sure that any friction-burns I caused would be less serious than what Klarion and Abra Kedabra would do to him.
I just needed to grab him and apparate––my eyes widened as I realized that the flaming mouth had turned around in mid air and was once again flying directly at me. “Aspidano!” I cast as quickly as I could, and the dull brown shield appeared directly in the path of the attack. The two spells collided and Klarient’s won, utterly obliterating the Greek shield spell but expending most of its energy to do so.
Having cast a second spell, my accio had ceased working, but it had imparted enough momentum onto Kent that he slid almost the whole way towards me before slowing to a stop. I dove under a bolt of red light that Klarion threw at me and rolled across the ground, my shoulder screaming at me in protest. The dimly burning remains of the flaming mouth crashed into the platform where I had just been moments before, leaving ugly red scorch marks on the enchanted stonework like blood leaking from the golden stone.
Kent looked terrible. There were burn marks on his suit and his face was twisted into a forced smile that hid just how much pain he was in. He tried to whisper something to me, but no sound came out, the gem set into his collar flashing brightly.
I rose into a crouch and cast protego as quickly as I could manage in front of me. It deflected a single red bolt, leaving visible red cracks on the otherwise invisible shield. The next bolt shattered it utterly, but by then I had managed to pull Kent partially upright. I looked between him, the collar, and Klarion, who was winding up for another throw. I had time for a spell, maybe two. I really hoped this worked.
“Evanesco,” I mumbled, tapping the collar. I was almost surprised when the spell did work and the collar vanished, gem and all, into non-being. A moment later I fell backwards, pulling Kent down on top of me and out of the way of Klarion’s next throw.
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Kent’s smile turned fierce. “Tower, my cane!” he called out weakly, his voice hoarse.
“No! No, no, no, no, no!” Klarion chanted, each word punctuated with a thrown lance of chaotic scarlet flames.
Kent’s cane appeared directly between the two of us and Klarion’s projectiles. Both him and it flared with the golden glow of Order and an ankh formed around the cane, blocking all six projectiles. Kent slid off me and I quickly scrambled to my feet, then helped him up. “I guess I missed our lesson then?” he asked with a small chuckle, one of his hands clutched over his chest.
I used the minor reprieve to look around. Abra Kedabra was on the far end of the platform from Kent and I, slowly behind hounded by Miss Martian, who had returned to visibility at some point, and Red Tornado. Zatanna had cast a shield around her and it was doing a good job blocking the lightning nets Abra Kedabra kept throwing at the martian. She and Aqualad were nowhere to be found, and Abra Kedabra was constantly having to twist around to keep an eye on both flying heroes.
“Something like that. You can make it up to me later.” That wasn’t what was important right now. “Can you adjust the wards?” I asked hurriedly. “Aspidano!” The shield lasted for barely a few seconds, but long enough to absorb the torrent of red flames that Klarion had just breathed at us like a dragon.
Kent shook his head. “Not until they’re out of the Tower.” That seemed like a major weakness, or possibly an intentional design choice to reinforce some other aspect of the wards. Still, it was very annoying right about now.
This time it was Kent’s turn to block Klarion’s next attack, a pair of giant red claws that he cleaved off at the wrist using a pair of spinning ankhs. “Can you beat him?” I asked softly, dreading the answer.
Kent sighed heavily. “Not without Nabu. And perhaps not with him as well. I am…less than I once was, and injured besides.”
Well that wasn’t good. “Brace yourself then.” I grabbed his arm and twisted, aiming for the platform where I’d been standing observing the fight.
Instead, I crashed into a crackling wall and was thrown from the tight embrace of apparition into open air a few steps from where I’d started. I barely managed to avoid dropping my wand, horribly disoriented and in pain from the impact. Only Kent’s quick thinking saved the two of us from falling at an angle onto a floating flight of stairs. He surrounded both of us in a bubble of golden light and floated us back onto the platform.
Klarion cackled. “No running! That’s no fun!” Then he blasted us with more chaos magic, his spell squealing like a dying animal as it flew. Kent’s bubble absorbed the attack, but cracks of red now permeated the shimmering gold and I was confident that it wouldn’t last much longer.
I shook myself, trying to force the disorientation away. “Nabu. Can someone else host Nabu? You, me, and Doctor Fate…” I trailed off as Kent frowned.
“Maybe. Anyone can host Doctor Fate, but he needs someone magically powerful to battle Klarion.”
The idea came to me in an instant. “We have an Atlantian with us.”
“That could work, but Nabu…it's been a long time since I’ve worn the helmet.”
I was only vaguely listening to him past the third word. I looked around, feeling for the telltale sensation of my own active spell. There and…there! One was crouching in the distance, but another was almost on top of Abra Kedabra.”
Then Kent’s shield shattered and there was no more time for talking. We both furiously defended against Klarion’s onslaught, each of his spells powerful enough to shatter our shields in one or two hits leaving us with little time to counterattack.
For nearly two entire minutes––an eternity in a duel––we exchanged spells. Between spells Kent explained how Nabu was housed inside a helmet that needed to be worn so the Lord of Order could inhibit the wearer’s body. He also explained that it had been many years since he’d worn the helmet, and that Nabu was likely to be resentful once he did gain a host.
From what he said, it was fully up to Nabu to release his host. There was no way to fight him off like a compulsion or make your body remove the helmet. It sounded awful and I certainly wasn’t going to be putting it on, but there was no need for the Atlantean boy to know any of that.
Then suddenly, I saw an opening. Not in Klarion, whose insanely fast casting and powerful spells made him all but impossible to meaningfully attack, but rather in Abra Kedabra, who had been slowly getting pushed backwards towards the Chaos Lord and thus also closer to me.
I’d noticed throughout the fight that Abra Kedabra seemed limited to a mere handful of spells, none of which included a traditional shield spell. In fact, there was something strange about his magic in general that I couldn’t quite put a name to, but I could worry about that later.
Kent and I needed more room to work and more time to prepare. I doubted any of the others, even Zatanna for all her natural talent as a witch, could really help much against Klarion, but if they could distract him long enough for us to find a host for Nabu…
I had to be sure. I had to make it count. I jabbed my wand forward as Kent’s latest ankh shield vanished into golden sparks, pouring a single mote of blue mana drawn from Shadowcrest into the spell. “Imperio!” What was one more unforgivable?
The faint blue streak of magic soared through the air and straight past Klarion, who laughed mockingly. “Oopsie whoopsie, you missedy wisty!”
I grinned back at him as the spell slammed directly into Abra Kedabra’s broad back. “Did I?”
Abra Kedabra didn’t even manage to put up a fight. He spun around and blasted Klarion in the back from barely a handful of steps away, a vast torrent of lightning pouring from his black wand into the child-shaped Chaos Lord.
Klarion screamed and erupted with red light, sending the imperiod wizard flying. Abra Kedabra landed heavily on the ground but my spell washed away the pain and the shock and he swiftly clambered to his feet, his wand pointed at the Chaos Lord.
“I can’t control him for long!” I whispered, trying to make myself sound utterly exhausted. It wasn’t hard. I was already really worn out, and casting a second mana-empowered unforgivable so soon after the first left my legs feeling like jelly and my arms filled with lead weights. “The helmet.”
“The helmet?” he asked in confusion. Kent stared at me for several moments, then his eyes widened in realization and he turned his eyes towards Abra Kedabra. “The helmet!” After all, why bother losing one ally to gain another when you can instead use a foe?
Kent gestured with his cane and a golden elevator appeared right beside Abra Kedabra. The wizard leapt into the elevator and it closed behind him before Klarion could attack him again. I left him with one final command before he vanished and I refocused on the fight. Find the Helmet of Fate and put it on.
The next minute was a haze of magic and violence. Aqualad tried to ambush the Chaos Lord from behind with his water swords and accomplished nothing. He got blasted off the walkway and Miss Martian was barely able to catch him with her telekinesis before he fell onto another platform far below us.
Miss Martian and Zatanna were mostly locked down fighting Klarion’s cat, who’d grown to be as large as a carriage and proved to be a nimble and crafty foe. The cat could also fly, and Miss Martian struggled to stay ahead of it as she peppered its body with telekinetic blows.
Red Tornado was much more useful than I would have expected. He couldn’t actually hurt the Chaos Lord, but he was too fast and nimble for Klarion to hit and was doing an excellent job of annoying him with blasts of wind that threatened to blow him off the platform or batter him against the floor.
Kent and I continued to exchange spells with Klarion, mostly defending but occasionally weaving in an attack of our own. Kent was quickly slowing down, each shield and attack coming slower and slower, leaving me to pick up the slack. Nothing I did seemed to actually injure the immortal being, but it did distract him and stop him from fighting back at times, so I took what I could get.
And then, finally Doctor Fate arrived. A golden ankh appeared in mid air above the platform and an imposing man in blue-and-gold armor floated out of it. Klarion screamed in frustration. “No! Stupid useless poser! Get out of here old fart! Order went out of style in the 20th century!”
“Witch boy,” the floating hero said, his voice layered and resonant. “You are beaten.”
“Stupid spoilsport!” Klarion’s face twisted and his entire body was suddenly surrounded by a torrent of red. A blinding beam of chaotic magic shot up towards Fate, more powerful than any spell he’d cast against us throughout the fight so far.
A single golden ankh absorbed the entire attack, then shot down at Klarion like the blade of a guillotine.
Klarion vanished into a dark portal and reappeared on a nearby platform. “Bully! Killjoy! Geezer!” he shouted at Nabu. The cat, still swollen to a massive size, landed on the ground behind him and shrank down until he could pick it up. Klarion scooped it up into his arms and scowled hatefully at the Lord of Order.
Before he could say anything, a massive ray of golden light blasted from Fate’s chest towards where Klarion was standing. The boy cursed loudly and vanished into another portal.
Beside me, Kent sagged. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “Tower. Remove all entries added to the friend log today.”
“We…did it?” I asked haltingly.
Doctor Fate in Abra Kadabra’s body landed in front of me. “Indeed. Chaos has been driven off and Order has won the day as it always must.”
“Oh thank Merlin,” I mumbled. I was utterly exhausted, my head was pounding, and my wand felt like a hot iron in my hands.
“And I thank you, young wizard. Fate appreciates your gifted host. His talent for the mystic arts is limited, but Fate will make do.”
I nodded weakly. “Glad I could help.” I wasn’t thinking very clearly and everything felt like it was spinning.
Suddenly Zatanna was there, holding my shoulder and keeping me steady. “Oh god Hydrys, are you alright?” she asked, and her voice rang hollowly inside my head.
“He is merely tired,” Fate answered for me. “Come, young mage. Rest easily, for you are welcome in my Tower.”
I don’t really remember what happened next. Only stairs, hallways, Zatanna’s hand on my shoulder, and finally collapsing onto a wonderfully soft bed with cool, blue sheets and golden upholstery. Well, that and two new presences nestled deep within my Spark.”