Mount Justice

August 20th, 15:52

“I cannot understate this,” Kaldur began. We were all in the Mission Room. I was sitting, while others stood in a half-circle around our dear leader. “What we experienced yesterday was… horrifying. I want this to be a safe forum to share our feelings. And to know that you are heard. Does anyone want to share?”

No one was forthcoming.

I snorted and got up, “I’ll share,” I said, walking besides Kaldur, who gave me a nod. “So, as you all know, I came from a curse-killing high school. We put kids weaker than you guys up for the task of exorcising deadly curses. Not all of them came back alive. I myself have lost three upperclassmen since I started my first year. To put that into perspective, I was only on my second when I came here. At the start of my second year, in fact.”

They all looked varying degrees of disconcerted by this news. That was a problem.

“So, here’s how we did it back home. We cried. We moped around for a couple of days. We said, ‘yeah, that’s the movie Sato liked. Hajime was a big fan of this baseball player. I actually had a crush on Haruka’, and while we said all those things, we slowly came to appreciate our work’s motto: shit happens.” I said with a nod of finality. “Shit happens, it sucks, we can’t stop it. But, we can distract ourselves. I’ve pretty much gotten past this altogether. If anyone wants to join me in not thinking about it too hard, be my guest.”

Wally raised his hand, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Gojo, but… yeah. I mean, I had a full night’s sleep yesterday, I’m eating okay, had the Canary sesh, still wanna be a hero. I think I’m fine.”

“Anyone else?” Aqualad asked, “This is a safe space to speak your feelings and know that others can relate.”

Superboy raised a hand, “I personally thought yesterday was terrifying. But we all got out alive. I guess what I mean to say is, it doesn’t matter anymore. To me. I think.”

Megan put a hand on my shoulder, Are you really okay?

Yeah, I gave her a grin and a raised eyebrow, feeling slightly confused and surprised by the question, I’ll admit it was rough at the time, but… I’ll get past this. With you.

“We almost died!” Artemis shouted. I looked at her in surprise. She was looking at me, too—specifically, at Megan’s hand on my shoulder. It was only for a moment before she turned her gaze to everyone else. “Call me crazy for wanting to say that, but we almost got killed by a demon! Gojo did get killed!”

“I don’t think I look half bad for a dead person,” I grinned.

“Not funny!” she shouted. “It’s not! And I don’t know why it’s—it’s…” she cried. Megan rushed up to her and gave her a one-armed hug. My own grin fell.

We all gathered around her, not really… saying anything. Just being there. I wasn’t sure what else to do, but I knew that doing anything else was just wrong.

“I need a break,” Artemis said, “I’ll stay home for a while and think.”

I frowned, “About what?”

Artemis met my eyes fiercely, “About whether or not I want to stay in this team.”

Then she backed out of Megan’s embrace and power-walked towards the Zeta Tubes.

I warped next to her, “Artemis, why don’t we talk?”

“No,” she said, “I… I need this time alone. I’m sorry.” She continued walking, and soon entered the Zeta Tube. It whisked her far away, and I slumped over, turning around to face the rest of the team.

“Shouldn’t we…?” Robin said, “Go after her or something?”

I shook my head and walked up to the hard light floor. “Nah. She needs her time alone I guess,” I turned to Megan, “Do you want to share anything?”

She nodded, and stepped up to the center of the floor, “It’s okay to grieve and feel bad, people. We shouldn’t try to avoid those feelings. We must meet them head-on in order to recover faster and grow stronger.”

Wally sighed, “I get it. Well… when Doctor Fate controlled my body and made me almost kill Gojo, that felt like a total bummer.”

I snorted. Wally looked at me in irritation, “No, sorry,” I said, “I just—you called it a total bummer. Were you even serious?”

“Yeah, I am!” Wally snarled, “What, you’d rather I cored you out like a donut, with magic?”

“So now you think magic’s real,” I chuckled.

“That’s not—goddammit!” Wally yelled.

“Sorry to bum you out,” I said. “Well, I have to say, being faced with the choice to kill you to save myself was also a huge bummer. I…” I quieted down, “Honestly, I had no idea what to do. I’m glad you came out alright.”

That Doctor Fate had been… quite the opponent. He had been making steady progress on my Simple Domain, penetrating through Infinity in a way that didn’t just betray immense raw power—but extreme skill and finesse. Whatever Zatara’s spells were made of, they were nothing compared to Doctor Fate’s.

A part of me had found the exercise fun, too. Doctor Fate had been a challenging but manageable opponent, and I considered whether or not I would have beaten him if I was fighting to kill.

Nah. I’d win.

“I came out alright?” Wally shouted, “I saved your life! You were up against Doctor Fate!”

“Guy was slow as hell for someone wearing your body,” I shrugged, “Honestly, it wouldn’t even have been a fight if I was serious. You did good, Wall-man.” I clapped him on his shoulder.

Wally growled, “You know what? Fine.”

I punched his shoulder lightly. “Thank you, man.”

“For your continued survival? You’re welcome,” he grinned viciously.

“You did good, too,” I said, “You phased out, right? That’s not something you were able to do before, was it?”

“You’re right,” Aqualad said, “What you achieved yesterday was monumental.”

“Right on, man!” Robin cheered.

“It was very impressive, Wally,” Megan smiled.

Wally’s anger melted away and he grinned in excitement, “Right?! It was so awesome!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Superboy folding his arms and looking at Wally with a slightly complicated expression.

This time, I would crack open that jar of teenage spirit. I was interested in what he had to say.

I turned to him and tilted my head, “What’re you thinking about?”

Superboy blinked and turned to me with neutral eyes, “Oh. Nothing.” We all looked at him, expecting more than that. He frowned and looked down at the floor. “I was just thinking, I don’t really feel bad. Everyone came out alive. Even if it was scary, it’s just… how it is, right? It’s not like I’m gonna quit because of this.” Then he looked slightly alarmed, “Not to say Artemis maybe… quitting… is like… something to be ashamed of. Just that I don’t really have that urgency.”

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Then it suddenly occurred to me, “Usually, when I’m faced with these experiences, I just train, because getting stronger’s the best cure to not getting beaten, right? Anyone wanna join in on some whole-day training? However long you want,” I shrugged.

“I’m in,” Superboy said quickly. I smiled.

“I still need to test out my speed,” Wally said.

Aqualad concurred, “I would not object to some more sparring drills. I suspect that I might require a little brushing up on my hand-to-hand.”

“Team drills? Count me in!” Robin shouted. “Let’s make up some team maneuvers!”

“I—I’ll join in!” Megan said, raising a hand and smiling. “I mean… if this is how you want to process your feelings, that’s fine, too!”

“Alright!” I shouted eagerly, “Computer! Suggest some team training drills! And make ‘em hard! We wanna get our hurts pumping!”

Mount Justice

August 20th, 20:05

Only Kaldur and Superboy were still able to keep up with me as our training ticked on by. Now, both of my training partners were my opponents in this no-cursed-energy sparring match.

I wasn’t going all out, but rather trying to highlight the principles of hand-to-hand combat that I felt they needed to learn in order to make better lurches in their apparent skill. And they had made some good lurches with my help.

To think that all along, the missing ingredient had been me.

I had expected them all to get stronger on their own without even helping the process along. That was just silly of me. It turned out—I wasn’t half bad a teacher.

I elbowed Superboy in the back of his head, hard enough to throw off his balance and tip him over to land on his face, and I kicked Kaldur’s feet off the ground, making him fall and land horizontally.

“Thank you,” Kaldur panted, “But this is it for me.”

He didn’t even get off the ground so much as he rolled towards the sidelines to join the other starfishes that were my teammates. Superboy was the only one left standing, having gotten up immediately from what he felt was probably just a lovetap.

“Time out,” I called with a grin as I rolled forwards and sat amidst the starfish.

I debated on how I was going to say this, before deciding, it would be better to say it fast rather than think on it for too long. I scratched my head and frowned. “Dammit. Anyway, Canary wanted me to tell you my deepest feelings, and it’s that—you guys need to train harder! Really, it’s pitiful how weak you are—”

“What he means,” Megan said, interrupting the chorus of groans, “Is… he doesn’t want to train alone. Because…” she expected me to continue.

“Because I don’t want to carry this team all the time—you guys should pull your weight too.”

“Because the burden of being the strongest means that the responsibility of keeping everyone safe and everything going smoothly is straining,” Megan said.

Oh, come on! Straining?

“Yeah, anyway,” I said, “I don’t care if you don’t have my gifts. I just want to be in a team that complements me, rather than drags me down.”

“We get it,” Robin grimaced, slowly sitting up, “You have an awful way of putting it, but I think we all get it. I haven’t considered it much like that before but… yeah, I guess it can’t be easy, being the strongest.”

“Alright, then,” Wally sat up as well, “I’ll relieve that burden, Gojo.”

“Guy learns phasing and thinks he’s the next Flash,” Robin laughed.

“I’m serious,” Wally said. He turned to me and gave me a nod. “I get what you mean now, Gojo. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a caustic asshole, but I get what you mean. I don’t want anyone in this team to die. And I’ll make sure it won’t happen. Again. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Heh,” I smiled, “Can’t wait to see it, Wall-man.”

Superboy muttered something. I turned and looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, “Huh?”

“Let’s train again!” Superboy barked. “What, you’re not up for it? Tired already?”

“Hah! Bring it on!” I laughed, jumping up on my feet and lunging at Superboy, intending to wrestle him into submission.

He threw me up in the air, and would have sent me crashing into the ceiling if I hadn’t used my Limitless to slow myself down. My laughter echoed through the cave.

We continued well into the next morning, just him and I.

000

The most apparent changes I could detect in my new cursed energy was its… responsiveness.

I switched from Red to Blue to Red, alternating faster and faster I swore I could make out Purple in the color of my cursed technique. The negative and positive energies never touched, however. It was just that the alternating flashes were so tightly spaced that they blended together.

Not so bad.

What was strange and difficult to get used to was the shape of my techniques.

I summoned a hard light projectile from the computer after Superboy decided to call it quits for now.

I made to grab it in Blue’s attractive field.

The Blue manifested as a textured ball of blue light that looked like a trapped sphere of the ocean. When I upped its attractive properties, that ocean turned into a whirlpool with a dark center.

…Interesting. Weird, but interesting.

This technique cast real light. It glowed.

The divergence of infinity, Red, shone a malevolent, blood red that could bathe the entire Mission Room in redness.

Loud.

…I liked loud.

Flooding the world with a single color while activating my technique was tight.

When I used Maximum Output on my Blue, the dark center of the whirlpool spread wider, until the technique looked like a black hole with a thin blue edge.

I had to quickly shut the technique down as it started ripping chunks of rock straight out of the mountain wall. It had a kick, apparently.

I had no place to practice Purple unfortunately. But as far as I could tell, my techniques had gotten easier to perform, showier, and stronger.

Where were the downsides?

The most substantial ones I had detected was a decrease in regeneration rate. Nothing that would make me panic, but definitely a marked difference. I had to be more sparing about energy usage then, in order to remain under maintenance. That sort of balanced out the newfound kick to my techniques, sure. In the long run, I’d still output roughly the same amount of power. Just that I could bring more of it to bear at the drop of a hat. Still a pretty good upgrade.

And no demons whispering in my ears either! Yet.

My Invisibility became easier to use, at the cost of a way higher energy consumption rate. Something I’d have to seriously work on. It took far more mental focus to maintain the invisibility as well, but apparently, the more I focused on it, the less power I would waste.

Spatial transportation was easier.

But louder.

Each jump in space was heralded by a burst of blue ‘smoke’ that dispersed into the background magic of the world.

Background magic that I could see, painting the world in such vivid colors. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I had been exposed to higher concentrations of magic near the Tower of Fate that allowed me to finally make out this part of the world, or if it had more to do with my newfound energy source, but I wondered how I had ever even missed it to begin with. It was everywhere.

I couldn’t really touch or interact with it in any meaningful way. My cursed energy did interact with it and displace it around. I could even trap some of it. But it was like cupping air with your hands: what purpose was there in that?

I guess with this ‘air’, you could do magic. Not that anyone would ever teach me that. Or that I even needed it. All I needed magic for was to develop magical defenses. I had succeeded—the Tower of Fate’s automatic defense system hadn’t killed me. Not because of Infinity, for that spell didn’t have any regard for distance. It was a directed curse that affected the user regardless of distance.

And I had overwritten that spell by maintaining my Simple Domain and imbuing it with the immutability of Infinity.

Magic was a pain in the ass, and I honestly hated it, probably more than Wally did. The rules were so arbitrary and loose and just generally unsightly. Nothing like the elegance of jujutsu sorcery, a game of wit as well as power.

And raw talent, sure, but at least you could tell at a glance when the game was rigged. Magic seemed to me like the ultimate free for all where everybody was equally out of their depths and liable to die to any old mythic creature like Klarion or Doctor Fate.

What was even the point of getting strong? Just learn a weak portal spell that could only open a fist-sized wormhole, and use guns to shoot people in the back of their heads. Or learn the ‘pop heart from inside the chest’ spell—I’m sure something like that was out there.

But hey, what did I know? Nobody wanted to teach me magic, and my best bet for a magic teacher was after my blood.

I shook my head to chase those thoughts away. New ups, new downs, new learning curves. Not too much of a setback, for now at least.

And hopefully, no hidden traps that would drive me to wild unchecked hatred and suddenly turn me into a monster out to kill everyone I knew.

I tried my best to worry about that eventuality, but found it kind of… hard to. Now, at least, after putting so much distance in time between that day and now.

I’d been… pathetic when talking to Batman. I was in a way that I never wanted to be in again. Self-pity? Give me a break.

I felt better now, at least. And I knew that if I did somehow get transformed into a monster, there was nothing I could realistically do to stop that, really, so why worry? I wasn’t the one who’d have a bad day from that.

Things could be either fine or terrible, but either way, I’d do better just trudging on ahead like always.