Just an update on this chapter. It was going to be up like a week and a half earlier, but my family and I had planned a road trip up to Canada. I have trouble writing in the car so it was quite some time until I could finish up this chapter and post. In regards to uploading as well, it will most likely be one or two chapters every two month period, depending on how school pans out. Thanks for understanding.

'…Wake up 'little man'…. C'mon…rise n' shine…'

Her whispering voice was deep, silky, and sultry. Yet, the seductive tones instilled him with more fear than desire. At first, this siren song had been enjoyable enough, but it was quickly realized that this rose's thorns were large enough to harpoon whales.

The trick was keeping these harpoons from spearing all those around him.

'…Lance…Lancey bab-yyyyy~…WAKE UP!'

"Uhwah!...Rrrrrkkh…my side is…killing me…" he slurred to himself, feeling a lot of pressure in his lumbar. Hefting his neck up, he looked down. The area was forested, yet there was a huge gap in the trees caused by the trench he was at the end of. It was a bit difficult to tell due to the pit he was in, but he thought he could hear waves.

Pressing himself off of the black soil he climbed out of the ditch. Sucking air in through his nose he reached his arms toward the grey sky, feeling his spine pop just once before his wound sent a shock of pain through him. For ages he'd been a fast healer, the hole fairly sealed. It was still a damp, scabby chasm in his gut, though. In spite of having slept a day or so, judging by the sky, his joints were sore and his eye tired. He was still sharp enough to smell the charcoal in the air, though.

"Hm…is someone grilling? …Augh, dammit. Dejhir. Ugh, this is awful. Wonder what I did while I was under…" he grimaced, his fingers running over the gemstone in his shoulder. Scanning his surroundings, he wondered 'Now…where in the Holy Lands could I be? I don't recognize this forest…'

Wondering through what he remembered, his mind returned to the moment he shared with the princess in the Divine Arms hall. "Oi! Where'd that hammer go?" he blurted, searching around the best he could from the small clearing he awoke in.

Rubbing his neck, he pondered a bit. Most likely, the reason he woke up at the end of a ditch in a burnt clearing was because he had been thrown in his fiery state. "I probably caused this trench. So, following it back is my first lead. …Whew…I hope they held out…"

He sat on his bed, legs crossed and an arm behind his head, running his tongue over his beastly teeth. A rubber ball bounced from the wall to his hand, then was thrown, and all repeated. Pausing to scratch at his stomach under the tight latex uniform, he found a word pop into his head. '...Bored...so bored...' It was quite in Jump City today, so no crime fighting for him. Instead, he was waiting for his metal buddy to fix up his ride before they all went to investigate something Robin was interested in. And that Robin was Robin, the Boy Wonder. And, he was Beastboy, the...guy.

What kinda ground his gears is a call to action with no clear direction. The alarm hadn't gone off, (at least it hadn't gone off yet today) but Rob's radar picked up something come down to Earth and he wanted us to check it out. Could be fun, but if there's one thing an animal don't like, it's the unexpected. Stretching, he got up and strode out at Cyborg's call. "Yo, B! Car's ready!" Checking his green skin for zits in the mirror one last time, he lazed out and waltzed to the garage. The sorceress Raven was already in the car, Robin, too, and Cyborg at the wheel. Cheerily, the Tamaranean, Starfire, waited for him to take the middle seat. Oh, goody.

"So-ooo," he began, getting Cy's attention as he drove the car out, "where exactly are we headed?" It really would take a load off to know. "Eh, just some coordinates set in the forests to Jump's southeast. Nothin' too special." 'Well, that was enlightening…' he mentally droned. Hopefully, this wouldn't be boring.

'Man, forests are boring.' All he saw was a lot of trees, the occasional rock or river, and that's really it. Some uneven terrain made it more interesting to hike through, though. Just as he was starting to slip into walking autopilot, his brain sent him an idea. "Hey, Rob, how 'bout a race? 1, 2, 3, Go!"

He took off like a bullet, racing over rocks and roots. Distantly, he heard Rob shout "As boring as the hike is, no thanks." "Aw, c'mon, dude!" Beastboy yelled back, staring back to give him a look. And suddenly he was falling.

"D'woh!" Going from a hard jog to gravity planting you in a ditch face-first really knocks the wind outta you. Spitting out some dirt, he heard everyone else stroll up to the edge of the ditch. "Way to look before you leap" Raven breathed in a monotone voice, cloak settling.

He was about to lay down a sick comeback, but Cyborg said something real interesting. "Well it ain't all bad. My new geological sonar is tellin' me this trench is gonna lead us right to our coordinates. This was probably caused by what fell from space." As they stared left and right, they saw it extend unnaturally straight in either direction.

'Hey, talk about lucky! This'll lead us right to it!' "Yeah! I totally found this shortcut. I'll take lead!" The smacking of palm on face was something he'd gotten used to.

"Aw'right, so you really got no idea what we're up against?" Beastboy asked his leader, only getting "All I know is that it had not only a huge heat signature, but was too small and consistently sized on the radar to have been a meteor." He really didn't know why that made it not a meteor, but he figured Robin knew more about space anyway.

The way along the ditch had been relatively clear, a few burned up tree stumps or bushes hanging into the valley, but then they came up to a huge oak tree that had had its roots torn away by whatever crashed. It had fallen across the ditch to block the way, branches draping down to obscure the path past it.

Hearing Cyborg's arm shift into a plasma saw, they all hung back. With a little effort, a section of the tree as wide as the path was cut out, him lifting it with ease out of the ditch. Now, they just figured they'd find more path behind its branches, but another person was strolling down the path toward them.

He had a head of golden hair that hung a bit over his cream colored face; or the right half was cream, because the left eye area was covered in metal. His free eye was icy, but the one in steel was completely red glass. Aside from the slight bag under his eye and the dirt smudges he had a noble face with high cheek bones and a pointed chin. A scratched up and dirt smudged crimson jacket hung on his shoulders, the sleeves gone entirely. His arms were clad in steel, one in his pocket and the other hanging at his side. Baggy brown trousers rumpled as he strode toward them, his steel boots with pointed toes making small dirt clouds.

'No way...he looks like he's straight out of Mortal Kombat! Awesome...and not boring, too...' Beastboy gawked, almost waiting for him to pull a Fatality on him. However, he just yelled a question from his place down the way.

"Hey there, do you mind telling me where I am? I'm sort of…lost, I guess…" he called out in a deep, respectful mid-west accent. The teen group shared some looks. A random guy in the forest was not what they'd expected to see. Robin spoke in a cautious way. "I'm assuming my answer isn't where you're going to have come from, right? Well, this is California…on planet Earth."

He blew a breath out slowly, looking around a bit. "No, this is not where I hail from. I'm assuming you aren't familiar with the Holy Lands, no?" He was pretty much right, and their expressions showed it. "No."

Starfire glided toward him with a bubbly demeanor. "So, new friend," she started, "where do you hail from?" her cheery face moving close to his in curiosity. "Technically they aren't my homeland, but I come from the Divine Isles. Crazy to think I traveled that far…"

With his steel fingers scratching at the blond hairs on his jaw, he put on a wondering expression. His next question was even stranger. "Any of you see a big hammer on your way here?" Cyborg responded this time around with "How big we talkin'?" The guy thought a bit before answering "Well, the face is a foot wide if that says anything."

'Wow, that's a crazy big hammer. And no, we ain't seen that' the android wondered. Without waiting for an answer, the stranger turned down another path to his right, a much thinner and less consistent one.

"Hey, if you came from that path down there, could you tell us what's there? We're looking for something and it would save time" Raven asked, the man stopping but not turning, fingers rubbing together on each hand. Finally he spoke, almost hesitantly, "Nothing but trees...and me" he mumbled as his hands dipped into his pockets.

Again, the group shared a look. Above everything, Beastboy was not letting this awesomely-dressed stranger get away. "Hold up, dude!" he squealed after him, running to his side as he walked. "So…who are you and what are these "Divine Isles?" he questioned, playing it cool with his hands behind his head. It was safe to say it wasn't working.

There was this thinking expression on the man's face. It made the changeling's stomach turn in anticipation. "It's – and I have a feeling you'll like this answer – sort of like "Super Heaven." All the gods and goddesses that have ever existed living in one land." He was absolutely right. Beastboy was super into it.

"I can die happy knowing that a place as awesome as somewhere that can be called "Super Heaven" exists." The rest of the team had started following him, also interested in this information. "Now for question 2. I'm a…guard, I suppose, in this "Super Heaven." The throne and its denizen are my responsibility. And the reason I'm here, to preemptively answer another question, is...because I failed."

This guy was getting cooler and cooler to the green teen. "Dude, how badass does it sound to have been kicked out of "Super Heaven?" Sure, his team gave him a look of "Really…?", but this stranger was chuckling away. However, it was then followed by a face of sorrow. "I wasn't kicked out, at least not by the law." he started, his metal claws stroking his jaw hairs, "The Holy Lands were overrun by a demonic army, and we guards along with our own army couldn't defend against it. I was thrown out because they won."

Everything up until "Heaven now belongs to Satan" sounded pretty cool. With that info in place, Robin interjected. "Normally I'd have a breathalyzer out by now, but you seem to dress the part so I buy it."

Their feet crunched the dirt for a few more seconds. "Speaking of dressing the part," this "Holy Guard" began, looking us up and down, "why are you all dressed as you are? Superheroes, perhaps?" "Wow, hit the nail on the head" Cyborg muttered, impressed.

"Yeah, I could tell from all the spandex" he said as they came to the end of the path. A soil mound led up to the grassy ground above the path, the bottom of a shiny red pole poking out of the dirt. "Ah, here's my hammer."

Instead of waiting to get the several feet of dirt off of it, he easily tore it straight out in the blink of an eye. There was an explosion of dirt nearly twenty feet up, him holding the hammer above his head like it was light as paper. The maul hammer proved interesting to the team behind him, namely Raven. She was versed in many religions and the occult, and she felt an unbelievably powerful aura of light blazing from the weapon. "That hammer..." she whispered to herself, "...that was made by gods..."

The four foot shaft gleamed in the sun, at its bottom a thicker dimpled grip a foot long, at the top a huge iron ring holding tons of steel mesh cable layered several inches out. Resting against the ring was the head, an epic dual weapon. One end was a cylindrical white hammerhead maybe half a foot thick and a foot across on its face. On it was a design of a silver cross with feathery wings. The other end, attached to a rectangular divider between it and the hammer, was a wicked red scythe blade. The thick blade curved back for more than two feet to end at a sharp tip. A jet black strip of metal covered the top and reached down to stop halfway to the blade's tip.

He twirled the huge hammer like it was only a pencil, letting it drop to his side. However, only Beastboy heard him grunt, almost silently, with his animalistic hearing. The guard's hand was pressuring his side.

"So...I'll be off." Beastboy could feel his ears droop. 'Guess this awesome heaven dude was too cool to be true.' With those words he hopped straight up into the trees around the path, which had their branches a good thirty feet up. Something hitched in the beastly teen's throat, and he yelled "H-hold up!"

Turning from his place on a thick branch a far distance away, he gave a look that seemed to ask "Uh-huh…?" Great, now he had to come up with a reason why he shouted. Way to go, Beastboy.

"You said that this place where all the gods and goddesses ever lived was overrun by demons or something, right? It sounds like a big problem to fix, and a really important one, too. Sure, you seem tough, but to take on an army big enough to take Heaven itself by yourself sounds pretty nasty. Especially considering you're injured."

He stole a glance at his stomach, seeing that the blood had started to dye the belt loops below it crimson.

"I don't think we're doing anything as important as that, so…maybe we could help ya?"

He regretted nothing and everything for asking that. Sure, he looked like he was considering it, but his pal's eyes were drilling into the back of my skull. The atmosphere was pretty heavy. "...No."

'Yeah! He's...wait, what? Whaddya mean 'No'?! You're one injured dude against Hell itself!' he raged , but then got to thinking... There's gotta be a reason he doesn't want help. "If you're worried, don't be. We can handle ourselves, dude."

"If I were you, I wouldn't be so eager to get involved with me...and the heavens." He was staring up into the sky as he said this, his voice a dull drone. Almost afraid he hadn't said enough, he coughed out "DPF Policy...stuff."

In an instant, Starfire had made her way up to him, floating there with this concerned expression. "...If you do not desire our help, at least return to our home with us. Your injuries must heal before such an undertaking." They were surprised she didn't start asking him his favorite color. Mulling over it, he seemed to be formulating a response.

"If...I wouldn't be a burden, and you're willing...sure."

Leaping down from his treetop perch the guard landed before the now reformed group, listening to them debate in heated whispers from a distance. "Listen, guys," quietly hissed Cyborg, "I know he's talkin' this thing up, but how are we even sure this place exists? Plus, we don't even know his name!"

"Lance."

Glancing at him, the crew of heroes raised a collective brow. "My name is Lance. Lancelot Jarvis Sevris. And I can show you the Divine Capital if I can manage a gateway back."

It was fair to say Raven was the most skeptical of the lot, putting herself a foot from him and giving him a cold gaze. "If this place doesn't exist," she whispered in a bit of her signature rasp, "you have some explaining to do. Especially about that hammer."

"I won't be "explaining" anytime soon, then" he retorted, bowing his face closer to hers. Raven could feel the fury boil to her face, her cheeks reddened and her eyes slits.

Suddenly the hammer-man lightened up. "Hey, don't be hard on yourself. If I hadn't met Death, you'd be scary." He turned to the team, a question rising in his throat. "So, is it okay with the rest of you if I stay for a bit? At least for tonight."

Well, this was a predicament. Robin found himself immediately flanked by a dewy-eyed Starfire and Beastboy, their hands clasped together in a pleading way. The chirping of birds even seemed to weigh on his conscience. "Okay, but only on the condition that you prove your intentions by tomorrow."

He and Lance, approaching one another, reached their hands out and gave a firm handshake. "Alright, Titans," Robin called out, pacing back in the previous direction, "back to base."

Gently the engine purred as the crew made its drive back to base. The green cat on Starfire's lap purred in sync with the motor as all the rest made small talk. "So, Lance, they got cars like this in the…Divine Isles?" Cyborg questioned, shooting the heavenly brawler a glance in the rear-view mirror. He was given a lethargic nod. Lance's eyelids drooped the longer he sat in the car. The sunlight was incubating his tired body as it flooded in from the window, dragging him towards sleep.

Our of the blue he felt something firmly nudge his leg, jarring him a little bit more awake. Gazing down, he found a grey skinned knee, his eyes tracing the curves up to a black gymnastics leotard, then to a pair of violet eyes shadowed by a blue hood. "Better not fall asleep. We aren't carrying you into the house."

Not feeling any words in his throat he nodded, resting his neck on the leather headrest. However, he then heard a much softer tone. "This fight for Heaven must have been difficult. I'm getting tired just looking at you" she hummed.

It made his wounds sting to remember the heated affair. Breathing deeply, he droned "I don't know how long it was…that we fought. We began before noon and the sun was setting the last I can recall. My hands practically bled from swinging that hammer nonstop for that long, crushing and slashing horrors one can only imagine. Some bit at your ankles while some tried to step on you. All the while, and here's something new about me," he digressed, sitting straighter.

"I'm diverting huge amounts of focus and power to suppress some demon inside me." He allowed that to sink in before continuing, "And then it ends with a stab to the gut by a demon chick who, if I remember right, was making spears out of magic. She caused the injury your green pal mentioned."

He breathed deeply once more, the atmosphere silent. "And then what most likely happened is my demon overwhelmed me and somehow I was knocked down into the Mortal Realms, of which yours is one. Just fate that I landed here, I suppose."

Silence. Some thumbs were twiddled. Some throats cleared. "What…are the Mortal Realms? Gimme an example, man." Well, this one was a stretch…"Uuuuuh, Spongebob."

Giggles and snorts abounded. "Like, that old kid's show?" Robin inquired from the front, a grin plastered on his face. Lance contemplated a bit, responding "Not…necessarily, I'd say? You see, all Mortal Realms can sort of bleed into others, and certain likenesses or even events can be viewed from different universes. However, it's all circumstantial with how it appears. In Spongebob's case, the likeness that bled into your dimension was strong, leading to a large view into his universe, and he just happened to show up as a cartoon as opposed to other 'strong likeness media', like a series of novels. For reference, weak likeness media are things like still pictures. I'm sure you guys are some cartoon somewhere else, too."

More silence. Man, this guy had a lot of weird tales to tell. However, only time would tell if his words held true. "Once I see this "Divine Capital", I'll believe you" quietly rasped Raven, rolling her eyes at him. "If I can make a gate," he began, "you'll see all you need to see."

"What a view…" Lance slurred in fatigue, drinking in the moonlit seascape he had outside his room's window. He gazed around more. "Nice furniture, smells clean, they live on a freaking island…they must be funded to protect the nearby city."

That thought had been sneaking through his head as he had been led to a room with cream colored sheets and carpets and shining mahogany dressers. He set his hammer in the closet in the corner to the window's left, the hinge clicking closed as he flopped onto the bed. Sore from the battles of yesterday he shed his jacket, stretching his limbs as he lay with eyes closed.

*Bang-Bang*

"Come in." The metal door hissed apart. He heard someone step in, a cape faintly whispering. "So, uh…welcome to the tower…Lance" he heard Raven quietly call. He opened his eyes, but didn't avert them from the ceiling. "Thank you. I promise, I'll be gone the second I can make a portal back" he mumbled, putting his arms behind his head. It was quiet for a few moments, and he could almost feel her eyes on him. On his body, scanning. Mischief filling his head, he cooed "Checking me out, are you?" The feeling of eyes on his skin immediately faded. "That's…" she trailed off for a moment, "a pretty bad looking wound, is all. You sure you don't want something for it?"

Gaze shifting to the injury in question, he sat up; he had never actually checked to see how bad it may be. Sure, he was blanketed with scratches and burns, but many had faded a fair deal. However, a wide and deep, almost funnel shaped, gash had been made just above his right hip, and the edges had since scabbed over. Within the wound it was still a damp crimson, but the flow had been staunched with time. 'I suppose I'm lucky it was far enough to the right that it missed anything important…but damn it's deep…'

"I'll be fine. I have bandages in my jacket." A breath escaping him, he turned his eyes to hers but found her avert her own. "Well…good night" she muttered, her blue cloak the only part of her he could see as she crept out.

Alone again, bathed in silence. His eyes grew heavy, the memories of the day before soon becoming visions behind his eyelids.

'They'll pay.'