The Gift of the One (Young Justice SI)

Author Note: This fic is heavily inspired by With this Ring by Mr Zoat the most entertaining SI in the DC universe yet. To be more precise it is inspired by WTR's version of Donna Troy who gains special abilities by making offerings to different gods. A little cross-over with the roleplaying game Scion and tadah comes this fic. As English is not my first language, feel free to point out any spelling or grammar mistake.

Episode 1: Kneeling Day: Part 1

I hope I'm going to wake up soon for this is a lousy dream.

The darkness that surrounds me is not natural. It is not simply the deepest of pitch black, That you can imagine and see when you're awake: the fur of a black cat by a moonless night, the color of deep space where you can see no stars. You can see this tint in natural things, wholesome things. Here this is different. I am surrounded in unnatural blackness; I drown in it. It feels like cold water above and around me, like acrid smoke choking my lungs. It is more than just an absence of light, it is cold that is more than absence of warmth. Feeling that reminds me on what I read about the Unlight of the spider-thing Ungoliant in Tolkien, except I see no webs.

Well I guess that means no more horror stories before going to sleep. From the sensations I'm guessing I'm having a nice normal nightmare, the kind where your brain is still awake and try to understand why the body won't move. I should wake up in more…

LIFE DETECTED.

What is that? It seems the darkness is moving somehow. I feel weightless now, able to fly and run. That's cool, my brain should have fallen asleep too and now I have a normal dream. I'm more lucid than usual but I should forget about everything when dawn comes.

SCANNING XILABA FOR SENTIENT BEING.

Wait. Xilaba? As in the "mayan underworld" Xilaba? As in "horrid place of death and decay whose lords were beheaded by our gods for being dicks" Xilaba? That's worrying. And scanning for sentient beings? That reminds me of something. What I was reading, seeing or playing about darkness and scanning? Tolkien? No, that sounded mechanical, more SF than fantasy? Warhammer? Possible I could dream about Necrons but… A moment. Necron. Nekron.

I am having a nightmare about Blackest Night? The comic? Shit. Why can't this be a normal DC dream where you bang Superman or a GL?

Since I'm lucid enough to not want a Black Power Ring attached to my dream self, followed by a zombie apocalypse, I dive downwards deeper in the darkness, hoping against all hopes, the ring won't follow me if I leave this place. That seems to work, I'm falling more quickly with each instant, as if I'm becoming heavier.

I seem to have touched the bottom. No more absence of body. If I was younger, I would think I'm awake. I'm on a road with black (of course) stones bearing the inverted triangles and the lines. I see light ahead of my position. I lose no time before I start to run: All places are better than Nekron prison-tomb and most fates kinder than being a superpowered zombie bent on torture and omnicide.

TARGET ACQUIRED.

No! I won't be a Black Lantern. That makes no sense. I am alive. Not resurrected by anyone. The ring should not consider me a viable candidate. Although, didn't Superboy Prime got a black ring in one of the tie-ins. No that doesn't count, he put it on his finger on his own free will and the process didn't complete. I run on the black road, thanking whatever gods may be I have apparently no need to breathe in this dream.

Visions assail me as I escape, as if my perceptions were enhanced a thousand fold. I see the place I'm running from; A dark and forbidding pit sealed by a multicolored trapdoor. The road I'm in course between the bars. That makes less and less sense but I'm not critiquing my dream interior design. The spectrum bright door is the least offensive things about this place. I must not look, just dart and run and hope to be quicker than a power ring.

Still I see Xilaba and am sorely tempted to vomit on the floor. This place is a mess even by my imagination's nearly inexistent standards. The things I see at the edge of my vision… Forests of rot grasping the sky, rivers of slime running in all directions. A sick sun long past its prime shining just enough to conceal nothing of the horrors below. By forest, river and plain, the whole thing is covered in undead. There seem to be no end to their number or their variety. They run the whole spectrum, from skeleton bleached white by the desert sun, to zombies so recent you'd think them alive. And this crowd move, capering, laughing, dancing, fighting even rutting together in scenes who could be normal or touching if they were not performed by decaying corpses.

This place is normal underworld. It can't be. I know the standard classical interpretation of the Underworld was: place where the dead are stored but I don't remember a place so disturbing in mythology. There's too much life, too much inept imitation of the living. The places were the dead are decaying for eternity generally have them rotting on a shelf or something. Also what with the mythological mashup? I spy bat-monsters, I'm pretty sure are Mesoamerican, feasting with cheap copies of Nosferatu and corpses, in what I assume are, mandarin robes.

My pace slow. I'm arriving at a crossroad and no road seems to go above, to the outside Classic nightmare logic. I gaze behind me an instant, no ring in view but that means nothing. Counting the path I'm on, and I'm not walking in the other direction, there are five paths exiting from this place. Strange. None of the creatures appear to walk them. Enhanced perceptions. Could you tell me please what wait at the end of these roads?

Well it seems my wish was granted. Hope that won't bite me later. Let's see.

Southern path: Dull sickly yellow road leading to a pit filled with, is that spoiled milk? I hope it's spoiled milk and not what I think it is. Ruined cities. Rotting jungles. Is that a zombie tiger? Yes, it is a zombie tiger, how charming. Nope not going here.

Western path: Black mirrored obsidian blades. Classy. It leads to a city with a Mesoamerican motif, perhaps Inca or Maya, I don't know enough to recognize the difference. Cluster of stepped pyramids. Images of a court of monsters laughing at something, two monsters playing ball with a, living screaming head, sure have your fun. Nope.

Northern path; White smooth bones leading to a boneyard. Of course, why not? This charnel house seems organized somehow, walls and roads and streets leading to the center… Where someone or something is busy crushing them all to slime. Nope.

Eastern path: Sticky red substance that is probably blood leading to… A field of poppies surrounding a little house? Let's go there, it seems less dangerous than the others destinations, at least.

I put my feet on the bloody path and sense them becoming sticky. Oh. Apparently it is one of these "I'm naked" nightmare as well. Lucky me. Flipping lucky me. I bet I'll wake with a strong urge to take a shower, or two. Still I can walk it. It is tiring, unnaturally so but I resist. Sleeping here could wake me up but I'd prefer not bathing in coagulated blood if that's possible so I power through.

Not long after I see the house and the poppy field. Black poppies whose scent is unbearably sweet. The house seems to have been built for a giant but it is strangely plain. Greco-Roman style, classic pillars. Not a trace of adornment except the statues of two winged youths and a woman with a robe of stars.

I kneel at the threshold muttering: "Hail lord or lady of this house whose name I know not. Please don't take ill of my presence in your home but allow me to pass unharmed" Well now that's done, let's seek a way outside.

Willingly I step in the darkness of the house. Not the blackness of my dream's beginning. There's something enticing in this night, something who lulls the mind and invite to let go of all burdens. Slowly I succumb to its call, resting my soaked body on the cold pavement, thinking the two youths at the entrance should be known to me. Winged youth sons of the night, that rings a bell. Hypnos and Thanatos! That's who these guys were and we're in a place of death.

How well. At least Thanatos was somewhat understood to be the patron of non-violent demise if I remember well, something with his link to sleep.

I should wake up in a few minutes and forget about all of this.