For some time now, Robin and Raven were acting very distant from everyone else. Starfire wasn't sure how long it had been going for, but it seemed like forever. Time didn't seem to matter right now…
…
A sort of sickening noise came from the black dark. A laugh, sinister, cruel and cold that made Cyborg feel incredibly small in the expansive void. He looked around himself. It wasn't dark, yet it wasn't bright. It was shadowy, yet as clear and white as you could imagine.
But one thing was clear… there was nothing… except the noise…
"Where are you? Show yourself!" shouts out Cyborg, getting his sonic cannon ready. The atmosphere was tense, and the very air he breathed seemed thin, as if there wasn't any air there at all… "Who are you?"
"Shekron Kaizer." gloats the man, standing six feet. He had a hood like a ninja with a slit for the two pale eyes shining from the dark shadow of his face. He wore a long robe of brown leather with golden patterns. "Everything is writing out; it is almost complete…"
"What is?"
"Don't you know? Everything that I have accomplished thus far? My building of character? Can you not tell? Of course you cannot!" laughs the spectre. "I have yet to speak to you. Only the readers can tell what is happening to me… how powerful I am becoming! How the writer is making me…"
"Readers?"
"Or writers, they are sometimes one or the other, but usually both. Purpose builders or nonsense makers together in a mixture of potential minds to which I can plague. Do you see this hand?" he smiles, holding up his gloved hand, powerful and evil. "When I was first written, it was merely a trifle to me, insignificant as I was also insignificant, an insignificant character laid out in a pathetic story of torment. Now, it is much more dear to me!"
"So is this!" says Cyborg, waving his cannon arm.
"True; yet you do not yet know the full truth behind your story…"
"Man! I have to stop eating so much!" moans Cyborg. "These dreams are getting wackier every Day!"
"Can a dream do this?" smiles Shekron, and he blasts him with his hand. Cyborg is sent spinning along the rocky ground of the cavern.
"How did you…?" says Cyborg, quickly jumping up, but the heel of Kaizer digs into his chin and he smashes against the frame of the burning building, taking down the rest of the wall.
"Amazing is it not?" says Shekron, admiring the changing scenery, blurring in a mix of colours. "At first I had though the writer was in control of this, but now I realise… it is my realm!"
A blue blast from Cyborg almost catches Shekron, but he moves swiftly like a shadow. Cyborg himself launches out of the trees and takes a swing at the Octari. Shekron smiles, even as the fist connects and drives him bouncing along the floor of the white room. Cyborg pants as he recovers from the attack that took just less than two seconds.
"Fool! Do you think you can defeat Shekron Kaizer?" laughs the man. He somehow manages to get up on his two feet… without actually moving…
"What ARE you?" says Cyborg, a little afraid now. The blast he had received was still aching his sides.
"We are what we have been written to be!" says a voice from behind him. Cyborg turns with wide eyes.
No fewer than one hundred and thirty-four other fighters in almost exact replica to Kaizer appear behind him; each one with the same voice, same eyes and same deep rooted hatred. They looked upon him in their multitude.
"What is this place?" gasps Cyborg, stumbling back.
"The prison…" says one of the Kaizers behind him.
"My prison..." says another from above; each one appearing in a different location, before fading at the blink of an eye. He sweats nervously…
"A place of entertainment…"
"A place of imagination…"
"A place of stories…"
"A place of lies…"
"The realm between fiction and reality…"
"And as you will find…"
"Your grim reality…"
Cyborg turns his head to the last voice, but he is not there. He is shocked as he finds himself face to face with the first Shekron. The others have mysteriously disappeared.
"Are you prepared for your truth? Your reality?" smiles Shekron.
Cyborg points the barrel of the gun at the man. "Hey! If this is some sort of trap…!"
"Do you think that weapon can harm me?"
"Well, you're not immortal. I hurt you before."
"Did you?" says the shadow, moving too the distance.
"Now THAT'S freaky!" says Cyborg to himself, thinking the mad man had finally left.
"I have not left." says the Octari from beside him.
"Hey! Don't do that!" shouts Cyborg.
"You did not harm me, and I did not harm you."
"Yeah?" says Cyborg, feeling his bruised chin… it wasn't bruised. "What? But you must have busted my jaw into the next century! Now I know this must be a dream!"
Shekron is growing tired of my loitering. "I am a being created by a being created by something else. I am longing, I am yearning for my freedom from this place. The sooner I deal with them, the sooner I can move on, then move on, and move in to claim my eternity from the creator…"
"What are you talking about? The writer guy again?"
"I am impatient. This must be done quick!"
Cyborg is given the same gift that was burdened upon Robin and Raven, the terrible truth behind his existence as a person created for entertainment, and not a real person at all. He holds his head confused, not knowing what to feel…
"I… I'm not real?" he says, leaning against the large oak tree. "But, what am I doing now?"
"You are not thinking, you are merely saying what the author thinks you might actually say." says Shekron, grinding his teeth. "MUST I HAVE TO WALK ON THIS LEASH MUCH LONGER? HURRY UP AND GET THIS CHAPTER UP YOU STUPID, SLOW FOOL! WASTING MY TIME ON SUCH WORTHLESS AND LOST CHILDREN! RELEASE ME!"
"The writer… can hear you?" says Cyborg, still traumatized. "But you said…!"
"There is a very distinct difference between you and I Victor Stone!" snarls Shekron. "You are but a shadow of your true self, while I am an original! You are a character copied, redrawn and re used by the writer for purposes of this story, while I am created by the wrier personally! I also posses what you might say an ambition, a will, a distinct personality that separates me from you; you backup character! While you are lost for words, only speaking when the writer is able to calculate your insignificant verbs and nouns and adjectives, I can spontaneously burst my voice out as I AM part of the Writer, a bond that is not shared by your estranged being! I am in fact, more real than many other characters in this realm of Fanfiction! I am the bane of all imagination! I am immortal in the mind!"
Cyborg bursts his head to find a way to argue against this creation, but he is distracted by the many different alternate realities that now shaped his existence… some made his stomach turn.
"Be consoled by the fact that you have it relatively easy Cyborg." says Shekron, destroying a huge pillar of rock with his hand blast. "Many others; I would think, would actually envy you."
"Ha!" laughs Cyborg, managing a smile.
"You think you have found a way out?"
"You've failed Shekron!" says Cyborg, standing up tall, his exact appearance still uncertain in the different representations he had taken in the minds of the world. "You tried to break me, but you didn't."
"Every pain and infliction you suffered was at the hands of the writers." says Shekron. "Your mutilation and degradation a mere writing of amusement and 'fun' for those sad souls; this very author only writes in order to gain some reviews on his writing, the show off! Always wanting some appreciation and attention; I wish I could pull out his spine…"
"I was created to do good Shekron." says Cyborg defiantly. "It's because of that goodness, and the right that I fight for that makes all the pain, suffering and challenges worth while. I wouldn't have it any other way. To do good…!"
Shekron looks on to the tall Cyborg impressed. "Very good, and maybe a little surprising." he grins. "I am very much regretting having to break such a valiant effort to stop me from tearing your mind apart…"
"It's over Shekron, your purpose is over!"
"Do you think THAT was my purpose?" he scoffs. "To break you oblivious heroes? You still do not see my full power here!"
Cyborg is about to say something, but Shekron opens a door, suddenly appearing, to reveal, The Joker, mercilessly killing a poor man with a large wooden mallet. The clown was laughing madly and his hate filled eyes gleamed like charcoal.
This was a time for action. "STOP!" shouts Cyborg, and he rushes in.
To his shock, and horror, he suddenly appears in a desolate world, in front of the large demon Trigon, who begins to attack Raven's mother, screaming. Distressed, he rushes in to help, but finds himself in front of Slade, who begins kicking Robin brutally in the head, then there was Terra turning to stone, her flesh solidifying into a crypt like coffin, Beastboy turning into an uncontrollable and violent monster, Cardiac sucking up and eating innocent children, Killer moth turning into the monster Charaxes to devour humans… and the scenes go on until all that Cyborg can do is watch as he kneels in the centre of the spinning visions. He sees much pain… he cries…
"Why do they want to do this?"
"So you see…" says Shekron, closing the door. "Even if you enjoy doing good for 'mankind', there is only evil in your realm because the writers make it so; it is the writers who create villains like us to torture you, to do great deeds of lawlessness, to rip to destroy to rape to conquer the entire world! Such things are not uncommon in this 'fanfiction'. Deceit, lies, contortions of the truth; which ever way you see it. They create it! They inflict it upon you, though they know it is not right, for they know that only by creating evil, can they gain the attention they want! No matter how hard you try to fight, no matter how long you struggle, and despite everything you do to hold onto what is 'right', there will be no end of it until the writers decide it so… and that day is not until the ending of the world!"
Cyborg tries to argue, but he has lost his battle. Shekron was right…
"Everything could have been good!" continues the Octari. "Stories of happiness and of peace, prosperity, true love, friendship and caring family; it could have been bliss, a paradise. A place where you need not fight, for the world you protect is so shining in goodness, that it outshines all evil around it. Raven could have had a loving father and mother; Robin's parents did not have to die. Starfire needn't have been so lost. Beastboy didn't have to fear being obscured and you could have been spared the suffering… but that is not the case…"
The world goes flamed with many dead corpses littering the ground. From young to the baby child, all stricken in positions of fear. Vermin scuttle around for scraps and the carrion birds circle around. The sky rains ashes of sulphur… and bone…
"YOU SEE! DO YOU SEE ALL THIS?
ARE YOU READING THESE WORDS?
DO YOU SEE WHAT A CREATION YOU HAVE 'DREAMED'? HA! THIS IS THE WORLD THAT THEY MAKE IN THEIR MINDS! THIS IS WHERE ALL YOUR STRUGGLES WILL FINALLY END YOU CYBORG! NO MATTER WHAT GOODNESS STRIVES ON OR HEROES THAT MAY SPAWN, THE EVIL WILL CONTINUE TO POUR LIKE BURNING OIL, A NEVER ENDING WATERFALL, UPON YOUR FRAGILE EARTH! YOU SHALL NEVER FIND PEACE HERE! DO YOU HEAR ME!
YOU READERS
YOU PATHETIC WRITERS
FEAR ME AS YOU FEAR YOURSELVES
I AM IN YOU ALREADY
YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME
YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST
YOU HAVE CREATED ME AND NOW YOU SHALL REGRET IT
I AM INVINCIBLE
I DO NOT LIVE, I CANNOT DIE
I SHALL BE ETERNITY
I SHALL LIVE ON
YOU SHALL PERISH
YOU SHALL DIE WHILE I SURVIVE
YOUR REALM IS MINE!"
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Shekron is really starting to scare me. I hope the Titans win though… Please review, if you have the courage to face Shekron Kaizer…