Try to remember.

Chapter 7: Night to day.

Disclaimer: I do not own South Park, Young Justice or anything in the Cthulhu mythos.

—?M?—

"Now, you explain in detail what it was exactly that we just encountered." Batman told him, making it abundantly clear in his tone that Mysterion had no choice but to answer. Or suffer the consequences.

Mysterion paused for a second, shooting a glance at the youngest of them. The boy wonder who couldn't be any older than fourteen. Of course, Kenny had technically started at an even younger age, but that didn't make him feel any better about revealing these secrets.

"… There are…" He had to think over his words for a moment, since it was never easy to describe the Outer Gods, The Great Old Ones, or any of their spawn and worshippers. Not to mention he didn't really want to give an answer, though deep down he felt like he owed one, or a version of one. "A number of loosely connected cults all over the world. Each one dedicated to worshipping a different, dangerous, alien, being…" Mysterion's brow wrinkled in consideration. He was skirting round anything that sounded too out there, he wanted to give them the big picture, but without giving them enough of one to pique the Batman's attention. Very few people were ready to learn the kind of things he knew, and even fewer were willing to believe him. So he stuck to neutral language, not saying words like Gods, All Powerful, Apocalypse, Nuclear Chaos, or any of those key words that were unfortunately all too common for him. "What you saw down there were, people, who had been given a gift from their patron… I won't name it. But I have been fighting these cults for most of my life, so know that I'll be looking into it further tomorrow night. There may be more hidden down there, and even if there isn't there's a lot that needs to be destroyed."

"Tomorrow night you say?" Was Batman's curious reply.

"Yeah?" The silent 'So what?' that followed Mysterion's answer was clear.

Batman mulled this over for a second, then made an affirming grunting sound and said. "Then you'll be taking Robin with you."

"What?" "What?" Mysterion's increasingly irritated answer collided with the Boy Wonder's surprised one.

"Robin needs more experience dealing with the world of the mystic arts." Was the Bat's explanation.

Slowly processing the idea of having to babysit a brightly coloured bird boy tomorrow night, Mysterion stared out over the city, before looking back to Batman and calmly saying. "This is not the world of the mystic arts as you know it, Bat. And I'm not giving your sidekick work experience."

"Hey. I'm not a sidekick!" Were the first words Robin decided to interject into the conversation. Which only prompted a dismissing. "Whatever." From Mysterion.

His feathers ruffled, Robin squared his shoulders at Gotham's newest vigilante and protested. "Hey, what's your problem?"

"I don't need any help." He told the boy, quickly rising to the challenge. "In fact, I don't want any help. The fewer people who know about the kind of things I deal with, the better."

Stepping back in to mediate the burgeoning disagreement, Batman said. "If secrecy is your concern, then I assure you, you can trust Robin."

"Batman. Secrecy is my primary concern. I put the secrecy of these societies, above my own life. Because the more who know, the greater risk of exposure, of retaliation, of complete and utter widespread chaos." During the barely suppressed tirade, Mysterion had taken a few solid steps to stand face to face with Batman.

"Which is why you need backup." The Bat finalised. "So Robin will accompany you. Do I make myself clear, Mysterion. You are in my city, you will operate by my rules." The gloves were proverbial off now, but Mysterion's reaction wasn't to cave in, but to say.

"I don't give a damn about your rules."

Then he threw himself clear of the building, cloak blooming against the lights of midnight Gotham. Until he fell, ten stories, landing on his neck and being immediately run over by a fast moving car. Smacks, crunches and cracks echoed through the air, but no one seemed to hear them. Because Mysterion was already dead.

Robin had run to the edge of the building, not believing the so-called vigilante could fly. He certainly seemed like a lunatic. Maybe he believed he could fly, the same way he believed in these conspiracy theory cults.

But as the Boy Wonder looked over the edge of the building, prepared to leap down and save Mysterion. He stopped short. Robin did see the body, spread eagled at the side of the road. He saw the smeared blood, the painful angles at which Mysterion's limbs were twisted. But he didn't exactly react… His eyes glazed over for the briefest second. He forgot. And then he spoke aloud.

"Where'd he go?"

Batman's expression did not change, it barely ever did, but the air of intensity around him increased at the revelation. Joining his partner in looking over the ledge, he could only wonder, how had Mysterion disappeared so suddenly… The answer was obvious. There was much more to this mysterious vigilante.

Then his cowl's inbuilt communicator beeped, and the voice of an elderly British man said, apprehensively. "Sir, the tracking device you placed on this Mysterion character earlier tonight? It seems to have stopped transmitting."

—?M?—

Kenny rolled out of bed, glancing at his alarm clock he took note that it was 1:41AM, which could only be a couple of minutes after he'd died. As much as he would like to just fall back into bed and sleep, he still had work to do before the morning. And since he had school tomorrow, what he had in mind ought best be done now.

Reaching under his bed, Kenny pushed aside a number of boxes and piles of clothes, until his hands grasped upon a suitcase. Sliding it out, Kenny shifted the numerical lock to face him, swiftly entering the four digit code of 0103.

The contents within were many, varied, and appallingly organised. One side was taken up by a spare Mysterion suit, with a handgun resting comfortably atop the folded fabric. Whereas most of the rest of the suitcase was filled with bits of paper, each small stack stapled together haphazardly, with the front pages bearing titles such as; Notes on Black Brotherhood, Known enemies, Persons & places of interest. And so many other plumes of paper. But at the very bottom of the pile there lay three, more important looking items; A letter addressed to Karen McKormick. A tiny silver key in a ziplock bag. And a small leather-bound notebook, bearing the title Necronomicon (Incomplete).

Once more pushing aside these items, Kenny found what he had been looking for at the very base of the case, where the odd bits of crap he kept fell. It was a length of rope that he had been looking for.

Taking it out, Kenny locked the suitcase back up, and took the rope over to his closet. With the regularity of a man going out to pick up a pint of milk, Kenny opened his closet, slung the rope over the metal bar from which his clothes hung, and closed the door behind him.

—?M?—

For the second time that night, Kenny's eyes snapped open, air rushing into his lungs as if for the first time. He sat up and saw that his surroundings were not the same. He'd done it. It, was a small semblance of control he had over his deaths, and even that iota of use he could get out of it was infrequent.

After a death, he could wake up somewhere else, to be specific, anywhere he had slept. All he had to do was maintain his concentration on that place as he died, which was understandably a difficult thing to do. But regardless, he had done it, woken up back in South Park, Colorado.

It was not his parents house, and the bed he was most familiar with that'd he chosen though. He had instead focused upon a small sleeping bag he'd hidden in the sewers, where he'd spent one cold night actually testing out this morbid teleportation ability. It had worked, and now Kenny had several locations he could, for want of a better word, teleport to. South Park, Denver, Gotham, Honolulu and Bucharest were the most notable on his list of locations. But as he pulled himself to his feet and stretched out the cricks in his bones, Kenny was stood beneath South Park's streets.

In every little bunker like this that he had, Kenny kept a spare Mysterion suit for situations exactly like this. And while there was the risk of some random person finding them, he didn't particularly care if anyone did. The little outposts he had were so difficult to get to, usually being in the sewers or some other unseemly place, that if someone did find his sleeping bags and spare suits, then good for them.

He donned the suit, dumped his coat, and headed for the surface, making quick time through the twisting and turning tunnels until he came upon a wrought iron ladder leading up.

Reaching the top, Mysterion shifted aside the heavy metal manhole cover, and emerged into the town of his birth. The town where some of his happiest, and most unhappy memories were made.

As it always was, the quiet mountain town was coated in a layer of crisp white snow, and little snowflakes fell down from the night sky like tiny stars. He'd surfaced in the alleyway behind Skeeter's Bar, and as the smell of hard liquor caught his nostrils, Mysterion scaled the building to get to a better vantage point.

Now roof-bound he could traverse the town much easier, and as he ran and leapt across the buildings, a wave of nostalgia hit him. But he would not let it hold him down for long, stopping only to take up his old perch above the Walgreens, before moving into the town's suburb to find the house he was seeking.

He vaulted fence after garden fence, eventually coming to a stop by a gnarled tree, climbing up it and shifting along the branch closes to the house whose garden he was now in. A small hop and he found himself perched outside a bedroom window. Then in no time at all he had the window open, allowing him inside. But he didn't step over the boundary yet.

The room was dark, both in decor and from simple lack of light. It also held the overwhelming musk of cigarette smoke, but the kind of scent that can only belong to a place that has long soaked in the thick vapour. He remained on the sill, and affixed his eyes on the lump of black sheets that occupied the room's bed.

"Henrietta." He said, using that hoarse, gravelly tone that he'd since noticed Batman also spoke with.

The lump of black fabric barely moved, and a very tired sounding voice mumbled nonsensically. "Fuck off, poser, bitch, life is meaningless…"

"Henrietta, It's me." He reiterated calmly.

The lump turned itself over, to reveal a bundled-up teenage girl with a veil of shaggy black hair falling over her pale face. Her large, incredibly tired eyes blinked several times at him, before she finally said. "… Haven't seen you for awhile…"

"I've been busy." He replied stiffly,

She stifled a yawn. "Okay…" Then with an overlong roll of her bleary eyes. "Fine…" Followed by a heavy, exasperated sigh, she asked. "What do you want."

His request was simple, and no doubt she knew what he was here to ask. But his voice darkened nonetheless as he spoke it aloud. "I need to see your copy of the Necronomicon."

With one more dramatic sigh, she attempted to sound terse but in the end just sounded like she wasn't really bothered by his presence or request. "I gave you, like, half the pages to mine. Which was, not even complete in the first place. Do you know how rare English translations even are?"

Being patient he told her, as he usually did. "This is important."

"Always is." Finally sitting up to act, Henrietta yawned out the words. "Look away, and close the window to, you're letting the cold in."

As he slid into the room, turning to face the window while closing it behind him, Kenny McKormick considered how much he wanted to look behind him. But as Mysterion he could not let himself break focus like that. So he averted his gave to stare out the glass panes, up towards the gibbous, cloud covered moon with nothing but a regretful twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Some rustling and shuffling later, Henrietta's loamy voice called him back. "Okay, you can look now."

When he turned back she was hastily clothed in a flowing black night-gown, and holding on to a leather bound tome. Which she placed down on her desk, before lazily tilting her head at him and raising an eyebrow as if to say. 'Hurry up'.

He swept across the shag-pile carpet to stand over her shoulder. "So, what is it you're looking for this time." She asked him, with all the tiredness of someone who'd been woken up at two in the morning, with a question they'd been asked numerous times before.

"I've never encountered this cult before. I know little except what the members look like. They all wear robes coloured beige and light blue. They posses some form of un-life, which I suspect is caused by a fungus that grows over their bodies. The fungus itself seems to spread from a silver spike embedded in the spine. They had a sculpture of Cthulhu in their bedchambers, and finally, I believe they were engaging in sacrificial rituals… At their base of operations there was a pool of water that appeared to have been diluted with a darker liquid…" His voice remained gruff and neutral, delivering her the information in the hopes that she'd be able to help.

"Beige and blue…" The goth girl mumbled, thoughtfully leafing through her copy of the unholy book. "Wait… Silver spikes?"

"Some sort of metal, yes." Mysterion supplied, to which Henrietta clicked her fingers triumphantly and immediately flipped to a page about halfway though the book. Pausing over the symbols and drawings etched on the wafer thin paper, she began slowly turning page after page until she stopped, and said.

"Gla'aki… This look familiar?" She pointed down at the page, on which was drawn a horrible portrait. It was indeed familiar. The leering visage of the slug-like being he'd seen in his dream looked up at him from the page, it's trio of eyes staring directly at him. Almost as if the mere picture of this thing was alive somehow.

Then certain clues fell into place. Gla'aki, he'd heard the cultists speak that name. The creature he'd witnessed in that dream, a slug, it's back coated in metallic spines. Gla'aki… "This is it." He told her, grimly.

Her bloodshot eyes skimming over the text, Henrietta summed up the information for him. "Prophetic dreamer, ancient as our continents, came to Earth on a comet, dreaming visions of the future, holding knowledge beyond any mortal minds… Those who wish to learn unmentionable truths seek him out, and welcome him into their life…" She paused for a yawn. "I haven't got all the pages on it." She broke off, glancing at him over her shoulder. "But to summon him, or wake him, it looks like blood sacrifices are required."

Brow furrowing, Mysterion asked. "Any idea how I should deal with it."

"This isn't a cheat sheet, underwear boy." Turning to face him fully, her nose upturned, Henrietta tapped the page with one finger. "Gla'aki doesn't have weak points. It's a Great Old One, like Cthulhu, or any of the others you've asked me about. If someone is trying to summon it, the best you can do is stop them as soon as you can."

Close as they were, Kenny could smell the faint smell of cigarette smoke on her breath as he considered what she had told him… Keeping his eyes firmly locked with hers, and not daring to let them drift anywhere lower, Mysterion groused. "Then so be it." Before tearing himself away from the buxom teenager, and heading back to the window. "You have my thanks." He offered briefly.

"Whatever." Was her response, accompanied by a nonchalant flick of her unkempt hair. "Just let me know when you're going to drop by next time." Turning away, she drifted back over to her bed, saying as she sat down on the soft mattress. "And close the window after you-" But as Henrietta Biggle sat herself down to face the mysterious vigilante, from her languid position at the foot of her bed she saw only the open window, curtains fluttering in the wind, taunting her with the absence of her elusive and infrequent visitor.

"Conformist asshole…" She muttered, before reluctantly getting up, closing the window, and throwing herself back into bed.

—?M?—

He just needed a day, a moment, to kill his brain and be as everyone else. To not think about his nightly activities, about what was to come when the moon rose. He needed to push Mysterion to the side for a day… Kenny just hoped the day would be today.

He'd only gotten about an hours sleep after returning from South Park, and it could by no means be called a satisfying rest. But unlike most mornings, it was not his alarm clock that woke him up. It was instead his adoptive mother's voice warbling to him from downstairs. "Kenneth! We're about to go, if you're not ready we're leaving without you!"

With a barely decipherable sound, Kenny lurched to his feet, hurriedly putting on his school uniform and collecting up his books. Not paying much attention to what books he was picking up, or even what clothes he was putting where. So he'd tried a biology textbook as a shoe, piled his Mysterion suit into his schoolbag, and chucked a few books on floor before he was finally in a fit state to head out the house. Which is how he found himself, ten minutes later, engaging in a violent sprint down Gotham's breezy morning streets, with the cold air quickly and torturously waking him up.

In the end he was only forty or so minutes late, speeding through the wrought iron gates of Gotham Academy as the changeover between first and second period was in motion.

—?M?—

A/N: In this short chapter; Kenny all but tells Batman to fuck off, makes use of his dying, visits an informant, and feels the consequences of staying up late.

It's a bit of a short chapter, but I cut it in half and bumped the rest of the stuff I've written over into the next chapter. As a result the next chapter shouldn't take too long.

Thanks for the follows, favourites and reviews, they really get my writing momentum going.