Hey-o! As requested, here's a quick review picking up from where the last review took place.

The chaos mages have revealled Nabu to be a vindictive prick trying to turn the League against them. They have also shown themselves to be Klarion, Kid Flash, Black Canary, Red Arrow, Cheshire and Poison Ivy. Klarion played villian, Wally played hero and Roy straddled the line between in order to form the Young Justice team. Their goal was to force the Team and the League to confront their inner demons and allow their real powers to shine through. Just as they were making progress, Shiva and Kali killed Luthor and Queen Bee on worldwide tv. This revealed the Light's mysterious partner to be their father Vishnu, the Guardian of another realm. He had been using the Light to collect suitable specimens to transform into his army so he could invade their world while slowly weakening Lady Gaia. When the girls attacked the Watchtower, they wiped the floor with the League and stole Captain Marvel's soul. Which Vishnu used to create his third Mage, Krishna.

The Heroes and the Mages have an uneasy alliance. Some feel the deciet they used is unforgivable or at least lacking in trustworthiness. Especially since it is revealed that they all knew the light was experimenting on the missing children and Young Justice developed strange new powers under their watch. That and Batman just found out one of his worst enemies is really the mother of his adopted son. Last chapter, Miss Martian and Superboy put those new abilities to the test against Krishna and the very stable Match. And got beaten into the ground.

This chapter is the longest yet and titled after the Tool song Schism; for reasons that willl become clearer as you read. This a mix of review, introspective and explanation of past events. Some would say this qualifies as a filler chapter. I call it an informative interlude. Isn't word play fun? n_n I apologize for any spelling errors, still wonky computer.

Here we go!

Chapter 29
Schism

Far removed from the turmoil of the world, a being observed it's happenings. On a plane so close to the world of metas, aliens and homo magi that it affected said world yet the inverse was rarely true. The dimension that the Chaos Mages of this universe refered to as home, where the Palace of Lady Gaia existed. The Lady herself was watching the recent developments, saddened by what she saw.

In the very center of her palace was her throne room of sorts. From this point, she found herself able to see only the past and present from her Infinity Mirror. The perpetually splintered, winding and occasionally folded in upon itself path of the future was blocked, even to her; the supreme ruler of the universe. Here she sat, regally monitoring the world she gave rise to...most of the time. More often than she cared to admit, she had given in to her own frustration and occasional boredom. This resulted in loud sighs, absently drumming her fingers along the armrests, frequent position changes which included very unlady-like slouching and, yes, nodding off. Still, more often than not, she found her mind wandering to the past.

As a Guardian, she had absolute control over her world. Or rather, near absolute. She too was subject to a force greater than herself, the Balance. How strange that something so delicate could halt the might of one such as herself; yet the same was true of all her bretheren. Because equillibrium must exist does not mean that a status quo was always in play. Nature by design favors entropy with rare bouts of stability peppered in for kicks. While those last two statements seem to contradict one another, they really don't. Something is always happening, as a result always causes something else to happen and so on into infinity.

The real challenge lay in making sure this domino effect didn't become a snowball effect. Snowballs rolling downhill tend to grow too large too quickly resulting in bad things for whatever lay at the foot of said hill. That, she decided, was the simplest way to explain it to mortals. It was how she explained things to Kent Nelson 3 or 4 decades ago. Despite that, despite having reduced the whole point of her existence down to a slogan that could fit on a t-shirt, the supposedly 'superior' Nabu didn't get it. In hindsight, it wasn't his fault. Though still a child to her, the long lived entity was too set in his ways, his rigid black and white veiw of the world won't allow him to see past his own non existant nose. Too used to having his way which translated into his being the only right way. Pfft. Look where it got him: a place in a "young girl's" toy box.

Gently guiding the pieces in place for them to all meet wasn't hard. All she really had to direct was the creation of the League, the Light followed as a counter measure to fight them. She simply speed up the time frame in which Krypton exploded to coincide with the terror that was Parallax coming to the attention of the Corp. Kept the Earth off of the radar of the Thanagarians (criminal and law enforcing alike) until about the time racial tension boiled over on Mars prompting the planning of an Earth Invasion. She distracted the clay made warrior princess from her wonderings about life beyond he shores of her home to exactly three years after a certain blonde discovered being caught in the shower of a random assortment of chemicals just as lightening happened to be passing through them didn't kill him but made him faster. Only a few years before that, a dark city yielded a Dark Knight to protect it; born of a tragedy that ironically skewed his own ability to interact with others. Gaia also made sure another blonde's hard knock life prepared him to be the leader of a great but stagnant race that needed to learn that prophecies were often self-fulfiling therefore could be rendered moot; nothing was ever set in stone. Too bad that lesson didn't quite carry over...

If she were honest with herself, Gaia had to admit that this wasn't how she wanted things to turn out. But, there was no other way. The formation of the Justice League and by association the Light was to be a way to regulate the emense forces due to convene on that tiny blue marble in the milky way. Though she ultimately ran things, the finer details were left up to her children. This meant the eventual creation of Young Justice. Her boys devised their 'game' based upon the fact that they each represented a different facet or Affinity that contributed to the Balance; darkness, light and neutrality. Black, white and grey. And it hurt to know that at one point, she only had two boys who were once both grey. Yes, it was odd as far as chaos mages went but it worked just fine for them. Until that catalyst for all this nonsense occured.

Even before the debacle that would leave the heart of one of her dear boys a frozen wasteland and both of his daughters vengeful and disturbed individuals, she and her brother Vishnu never did see eye to eye. Her four armed sibling was stubborn, egocentric, prideful and as cruel as the day was long. Of all of the Guardians, he was the only one who chose to cultivate his reality without the benefit of Mages. Literally on in tens of hundreds of trillions. For billions of years, Vishnu oversaw his realm alone; believing that creating such beings to be a waste of time and energy...until he saw the cracks along his Infinity Mirror. The first signs of an impending reset. Rather than admit how foolish he had been and simply allow the reset, he made it worse. In his defense, his actions had an adverse affect on his mind too.

Mind you, this was after several 'cosmic hiccups'. Planets moved about, were erased or reconfigured. Whole galaxies winked in and out of existance. The same with the beings in his reality. This oversight was how Shiva and Kali came to meet her Gemini. They began their lives as mortals; twins born on a planet that saw them as a curse. There it was thought that multiples that looked alike were souls torn in half. As such, they were wicked creatures that yearned to be whole. To fill the void within, they were said to devour the souls of good people. Because of this, they were orphaned and lived as outcasts alone in a forest.

The two were playing near their home one day when a tear in reality opened and sucked them inside. Depositing them directly on top of Castor while he was swimming in the pool at her palace. Pollux, who had been experimenting with creating new flowers in the garden not far away, laughed until he was gasping for air. The silver stems he made bursting into glowing blue blooms as he rolled along the ground.

"Not funny!" He growled once the managed to get the two to he edge of the pool. "How did they get here?"

The brothers examined the nearly drowned girls. Twins, like them but not really. The girls were mortal, the boys eternal. The girls were mirror images dressed in rags; on in blue, one in red. To the casual observer the Gemini were night and day dressed in fine yet simple robes. Having never encountered mortals before they were naturally curious. The one in red opened her eyes first...and screamed bloody murder at the sight of Castor.

"Demon!" She shreiked.

"Oy! I'm not a demon!" he fumed, a vein throbbing in his foehead from the remark

"But, you're blue!"

"And you're bronze! What's your point!?" Pollux snorted in his brother's defense. "And you're tresspassing! How did you get here?"

And this was the sight that greeted The Lady as she went out for her daily stroll. She was taking it earlier than usual because of the disturbance she sensed. Her boys on oneside of the pavillion path, two girls on the other. Both sides shouting like the impulsive children they were at the time. Even if two of said children older than some stars.

As time went on, she saw Shiva and Castor grow close, despite their rocky first steps. She told him of the cruelty she suffered and he felt terrible that her life was so hard. Gradually, his feeling for her changed from pity to a deep fondness. Dare she say love. The sight made Gaia dread the enevitable, sending the girls home. The unwritten law among her kind had always been basically 'mind your own business'. No one was to interfer with the realm of another nor what belonged in it save being asked to do so. She knew she could not keep the girls here. The length of time it took to find their origin equalled quite a few lifetimes of even the longest lived creatures. It took quite bit of her power to keep them from wasting away; this plane was meant only for immortals. But the signature they gave off was so warped she had trouble locating their home world. After sifting through the endless realms of her kin, she found theirs. Instantly, her sense of dread grew tenfold. How would her cantankerous brother react to the situation? Perhaps would not notice if she made sure to put them right back at the point in time they vanished? What Castor did next, however, did NOT help the situation.

He broke the one true taboo in the name of following his heart, by giving it to the girl he loved.

If only she had known then that a small but sincere token of affection would create such havoc...none of this would be happening now...

"Oh, it's so pretty!" Shiva awed at the blood red stone fashioned into the image of a serpent coiled around a gold sphere. " You really want to waste something so valuable on me?"

"It's nowhere near as valuable as you Shiva. It's a talisman, to protect you and Kali when you get home. People will leave you alone now. And if you hold it to your chest and call out to me, I'll always hear you, I'll come to you if you need me. We'll never really be apart." He hugged her. "I love you, I wish we could stay like this forever."

"I do to Castor. I love you so much, I wish we could stay." She sobbed. The young girl knew it wasn't possible. Only by thier mother's grace had they survived in this plane. Only those unbound by the mortal coil could truly live in this place. This lovely sanctuary was meant for gods. Not the likes of her and Kali. Still, she held on to the hope that they could make this work. That their love would last.

A hope Vishnu would destroy out of spite.

While the four armed diety did not notice the girls being displaced, he certainly noticed their return. And he was furious that his sister dared to bridge their realms however breifly, for whatever reason. Feeling the energy Shiva's parting gift gave off was the real clincher. The nerve of that brat tampering with what belonged to him! He had to redress this slight to his ego. No matter how little sense it made to one of rational mind.

Vishnu tampered with the gift and caused the talisman to fail, blocking it's power to protect them or even call the Chaos Mage. As the sisters slept, people from a nearby town closed in and set fire to their hut. A man had appeared to them claiming to know where the devil children were. That killing them would bring prosperity back to their land. Of course it was really Vishnu in disguise. The twins survived the fire but were chased through the woods and got seperated. Kali, the one in blue, was caught and tortured to find her sister but refused to help them. The next morning, Shiva found her sister hacked to pieces; killed like an animal. Collapsing by her body, all she could do was cry. The only person she could trust, the only one who was always with her...now she was all alone! Why didn't he come? Didn't he love her?

"Child, you need not be sad." A deep voice said soothingly behind her. Before she could really process what was happening, strong arms lifted her up, cradling her like a doll as third hand stroked her hair. "She is not lost."

"But He said- He said it would protect us!" She sobbed, clutching her gift. Through tearful eyes, she stared at in in confusion.

"That bobble is but a pretty piece of rock and metal my dear. It has no power." The man embracing her sighed convincingly. "But, if you would like my child, I can give you both the means to be powerful. To exact your revenge and never be helpless again."

"My sister is dead! No one can revive the dead!"

"No mortal. But I am the supreme ruler of this world. Without me the suns do not rise or set. Your sorrow called to me, and I saw how this world has treated you. I am sorry you suffered so my dear Shiva. But all you must do is accept me as your father to recieve the means to make things right."

After a moment of contemplation, she dared to look at the face of the one offering her so much. Then threw herself against his bare chest wailing uncontrollably.

Thus, the Goddess of Destruction was born. Followed soon by the Goddess of Death. Their first act was to lay their home planet to waste.

"Shiva, I came as soon as you called." Castor appeared before the young girl. "What's wr-"

Believing the girl he loved to be in danger, he crossed the dimensional divide in a panic to aid her. In retrospect, a foolish idea. The instant the portal closed, Castor found himself unable to move. Bound by a web of ethereal threads, his body locked up and would no longer obey him.

"All I wanted was to be with you. But you just wanted something to amuse you." Shiva glared at him. Taking the pendant from under her shirt, she threw it at his face. "You lied to me! I could have stayed with you!"

"Shiva, you know we can't be together, not that way. We aren't the same-" He tried to reason with her.

"You could have made me like you! I know you could have! If you loved me you would have! She died because of you and your lies!"

Something was very wrong. And it wasn't just that the sweet shy girl he adored seemed to have been replaced with a dopplganger. As far a he knew, she was no mystic. She had no powers. So how had she trapped him like this? And why did her hair seem to be alive? The aura eminating from her was so dark and full of hate, the exact opposite of the warm inviting one she had the day she landed on his head.

"That's right. If you loved her, why not at least give her the power she so desperately needed to defend herself before you cast her to the wolves?" A deep voice chuckled from somewhere in the forest. "Or keep her safe with you? The answer is obvious. She was only a plaything to you!"

"What?! Who are you to say such things? I love Shiva, whoever you are!" Castor growled.

"Really now? Then explain why you gave her such a weak charm to protect her and Kali? It did nothing to save her from the angry villagers who butchered her a few nights ago." The voice taunted.

"No! That can not be true! It was infused with the strongest spell I could cast!"

And indeed it was. But, as he would one day learn, Guardian trumps Mage. Almost everytime.

At the time, none of this was known to her son. That one he should be able to consider family was so warped and twisted, so upset by his innocent 'tresspass' that he couldn't allow him to be with the girl he loved. Going so far as to let her sister die so that he would look like the merciful hero, and Castor the heartless villian just to feed his own pride. He broke free of his bindings in time to defend himself from a trident aimed for his heart. The pointed staff clanging against a chain connected to his right wrist, the broken end held by his left hand.

"I don't know what this creep told you Shiva but I would never hurt you. You're not a toy."

"I refuse to hear more of your lies you bastard. Die! Dance of Torrents!"

The broad jet of water that emerged from her weapon became a snake, thrumming with energy before it slammed into his chest. For a moment, he had no idea what was up and what was down. Not that it mattered, the pain was terrible. Like the water was laced with thousands of tiny ice needles that passed right through him. Once his senses returned, he was face down several feet away.

"Never come here again brat. This world is mine to command and you have no place in it." Vishnu sneered, holding the talisman in one hand. In an instant, he crushed it into a fine powder, scattering it to the wind. With a wave of his hand, the young mage was forced through a portal back to his world. Where he landed in an ungraceful heap on the pavillion.

"Cas! Cas what happened?! Is Shiva okay?" Pollux ran towards his unmoving brother. The blue teen lay facing up with his eyes open but hollow. "Say something! Who attacked you?"

"She did this to me Pollux." His voice was soft and distant. Without another word, he stood and teleported to his room. Leaving his confused brother standing by the pool.

For a long time, he would not leave his room. Several stars had been born, aged and died in that timespan. All Gaia's attempts to talk to him were met with silence or the barrier he errected around the doorway flaring to life. Though it was in her power to shatter it, she respected her son's wishes and did not intrude. She would later regret her actions. During that time, she felt a warp in the balance. The remedy for which happened to be the birth of Sagittarius; an event that confused her. The new mage could sense the unrest and ill feelings coming from one of his elder brothers but said nothing. Chosing instead to follow the one with a happier aura around like alost puppy.

After what felt like forever, Castor did emerge. But something was different. His eyes were still hollowed but there was no sadness hiding within them. Nor was there anything else. No playfulness, no joy, not even a hint of anger or fear. Lady Gaia noticed it immediately, horrified by what she saw. Her expression confused her other children. So did the unholy scream she emitted. Pollux had never seen his mother cry, nor look as fearful as she did at that moment. Sagittarius was just as perplexed.

"Son, what have you done?! Dear affinity tell me you didn't-" She gasped looking into his eyes, praying this was some kind of illusion. But alas, one of her worst fears stood before her with a vacant expression on his face.

"I assumed you would be pleased mother." He looked up at her with those hollow black orbs. "I am no longer in pain. Hmm... it seems I was mistaken." Silently, he walked around his shaking mother, never caring to notice the distressed trio he left in his wake.

Damn you Vishnu! That was all she could think as she sank to the ground, unable to stop the tears. How could she not see this, stop it?!

"Mama, why are you crying? What's wrong with big brother?" Sagittarius asked innocently, still very much only a young child. "Pollux said he'd be lots of fun when I finally got to meet him."

"Mother, what...what was that?!" Pollux knelt beside her. His twin's behavior, as well as their mother's, terrified him. Gaia said nothing in response. She didn't know what to tell them.

After all, how could she explain that her once lively child had rid himself of his sorrow...by cleaving his heart from his soul and casting it into the Ether?

*I am bum...bum...bum...a line break.*

Well, now we know what happened between Castor and Shiva, why they are the way they are, and just how fucked up in the head Vishnu really is. Plus, how Sagittairus was born. We'll see how Castor met Sylphine sometime soon too. Read and review, Sirensoundwave out!