Dick paced nervously, occasionally adjusting the unfamiliar clothes he was wearing. Bruce had recommended a long black coat with a hood over some casual black pants and a shirt. Apparently a bright blue Nightwing logo and a mask might draw attention to him. He really felt naked without his mask diving into an otherworldly situation.
"You're showing all your fears on an open canvas right now," Bruce's voice snapped Dick from his pacing, causing him to scowl slightly. "I trained you better than that," Bruce's small smirk annoyed Dick, sending his right back to pacing. They were standing in a small, rarely used after dark, park just outside of Gotham. Dr. Fate had arranged the meeting place. It wasn't much longer before Dr. Fate appeared.
"You'll stand out without a disguise," Bruce was already pulling a similar coat to the one Dick was wearing from a bag.
"That won't be necessary, I will not be going to Witch World," Fate walked directly past an extremely confused Dick and began examining something that seemingly only he could see. Dick looked at Bruce who simply shrugged in response.
"What do you mean you won't be going? I thought that was the reason we were meeting here.." Dick stepped closer to Dr. Fate, attempting to see what he was doing. He was moving his hands slowly through the air with his eyes shut. Suddenly he stopped.
"You will be going, but you will be going alone. I have no inclination to put myself at great risk in Klarion's own domain," Dr. Fate spoke a few more words which Dick couldn't understand and a portal suddenly ripped open from nothingness. "I will remain here for five hours. If I sense you approach the portal I will open it again. After five hours, it is too dangerous to keep the portal active and I will have to close it."
"Put yourself at risk? Zatanna is over there, your daughter! She's in the hands of a mad man and you're giving me a time limit to go into some magical world on my own to try and rescue her?!" Dick's rage was building up again. Bruce quickly put a hand on Dick's shoulder, trying to get him to stand down. Fate turned and stared coldly at Dick.
"She is not my daughter." He stepped to the side, allowing full access to the portal. "And from the best of my knowledge, she was given to this mad man by you." He turned and looked at the portal once more as Dick contemplated his words. "Where you emerge in Witch World is where you need to return. Remember its location." Dick was standing rigid, his fists clenched and his jaw set tight. He had no choice. He shook Bruce's hand from his shoulder and took a step forward towards the portal. He had no idea what he was about to face but it was clear he had to face it alone.
"This is my mistake, and I intend to fix it. Five hours... In five hours my wife will be back with her family…" He took a quick glance at Bruce who simply nodded, but that nod said so much to Dick. Bruce would keep the twins safe is Dick didn't make it back. He would protect them and raise them with the help of Alfred and Tim. Dick took a deep breath, steadied himself, and took that final step through the portal to Witch World.
Klarion slinked into the room, moving carefully around the piles of broken furniture. He had heard Zatanna's screams and yells for hours accompanied by the all too familiar noise of destruction. She was curled defensively in the middle of the bed, which also had a large portion of it shattered.
"I really did like this furniture.." He narrowed his eyes, his familiar smirk spreading across his face. He cocked his head slightly and almost instantly Zatanna shot awake, biting back a yell of pain as the black marks on her skin flared red. Her eyes which were red and swollen from crying narrowed at the sight of him. "You know my pet, if you keep trashing the furniture, you will have to sleep on splinters," using his own magic, he levitated her across the room towards him, gradually releasing the pain he was inflicting on her. When she was close enough, he grabbed her by the neck, holding her at arm's length before him. She didn't struggle or even move against him but just continued to glare. The marks on her chest slowly subsided back to black as he fully released his control over her.
"I heard what your visitors were saying earlier," A small smirk grew on her lips as she remembered the conversation she overheard earlier. She had spent at least two hours purposely breaking as many things in the room as she could with her newly discovered magical abilities. It had been a good way to vent her anger as well as get a grasp of her new power. She was moments away from firing an eldritch bolt at the bed when a loud chiming sounded throughout the house. She moved in the direction of the large door to the room, which had proven impossible to open or destroy and listened carefully. It turned out that houses in Witch World also had door bells, as angry voices could be heard from somewhere below the room Zatanna was in. She couldn't make out everything that was being said, but she could make out enough to know that the locals were not happy with Klarion.
"Foolish giving one of her kind this power."
"It's unnatural."
"Return her to her dimension before she destroys ours!"
She couldn't help but laugh at the anger growing on his face, knowing all too well she would suffer for it. "Lord of Chaos isn't as high and mighty as he thinks, getting scolded over little ol' me," She laughed again despite feeling Klarion's hand clenching slightly around her throat. She could sense his power rippling towards the surface, getting ready for use, and prepared to counter his attack. She had quickly learned to feel the movement of this form of magic, how to sense it and how it felt when it was used. Blowing up her current room had its uses. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"You've learned to control and sense your new magic already, impressive," He released his grip on her throat, "Trying to lure me into a rage so I can't sense that won't work. Don't forget Zatanna," He smirked and the marks on her chest started glowing red again. "We're on my turf now." He waited until he felt her prepared attack fade from fighting the pain of his control before grabbing her roughly and pulling her close. He looked down, taking pleasure in the obvious pain she was enduring. He focused harder, her markings were practically glowing red. A small whimper escaped her lips at last. He released his control over her and she collapsed in his arms.
"Please…please stop doing that," Zatanna cringed at the weakness in her own voice. It was pathetic. She was fully set on attacking Klarion and here she was begging him not to hurt her.
"Do you think I enjoy hurting you?" His voice was soft as he tilted her head up to look at him. For a moment she thought he may be sincere until he smirked and whispered, "Because it turns out I actually do." He grabbed her face and kissed her quickly and forcefully before flinging her back onto the half broken bed. "You know what I enjoy more though."
Zatanna waited until he left the room before screaming in a mixture of rage and pain. She needed to find a way to stop him from being able to inflict pain upon her so easily. She pulled herself from the bed and found a large enough piece of broken mirror to look at her reflection. She ran a finger along one of the markings, from her neck down her chest towards her breast. There had to be something, anything. They were created by magic, meaning they could be destroyed by magic.
"What are you..." She found herself mumbling aloud, while circling a spot on her neck. She knew that had been where one of the original bite marks had been.
"I infected you with it a long time ago."
Everything clicked in Zatanna's mind. She was infected with chaos. It was dominating her natural magic. It was corroding her and polluting her. The more she used it the more the chaos would grow, and there was only one real way to beat chaos and that was with order.
Dick kept to the shadows as he studied the people in this strange world. He had been expecting everything to appear extremely dark and evil, but life here seemed rather normal. The only strange thing was the unusual blue tint in the people's skin and how they dressed. Everything was very formal or old fashioned. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but luckily people with long black hooded coats didn't seem out of place. Bruce Wayne 1, Witch world 0. He stooped slightly and started walking slowly through the people, keeping his face down and listening carefully to conversations around him, hoping to hear mention of Klarion or Zatanna.
"Coraline blew up a cup the other day,"
"She's really progressing in magic, I wish my Thadeus was as gifted with magic."
"Nonsense, we all have a little magic, but you've seen what happens to those who go power crazy, besides I'm sick of having to buy new cups!"
Nothing. He would be too suspicious if he lingered by their conversation for too long. Almost two hours had passed and he had yet to find any clues about Zatanna's location. He's certainly discovered a lot about Witch World. Children went to school here, adults went to work. They had elected officials, but apparently the strongest black magic users abused their position and power to control people as they pleased. Dick was getting desperate. He wanted to find Zatanna with enough time to spare to get back to the portal, which would take about 30 minutes from where he was.
'Maybe I should just reveal myself...' His hand slipped into his pocket and he ran his finger along the outline of his mask. Surely if someone from another dimension appeared in the town square there would be a little panic, or at least enough commotion to attract Klarion's attention.
"Such a fool infecting the mortal girl like that…" Dick let go of the mask, turning to try and find the source of the conversation. One man stopped, staring at two others. Dick watched as their conversation appeared to become more heated. Many people were stopping and listening to the men talking, so Dick dared to creep a little closer.
"She will be the death of us!"
"Corvus is right, friend. Klarion used his powers as a Lord of Chaos, not as a witch, to turn this mortal," The man on the right said, gesturing to the previous speaker, Corvus.
"She's no mere mortal either, she's a Homo Magi. She already holds so much power." Corvus shook his head. As the two men spoke to the other, he appeared to become bluer. His eyes resembled Klarion whenever he was angry. Small and red.
"You both are fools! You expected to challenge a Lord of Chaos?" He gestured behind him, towards a large house, perhaps the largest of all the houses Dick had seen here, sitting just off the town square.
'Should have guessed...' Suddenly, as Dick was staring at the house, a thunderous explosion erupted and a portion of the house suddenly crumbled, smoke filling the air. A figure appeared in the air above the house. The explosion had caused tremors to ripple through the ground, sending people in the square running and screaming. Dick braced himself before he noticed that the three men had cast some sort of spell, levitating as many people as they could about half a foot off the ground.
"It's already started Demetri, he won't be able to control her for much longer," The three men stared in dismay at the house. The smoke was clearing and the damage became clear. A large chunk of the house had been blown away, as if some giant creature had taken a bite out of it. A small figure could be seen staring up at the figure in the air.
"There is nothing we can do except get as many people to safety as we can. Their power is even beyond ours." Demetri lowered his hands and the people in the square softly touched down on the now still ground. Dick was about to take off at a sprint towards the house when the figure in the house fired two large black bolts at the other figure in the air, which just about managed to dodge the first, and block the other.
'Klarion's magic is normally red.' He pulled out his mask and put it on, increasing the zoom in his lenses. The figure in the house was Zatanna. A small sigh of relief escaped his lips before he took a closer look. She was in a torn up red dress and had blood dripping down her arms. She was paler than Dick had ever seen her and her hair was tossed and wild. There were two strange marks running from her neck down her chest which were bright red and appeared to be pulsing. He watched as a wicked grin spread across her lips and she launched herself into the air. He followed her movement and saw her hurl two large black balls of energy at Klarion. That's when Dick noticed the panic and fear on Klarion's face. He easily repelled the first blast, but staggered and fell from the air momentarily when the second hit. Zatanna was beating him. He took off at a sprint towards them, no longer caring for concealment.