Try to remember

Chapter 6: Cooperation

Disclaimer: I do not own South Park or Young Justice.

—?M?—

"Who are you."

"My name is Mysterion."

"What are you doing in my city."

"It's no longer just your city, Batman. But I only concern myself with dealings of the occult. so you don't have to worry about me stepping on your toes."

"And why are you here."

If anyone else had been watching the exchange, they would've been bowled over by how similar the two were. In tone of voice and pattern of speech they were almost identical, in posture and overall demeanour the two gave of a sense of dark and elusive danger. They were two creatures of the night, the only noticeable differences between them being that Mysterion was shorter, ragged, and even with most of his face obscured by mask and hood, looked angrier. Whereas Batman was taller, black as the night itself, and exuded almost no emotion, unless you counted intimidation. They were the same sides of a slightly different coin.

"… Why are you…?" Mysterion replied testily. The white slits in the Bat's cowl narrowed with his eyes, and Mysterion felt compelled to answer more cooperatively. After all, withholding information wouldn't make this an easy operation. "I was made aware of a cult operating somewhere in the city, and I intended to dismantle them myself. But nevertheless, I appreciate the help."

"How long have you fought crime."

"Long enough." Ruffled at being doubted, Mysterion shot back a low comment. "Rest assured Batman, I don't need you here."

"That stab wound says otherwise." Flicking his eyes towards the bloody wound in Mysterion's chest, Batman was not expecting the answer he received.

"That's of no concern to me." Ignoring the Bat's comment, Mysterion stooped down and gently picked up one of the roots that had been sustaining these creatures. Mysterion looked between the root and its prior host body, and saw that the ghoulish corpse was decaying at a faster and faster rate. When the two abnormal entities first detached, the cadavers had hissed and crackled like an autumn bonfire, but now their sickly yellow skin was blackened, charred, and just seemed to be melting away into nothing. "Or you for the matter." He continued off handedly before turning the conversation to more pressing matters. "But this is."

Turning the corpse over to inspect it further, Mysterion could practically feel the Dark Knight's glare burning into the back of his hood, but he had faced death so frequently he'd stopped counting, so turning and meeting that glare with one of his own was a simple task. "Now are you gonna continue to bitch and whine, or are we going to free those captives."

If it was even possible, Batman's baleful stare intensified. They remained, locked in a fierce, unspoken argument for a moment, until the Bat grunted and brusquely brushed by him, heading for the door. "You follow my lead, do exactly as I say, and don't, under any circumstances, use this."

With that, the older vigilante held up something which alarmed Mysterion somewhat. It was his gun. Darting a hand to his belt, Kenny indeed felt empty space where the piece should've been. In lieu of this, his brow furrowed beneath his hood and half mask. 'Sneaky bastard.' He considered voicing the thought, but settled instead for walking up beside the Bat and taking back his gun. Then to establish some sort of understanding between them, he flicked the safety on, stowed it in his belt and stated. "Deal."

The Dark Knight shot him yet another glare, but they both moved on towards the door which led deeper into this dungeon. Before proceeding through it, Batman produced some sort of device from within his utility belt, and pressed it to the tiny gap between door and floor.

After a moment, the Bat stood back up and opened the door quite ordinarily, and upon moving through, Mysterion could see why. They had stepped into a short corridor, completely rectangular, and with no other visible exits. It was a dead end.

Once again Batman led the way forward, his eyes scanning around the small space with increasing intensity… Mysterion wasn't just waiting patiently though, and while Batman pressed his ear to the opposite wall where an exit would usually be, Mysterion himself began to listen very carefully as well. But not for anything an ordinary ear could pick up on.

One thing he knew about the myriad of interconnected cults he had encountered over the years, from the Cthulhu Cult, to the Church of Starry Wisdom, and even the Esoteric Order of Dagon, was that they liked staying hidden. Thousands of years of secrecy had made their societies masters of the craft, and if a cult was being led by a clever individual, or god forbid one with an actual connection to one of the Outer beings, then their methods of keeping secrets knew almost no bounds.

So Mysterion listened for that sensation that wasn't quite a sound, more like a tugging in his head, calling him onward. A sixth sense he had for the outer-normal, the same one that plagued him with nightmares and keyed him in to the world's weirder wavelengths.

The Call led him to the crook where walls met, the corner of the dead end he and the Bat were investigating. As Mysterion touched the inner angle he found their hidden way. His fingers curled into the stone as if it wasn't even there, slipping around some invisible corner. To the naked eye it would seem as if his hands half vanished, but to Mysterion's thusly attuned senses he could see what was really happening.

It was a different thing entirely if you knew what was there, and it was easier to find if you knew what to search for. But to anyone else, no matter how much technology, magic, skill or luck they had, it would've been next to impossible to find. In short, now he knew it was there, Kenny could see it.

An impossible contortion of space, a whole corridor hidden within the tiny crook where the two walls formed a corner. Within the inner angle was where the corridor lay, and Kenny could see it. Space twisting to try and accommodate it, but never quite managing… It was dizzying to look at, so instead Kenny turned back to Batman, who was now looking at him with an air of intimidating evaluation. Though with Batman, practically everything he did was with a certain amount of intimidation.

Trying to think of the best way to explain the nigh unexplainable, Kenny soon gave up and simply told him. "Just close your eyes, walk into the corner and try to keep your balance." Before the older vigilante could respond, Mysterion had turned and stepped into the corner.

For him there was no sensation as he walked through the unnatural aperture, but as Mysterion emerged into a practically identical passage, he heard the Batman stumble out behind him, immediately pressing one hand to the wall to steady himself before straightening up. "Didn't close your eyes?" The teenager asked.

The growling reply was neither expected, nor unexpected. "When we have secured the hostages, you will debrief me on this cult, do I make myself clear?"

"Don't be so upset." Mysterion scoffed mildly. "It could've been worse."

"Elaborate."

At the prompting, some rather vivid past experiences with such paradoxical dimensions came to his mind. "We're still on Earth… in our dimension… and we've got all of our limbs. Believe me, it could've been worse." He finished with a frown.

A look which Batman matched as he moved on towards the door that would no doubt lead them ever deeper into the complex.

After Batman had checked under the door with that black device of his (which Kenny assumed to be a camera), the Dark Knight stood and told him evenly. "The room ahead contains four of the robed creatures. Three of them are standing at the edge of a sunken pool of water, I will move forward and deal with them. You will move round the right hand wall to where the hostages are being held in cells. You will subdue the guard there and then assist me if necessary. Understood?"

Mysterion nodded once, and without further ado Batman threw open the door, surging into the room beyond before Kenny could even lift a foot off the ground. This man was dangerous. But so was he, if not as on point.

So Mysterion swept around the doorframe and entered the fray. As Batman had described, along the right hand wall of this long, dimly lit, low ceilinged room, were several cells. The small chambers held a number of people, all of whom were lying still, hopefully unconscious.

Smoke billowed up out of seemingly nowhere in the middle of the room where Batman was fighting. But Mysterion's eyes remained firmly on his target. A short, robed figure who had been standing stoically by the cells. It's hood was down, revealing a similarly hideous visage to the three cultists he and the Bat had fought just now. Only with this one, there was something quite noticeably different.

His face was only half consumed by the substance that had claimed the other three and rendered them almost faceless. It grew like a fungus, and stretched around from the back of this man's head, draping itself over half his face and covering one eye completely.

The man's single eye bulged at him, wild and alive with inhuman feeling; hatred, wonder and disgust all burned within it at once. Then the cultist let out a hoarse roar and drew a knife from within his voluminous robe, frantically charging at Mysterion.

As the ornate dagger rose high and its polished metal glinted in the light, Mysterion dropped to the floor, sliding across the stone feet first. Executing a swift sliding tackle to the cultists legs, the hooded vigilante toppled his enemy immediately.

The previously held dagger clattered to the floor near to where Mysterion had ended up, so he reached for it instantly. But just as his olive green glove grasped the handle, the cultist reoriented himself and dove upon him. Leaping down on his prone form and taking hold of Kenny's neck.

Air was denied him as the cultist's powerful, slimy hands squeezed around his throat. The one eyed man was strong, but thankfully not as strong as the three others had been, otherwise Mysterion was positive his neck would've been broken.

Looping one arm round to clutch for the barb he hoped would be embedded in his opponents back, Mysterion simultaneously brought the dagger round as well. Then when his free hand caught the metallic spike which seemed to give these cult members their abominable form, Kenny dug the dagger in to help pry it free.

The knife helped Mysterion tear free the root in seconds, and as it slithered away from the new wound, so to did the inhuman fire in the cultist's eye die.

It was all well for him to dismantle those other three practically faceless creatures, but this man was half gone. One very human eye, alight with knowledge beyond this world, going dark. The one who had snuffed it out? Him…

It was not the first time this particular gripe had struck him. Having dispatched barely human creatures before, Kenny did not like to dwell on the implications when he could avoid them. A sign of his deteriorating moral fibre? He hoped not, but if this thing could be cured, could be redeemed, then what? Was he once an innocent man, forced into this by the hands of other cultists? Or did he accept this fate willingly, dare Kenny think it, eagerly? This would not be the first, nor the last time some poor human dabbled with forces they could not understand, seizing the power offered by unseen hands and subsequently falling to the allure of the cryptically unspeakable.

Throwing the rapidly disintegrating body from him, Mysterion turned to face the cloud of thick smoke in the centre of the room, from which sounds of combat could be heard. Refocusing his mind, Kenny's stone cold gaze picked out two remaining figures locked in a tussle.

A muffled, though somehow near deafening roar then broke over the electric hush of the dungeon. After which, one of the combatants shrouded in smoke was thrown clean out, crashing into the wall by the door. It was Batman.

Following the Dark Knight out of the fog, came one of the cultists. This one had robes of a different sort, made of a fine silk, and flowing about them freely, open at the front to reveal the cultists savagely emaciated torso. Their hood was down, revealing yet another horribly diseased face, this time devoid of even a full mouth, with only a small slit allowing sound out.

Mysterion acted immediately, throwing himself at the cultist and tackling them to the ground, cutting off its roar part way through as he drove the wind from it. As they crashed to the ground, the hooded teen jostled himself to where he had the thing pinned. He lifted his fist in the air and brought it down with all the strength and speed he had, before repeating the action three times. A wet smack issuing with each blow to the cult members face, if that is what you could call it.

Then he stepped up onto one foot, clutching the dazed humanoid around the neck and armpit. With little effort he lifted the robed monster off of the ground and threw it over his shoulder, pivoting with the action to propel the body further from him.

The throw had more power in it than Mysterion expected, and it sent the cultist soaring across the room to land in the pool of inky water.

The cultist sank like a stone, but did not resurface immediately. The water settled back down to stillness, and even as Batman stepped up beside Mysterion, the two were left in suspense as the humanoid did not reappear.

Almost simultaneously both Batman's and Mysterion's brows creased in suspicious displeasure… But even after a good twenty seconds, the surface of the reservoir remained unbroken. "I'm willing to bet those things need to breath. And that this chamber is connected to other locations via this pool here."

"A reasonable assumption." Assented Batman.

"Now unless we want to stand here for the rest of our lives waiting for it to return, we should get these people." Mysterion briefly gestured over to the cells, in which eight unconscious people of varying ages and ethnicities lay. "Out of here."

Batman nodded in agreement, saying. "I will contact Commissioner Gordon to-"

But Mysterion cut him off immediately at the mention of police involvement. "I can't allow that. The involvement of the police with matters like these would do far more harm than good."

"Say that again." The threat in Batman's gravelly voice was alarmingly evident, though it did nothing to deter the younger vigilante.

"Kidnappings and human trafficking are matters the police should most definitely be informed of, but I cannot allow knowledge of these cults and their existence to be made known. It's bad enough you were here to witness it." It was the way he had always done it, the fewer people who knew about this sort of thing, the better. As much as he hated it, it had been a good thing that the world forgot the Gulf Crisis. The matters of the mythos were best left unknown, rumours and legends at best.

"If I was not here, you would have been killed." The Bat reminded him coldly.

"And?" Once more Kenny matched the Bat-glare with one of equal intensity, all the meaning his reply implied burning behind his eyes. "How do you think the police would deal with knowing that an undead cult, who have the power to bend space to their will, were sacrificing people right under their noses? You understand the importance of secrecy, Batman, I'm sure. So I ask you, that you not reveal this location to the police for their own safety and peace of mind, as well as the publics. What they don't know won't hurt them. Not as long as I'm here."

Batman paused in silent consideration, before grunting and telling him. "Very well." He then swept over to the cells and set about breaking open the wrought iron door.

Instead of going to assist straight away, Mysterion took the moment of Batman's distraction to scour the room with his gaze, looking for anything he should take into custody, so to speak. Then he glimpsed it, a door was ajar on the opposite wall to the cells, through it he could see only blackness.

Walking over to it, the mystery boy pushed open the door and was given full view of the impenetrable darkness within. Even the light being let in through the door only intruded so far, illuminating only the grey green brickwork of the floor.

Mysterion's eyes were sharp, especially in darkness, but the only thing he could glimpse in this lightless space, was a wet glinting reflection of light opposite him. Slowly he withdrew the flashlight from his belt, and flicked it on.

The solid beam cut through the room, revealing on the far wall a terrifying, familiar face. The flashlight fell out of his grip as Kenny immediately pulled his gun, aiming at where the visage had appeared and pulling the trigger.

click

The safety was on. Flicking it off in a millisecond Kenny started to squeeze the trigger again, but stopped as the flashlight rolled on the ground, tracing its beam across the room.

It's angle stretched up to illuminate the creature he had seen just now, but this time it shocked him less. Now he had noticed the face, and indeed what else it was attached to, were made of stone. He let his arm drop, a tight breath releasing itself from his panicked lungs. Picking up the flashlight in his free hand, Kenny looked upon the horrifying statuette in more detail.

The sculpted form of Cthulhu leered at him. A bas-relief of magnificent quality, but terrible subject. Its eyes were set with amber gems, which vastly contrasted with the grey-green colour of the stone that made up the rest of the totem. Cthulhu sat on a grand throne, its angles unseemly and sharp. The mass of tentacles that dribbled off its face, the draconic wings that sprung from its back, even the way it sat, crosslegged and hunched, made this sculpture one that inspired unease. Even in a stone depiction, Cthulhu had a way of creating fear.

Mysterion cast the light around the room more thoroughly, where it revealed a number of filthy beds and nothing more. These cultists had slept with that watching over them… It caused Kenny to shiver slightly. Seeing nothing that he might take to add to his library of information on the occult underworld, Mysterion closed the door quietly and turned around to head back over to the Bat.

He found said vigilante standing across the room, watching him very closely. "Find anything." The Bat asked, his tone implying he had seen Mysterion's inspection of the room.

After a pregnant silence, Kenny replied. "What I expected to."

That was all he was willing to say on the matter, and since the cell was now open, Kenny began to haul the prisoners out one by one, moving them over to the exit. A motion which Batman joined in, and soon enough they had the hostages back in the unmarked van that was parked out in the oddly shaped tunnel.

As they set to driving the van back up to the surface, neither vigilante saying a word, Mysterion started to puzzle over the structure of this place. The distance they'd travelled and the purely bizarre architecture of this underground catacomb was odd for starters. Include with that, one snaking tunnel leading down to a spherical room? It was more reminiscent of a animal's burrow than anything manmade. Also, it was nowhere near as large, or as well stocked as he would've expected. The conclusion? This was not the main base of operations. This place, with all it's unusual though not entirely unnatural design, seemed more like a small outpost. A home away from home, but how far away was their first home? He could not tell right now. Although, he had ways of finding these things out.

When they emerged onto street level once more, Mysterion noted that a small section of the wall that had slid open to allow the van entry, had been exploded inwards. No doubt how Batman had accessed it.

Leaving the van just inside the alleyway, the two caped crusaders got out and as Batman seemed to be contacting someone via his cowl, Mysterion went back over to wall.

He couldn't leave it broken like this. The wall had slid open automatically to allow them to leave in the van, but when it shut behind them the hole that Batman had no doubt blasted in it to give him access, remained.

Mysterion considered for a moment how to block it up, not wanting anyone to find it. But then again, the cultists had proven themselves capable of creating anomalies of space to hide the entrance to their inner sanctum. In comparison this hidden door seemed mild…

Once again Mysterion listened for that call, the sensation that would let him know if anything occult had been tampering… He felt something, but the feeling was very faint. Like a far away whistle in the wind. But he could not find its source, so, for lack of a better, more permanent concealment, Kenny pulled a dumpster in front of it… Standing back he could not help but feel underwhelmed…

It was then that Batman finished his conversation, one which Kenny had been decent enough, and distracted enough to not eavesdrop on.

"The roof." Were the glowering hero's only two words, before he produced a fancy grapple gun from his belt and fired it into the air.

In seconds the Bat had ascended the night and been brought up to the roof. Feeling a twinge of envy, Kenny grabbed his grappling hook, and wound up to throw it at the buildings rooftop ledge.

A few seconds and a hasty climb later, Kenny vaulted onto the ledge of the building to find Batman standing a few feet away, with his sidekick standing right beside him.

Batman and Robin looked at him expectantly, and the only thing Mysterion could do was ask. "… So what now?"

—?M?—

A/N:

Here we go! Soon we can actually get some young justice up in this young justice/south park crossover! All in good time though, all in good time, which is fitting since I am terrible at updating. For which I apologise, but I have been inordinately busy recently. Hopefully I'll be able to remedy that as summer approaches, but I can't make any promises.

Now because it does take me a while to update, I do feel like I owe some form of authorial response since I've had some questions in the reviews, which I will now answer to some extent.

Other South Park characters appearing…? In time, yes. There will be cameos and more, but since I'm quite excited about what I have planned in this department I won't say any more. I don't want to jump the shark though, so don't expect any major involvement quite yet, this is a south park crossover, yes, but it is most definitely a Mysterion story.

Mysterion & canon DC villains… I don't have any concrete plans for this, so if you want to see Kenny take on any particular DC villain let me know in a review or via PM. Maybe I'll even start a poll. Though let it be known, I do have several ideas for good villains, both DCU and otherwise. But yeah, it won't be all cults and cosmic monstrosities all the time.

Kenny's character… I have been slacking on some of what makes Kenny McKormick, Kenny McKormick. This is partly because I haven't had enough of a chance to show that in volume, yet, and partly because Kenny has changed quite a bit. Years of being Mysterion and such. But don't worry, once again, I have plans for this.

The Joker… I loved the review asking me not to use the Young Justice Joker. Now, of course the Joker is going to appear, he's such a good villain that it'd be criminal not to involve him. But the version of the Joker in this story will most likely be a combination of my favourite ones, until I end up with the Joker that is right for this story. But for the record, there will be none of that canonical Young Justice Joker, that guy was like a 2edgy4u teen Joker. It was so painfully bad it was funny. Which is like the Joker I guess, but still.

Well that about wraps it up for this chapter, all that's left for me to say is… I'd give anything to see Mysterion in DC Rebirth… And thank you for reading!