Sell you a Bridge

by MalcolmTent6730

Have you ever gotten an email telling you you've won a free cruise? Or one for a work out that will get you ripped in ten days? Wouldn't it be crazy if those offers were legit? Well for Morgan O'Malley they can be. Spam becomes real life when his meta powers finally manifest. Hopefully the perks of the super life aren't false advertising.

60. Chapter 60

June 15th 2016 Gotham City 2:00 PM EDT

My first clue this wasn't the right Gotham was the water. My second clue was the wreckage. My third clue was the enraged red skinned monster with dripping fangs hurling itself from water next to me. It shouldn't have been possible really, there wasn't room below the surface, but it happened and my reaction speed was more than up to calling Tartarus to rip the thing in half. I heard Zee shout 'Fire" in the background, and the corpse turned to ash before it hit the ground. I really needed to pick up some of those spells.

I turned around, sighing. "Well. Pretty sure that tears it. This isn't our Gotham. Rana, any clue how we got here or how we get back? I realize this was unexpected for everyone, but I have nothing really. Whatever B-guy did to the abyss is well beyond what I can do. I imagine we can go back in, but it'll just drag us deeper. I say we lay low for a bit and figure out a plan. The only thing I'm not sure about is where the hell we should go. If this is a different Gotham than any place we could hole up might be occupied by another version of us. Any ideas?"

Zee raised a hand. "I mean...maybe Shadowcrest? Granted some alternate universe version of me or my dad might be there, but that's two possible people vs. what? Infinity? I should be able to get through the wards too, at least if this dimension HAS a version of me. Bloodline and all. If not...fuck, I don't know. We can reassess once we get there. Work for everyone?"

No one had a better idea, so we all fell in and let Jim cloak us as we walked. Everyone was scanning the streets looking

concerned, but we hadn't seen anything since the red monster attacked us. The place was a fucking swamp graveyard. I leaned in toward Artemis. "You see anything that might tell us what the actual fuck happened here? Because aura wise all the dark energy is making it impossible for me to get anything, and I don't even know where to start anyway." I fished out my phone to see if I could get a signal, but big surprise, I couldn't find an active hotspot.

She just shook her head, a disturbed look on her face. "No. I can't see anything. Kind of wish we could find one of those stupid newspaper boxes. It might have some information we could use." Sadly I didn't see one. We might run across it on the way, but our lives weren't quite convenient enough for th...wait. I gestured for everyone to stop.

I turned to Tommy."Hey boss man. Quick question. Do you think you could make it so there was one of those newspaper boxes around the corner? Wait, do you have those in the uk? The metal ones with the glass fronts where you can see the day's newspaper for sale? If we can find one we should be able to figure out what was going on before...this." I gestured around us at the destruction. "They had to have been putting out the news until whatever it was happened. At the very least we can get a clue to what's going on."

He frowned but nodded after a second. He closed his eyes, bringing his existential nature to bear, and I felt the world SHIFT. It was interesting feeling Tommy use his gift after my upgrade. More...quiet. Like it was less of a change compared to what I'd felt before. I suspected it was just my relative metaphysical weight changing. A wave pool is less jarring to a great white shark than a guppy. His eyebrow twitched for a second, but once it was done, he nodded. "Alright. There should be one up ahead. The complete lack of people and our lack of knowledge of this place are making it way easier for me."

I grimaced but couldn't complain too much. As we came around the corner another red thing jumped from the water and died just as quickly under my keyblade. These things were really annoying When we reached the weathered and beaten blue box we stopped. I gestured to Tommy, who closed his eyes again. The side of the thing was dented and the whole box was waterlogged. We couldn't see all of the newspapers though, which meant there was a chance that one of them was still readable.

He reached out without opening his eyes and shoved his hand into the box to grab one of the things, pulling out a shockingly still dry newspaper and passing it to me. I flipped it open and scanned the whole thing, my speed reading and perfect memory and excellent fit for this particular situation. The more I read, the more weirded out I got. Most of the stories were updates on the crisis happening nearby. Atlantis had declared war on the land. There were mentions of a series of gruesome murders of metahumans beforehand, and some society pages about...Bryce Wayne?

I blinked, flipping through the pages faster. Nothing too specific, but there were more references to Bryce Wayne, who was apparently formerly in a relationship with Sylvester Kyle, now deceased. I blinked and looked up. "Ok. Well...this is weird. So apparently in this world...genders are reversed? Probably? Bruce Wayne is a woman, and I recognize a few other names that seem familiar but off. Like the front page article here was written by Victor Vale, and there are multiple references to Commissioner Jane Gordon.: I paused. "Oh, also Atlantis declared war on Gotham and drowned the city."

I knew adding that as an afterthought was ridiculous, but...come on. Female Bruce Wayne? She was kind of hot too. Did that mean there were male versions of the girls? A female me? This place was wrinkling my brain.

Shaking that off, I started filling everyone in as we got moving again. Rana took up position next to me to counter any threats. The two of us were the strongest of the group in a head to head fight. I even called up my armor. I didn't need it really, but it was extremely comforting to have my shell around me, and it was so much more powerful with my new higher base state. Plus it felt good to have the layer of defense around me. The trip took less time than I'd expected, probably because there was no traffic to hold us up but within an hour we'd made the walk to Shadowcrest.

When we came into view of the place I stopped, raising an eyebrow in surprise. As opposed to the rest of Gotham, Shadowcrest was perfectly intact. The grass wasn't even wet. That monstrous old house was just sitting untouched in the middle of its estate cut off from everyone. Which honestly boded well for our mission to find...someone. it also might help us track down a way home from this shithole. Shadowcrest had a hell of a library. There had to be something in there.

While I was staring in surprise, Zee stepped up next to me, Sindella on my other side. They each raised a hand to probe the wards. Sindell, unfortunately, just shook her head. "Damn. I hoped it would still let me pass, since I hopefully have a counterpart in this world. Seems as though if I did I'm not enough like them to get by." She flicked her eyes to her daughter. "How about you, Zee? Still have access?"

Zatanna nodded. "Yes, Shadowcrest is the ancestral home of our family. My bloodline means I'm always welcome." She paused briefly. "Weirdly, the thought that any random other dimensional version of me can show up and just walk into the house isn't comforting. I don't live there anymore but there's lots of powerful artifacts at Shadowcrest. Remind me to stop by and fix that when we get home." She adressed that last one to me and I gave her a thumbs up. Perfect memory made me much better than a note pad.

Still, she was able to open us a way through with minimal effort. Zee's casting and magic handling proficiency was monstrous at this point, and the fact that her new casting focus was a conceptual key the size of a child probably didn't hurt much either when opening doors. She took the wards down and let us in, and we hurried across the grounds to the door. Once we reached the porch she raised the wards behind us to make sure none of those weird red things followed us through and then raised a hand to knock on the door.

I wasn't sure why she knocked until I remembered this place was perfectly defended. It would make sense if someone was home, and I didn't want to get magic bombed into dust by whatever this world's equivalent of Zatara was. There was no response for a minute, and then the door jerked open and a gorgeous woman with long blonde hair glared out at us. She had a hand in her pocket, and was looking ready to attack as she raked her eyes over us. "You lot better have a hell of a reason for showing up at my door."

Her voice had a familiar british accent, extremely similar to one I'd heard before. Zee glared at her. "Excuse me? This is MY door. Shadowcrest is the Zatara family manor, and I'm pretty sure you aren't a Zatara. I would be able to tell." Zee was tense, and I saw her fingers flex around the hilt of Star Seeker, which she was still carrying. The blonde brit's eyes flicked to the keyblade, and he looked a bit uncertain at the shape and design of the weapon.

She shook it off fast though, her face hardening as she stared at us all. "Listen, I don't know who the hell you people are, but the Zatara family is dead. Has been for a while now. Zachary passed me ownership of the house before he was killed, so it's mine now. I don't know if you're supposed to be distant cousins or something, but you aren't taking my damn house. So if that's what you're here for, get lost. I may not be able to turn the wards on you, but I have other defenses in place. Ones I designed myself."

I stepped forward in front of Zee, still in my armor. It was a testament to the woman's calmness that she hadn't even acknowledged it. Granted, Drood armor was a very noticeable gold, and mine was black so she might just not recgnize it. She hadn't seen it come out of it's torc, so right now I just looked like a guy covered in black metal. "Ok, let's take a step back here. We can explain better inside, but I realize we need introductions before you'll let us in. So why don't I start. My name is Morgan O'Malley. This is Zatanna Zatara and her mother Sindella."

I stopped the introductions after those three. There were a lot of us, and it made sense to see if she recognized the names of those of us most likely related to the house. The woman's blue eyes narrowed at us, and I couldn't help but think she looked a bit familiar. "I don't know of any Zatanna. Sindella either. Zachary used to own this house, he got it from his mother Gianna." I had to hold back my flinch as she confirmed what I was pretty sure was the death of this world's version of my girlfriend.

She looked around between us, seemingly trying to weight what was going on but finally gave a grudging nod and stepped back. "Well, my protections don't just extend to the porch, and you're past the outer wards. Might as well come in before you start drawing the Dead Waters." She stepped back cautiously, allowing us to pass under her careful scrutiny. Once she was inside she pushed the door shut and turned to us. "Oh, right. Introductions. My name is Johanna Constantine. This is my house now."

June 15th 2016 Shadowcrest, Earth -11, 3:00 PM EDT

As we stepped inside and pushed back our hoods, Johanna's eyes raked over us assessingly. We closed the door behind us, and I saw her staring at all of us, but especially at John and Zee. I think Zee took a bit longer to recognize because of her elven heritage, but Sindella's appearance seemed to solidify her suspicions. "Right, you lot aren't from around here are you? A bit of resemblance from cousins is fine, but that kid looks like me, and I know I don't have any brats or relatives running around. Plus something about him feels...familiar."

I nodded to John, letting him know he could take point here. This was him after all, or at least a much older female version of him. Weirdly, he was taking this better than I'd expected. I guess growing up on the Street of Gods and training under John Taylor would do that for you. He looked her over. "My name is John Constantine. I'm a private detective and...I suspect I'm a version of you from another world."

Much like our John, Johanna hardly seemed phased. "Right, well that explains it. Bit young aren't you? Or are you from an earlier timeline? Alright, what is it this time? You here for some kind of ancient artifact to save your world from destruction? Or is this one of the ones where you try to ritually sacrifice me to become more powerful, because I'm warning you, I wasn't bluffing about the defenses I set up in here."

She was glaring at John suspiciously, but our brit just put both hands up placatingly. "No, nothing like that. We're stuck here, trying to figure out how to leave and we need a place to lie low. Maybe some info if you can spare it." He looked around uncomfortably. "Is it...I know it's probably shit to bring up, but what happened to Zachary." He gestured to Zee. "He would've been a version of Zee as far as I can tell. I think she's probably curious about what went wrong there."

Johanna turned to look at Zee, giving her a once over. "The elf thing is a bit strange, but I can't fault you for your taste. She's even cuter than mine. " She gave Zee a wink. "To answer your question, the same thing that happened to almost everyone else in the city. The Drowned happened." Her face hardened with grief and anger. "Crazy bitch. All of this is her fault."

I stepped up next to Zee, feeling the urge to put an arm around her. "First of all, he's not with Zee, I am. Second of all, who or what is The Drowned. Is that another name for the Atlanteans that attacked? Or those weird fucking red things that tried to kill us on the way here? We were able to find out a bit of basic info from a newspaper, but we have no clue what the hell actually happened here. Care to fill us in?"

That got a raised eyebrow from the blonde woman. "Right, all of you come inside. I need a bloody drink if I'm talking about this. I can still turn you to chunks if you try to hurt me, so be on your best behavior." She led us into a dining room, before pouring herself a double of scotch and slumping into a chair. She took a long pull off the drink. "Ok, before we got further, why don't you all introduce yourselves. Some of you I think I know, some of you I decidedly do not. Best get this out of the way."

"That's fair." I said with a shrug. "So, you know John, Sindella, Zatanna, and I." Pointed to Artemis. "This is my other girlfriend Beautiful Dreamer, my best friend Artemis Crock, my daughter Morana, her boyfriend Wally West, my cousin Kitrina Falcone, John's Mentor John Taylor, my mentor Jim Craddock, Suzie Shooter, also known as Shotgun Suzie, Kit's boyfriend Eddie whose last name I never asked, and my sometimes teacher Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective." I said all that in a single breath, possible using my ghostly nature to avoid breathing.

Johanna finally looked shocked. "Wait...Artemis Crock, as in Arthur Crock? I mean leaving aside you being a Falcone, I'm assuming you're another version of Wendy West, as in the Flash? And Tiger King is an elf where you're from?" She shook her head in amazement. "Bloody other dimensions. I shouldn't be surprised, but some shit still gets to me. That's an interesting group you've got with you kid. I've never heard of a Falcone named Morgan, but I admit Gotham wasn't always my stomping ground so I probably wouldn't have."

Wally cut in as soon as she stopped talking. "Wait. What do you mean the Flash? I was Kid Flash for a while before I retired. Are you saying I was the Flash here? What about Uncle Bar- I mean what about the previous Flash? What happened to him?" His voice sounded raw and afraid, but after a second he grimaced and shook his head. "No. Sorry. Tell us what happened to Gotham. I...I can wait until later to hear more about me. This is more important. I didn't mean to pull us off track."

The expression on Johanna's face was almost soft as she looked at Wally. Not romantic or anything. But fond. I got the impression she had known Wendy, and liked her. She shook that off. "Right. Gotham then. Where to start. So the easiest place is probably a few years ago. Sylvester Kyle, also known as Catman, was murdered. Batwoman and he were...complicated, but close. She went off the deep end when he died and started hunting down villains who had a hand in it. At first. After they were dead she was hunting any meta she could find. She killed dozens of people."

I winced, trying to imagine serial killer Batman. That sounded terrifying. Something about the whole Catman thing tickled my memory though, and having perfect recall I got it fast. Catman, Sylvester Kyle was dating Bryce Wayne. Bryce Wayne was Batwoman. Dick Grayson was Robin when we were younger, and lived with BRUCE Wayne which would make him...well shit. I had robbed Batman. I felt like a fucking moron for never putting that together, but in my defense Bruce Wayne was such a himbo it was just ludicrous to think of him being Batman. Which I guessed was probably the point. I'd always assumed Dick just snuck out to do crime fighting like I snuck out to do crime.

I focused back on Johanna, who was still talking. "With Batwoman off the reservation the city actually got quiet for a while, but a few months ago Aquawoman showed up with a bunch of new metas. She claimed she was here to forge diplomatic ties with the land. Turned out Aquawoman was having an affair with Wonder Man for years. Batwoman had killed her lover and she was out for revenge. It didn't work out well for her. Batwoman killed her, and in a rage the rest of Atlantis declared open war on the surface, and pretty much said 'fuck Gotham city in particular'."

This place was a fucking shithole. I'd though our Gotham was garbage, but this place was worse. Not just dirty and crime ridden (well, less crime now after the water apocalypse) but also WET? Gross. I cleared my throat. "Ok, that all sucks, but what the hell happened to Batwoman? And what the actual fuck are those red things?"

Johanna shrugged. "After Batwoman killed Aquawoman the Atlanteans hit Gotham with a massive tidal wave. Killed millions. She went underground, and when she resurfaced, she was...different. She stole Aquawomans trident to kill her, and when she came back she was wielding it like the queen of the seas herself. She could breathe and control water, and she had an army of mutated monstrosities she called Dead Waters with her. She killed off the Atlanteans, and then kept on going, killing everyone left in Gotham she could reach. The started calling her The Drowned."

I froze. "Wait...so Zee's other self was killed by evil female Batman with Aquaman powers? That's so fucked up." I slumped back into my own chair. "This place is awful. We need to get home. Do you think we can have access to the library? If anywhere on earth has the necessary information to get the fuck out of this hellworld it's here." I didn't want to be in the fucking dark multiverse for any longer than needed. Barbatos would notice us eventually, and we needed to get moving before that happened.

The blonde brit sighed. "I would normally say hell no. But...Zachary gave me this house. I don't think I even can refuse you entry into the library if you're Zatara blood. Plus it's not like you can fuck this world up any worse. As long as you aren't planning to murder me for power this is one of the more harmless instances of dimensional traveling I've seen. Get what you need. You can't stay for long, trust me when I say that being alone in here with only me isn't safe. I have methods for keeping The Drowned from attacking, but having others around actively impedes them."

Sighing in relief, I nodded. "That's fine. We want to get gone as quick as we can. We just need to figure out..." What? We knew this was the dark multiverse. All I could think of was learning fucking magic from the ground up to compare it and find out how metaphysics worked differently here. Maybe that way we could figure out how Rana could get us back home. It would have been impossible if we hadn't had an entire master level magic research team here. Between Sindella, Jim, Zee, John, and hell even me when it came to things like the void and travel, we might have a shot at this.

We thanked Johanna and headed for the library first thing, though John stayed behind to talk. I think he had a lot of questions about Johanna's past and how she ended up here. I wasn't sure I would have wanted to know about the life of a version of me in such obvious pain, but I wasn't John. It was his call if he wanted to ask questions he might not want the answers to.

Zee and I walked towards the library, and I took her hand as she looked around this strange parody of her childhood home. She had so many memories in a place just like this, but so much different. Not all good ones, but not all bad, and seeing this strange hell world version of a place she had at one point felt safe was jarring. I felt through the bond how confused and agitated she was, but my girl kept it together. The same easy relaxed manner she always had. When we first got together I wouldn't have even known.

But I did now, and I wasn't the only one. Drea stepped from behind Zee, reaching up to run her hand through our girl's hair. She smiled at our sorceress, then at me. "I see great minds thing alike. I thought you might need someone to talk to. It seems I wasn't the only one." She pulled Zee into a huge, letting our girlfriend rest her head on her shoulder. "How are you doing love? Is there any way I can help?"

Zee shook her head against Drea's shoulder. "I just...seeing this is just...it reminds me of what happened to my dad. Of what happened to mom before I got her back. So much loss, and death, and horror. Even I died. Or at least this version of me." I could hear the tears in her voice. She sounded so lost, so empty. I wrapped them both in my arms and held them as Zee cried. No one interrupted us.

June 15th 2016 Shadowcrest, Earth -11, 8:00 PM EDT

The Zatara library was big. I didn't have many other words for it. I'd never seen the one in our own dimension, or if I had I'd forgotten it because that heist was before I got my perfect recall. In either case, this was my first time seeing the library Zee had grown up in, and looking around, I could definitely see how she had developed her fanatical love for research. THe place was gorgeous and incredibly homey.

Tall dark wooden book cases packed with thousands of books of a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. Plush, dark carpet lined the floors and a few big spacious tables were scattered around. There was a fireplace off to one side roaring with fire, but the heat was being distributed evenly by some clever bit of magic. It was also probably because of the magic that the books didn't dry out.

Zee looked around longingly, eyes still red. "It's just like home." She said wistfully. "I haven't been back to the library in months at least. I...I didn't realize how much I missed it." Sindella stepped up behind her, putting an arm aound her daughter and pulling her into a one armed hug as she laid her head on her daughter's. Zee stared into the fire, clearly lost in her memories.

Sindella squeezed Zee tighter. "Oh, my sweet girl. I loved this room too. I used to study in here for hours. When I was pregnant with you I'd curl up with a bean bag next to that fireplace and read aloud from my favorite storybooks, hoping you would hear them. Your father would sit with me and brush my hair and listen. Just the three of us together, even though you weren't born yet. Once I had you it became a weekly activity. Every saturday I would bring the two of you in here and read you a different book."

Zee was crying again as she stared into the fire. "I remember. Daddy kept doing that for a few years after you died. Eventually he got too busy though. I'd still try to make it in there on saturdays to read. It made me feel closer to you. To both of you." She turned and buried her face in her mother's hair as she clung to her. "I missed you so much mom. I'm so happy you're back."

Sindella looked torn between love and heartbreak, seeing her little girl in tears like this. I could see a small kernel of anger in her aura too. She hadn't missed that little tidbit about Giovanni being too busy. She'd heard from Jim some of what had happened before I cut him off, and I suspected even Zee's sanitized version of events probably didn't paint Zatara in the best light. Crazy survivalist dad who keeps his daughter locked up so tight she never makes friends is a bad look, and feeling responsible for that probably didn't help.

Sadly though, we didn't have time to deal with that. We had other things to do, and I knew they would at least take Zee's mind off of things. I stepped up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Hey. How about we do some research. You and I are the only ones with a firm grounding on void magic, so we're going to need to take priority here. I was thinking we could try to derive a comparative dimensional superstructure through through void tracing, and use that to calculate what went wrong?"

The best way to get Zee excited about magic was to just start talking to her in jargon. My girl was the world's biggest spell nerd, and hearing me speaking her language always got her in the mood to study. The actual suggestion I'd made wasn't as complicated as it sounded. I'd just suggested that we study the laws of magic here, compare them to our own, and use void magic to try to proof out the makeup of the barrier between the two realities by mapping both sides and combining them in an equation.

Sure enough, she pulled her head free with a sniff. She gave me a searching look before nodding. "That might work. But do we use the initial notation for this side of the equation, or would it be the inverse? This is some sort of weird backward universe. If we're supposed to calculate backwards from this side it could fuck up our results if we fail to take that into account." Her voice was rough, but it was also focused. She was already hooked.

I gestured to the books. "We'll need to figure that out. Should be simple enough to confirm, we just need to compare a few supposedly universal magical theorems or spell forms and see if they're mirrored. A fireball is a fireball no matter what kind of magic you do. If it's a backwards fireball here than we use an inverted notation when we proof out the barrier from this side." I led her to the table, winking at Sindella, who shot me a grateful smile.

Zee sat down and I passed her a book. She opened it without comment, and I looked at the others, nodding at them to sit down. I took the seat across from her, while Drea and Sindella sat on either side, Rana sat next to me, diagonally from her mother, and all of us just did our best to be there for her as we read. We didn't bother her, Zee in study mode was far too focused for that, but we made sure we were close enough that she could feel us there, and know she wasn't alone.

Being back here was giving Zee a front row seat to her worst and best childhood memories, and having her mom here with her was probably making it even worse. Still, while we were by her side, I was actually going to have to study too, and soon I was flipping through pages as everyone else grabbed books of their own, trying to study as best they could, or at least avoid any awkward attempts at small talk while we were all busy.

After literal hours of research, we finally managed to put together enough information to actually share it amongst ourselves. We'd done the calculations after the first hour, but we'd run into a decent bit of trouble with some of the numbers and realized we needed some more information. I waited until Zee was ready, stockpiling my own info, and then let her take priority, figuring I could jump in if she missed anything. It made more sense to see what she had found that I hadn't. As my girlfriend put down her book with a thump, she favored us all with a blinding grin.

Despite her pain and heartache, several hours in deep study in a weird alternate dimension version of her family library had clearly energized and excited her. Everyone else had looked up from their books when hers thumped down. "Alright everyone. I've got a basic idea of what is happening. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I don't think we can travel through darkness to get home. It won't be possible."

I nodded. Speaking up since she didn't seem to know the reason. "I think B-guy activated some sort of trap. I was right when I said he couldn't control all darkness like it's part of himself. He CAN however, mobilize enough of that shit to cause major changes in the abyss. He apparently rigged up some kind of cyclone designed to drag anything traveling through the dark down to him. Luckily it's not super efficient or else we would all be pretty fucked. Rana was pushing hard to get us to Gotham, and there was one between us and him so we ended up here."

"That explains quite a bit." Zee said, worrying at her lip. She flipped through a few books and nodded after a minute or two. "Ok, that shouldn't affect the good news. They aren't related exactly. We're going to be getting out of here another way." She held out a hand and conjured her keyblade, Star Seeker. "As you know, this is a keyblade. Keyblade's are keys, and keys open locks. Locks keep doors shut. THAT is going to be our exit."

I'd suspected as much, but I had to point out the obvious flaw. "We can do that, but we won't be able to control where we go. We need to get out of the realm of darkness, but any connections we unlock will be to other dark worlds. Without any idea how to steer or aim there's no possible way we're going to be able to make it home in anything resembling a decent amount of time. Since you seem so excited, I take it you have a way around that?"

There was no danger of upsetting her again with question, I could see her aura. I knew that she had an idea, though I didn't know what it was. Her grin went up a few watts. "Simple. We need to follow the keyholes to a place on the edge of the dark multiverse. If we can make it to the realms between, both multiverses will be accessible. Then we can follow the edge worlds until we can find one that has access to a gummi ship harbor. We can fly home in style that way, without ever needing to access the darkness."

Mentally flipping through a few more books that I'd read to confirm that, I nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, that might work. As long as you and Drea are the ones doing the unlocking. Your keyblades are light based, which means any pathways between worlds will lead up and not down. That should at least get us out of the dark if we follow along. Once we hit the worlds between the keyblades will be taking us horizontal instead of vertical no matter which we use, but that should work fine for tracking down a gummi ship." I let how impressed I was bleed into my voice.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just the two of us who had been doing that research. Jim cleared his throat gingerly. "Yes, well, in that particular matter, I may have a slight bit of insight. I've been reading through information on the local realms and planes of existence. I found a reference to a keyhole actually. Sadly, the exact location of that keyhole is...inconvenient for our current purposes. The keyhole was passed into the safekeeping of the royal family of a powerful tribe of magi, bound into solid form."

I cursed. "Well shit. I didn't even know that was possible. So what, it could be anything anywhere in the world? Tracking down something that's just described as 'an object' isn't the easiest task we've ever had, but I'm sure I can find something in my email to help with it, if none of my current tracking abilities lend themselves to that task." I gave my teacher a grateful nod. "Awesome work, boss. We have a lead at least, and we can check some of the other books written by that author or from the same era to try to figure out what the object was."

Jim gave a weary sigh and shook his head. "I'm afraid that won't be necessary. You didn't let me finish. The keyhole was bound to a physical form to make it more mobile, and given to a powerful royal family of magi. To protect it, they sank their city to the bottom of the ocean, sealing it off from all invaders. The royals passed the object down from parent to child, all the way up until the present day." I could practically hear the grimace in his voice as he bit out. "They bound the keyhole into the shape of a trident." Oh. Well, fuck.

June 16th 2016 Wayne Manor, Earth -11, 10:00 AM EDT

After talking things over we decided to get some rest before attempting to take the trident from The Drowned. A female Batman with hydrokinesis and related superpowers in a partly underwater city was somewhat intimidating to think about. So our first priority was obviously to scope out Wayne Manor and figure out if she was even there. Planning a raid wasn't the same as planning a theft, granted, but there were similarities, and casing the joint was definitely high up on the list of optimal first moves in both cases. Knowledge was always power.

The team for that consisted of Jim, Rana, and I. Our three fastest and stealthiest party members. The others stayed at Shadowcrest to wait for word. With just us we were able to slip unseen through the dark abandoned city, without even those damned red things popping up to stop us, and we made it to the Wayne Grounds pretty quickly, only to have to halt to find a better way in because the grounds were fucking CRAWLING with Dead Waters. There were dozens of the things, which I was easily able to identify even hidden in the depths by using my aura sight, at least now that I knew their signature.

It was actually impressive. The Dead Waters had an aura nearly identical to the shade and composition of the Gotham waters around them. They had been literally MADE for this environment. It had taken me a few encounters to be able to parse the difference. Whether that was a natural side effect of being hollow shells animated from the Gotham murk or some kind of ingenious defensive mechanism engineered by The Drowned, I'd gotten around it once I figured out the trick, and I could identify the bastards from a distance.

But rather than the Dead Waters, I was much more concerned about one specific factor at play here that hadn't been addressed at all. "Why the fuck is it so WET everywhere? Like yeah, water Batwoman, I get it, but does EVERYTHING have to be covered in water? This whole place looks...moist. It's unpleasant. It's like Florida if you classed the place up a bit. Just because she has this whole ocean queen schtick going doesn't mean she has to be THAT supervillain. The one whose whole personality is their gimmick. Nobody likes those."

Jim cleared his throat loudly and I winced. "I mean. Not you of course boss. You don't have a gimmick. You're simply an urbane and semi-corporeal gentleman about town. But you have to admit, some of the villains in like, Central City get pretty ridiculous. Hell, even in Gotham we have some wackos. Penguin, the Riddler, Two Face?" I paused. "Well Penguin mostly does it as an affectation I guess. But Riddler and Two Face literally get arrested on the regular for sticking to their theme."

My mentor heaved a sigh. "I wish I could dispute you, but I too sometimes find the behavior of such people incomprehensible. That, my lad, is why we do not claim the title of supervillain. We are gentlemen thieves, and nothing more. Leave the caped tomfoolery to the lunatics. A good thief needs no affectations, save those that he leaves behind to confound his enemies and delight his loyal fans. You remember one of the first rules I ever taught you?"

I chuckled. "Before a crime, no one should know what your target was. After a crime, no one should be able to forget." Of course, while that rule sounded cool, it wasn't one he always followed. Jim had been known to tip people off about a potential theft just to get a bigger challenge when he stole from them. He WAS the greatest thief in the world, after all. But he tried to instill better habits in us when we were training under him, even if it sometimes strayed close to hypocrisy.

I'd been told 'do as I say, not as I do' was a common refrain among dads, even if I hadn't been around my own enough to get that particular treatment. I didn't mind it from Jim since it came from a place of love, plus I was retired anyway. Speaking of dads though. I turned to Rana. "To clarify, don't steal from people. It creates friction with capes and they're a huge pain in the ass. We got lucky with that statute of limitations thing, but usually in order to maintain your freedom you have to keep committing more and more of them and it becomes a vicious cycle."

"I know dad." My daughter groaned, rolling her eyes. "I know it's not ok to steal. Mom was very clear about that when she was teaching me about earth. She said she didn't want me to 'end up a charming reprobate like my father'. Which would have been a lot less gross if she didn't giggle after she said it. You guys are extremely sickening most of the time. At least mama is subtle about her flirting. You and mom just fawn over each other in public."

It was my turn to snicker. "My mother disgusts me by flirting with her husband, and I disgust you. Someday you'll have children of your own to disgust with your significant other. It's the circle of wife." I winked exaggeratedly as she groaned at my terrible dad joke. I'd always loved puns, but since I was mortifying my child with my behavior already, it was my duty as a dad to expose her to the sacred comedic traditions.

All in a much better mood, we turned to stare at the estate again, focusing on our job. Casing was boring and time consuming, but it required me to at least LOOK at the place we were watching. Even perfect memory didn't help if I didn't pay attention. I did a count over the next hour or so, remaining quiet as I concentrated on sifting through the aura around the place to make sure I got every Dead Water.

"Okay, I have bad news and good news. Which do you want first?" Between my ability to detect lies and my aura sight, my perception powers had synergize to grant me an entirely new method of viewing the world. It took time and concentration to parse it but it was still there. I had more than enough determination to stoke that fire. The ghostly obsession I'd cultivated to protect the people I loved was still there, howling inside me, even if it was less insistent when I wasn't seeing one of them strung up and tortured.

Rana made an indecisive face before finally saying. "Bad news? I'm skeptical how good the good news could be in this situation. I'll just go all in on the bad and be pleasantly surprised if I turn out to be wrong."

I smirked at my daughter. "Who did you get this cynicism from exactly? But fine. The bad news is that there are about a hundred and fifty Dead Waters in there altogether. They're trash and we could melt them like snow on a hot day, but they aren't a problem because of their power. They're a problem because they're going to cause a ruckus when we try to get in and alert The Drowned. SHE's the one we really need to worry about."

"Okay." She said in annoyance. "See that was about as bad as I thought. So what is this good news that seemed like it would any way soften THAT blow. Because I'll be honest. I feel like that's the most important take away from the time spent watching this place."

I grinned at her wolfishly. "The good news is that she's there to alert. She wasn't guaranteed to be here, and we might have had to chase her down to Atlantis or something, so seeing her around is a positive, even if it's a double edged sword." My daughter rolled her eyes at me, clearly proved right in her suspicions and taking it with the least amount of grace possible.

Turning to Jim, I raised an eyebrow. "What about you boss. Lots of death energy here and those Dead Waters are partially...well, dead. You picking up any information that I didn't pick out? We need as much information as we can get, and you ARE the expert. "

Jim's hat tilted slightly, clearly showing he was cocking his head to think. "They're not...exactly necromancy. There's echoes of it, but, not the same. Similar to what Victor von Frankenstein did. Luckily magic leaves a signature even when harnessed by fringe science. Death magic is thick in this place and it's definitely stained both the creator and the creations. The Drowned should be necrotizing herself. Becoming more dead as time goes on. Fire is out, but healing magic should have a pronounced effect on both master and creations, and not for the positive. Their bodies weren't built to be restored to life."

I'd always wondered how that worked actually. "Why does healing hurt the undead? It doesn't really make sense the way I've heard it described. I know that it's a common theme in fiction, and even some magical traditions, but why would restoration magic harm zombies? Not all healing magic is 'holy' and from what I've heard even the stuff that isn't has the same kind of effect."

Jim paused at that, seemingly thinking about how to phrase his response. "If it helps, you can think of death like a spectrum. Being alive is being in the positives. If a living human being is at ten, then a corpse is at zero, and a zombie is at negative ten. Healing magic adds life to a being. A living human being who was hurt might go down to five, or even one. Healing spells can restore that by adding life energy to bring them back to one. If you add life energy to a zombie, it

brings them lower in the negatives, and closer to true neutral aka being a corpse."

I nodded along. Jim was an excellent teacher when motivated, and had a knack for explaining things. "Ok, so the Dead Waters are necromantic in nature, healing them will bring them closer to just straight dead, and The Drowned is...what? Infused with death energy? So healing brings her closer to being a normal person?" I didn't think the former Batwoman had actually died, so that was the only thing I could think of.

"Basically." He said with a shrug. "It's more complex than that, but the theory boils down to being pretty much the same thing, so that works. The question is whether or not we have any healing magic we can use? Can your demonic energy be used to make a healing spell?"

It could, but it would be a damn expensive one. Luckily we had a better option. "It would make more sense to talk to Zee. Her keyblade taught her a bunch of new spells, and one of them is a healing spell. She hasn't really had a chance to test it because we're all total badasses and who could hurt us, but if she can teach it to the three of us we should have a marked advantage against The Drowned and her forces. It would make me feel a lot better to have an ace in the hole anyway. Just in case."

He chuckled at that. "Well, that would certainly be a useful trick to pick up. Alright, with your memory I imagine we've done enough diligence here. These things aren't humans, they don't seem to have much variance in their behavior, so a longer timeline won't be of much benefit. We can head back and report to the others, and then come up with a plan together." He stood in a fluid motion, stepping out from behind the brush we'd been hiding in, but moving quickly back so the Dead Waters didn't see us, and Rana and I followed. It was time to head back. We had an assault to prepare for.

June 16th 2016 Shadowcrest, Earth -11, 12:00 PM EDT

"So basically, that's what we're dealing with." I said to the gathered group of my companions. "There's a ton of the things, but I was pretty sure Zee had something for this magically speaking. Those quick cast keyblade spells are damn useful, and if we can learn a healing version it would not only help us crush the Dead Waters and get to the Keyhole, it would give us a utility spell to fix injuries in battle later on. Having four healers would be pretty amazing. At the moment Zee is the only one who could really fill that role without the keyblade." I paused. "Well, and me, but Demonic energy is pretty inefficient."

Zee looked positively gleeful as she bounced to her feet. "Oh! Yes, I can do that. My Cure spell is super simple. You don't even need a keyblade to cast it, they just make it easier. I should be able to teach it to almost everyone except for Wally and Suzie. They have literally no magical potential at all. Wally's energy is incompatible with sorcery, and Suzie has been semi altered by lots of magical interference to be kind of magic resistant. Not enough to interfere with magic weapons, but enough that she can't cast herself."

Suzie didn't look surprised. "That makes sense." She said casually. "I've survived plenty of things I shouldn't have. Being partly magic resistant would explain a few things. Shame, being able to heal myself would have been nice, but I suppose John being able to do it will be almost as good. He's usually there to bail me out when I get in deep shit." She shot him a fond look, which he returned, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. Guess they were still together. That was nice to see.

With that decided, Zee glanced over to Johanna. "Hey Jo, any chance the old training studio is still functional in this place?" The older blonde woman had taken a shine to Zee immediately, probably reminded of her dead boyfriend who was Zee's counterpart here. The two of them seemed to have hit it off while we were on stakeout.

The current owner of the house nodded thoughtfully. "Should be. I don't use it much. Zachary used to try to get me to train with him more often, and most of my time in that room was shared with him. I avoid it like the plague now. Still, that room had self cleaning charms and I hadn't seen any signs of damage in there the last time I was in, so I don't see why it wouldn't be fine." She smiled wistfully as she remembered the good times with her version of Zee, and I felt my heart break for her a bit as I imagined having to deal with memories of my Zee after losing her. I made a vow to myself that I would never find out. I'd definitely keep her safe.

So, with a destination in mind we headed for the training room, ready to learn some new magic from Zee. Having picked up the Thunder spell easily enough, I wasn't expecting a problem with Cure, but for some of the others it might be a challenge. The keyblade focused and amplified spells, and I was pretty sure it made learning them easier. Granted my perfect memory helped with that I was sure, but for the others this might be tough.

The room looked...like a dance studio maybe? Dark hard wood floors, mirrored walls. It was more ornate than a studio though, and had training dummies in the shape of people dispersed throughout. A flick of aura sight showed me enchantments on the mirrors, I wasn't really sure enough of my grasp on spell formulas to say for certain what kind, but it looked like some kind of absorption magic. I was sure it would come in handy in a training room as long as you were careful. It would also prevent damage to the room.

We all funneled in, though Wally decided to stay behind in the library. Despite being unable to use magic (which apparently happened after he connected to the speed force, because he swore it didn't used to be a problem) he was determined to read the whole library, and with his super speed he was working his way through it even faster than I could. Suzie had stayed back as well, so it was only the magic users or magically capable in here with us.

Tommy, Jim, Artemis, Eddie, Kit, Rana, me, Johanna, Taylor, Drea, Sindella, and John were all ready for the lessons, and Zee seemed to be bursting with enthusiasm to instruct us, telling us all to line up in an open space so she could begin her lecture. "Alright." She said happily, summoning Star Seeker. "Today I'm going to be showing you all the Cure spell. It's basic magic according to Star Seeker, so anyone with talent can learn it, but we're going to cheat a bit. I'm going to have Morgan watch me use it and then try to help me break down the process as it would look to layman."

I flipped her off. "I am not lame. You're just a nerd." She rolled her eyes, smirking slightly at the comment. "But sure, that works for me. I was planning to watch it in aura sight anyway, it'll cut down on learning time. Go ahead and give it a shot for me."

Nodding approvingly Zee gave a flick if her keyblade and announced in a clear and resonant voice. "Cure." I watched closely as the magic was unleashed, and made sure to study the process for how it worked. As she cast it, I watched Zee's aura shift. The basic format seemed pretty simple actually, she created a mental image of healing and flooded it with power, basically shaping the magic into that conceptual model. Where Thunder was just 'make a thunder bolt' Cure was more abstract, and because of that, the mental image actually manifested above her head, a visual representation of healing that took the form of a flower over her head sprinkling green light.

Zee had been right, that actually was an incredibly basic bit of magic. In fact, it was such a universal format that I would be able to use other types of energy with it too. I didn't think 'Demonic Cure' was going to be very useful, but 'Demonic Thunder' sure as hell might be. I made a mental note to try a few of these new spells with my Ectoplasm and Demonic energy as soon as I could. It would be an interesting addition to my combat capabilities. Regardless of how that worked out though, I'd seen enough of cure to give instructions.

Finishing the spell, Zee turned back to the rest of us. "Ok, the basic way the spell works is that it floods you with life energy. The more powerful it is, the more energy you produce. Overclocking the spell can heal more, but you have to progress in mastery to increase your range. There are three spell ranks I have access to, apprentice, journeyman, and master. At least that's what Star Seeker calls them. Cure is the apprentice rank. The journeyman ranked healing spell is Cura, and it heals in a ten foot radius, but I haven't managed it yet. Cure works on a single target, either you or someone else. It also takes exponentially more energy to overclock it, and that scales. You're better off casting it multiple times if you don't have absurd power reserves or a keyblade to offset the cost."

All of that fit with what I'd seen watching her work, obviously finished talking, she turned to me, and I picked up the thread of the conversation. "Guess I'm up." I said casually. "Basically the magic Zee is teaching us acts like a transformer. That's transformer as in electrical engineering not as in Autobots. You create a conceptual image of the energy and shove power into it, and it converts it into that type of energy. The image you're looking for is the one you saw above her head, that golden flower."

I flicked my keyblade and said. "Cure." The same flower appeared over my head. I'd been halfway concerned I'd burn myself or something, but apparently half ghosts didn't register in the negatives on the scale of life force. Or at least I didn't. I felt myself energized and refreshed, like a good cup of coffee. I pointed above my head. "That image is the key to what makes this spell so easy to learn. It's been heavily refined and perfected to be a perfect representation of healing. Envisioning it does half the work for you, so make sure to pay close attention to it."

It was genius really. I watched them all repeatedly try it over the next thirty minutes or so as I marveled at the brilliance. It reminded me a bit of Plato's theory of forms. Plato had hypothesized that somewhere out there, archetypes existed for everything. When you looked at a chair, even if it was different than another chair, you knew what it was for the most part at a glance. That was because somewhere out there a chair existed that was the epitome of chair, and all other chairs were based on that archetypal chair.

This spell image wasn't the archetype of healing, but it was someone's attempt to create something similar. The image just WAS a healing spell. Every line, every curve, every color, it was all perfectly designed to maximize the concept of healing, to give your mind a perfect picture to conjure forth the transformation necessary to make your power heal. It was actually incredibly scary to watch people split off and begin practicing on each other and see how fast some of them started to get it.

Whoever had created this spell was an absolute monster. Sure, it was stupidly basic magic, but that was because this was the embodiment of 'you don't really understand something until you can teach it to a five year old'. The grasp on imagery and magical manipulation necessary to make a healing spell this easy to learn were worlds beyond what I could manage. I doubted any of the magic users on earth could pull it off. Madame Xanadu, Jim, even Doctor Fate. They were good, but this was next level.

It was why I had been able to cast the spell in a single try. Thunder had taken me a few attempts, though I suspected if I'd used aura sight I might have managed faster, but this was a single shot. The image was visible, and since I couldn't forget it, the spell basically cast itself. Still, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. This was bound to make teaching them the magic easier. Hell, Drea had already managed to cast it once or twice, the keyblade and her own illusionist training making the image child's play for her.

Zee walked up to stand next to me, whistling softly as she watched them all try to cast the spell. She'd seen Drea pull it off, but my goddess was trying to get the spell down to a reflex now. Conjuring an image when you were peacefully practicing was one thing, doing it on the fly during battle required a lot more familiarity. "You thinking about how fucking scary whoever made this spell was?" She asked casually. I nodded, and she laughed. "Yeah, I had that thought when I first learned it. Still, can't say it's not convenient."

I chuckled and put an arm around her shoulder. "No." I said with a smile. "No I guess I can't. I'm going to want to learn more of these. Understanding how they work has given me some insight into more interesting attack options. I already know Thunder, I can work with that for now, but how about some training when we have the time." Zee giggled happily and kissed me soundly, nodding as she pulled back, and I held her against me, sighing in contentment. Shit was going to go wild soon enough, but this whole group training thing was pretty fun. We should do it more often.

Having a blast writing the journey through the dark world. Bit of smut at the end of next chapter for any interested, I know it's been a while but I figured Morgan deserved some downtime and there was a viable place for it. As usual pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent for anyone interested. Hope you all enjoy.