I own nothing but this idea...
Chapter 2: Asunder
"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
-T.S. Eliot
Superboy had blacked out once he was in the air. He only came to when he felt Uriel land and place him on his back before disappearing. Superboy had questions but no answers. He had reasons and logic and information but no certainty. He had no comfort or security. He was witness to a power that emerged from inside of him. But it was also a power that was unknown, to Cadmus, to the League, to the world. He didn't know why or how. He tried to think, to understand, to look for ulterior motives or hidden agendas. It made his head pound furiously. All that he did know was that it saved his life. That was more than anything anyone else had ever done for him even against Amazo, Superboy never felt the shadow of death or the possibility of death touch him.
So, the power of persona has to be good, he thinks to himself. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't.
His headache subsided but the clone shivered. He kept his head lifted off the ground because no one knew he had left and it could be hours or days before he is found. Superboy knows he can't stay outside, not with his injuries. Still, another part of him was just…tired. He didn't want to move but he needed to.
He tried to take a deep breath but choked. It hurt. Everything hurt. Superboy blinked rapidly, trying to push past the hazy sleep that settled over him. He couldn't really. He was managing to stay awake but that won't last.
Superboy forced himself to press his weight onto his good side and roll over. He opened his mouth, silently screaming. He had no air to give, no sound to give voice to. His sides were shaking uncontrollably, cold and agony pelting his already fractured mind and his crippled body. He wouldn't last long outside. His breathing was uneven and something was dripping over his eyes.
There was something wrong. Superboy gritted his teeth, braced his mind as best he could, and heaved himself off the ground. He paid no attention to the steadily growing mess of blood and filth at his feet, on his face. He didn't see it, didn't hear it. His heartbeat was erratic. It assaulted his hearing, filling his head with a thousand broken winged birds. The flesh and feathers fell away leaving blood and gore and tears. The flocks hurtled themselves at each other in a parody of a waltz. They crashed and collided, dropping limbs wherever they landed.
Superboy was standing and he wishes he wasn't. His body could not take any more abuse. But he needed to get inside where it was warm and safe and normal. A tremble invades his muscles sending a cascading wave of torture throughout his body. The clone shuts his eyes and feels his breath hitch. After a moment, he opens his eyes, manages to limp forward, then another and another. He feels numb and cold again. Even after the dark haired teen passes the entrance, the air ducts within the base venting heat, there is nothing but the pressing and biting chill.
As soon as he crosses the threshold, he can hear them. He can hear everyone. Batman, Black Canary and the other mentors are here, there, in the Cave. They are talking about rescue teams and villains and Cadmus. His teammates are asking to help, demanding to be included. From the distance they must be in the Mission Room.
He should go to sleep. Superboy desperately wants to sleep. He wants to shut his eyes and float away into the dark. He goes forward, to his friends, to the noise.
It is strange that they do not hear him, hear his footsteps, his heavy shuffling. They're talking about possible scenarios, about who might have's and who coulda's. The words wane and escalate at random to his ears. They no longer make any sense to him. The heartbeats all mesh together. He can't tell them apart.
The path to the others is clear but his vision is failing. There is dark and light and darkness again. He wants to shut his eyes and rest for eternity. His tongue is half lolled out, phlegm and blood pouring from his lips. He's panting like a dog, gasping for breath that won't come, for the air that he can't catch. The clone blinks slowly, trying not to stagger or trip over his own feet.
The clone is moving by memory now. He doesn't hear the extra heartbeat or voice of someone who normally would not be here. He is so beyond fathoming who is who or why. Superboy doesn't recognize the fluttering of another hero's cape. Superboy doesn't realize that Superman is in the Cave. He can't hear the irregular rhythm of the Krypton's heart. He cannot comprehend that the Man of Steel is worried.
He makes it to the Mission Room. He sees Superman but he also sees through him. His consciousness is receding like the tide, slow and then ceaseless. He stops at the entryway and sways on his feet.
Superboy doesn't feel cold anymore.
He chokes and a fresh surge of life passes from his lips. Drips down his chin. And splashes onto the pristine floor.
It resonates off the high ceiling and towering walls. It silences the heroes. The resulting panic and horror spreads like a pandemic. Miss Martin screams. She drops to the ground. Kaldur and Robin and Kid Flash are like statues, immoveable in their fear and denial. The reaction of the others is similar. It freezes them where they stand. The disbelief paralyzes them. The visage that Superboy presents them is one of defeat and impending demise that awaits all life.
The precious red life fluid pools at his feet. It covers his face in a twisted mockery of a mask. His expression is blank. His eyes empty. Like a doll without any strings, without purpose. The shards of ice impaled within masses of flesh, and the tint of blue over tender skin, seems like a mirage.
A minute is compressed into forever. But forever never last…
Superboy's limit lies outside, splintered in the dirt. This is as far as he can go. He can move no more. He lets his form go and falls. Superboy's mind is gone, thrown into the deepest parts of his ruptured soul, beyond pain or intellect. He lets himself become lost. It was a state he was familiar with.
His body on the other hand, even in defeat, was subjected to torment. It started to fall. This snapped the other occupants out of their shock and Superman is there to catch the teen before he ever reaches the ground.
"Superboy!" the man cries out.
He carefully places the boy on his back. His hands searching for a pulse and his sight peers through clothing and flesh and bone, to look upon the muscle that gives the clone life. Batman is there, calling out injuries, and commanding Superman to tell him more.
"Punctured lung…" the blue eyed hero whispers and Batman almost misses it.
"We need to get him to the Infirmary before he bleeds out… now Clark."
The Dark Knight's words broker no argument and get the blue clad man to move. The use of his actual name doesn't even register to him. All that matters is the limp body lying in his arms. The body of a boy who wouldn't be in this state if he had just taken him in and just that thought alone is enough for Clark Kent, Superman, Kon-El, to be rift with guilt and regret and shame. Shame because Clark Kent was raised better than that, than this. The shuttered breathing of the Boy of Steel glares at him.
He doesn't protest when the clone is taken from him. If only he hadn't been so stubborn. If only he hadn't been so foolish. If only he had taken the time to get to know him. If Superman had given him a chance, one silly, little, chance. If Clark Kent had just offered him something. Now he might be too late. And that stung more than any hit or attack ever did. Superman followed the others to the Infirmary and hoped and prayed and wished.
But no one answers.
Batman focuses solely on the teen, pale and listless. The clone doesn't twitch. When they remove the ice and fix the fracture, he doesn't even register that they're there. His eyes are open but there is no one home. He can tell. The vacant stare is one that Batman has seen before in the homeless and the torn and hopeless. Batman almost cries when the clone stops breathing. Almost. A tube is forced down his throat to breath for him.
There is so much blood and then, again, not enough. He's lost too much. Batman wants to hurl something across the room, wants to break bones and take life and all he can see is Superboy's matted hair and gorged ribcage.
All he can see is a nameless grave for a nameless boy because Superboy isn't a name. Not really.
So he pushes all other thoughts, all other irrelevant ideas or plans away because he's reaching for Superboy's life and he's determined to bring him back. He refuses to think about how much this changes things. He refuses to consider that this…attack could harm the league but it does. Batman isn't sure how but with Superboy like this, vulnerable, worn, dying, the dynamic of the world is different.
And he's right. With Uriel's awakening, powers of old take notice. They feel a shifting in the fates, in the threads that bind all things together. Mages and demons and gods all look to the deceptively innocent planet and tremble. Something was happening. Something they could not see or foretell. All along the universe, seers and prophets fall their knees, weeping, hysterical. The same words falling from their cracking, drying mouths.
"Memento Mori! Memento Mori! Memento Mori!"
Some of them die. Some live. But the results are the same. None are spared from the onslaught that is Knowing. One path that was open, certain, and unquestionable, dies and another that was possible crumbles into dust. Suddenly, there are whole new bridges forming, connecting and changing. Lives are altered. Beginnings are born were there were once only dead ends. Death resides were new life was sanctioned. Nothing is the same. Nothing is as it once was.
Those who watch over the Amazons wonder and fear because suddenly, they are being watched. The world of the Atlanteans shivers and becomes uninviting. They can feel that the world has awakened to something, for good or ill, they cannot tell. But they no longer feel safe in the ocean because the ocean itself feels threatening. Those who reside beyond the stars, into places unknown to mankind, feel the looming storm.
On the home world of the Green Lanturns, Oa, the power of the green ring flickers and dies. For the first time since its creation, the power of Will ceases to exist. Oa is dark and black. Fortunately, it does not remain that way. The light returns, only it is not the same. The power of the green ring is changed and all the lanterns across space can tell the difference. Their power burns brighter, hotter, and coursing through them is a Will of power beyond anything they've ever felt. It passes onto them, a fragment of the Knowing, barely comprehensible. It whispers in their minds.
"It's coming!It's coming!It's coming!"
It pulses along nerves and firing neurons before settling with their hearts. The Lanterns cling to this Will, to this light, and feed it. Unquestioning. Something had changed them but they were stronger for it. Something was born, god or demon, it did not matter.
Madam Xanadu sits stiffly in her favorite chair. The room is dark and she's shuffling cards. She lays them out then picks them up to shuffle again. She lays them out. She picks them up. Over and over again. She doesn't notice when she starts crying. The sorceress doesn't so much as twitch when the cards cut through the palms of her hands. She just keeps shuffling and lying the cards down. When she is surrounded on all sides by shadows and men, she doesn't acknowledge them either. When they shout and curse and demand answers, she gives them nothing. She just lets her hands move and the blood run with the cards.
"Memento...Mori…" she whispers before lifting a single card, with a skull in the center of a pair of doors, and slits her own throat.
Review! Please and Thank You!
So sorry its so short but I didn't know how else to go forward.