CXX
Ysmault
Bruce Wayne didn't recognize where he was, or the place his wife had brought him, but he was certain he wasn't in Kansas anymore…
Hell, he wasn't even on Earth.
Like an Oz long since abandoned, the landscape was tinted in a bizarre, green glow, similar to a green Mars. Bruce was completely alone. The air was slightly acrid, heavy and decidedly stale, making his breathing uncomfortable and his eyes water. He was struggling to see farther than a few hundred yards. The gravity felt similar to that of Earth, only slightly stronger, making his breathing even more laborious as he walked to explore this strange new world. There seemed to be traces of alien flora in the distance – but it could have been diffused emerald reflections of this strange radiance shimmering on jagged rocks.
Even the sky above him radiated with weird, emerald light, as if the planet were encased in a bright green dome… Stale as this alien air was, the surrounding atmosphere still crackled with the energy of an unknown emotional charge - making him feel confused and giddy - as if his subconscious had been unceremoniously dumped into his conscious mind, similar to the effects of a mind-altering chemical…
That thought worried him.
Either this air was toxic to his brain, or there was an unseen, omnipotent psychic power nearby... However, with the events of the past week, perhaps he was simply becoming delusional. Stress and fatigue would do that, or so he had been told…
That fact that Raven was nowhere to be seen worried him the most…
After being threatened with detainment (or worse) by the Green Lantern Corps, his wife had obviously chosen the better part of valour and departed with Bruce in tow. But why would his gentle lady have chosen such an inhospitable place? And where was she?! Bruce had long comprehended that Raven lacked the necessary power to teleport another person without her continuous presence at their side, and yet here he was… alone and abandoned.
…Damn.
The sudden realization illuminated the farthest fringes of his conscious mind like an atomic explosion… with comparable ramifications of destructive possibility. He sucked in a deep breath of this stagnant air, exhaling slowly. He wanted to put off this realization as long as was possible, to try and remain rational. It had not been Raven who had teleported him. Which meant it had been someone else. Which meant…
"Welcome to Ysmault, defiler- of-daughters!"
Trigon…
Bruce turned to see the grinning, crimson God standing only eight feet tall once again - as he had been when last they had talked alone. The demon's left eye on top was still a scorched hole from where the Tachyon Cannon had struck him, a reminder of Bruce's desperate, fate-altering effort to save Clark's life. That left the demon with three glowing eyes, all boring into Bruce's soul. Besides the wound Bruce had inflicted, the God of Revenge seemed perfectly unscathed from Barbara's Power Ring assault of only moments before.
If only it could have been that easy...
"Where is Raven, Trigon?"
"Perhaps I did not make myself clear when I said that you alone were to be the eternal plaything of the demons of Ysmault… Nothing was mentioned of my only daughter having to share your maddening fate. Be thankful for that, mortal. You may take small comfort in the fact that it shall be you and you alone which will now suffer cruelty beyond the comprehension of men, that no others need to bear such agony as the man who has dared do this to me!
As for my daughter, I have much larger plans for little Raven once your smear has been removed from this tragic drama. She had already been promised to a much worthier suitor before you interfered and he awaits impatiently…
But enough of this! Where are my manners? Let me bid you welcome to your new home, thief-of-daughters. Before I take my leave though, it is time I brought you to your immortal hosts… they so rarely entertain guests. I bid you good bye, Bruce Wayne. We will never meet again..."
The demon laughed heartily as Bruce disappeared once again in a puff of crimson smoke... across to the other side of the planet to meet his dispensed Fate - alone once more, but with Trigon's vicious, mocking laughter still ringing in his ears.
The sight now revealed before him was beyond words… Beyond even mortal comprehension.
Testaments to insanity lay captured upon giant diagonal crucifixes.
Six figures - each at least two hundred feet tall - were stretched on enormous X-shaped crosses. He was a sane man standing before six captured dreamscapes, each as tall as a building but lacking its structure.
He realized why Trigon had called them Inversions… The first five crucified bodies were in a state of continual flux, undefined matter pinned to reality yet vainly struggling to return to their incorporeal states. Bruce recognized the familiar symbol that adorned the heads of the monstrous nails struck through the out-of-phase hands and feet of these Inversions, affixing these dream-like unrealities to gigantic X-shaped crosses…
The Green Lantern Insignia...
Whatever had been done here had been the work of the Green Lantern Corps. And it had been no small accomplishment…
Taking a few steps forward and gazing upon the first figure, Bruce beheld a cosmic dance of darkness and soft light, swaying and swirling from side-to-side, to-and-fro in strange, almost rhythmic configurations... even upon the cross.
He felt himself being drawn to this powerful ebb and flow, only managing to catch himself just before he stumbled to the ground, hypnotized by this regulated accord of gravity. The shifts and pulls should have been predictable, but they were not – each wrapped in the mysteries of comprehension, unfathomable patterns.
There was a power here, strong beyond measure (even if subdued by the devices of the Green Lanterns) but the entity did not seem to Bruce demonic. Trigon has displayed a healthy respect, even a fear of these beings... naming them demons most terrible. But to Bruce, this power did not feel malign. If he had to use a word, he would describe this inverted phantasm of light-and-darkness as something primal, perhaps astronomic, but certainly not evil.
Walking to the second figure, Bruce beheld three forms all trying to metaphysically occupy the same space. Each body quickly faded from one-to-the-other with the pinned hands and feet remaining the only fixed constant. A giantess wanting to be three things at once.
While the man from Gotham marvelled at this rapid alteration of images, he no longer felt the gravitational pull the first Inversion had exerted upon his physical body, causing him to become unsteady… instead, peering at the second Inversion, he felt it upon his soul.
The energy Bruce had sensed in the atmosphere upon his arrival to this strange, green world was now magnified a thousand fold. If he had felt power from the first Inversion, the second Inversion was like being struck by lightning - electrifying senses within him previously unseen and unknown. The world around him began to warp with new perception, to melt as the stars lowered from the sky…
The atmosphere was not laced with a mind-altering chemical. It was laced with the powerful aura of the second Inversion. With new determination, Bruce turned and walked to the third Inversion, relying on his old senses.
One trillion threads of one billion shades looped and writhed in living cataclysm of coiled weave. The mire of thread composed a body, of sorts… but millions of strands shot upwards to the sky while a million more fell to the ground around him, forever tied to the body of thread - fixed upon the cross. That prison could not be breached, even by a thing of thread.
Bruce did not feel mysterious power or a pull as he had from the first two Inversions. Instead, he felt the weight of the world bearing down upon him… a grim certainty that he would go mad if he remained in this place. This was something that had been determined from the very beginning of time. It was inevitable. His madness, then his death…
Something primeval burned in his soul and pushed aside this doom with its infernal glare. He turned his eyes to the fourth Inversion. He crawled, and then walked away, shaking the remnants of inevitability's mass from his soul.
The Fourth Inversion was his Life.
Like fifteen theatrical stages piled one on-top-of-the-other, moments from his life were actually occurring inside the glass frame of this body. This was not a screen or a projection. It was real! Bruce was certain that if he were to enter through the thin, glass veil, he would be able to hug the eight-year old Bruce Wayne who lived inside.
Even scenes of his mother breastfeeding him as baby were happening inside this menagerie of experience, things he couldn't possibly remember! But that surely was his mother and that must have been him! Things he had seen, things he had done were now replayed… happening just before his very eyes.
And now Raven was casually walking towards him! He remembered that exact moment, a picnic they had held in another dimension only four months ago! As he watched, his wife strolled unimpeded into the glass wall, only to disappear before she ever joined him on the other side - while another scene manifested upon that stage and their lovely picnic disappeared from view. Now it was Bruce sitting at his desk as a young man, studying while Alfred brought him tea… He had no doubt that if he were able to jump inside this Inversion, he could shake hands with a surprised sixteen-year old Bruce Wayne. It was real…
For the first time, Bruce realized that there had been magic in his life. He had such influence over those around him, the ability to change his own Fate and their shared destiny. He was the director of his life...
He did not fear this Fourth Inversion… Instead, he found it to be more fascinating than anything else. Was it a trap? Would his life be warped and twisted, to be revealed as some nightmare prophecy as he sat and stared at the things he had seen and done?
This Inversion seemed to have no clear or wilful direction. All parts of his life; good, bad and indifferent became re-enacted within its glass cell before his curious eyes. Even landscapes he had simply observed - with no action taking place except for the wind blowing through the poplar leaves of autumn – were displayed. These experiences weren't being taken from him, only recreated, revealed from his lifetime. If he had lived a life of regret, this would have been much more difficult, but it was not. He only felt more alone...
Bruce walked to the Fifth Cross.
At first, he thought that perhaps one of the Inversions had escaped… Four enormous spikes still glowed with green energy and still remained in place, but they seemed to be holding nothing to the massive Crucifix…
But he felt it.
There was something there, something unseen. Every emotion from his life suddenly coursed through him in one mighty wave until he collapsed to his knees, struggling for breath and a firm handhold of the ground. He had to remain calm… Think, Bruce! Control it! Then slowly, the emotions subsided… or rather, they slowed to a pace he could bear as a man.
He felt things he should not have felt… feelings that did not belong to him and never had. Love, hate, fear, jealousy, lust, joy, and greed all ponderously cycled through him… A catalogue of emotion was being organized within his soul, making it impossible to tell exactly what he was feeling and what was now being manifested from this entity within him… And then, in a moment of electric epiphany, Bruce realized that this was exactly how Raven felt!
As an empath, she must have continually rationalized what she should be feeling versus her heart was truly feeling. How could she know which emotions were truly her own? When she had first met him, she had sought privacy and distance to ensure that her emotions for Bruce were genuine… that she wasn't just reflecting his own feelings of desire for her. She needed time not only to understand him as a person, but also as an emotional presence. To become familiar with the currents and tides of his soul. With time, she knew her love for him had been her own...
Like a beacon from space, Bruce felt Raven's love once more from across the Universe.
Somehow, he knew that she was desperately searching for him… That Trigon had separated them against her will and that she was frantic to find her lost love. With everything he had and without hesitation, he cast the entirity of his emotions out to her across the void. A violet beam of love burst forth from him and across the emerald sky - slicing across dimensions as profound joy filled his heart once more.
And then the floodgates opened. His emotional plea had opened his heart and now a Universe of emotion rushed backed in.
He felt everything.
The agony of Gods enslaved, the sacrifice of freedom, the hatred of sons scorned, the arrogance of stone. Around him, a symphony of invisible waves now flowed through him, resonating until he could no longer comprehend upon one single focus. There was no point of focus, no reference, there was myriad. Bruce became everything unseen… thoughts, dreams, even the order of the Universe peeled itself open to allow him a glimpse of all the mysteries which he could never understand, but he felt them!…
His ego faded in infinity as two arms embraced him from behind, slender and gentle and warm… A love stronger than anything he had felt surrounded his dissipating identity.
"Shhh… my love. I am here now. I am with you."
Bruce shuddered, lost, struggling to remember who he was. Raven became his anchor to reality, a familiar path in a Universe of invisibility to reclaim the identity that was Bruce Wayne. Breathless and shaking, he returned to her, embracing her desperately to make this omniscience of things unseen release its grasp upon him. She cradled his head and whispered softly into his ear…
"I felt you, my love. Across the stars themselves, I felt your love reaching out to me…"
Raven moved her head backwards and stared deeply into his blue eyes, aglow with love. He hadn't realized, but they were now floating above the ground. She had levitated him six feet off the surface of the planet while she brought him back.
"My love, do not be frightened. You are here with me. I will not let you go, now or ever. The ground itself is charged with power beyond my comprehension. It pulls upon me with a gravity of mystical proportion. I must manifest my demon-half in order to remain sane here. There is far too much magic in this place for human-Raven to maintain control of my emotions while still denying the magical entity I truly am in such a world."
Bruce watched as his love's flesh changed from pink to crimson, indigo eyes altered to pale amber and luscious, red lips became black and dark. He hadn't realized it the first time he had seen her like this, but she was at least three inches taller as a demon. The true daughter of Trigon held him now… but more importantly, his wife held him.
"By the Gods, that is better!… What strange place is this, lover?" Her voice was smoky, a seductress draped across a piano at a midnight cabaret.
"Ysmault. Your father teleported me here, made some grandiose insults, and then left. To be honest, I expected worse..."
"You're alright, husband?"
"I'm fine now, thanks to you... just overwhelmed. But as an empath, this must be unbelievably difficult for you. Whatever these things on the crosses are, they're incredibly powerful emotional broadcasters. It gave me a taste of what it's like to be you…"
"More than a taste, my love... I don't frighten you like this?"
"Why would you? You're still Raven and my greatest friend. The only thing that frightens me is how much I need you."
"And you are my greatest friend... who thinks I am beautiful, sexy and powerful. I can tell." She smiled at him.
"Always." How could he think otherwise?
Raven took Bruce tightly into her arms once more as she brought her lips dangerously close to his own, running firm hands along the taut muscles of his back. He felt each supple inch of her body now pressing against his and sensed her lust flow through him like wildfire across August grasslands as she whispered into his ear…
"I'm feeling a little overwhelmed myself. Can I tell you a secret, my beautiful, sexy, powerful husband?..."
"Anything and anytime."
"These five Inversions… They're not demons."
"I didn't think so…Are they Gods?"
"Close, my lover… they're Goddesses. Very old and naughty Goddesses… They are demanding a ritual from us… They have discovered what we are."
"Man and Wife?"
"Lovers." His crimson lady whsipered into his ear in a voice of smouldering, midnight promise.
"Oh? I… Mmmmph…"
Bruce ceased talking as his wife's lips electrified his own in an explosion of sensation - her warm tongue probed into his mouth to entangle his own. Their fiery passions were now too deep, too strong to even contemplate resistance or acknowledge the cold hesitations of reason. Yet he knew he could die perfectly happy like this, it may be a trap of dreams laid by the demons of Ysmault, but he would still be fine…
This was his wife, one half of his own soul. And he was hers.
In the emerald skies above, their carnal love magically painted the heavens in hues of red and pink as contorted reflections of their physical passion reformed the rocky earth below them, rolling, undulating, primal - as it received the clothing that was quickly discarded from their now naked bodies.
Upon receipt, the land shuddered in an earthquake below them as he pushed inside her. Their uninhibited moans of ecstasy caught fire in the air as they moved within and around one another. Warm winds blew from all directions around them, coaxing the burning fires of their desire, engulfing the coiled lovers in the lustful whispers of Goddesses.
Secret, forgotten acts of intimacy soon manifested in the air, like shameless phantasms of forgotten times, an orgy of lustful celebrations from centuries before humanity even knew of the stars. Pagan rights of procreation reborn. Four flowing strands of red, green, blue and yellow spun and coiled, interweaving into a pattern of four children who playfully circled and danced hand-in-hand around the two lovers.
The hot tide of passion raged and swelled to become a towering tsunami of pleasure, no emotion left behind. Each nerve became a new sensation, a discovered country of emotion, waiting for final release into the newly created Universe between them.
They eagerly filled the holes that tragedy had rend into their ravaged souls. Their physical passion stitched their beleaguered spirits, frantically sewing enough of their shattered lives to make one perfect union of a soul. Floating in the air, he ravaged her and she ravaged him, taking what was needed, providing what was desired, as the fires grew wilder in their ritual of lust, the darkness removed. They rolled, they tumbled, they stood, they straddled, they embraced upon the blowing winds.
In her demon form, Raven was strong… strong enough to match Bruce's own physical dominance and intensity, her powerful legs locked in an unbreakable hold around him, forcing her man to thrust as deep as he was able - while her dark nails dug into his broad back drawing blood before she finally relented - the pleasure of the sudden release of a lifetime of tension and emotional suppresion let go in one shattering explosion of joy.
Raven's banshee-wail of pleasure brought down Bruce's faltering dam of resistance, unable to hold back any longer... He released into her with a mind-numbing ecstasy beyond anything he had ever experienced, only to feel her own wave of ecstasy recoil back into him, drowning his numbed senses within an ocean of new sensory bliss.
This was as primal, as raw, as passionate as a man and woman had ever been. They were renewed, reborn, enraptured and perfectly spent in the arms of one another. Their act of love was a victory against Oblivion. These were the rights of the Goddess – an offering of creation, of passion, desire, lust and love… Emotion triumphant in the void.
It took moments for their own senses to return from the stratosphere of pleasure.
With a smile, Raven ran a cerise-colored hand along the hair on Bruce's chest…
"I've never felt such magic..."
"Dear God... That was the most incredible sex…" Raven giggled before he could continue. Bruce could never tell if she were blushing while in her demon form.
"With you, never have I felt such pleasure, my love. Though there is something truly magical about us... I believe it was these five Goddesses who filled the air and land with the sensual powers of magic to celebrate our courtship. They are well pleased."
Bruce found the strength to prop himself up and grinned at his half-demon wife. He wasn't sure what magic was exactly, but he had never experienced a power – or emotions - like that. Still trembling from their airborne dance of desire, he turned to survey the five Inversions with a new perspective.
"These are Goddesses of Magic?"
"Bruce… That's exactly what they are! Being so close, I did not realize… but these are the Old and New Goddesses of Magic! I can feel it!... To think they exist here on barren Ysmault!... But why?!"
"I'm not sure, Raven…" Bruce drew a heavy sigh. "But I believe it has everything to do with the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps. That's their insignia on the spikes that are driven through them. These Goddesses seem to be… prisoners."
"That's unforgivable! These Goddesses are not evil! They are only divine powers of the Universe…"
"Maybe that's why they're here, Raven..."
"Because they are powerful?"
"I can think of two reasons… One is that although Green Lanterns are themselves extremely powerful, but even they wouldn't be able to overcome this level of divine magic. They may have created this place as a safeguard against such powerful magic manifesting itself, limiting its strongest arcane influence in the Universe to a mere fraction of what it could be, something they would be able to control and prevail against."
"Fear does not give them the right to do this! This was an act of enslavement!... But what is your second reason?"
"Personally, this one scares the Hell out of me, Raven… but I think you're right. This is an act of enslavement. Honestly, I don't know much about the Green Lantern Corps… They've had very limited exposure on Earth, but from what I can understand, they are based on a planet called Oa which has a gigantic, Central Power Battery. It's similar to the one Ganthet presented to Barbara but much, much larger. This is the source of the Green Lanterns' power that they tap into - using their own power batteries, rings and minds.
But where does that power come from? What energy recharges the Central Power Battery? Think of it… Thousands of rings throughout the Universe worn on the appendages of its emerald champions must drain its power every single day. They create fantastical constructs of solid green energy out of seemingly nothing - or even beams of immense power as Barbara did – simply by focusing the power of their will through their ring. This energy source must be unbelievably powerful, able to travel light-years through space in the span of a simple oath…
And all batteries have to be charged, even Central Power Batteries. So where do the Guardians gather that kind of power - the energy required to bend reality itself to the ring-wielder's thoughts? Are they able to siphon this power from space somehow? A Cosmic Collector? Converted solar energy?... Everything inside me doesn't want to say this, but I think that power comes from here, Raven. That they're harnessing and using the magic of these Goddesses to power their rings…"
"But the Green Lanterns fight evil, Bruce. What you believe the Guardians have done here… To desecrate these Goddesses in such a vile manner… It's inconceivable."
A dark tear welled in Raven's eye, falling down a soft, crimson cheek – the full emotional weight of Bruce's explanation threatened to make her ill. If true, this was an atrocity beyond any possible redemption. The Guardians had placed themselves above the Gods, to use them as beasts of burden! She knew her husband had a suspicious mind tempered by the hard anvil of personal tragedy. He was constantly searching for all of the powers lurking in darkness that others were content to call shadows. Had he speculated too far?...
A stranger's voice from the distance answered her.
"What the mortal has declared is true, half-God. Do not let emotions cloud reason."
This distinctly male voice came from the sixth Inversion, a figure who was kept beyond the others, separated by distance from the Five Goddesses. Unlike the other captives, this final God appeared well-defined. But like the others, he was a figure of titanic proportions, although his substance was undeniably real.
Grasping the hand of her still-naked husband, Raven levitated them higher and flew towards the voice of the sixth deity, stopping as they hovered two hundred feet above the planet's surface – staring at large, pale, blue eyes. Bruce and Raven were no taller than this God's palm.
The last captive was dressed in the fashion of a New God, a form-fitting outfit of dark blue with accents of white which covered all of him but his pale face. Peering below, Bruce had spied a strange pattern of interconnected lines and circles that formed a circuit-like symbol upon his chest. No pain troubled the brow of this God, nor did his eyes shine with malice or appear dull with woe. He simply observed the two lovers approach in careful study and waited for them to speak.
"Who are you?" Raven inquired of the calm colossus.
"First, I must know who you are. I will not be held at a disadvantage regarding such information."
Raven's head cocked backwards, taken aback by the God's strange rebuttal. Bruce answered in her stead before she launched her second question.
"I am Bruce Wayne, of Earth. This is my wife, Raven Wayne…"
"Are you even a New God?"
Raven eyed the stranger apprehensively. There was something different about this God from the other deities she had encountered in New Genesis or on Ysmault… His emotions were impossible to fathom. It was almost as though he possessed none.
"I have no links with the Old Gods – or New. I am something different... And yet, like a wise fool, here I am among the most tragic of my brethren."
"But who are you?" demanded Raven once again.
The naked Raven cast a flame-like crimson reflection in the omniscient, pastel-blue eyes of this crucified God, cruelly pinned by spikes of the Green Lantern Corps. He answered her openly...
"I am Metron."