Try to remember
Chapter 9: Sacrifice.
Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, South Park, or anything that comprises the Cthulhu Mythos.
Warning: This chapter is the most gruesome yet, depending on your approach to gruesomeness, but regardless, there is blood.
—?M?—-?M?-
Kenny woke up to complete silence, feeling an overwhelming sense of being far too warm. As his memories caught up with him, Kenny groaned in disappointment. That Ivo character had escaped him, and unless the archer had ignored the car wrecking itself, then Ivo might've gotten away completely.
Sitting up, Kenny pulled off his coat and chanced a quick look at the clock. 21:54. His night was still young. He had time to have a bite to eat, swing by Gotham Academy to grab his school bag out of the bathroom he'd left it in, then come back here, and head out to pick through the Gla'aki cultist's hideout.
Getting dressed quickly, Kenny left his room and headed downstairs, where he was met by the sight of his adoptive parents sitting on the couch watching the news. "Kenneth? I didn't know you were back." Jonathan told him, to which the messy blonde replied by merely shrugging, and moving into the kitchen.
Sluggishly, he put the kettle on, bringing out two mugs. One would be a coffee for him, the other a strong tea for Karen. As the beverages brewed, Kenny began making himself a snack. Then when he was done, he took the mugs in one hand and made his way back upstairs, stopping at Karen's door and for lack of any free hands, kicked at it a bit.
There was no reply, so he spoke out loud. "Karen?" Yet there was still no reply. So placing the mugs down on the floor, Kenny opened the door and peered inside. Where he found no sign of Karen being there. His brow creasing in concern, Kenny picked the mugs back up and went downstairs again. This time he spoke to the Dupuis' and asked them. "Hey, where's Karen?"
"Oh, Karen is staying at her friend's house tonight." Marietta answered him, not looking away from the financial report that was being shown on the TV screen. Something about LexCorp and WayneTech struggling to stay on top of the market, all sorts of financial stuff that he didn't understand.
Humming in affirmation, Mr. Dupuis added fondly. "She started taking self defence lessons with them as well. Your sister is very diligent, Kenny." Only a mild tone of 'you should be more like your sister' entered his voice.
Kenny merely nodded and agreed. "Yeah. She is…" Then as an afterthought he handed the mug of tea to Mrs. Dupuis, saying. "Here, you can have her tea then."
"Thank you, Kenny." The woman replied, before taking a sip and remarking. "Oh, this is very bitter!"
"That's the way she likes it." He informed, until finally saying. "… Anyway, good night."
"Good night, Kenneth." Both chorused as he ascended the stairs once more, this time making his way into his own room.
Then he commenced what felt like the only rest he'd had in the last week, taking a good twenty minutes to just drink his coffee and eat his snack.
After that it was back into his costume, load up his equipment, whose supply he glumly noticed was dwindling, and head out into the city. By the time he'd collected his bag from Gotham Academy, dropped it back at the house and proceeded to head into downtown Gotham, it would be 1:30AM.
—?M?—
Mysterion had descended into the dead end alley, and was busying himself with investigating the wall he knew opened into the cult's secret entrance, when from behind him he heard. "You're already here." The voice of a young boy turned his attention up to the fire escape nearby. Where he saw the Boy Wonder perched, cape falling around his shoulders, and with a look on his face that showed him to be a little annoyed at being here.
Mysterion mumbled in response, still trying locating the opening to the tunnel, as to his chagrin the hole that had breached it last time was gone without a trace. While he puzzled over the matter, Robin continued. "So I heard you took my bike for a joy ride."
"Batman tell you that…?" He answered rhetorically, before remembering how that little chase had ended and commiserating by adding. "It wasn't much of a joy ride."
"Yeah. Batman's not too happy with you." Robin smirked, dropping down from the metal rails and landing with nary a sound. "That crash could've hurt a lot of people. Probably did a lot of property damage too. And Ivo got away."
Normally Mysterion would let the boy's tone of disapproval go, but considering how beat up the school had looked, Kenny did not let his comment go unaddressed. "Minimal property damage. Can't say the same for you and your squad. That little fight at Gotham Academy was anything but subtle."
"You saw that?" Robin's domino mask rose up slightly, curious surprise evident on his face.
Mysterion nodded, still examining the brickwork, feeling with his hands and mind for any kind of crease. "Yeah. I was in the neighbourhood, and it's hard to miss a seven foot tall android throwing itself around… I was going to help out, but, while you had your eyes off Ivo he slipped out of the gym. I went to intercept but, lets just say your archer friend and I got tangled up and he got a head start on us."
"So you met Artemis, huh?" Surprise tempered, the Dark Knight's squire settled for standing idly behind Mysterion, while he worked on the wall.
"That her name?" He grumbled, then saying appreciatively as he remembered her one handed arrow firing. "She's a good shot."
"Yeah. She's not on the team exactly, yet. But yeah, she's good, from what I've seen." Robin told him, their tone becoming less confrontational and more conversational.
"Alright." Kenny agreed, before stepping clearly away from the wall, having found the mystical trigger, the eldritch door handle so to speak. Nudging it with his mind, the plain brick surface slid aside, folding in on itself in an almost physically impossible fashion, revealing within the darkened and winding tunnel. "So we gonna do this or what?" He asked the young hero, who had done a double take at the sudden change Mysterion had triggered.
Nodding affirmatively, Robin gestured forwards and said. "After you."
Taking his flashlight out, Mysterion clicked the switch and a bright beam of light illuminated their path. The grey-green brick of the passageway extending ahead, curving round and descending. Peculiar architecture, but then again that wasn't the only thing peculiar about this place.
They'd barely taken a few steps in when Robin piped up, questioning sarcastically. "A flashlight?"
"Yeah. Whats wrong with that?" Mysterion replied, pausing at the threshold to fix Robin with a withering glare.
"Nothing." The boy excused, raising his hands in the air placatingly. "Just a bit low-tech is all."
"How are you seeing then." Kenny shot back, flicking his head to indicate the nigh impenetrable darkness of the tunnel.
"Night vision in my mask's lenses." The Boy Wonder smiled, tapping the side of his domino mask.
Mysterion rolled his eyes, before swiftly turning and heading into their objective, commented off handedly as he did so. "Good enough for some."
They were a few more steps inside when the stone wall slid closed behind them, sealing them inside the deep dark of the underground. Neither said anything, reacting only by turning to stare at the door for a second, before resuming their trek.
The awkward silence stretched on for a long while as they walked, no sound but their footfalls being made, until Mysterion spoke up, more to keep conversation alive than anything else. "Couldn't have brought your bike?"
Robin made a sound of agreement, finding similar tedium with the long walk they had embarked upon. But soon answered dejectedly. "Batman kind of, bike grounded me. Since I left the keys in it."
Mysterion let out a low sniff of laughter, before adding. "That's not too bad. Most kids your age would be complaining they weren't allowed to go out after six o'clock. While you can't ride your super-bike when you go and fight criminals at one in the morning."
Robin laughed, but didn't add anything. So the two kept walking, Mysterion illuminating the path with his flashlight, while Robin trudged along beside him, the lenses of his domino mask shining with an eerie light.
Eventually the Boy Wonder spoke again, attempting once more to fill the silence as they made they way ever deeper beneath Gotham. "You know question marks are the Riddler's thing. right?"
"I don't care." Was his only thought on that matter, it hadn't mattered when he'd come up with his costume, it didn't matter now. And so what if some Gotham nut job had a question mark fetish, Mysterion only had one point of puzzling punctuation on his costume. It was symbolic, for that one question they always asked. 'Who are you?'
"Okay… So why'd you choose them then?" Robin pursued inquisitively.
"Why'd you call yourself Robin." Kenny fired back, a tad defensively.
"I've kind of got a colour scheme going on." Was the reply, Robin lifting his cape a little to show the yellow underside.
"Then why do you dress like a colourblind girl scout?"
"Jerk." At that, Mysterion finally laughed out loud, and replied with a sense of dark humour about his gravelly tone. "Oh gee wizz, golly gosh Robin, I hope I'm not being a jerk. Did I hurt your feelings?"
"Cut it out…" Replied the Golden Boy Wonder of young superheroes. Followed by a small hesitation, and then. "Asshole… And never do that again, it was like Batman trying to be funny. Just made me cringe."
By the time their bickering was at an end, the beam of Mysterion's flashlight had met with a dead end. Searching his light around the eldritch vigilante soon found the same single stone door, heavily set into the wall.
Pushing forward him and Robin ventured into the antechamber, that strangely spherical room with the pool of algae topped silvery water in it. But this time the pool was empty, leaving only a small indentation in the ground where the pool had been, no liquid in sight. The exquisite runes still remained however, carved into the stone around the edge of the depression.
A little apprehensively, Robin broke the almost suffocating silence that had fallen over them. "So, what did you and Batman find down here then?"
"He didn't tell you?"
"He told me some of what happened. But we've been busy." Robin told him apprehensively, scanning his eyes around dark room very intently.
"Alright." Kenny accepted, crouching down at the edge of the pool to press a hand to its floor. Feeling for anything out of place, either physically or otherwise. "Until last night this was the hideout of a minor occult organisation. A cell of about ten cult members, all with some form of supernaturally induced immortality. You don't need to know their name, or what they stand for, all you need to know is they engage in blood sacrifices…" He let the fact hang in the air for a while, then adding. "That should be reason enough to want each and every one of them behind bars."
Robin did not reply, so Mysterion continued. "They had been procuring human sacrifices from Enrico Inzerillo. Then funnelling them down here, and… Well you'll see in the next room what they were doing…"
Robin grimaced, looking around uneasily, before asking. "So what's this you're looking at?"
"Not quite sure. I can't read all the runes, most of these sorts of cults have their own language, or dialect at least. Usually some ancient hieroglyphics or runic symbolism." Mysterion lectured, examining the empty pool and carved sigils more thoroughly than he'd had a chance to when it was him and Batman down here. "Seven times out of ten its derived from ancient Egyptian, but here we're looking at some more anglicised runes. This spiral, with the counter clockwise spiral on its right and the line bisecting the two as a horizon, means something like transportation over a vast body of stormy water… I think. I'm not fluent in their languages, but I've been around enough to grasp certain aspects."
Robin made a vague noise of understanding, as Mysterion continued to think out loud. "But I'm not sure why it would be here… There was water in this pool last night, but now… Gone without a trace… Could it be some kind of teleportation circle? But, teleporting water? Maybe they used it to get from place to place… But all these runes." Kenny ran a green gloved hand over a set of runes. "All these symbolise distance, so if this pool did teleport it would be across thousands of miles at least."
"So like a zeta-tube?" Robin piped up.
Mysterion turned to Robin and gave him a mildly quizzical look, asking. "Zeta-tube?"
"Oh." Was the sadly intoned realisation Robin expelled, looking slightly guilty with himself. "Its… A teleport system the league uses. It's not exactly public knowledge, so…"
Staring blankly for a second, Mysterion then merely shrugged and stood up. "Night vision masks, super-bikes, grappling guns, teleporters. How fucking rich are you people."
Quick to retort, Robin said. "Well the league has a lot of benefactors, businesses, private companies, and just people who donate to us."
"Like?" Kenny asked, curiosity now burning at the back of his mind. The Justice League had funding, financial backing. It wasn't something he'd thought about before, but now, it seemed obvious.
"That's confidential. Gotta keep their privacy and all." The Boy Wonder replied, anxious to get away from the topic.
"You don't want to tell me? That's fine. I could probably guess." The hooded vigilante mused, amused at the possibility of unravelling this mystery, and causing Robin to panic at having revealed apparently secret information about teleport technology, and superhero funding. "Lets see, who are the most vocal supporters of the Justice League." Running over just general discussions he'd seen on the news numerous times, the kind of reports that were broadcast daily, given the Leagues regular heroics. "Oliver Queen is an obvious one. Maxwell Lord another. Fuck it, I wouldn't be surprised if Bruce Wayne is putting some money into it… Am I right?" He turned to Robin, only to find the Boy Wonder glaring at him with a poor imitation of Batman's Bat Glare, the one Mysterion had found himself on the receiving end of the previous night, where he had been as equally unaffected as he was now. In fact, all he did to reply was smirk and say. "I'm right."
"Alright, well done. Can we move on?" The young hero snarked, throwing his arms out in exasperation.
Letting out a low chuckle, Mysterion moved towards the only other door in the room, and said just. "Sure." Remaining satisfied that in a few seconds he'd guessed three of the Justice League's financial backers.
Leading the way through the other door into that same small, dead end corridor, Mysterion strode up to the brick blockade and at once focused his gaze on the right corner. Space warped and matter travelled via paths that most humans could not hope, nor would ever wish, to comprehend. And Kenny stared straight at it with nothing more than a blank stare. Half turning his head to regard Robin, he impressed upon the boy in as direct a way as he could, the importance of his instructions. "Robin. When I've gone through, you close your eyes and do the same. Do not open them until I tell you. Do you understand?"
Confused at the sudden increase in severity, Robin got the message loud and clear, nodding once to show he understood.
Facing the dimensional inconsistency, Kenny stepped through, feeling nothing as he emerged on the other side. But the panicked scream that followed him didn't seem to have Mysterion's knack for these anomalies, as Robin was thrown through into the other side, collapsing against the far wall, retching and wobbling on his knees.
"W-what, the fuck was that!?" The young boy demanded, his voice quaking.
Circling back to their earlier topic, which tied in quite nicely, Mysterion asked pensively. "These Zeta-tubes. Instantaneous teleportation, right?"
"Y-yeah." Was the shaky reply.
"Okay, then we'll call Zeta beams a rational, scientific, man-made method of teleportation. What you just experienced was the irrational, unscientific, and frighteningly natural method of teleportation. No safety harness, no training wheels, no technology. That's the moonshine to Zeta-beam's white wine." Mysterion explained, opting for some simple metaphors rather than explain the space warping anti-physics that were somehow allowed to exist in the universe.
"So, we've teleported?" Robin asked, trying to push himself to his feet.
"Maybe." Kenny replied, grabbing the boy under his arm and helping him to stand up straight. "I couldn't quite tell. But the principal remains the same. You just moved though means that no man was meant to walk."
"Then how are you still standing?" The Boy Wonder asked, indignant.
"It's never bothered me." Mysterion replied truthfully. "But you did better than most. It gave Batman a spin. Just be glad you had your eyes closed."
"Why?" Robin questioned slowly, evidently not happy about the prospect of his prior journey possibly being any more physically disturbing.
"If you take anything away from this little team-up, Robin. Understand that there are some things our minds aren't capable of dealing with." He replied cryptically.
Looking back at the corner, Robin stared blankly foe a moment, before asking. "Did you close your eyes?"
"Ready to move on?" Kenny asked, ignoring the question.
Robin stared back at Mysterion for a while, before standing up to say. "Let's go."
Slowly moving into the next room, Mysterion made sure to keep an eye out for any lurking enemies, even though this place seemed to be deserted. However, one difference in the room from when he last saw it made Kenny stop dead in his tracks.
Where last night there had been a pool of dark, foreboding water occupying a basin that took up at least half the room. Now there was no liquid, revealing the empty pool, with one large drainage pipe leading away. The hole in the wall which had last night been obscured by the water, was now plain to see, and even plainer to see in the darkness of this room was a light at the end of said tunnel.
"That wasn't there before." Mysterion voiced aloud, his tone wary and heavy with suspicion. Robin stood silently behind him as Kenny cast the flashlight's beam around the room. The stark light cast awkward and gnarled shadows over the walls as it was caught by the various boxes that littered the room. Then it chanced upon that open door,, the one which led to the bedchambers that contained Cthulhu's ghastly image.
Upon checking the room though, Kenny found it empty of the bas relief. Looking back over to Robin, who was searching the other side of the room, Mysterion whispered over to him. "Anything?"
"I don't see anything too strange." The boy said back, before the two reconvened in the middle of the room, their gazes slowly fixing upon the hole in the wall.
It was barely five feet in diameter and would certainly not be a comfortable walk, but at the end there was that tantalising light. Kenny could see it opened at the end into a much vaster space, so with no options left he said to Robin. "I'll go first."
Not putting up an argument, Robin silently fell in behind him as Mysterion stooped down to scurry through the damp and dank pipe. As he drew nearer to the other end he could make out what kind of space this pipeline opened into. A sense of dread crept over him as he reached their objective.
Robin shuffled beside him to where they now perched on a ledge, where the pipe extended out of a wall into the air and just cut off in a sheer drop. The space they were now in was a gigantic well, a cylindrical room which had many pipes the same as the one they were sat in extending into it, each at various heights but all appearing to cut off very abruptly. Then, far below them was the floor. An oval shaped reservoir lurked down there, still and silent ochre liquid resting in this subterranean sewer. The rest of the floor was a flat landing, with a semicircular archway leading into the wall, showing that there was a different way to enter that didn't involve crawling through stinking pipes.
That's when the smell registered with him, and in a deep well of depressed and angry realisation, Kenny uttered. "Oh…"
"What?" Robin whispered back as the metallic stink rose around them, as if encouraged by Mysterion's noticing of it.
"I told you I thought they were planning to sacrifice last nights hostages, right?" He said, voice low and near trembling.
"Yeah." Was Robin's nervous reply, uncertainly awaiting the response.
"Look around…" Mysterion told him, pointing out the various other pipes that emptied into this well. "Four, five, six other pipes feeding into this room. Last night this pipe was filled with water. Dark red, water…"
A horrified idea dawned in Robin's head, and he asked. "You don't mean…"
"Look at that reservoir down there… There's a lot of it, and it sure as shit isn't clean… And I haven't stopped any other cult cells while I've been here…"
Robin turned away, almost choking but valiantly holding his stomach. Mysterion grimaced and grimly ground out. "I can't believe I didn't smell it earlier…"
Robin's eyes bulged beneath his mask, and he took up his perch next to Mysterion again, ranting quietly. "That's sick. That's disgusting. That's-"
"Fucked up." Kenny cut him off, sympathising but needing to keep the Boy Wonder focused. "I know."
"What the fuck were they planning to do?" Robin whispered harshly.
Shaking his head, Mysterion looked down to where the silent waters waited, the empty stone shore beside it. "It doesn't matter, I won't let them succeed."
"We won't…" Robin asserted, before quietly realising. "Oh God, how many people have died already."
Seeing Robin run a shaky hand over his face, Mysterion was reminded of when he'd first found something like this. Cold sweat, an indignant epiphany forcing him to ask how could something like this happen. Assuming that rust coloured water was diluted with what they knew in the dark parts of their heart that it was. So Kenny provided the medicine that had been working for him ever since he became such a hopeless pessimist. "Best not to think about it too much, not right now anyway. Be on the lookout, we need to get down there."
The Boy Wonder pushed down any grim thoughts he might've been having and realigned his attention/ Then, after a scarce few moments of waiting, as unbeknownst to the heroes the clock ticked over into the next day, Robin spotted something. "Look over by that opening, something's moving."
He was right, down on the floor far below them, a number of figures were emerging from the archway's darkness. Leading the way was a large man, Mysterion couldn't tell how tall he was exactly, but he stood head and shoulders above the rest of the group nonetheless. Trailing behind him was a young girl, perhaps no older than Robin, and although she was not bound it was clear she did not want to be there. Her head hung low, bedraggled dark violet hair hanging over her downtrodden face, her feet dragged, and the sparse clothing she wore was tattered and nondescript. While every other person present was dressed heavily in either robes, or some sort of dark wrappings that covered them completely.
Along with the two were a contingent of the beige and cyan robed cultists, their asymmetrically coloured uniforms stinging the eye with their garishness. Then there were a smaller number of the black clad individuals, each wearing a sword at their hip, and with nought but their eyes showing.
Then there was a third figure who stood out from the rest. They were tall and broad shouldered, dressed in mostly black apart from one glaring, colourful cape and hood hanging around their shoulders. Reminiscent of his own cloak and hood, Mysterion couldn't help but narrow his eyes at the golden-yellow colour of it, standing out against the black of the ninja-like sword wielders and the maddeningly coloured cultists.
As gold cloak watched from beneath the shade of their hood, the leader of the troupe strode forward to the edge of the reservoir. There he crouched down to inspect the waters, not touching them, but merely smelling and seeing. Meanwhile the young girl stood behind him, strands of hair obscuring any expression her face might've held.
The leader said something to the assembled cultists, and they immediately took to standing in specific positions. Arranging themselves in a circle, only the robed ones whom Kenny was familiar with taking up these places, while the sword wielders stood around the outer edge. As they did this the gold cloak turned its gaze upwards. Instantly provoking Mysterion and Robin to shrink back into the darkness of their pipe lest they be caught.
As they crouched in hiding, Kenny could almost feel a weight pass over them as the gold cloaked person carried their eyes, if they had them beneath that hood, over the various pipes. After this long perusal though, the figure seemed unaffected, and took a step back from the group, standing off to one side, detached and observant.
Seemingly done with their organising, the cultists all stood perfectly still as their tall, dark skinned leader remained knelt by the waters edge. Mysterion narrowed his eyes as he watched the leader take a long dagger out of his belt, and slowly sink the blade into the water, lifting it up just afterwards and watching the now red steel as it glistened in the low firelight that torches bracketed on the walls provided.
He then pointed at the girl, directing her to stand in the middle of the large circle the cultists had created. But she did not move, prompting the man to stand, and tower himself over the young woman, saying something and once more pointing over to the centre of the circle.
With even more reluctance than she had been showing up until this point, the violet haired girl moved to stand in the middle of the circle. That was when the man moved to stand beside her, placing one large hand on her shoulder and throwing the other wide as if to present this girl to the pool of dark and disgusting water.
Then he called out, in a booming voice. "Great Dreamer! Gla'aki! I beseech you, grant us a sight into the future, give unto us, your grateful friends and rapturous listeners, a means to the greatest of ends! Summoning our father back into this world!"
The words echoed out around the well, their fervent nature however being noticeably marred by a lurking sense of caution and perhaps skepticism, as if he didn't expect whatever it was they were doing to work. "If you hear us not, through the vasty swaths of space that exist between us, then let our powerful sacrifice reach you, so that you might attend to us, your devoted companions!"
"Like shit." Mysterion stated, before snapping an order at Robin as he unclipped his grappling hook. "As soon as you see fireworks, drop in and grab the girl." Then whirling the hook around in a sudden succession of spins, Kenny threw it underarm, up towards the crisscrossing web of smaller pipes on the ceiling.
The grapple looped around the loose collection of piping and pulled taught, then Mysterion dropped off the ledge and let gravity and momentum work their magic.
He fell for a good distance, before the rope swung him out and over the reservoir of dark water, and directly towards his target. A babble of shouts threw themselves up as Mysterion came into the cultists view, but by the time they'd realised he was there, it was too late.
Mysterion let go at the bottom of the swoop, sailing through the air and snatching the glistening dagger out of the central figures hand. He skimmed over the bound girl and came to ground on the other side of the group, rolling across the hard floor and being consumed by the shadows of the archway as momentum carried him into the openings lightless arms.
The swift singing of metal resounded, as the six black-clad warriors drew swords. The towering hulk of a leader bellowed out a cry of intense frustration, while the taller, golden cloaked figure merely stood and watched.
The tension hung in the air for a moment, as none of them acted, waiting for Mysterion to reemerge… But nothing happened.
Then there was a soft click from within the darkness, and a tiny light sparked up. Then several more lights came to life in quick succession. They were very small, and only served to add to the apprehension these cultists now held.
Then a volley of firecrackers were flung out of the shadows, exploding about the heads of the assassin cultists, as a different volley of pellets descended from above. Mysterion's fireworks snapped and cracked, while Robin's smoke bombs expelled their obscuring fog. And the battle commenced.
Heartbeat pounding in his ears, Kenny sprang out of the darkness and into the thick fog. Cloak billowing behind him he approached one hazy shape, and upon reaching it the figure became visible in the dense smoke. A now familiar yellow and cyan robed creature, whirling around in the confusion. Mysterion stealthily slipped around behind it to where he hoped that same silver spiker would be, and made a grab for it.
It was not murder, Kenny tried to tell himself as the barb ripped free. Eliciting a pig like squeal from the abomination. Then as he moved on to the next target he tried to ignore that same question as he severed the thin line that had been tethering these creatures of the cult to this world and their abominable form of life.
Two more of their kind were felled by his hand before he spotted a dark shape fly at him out of the smoke. Ducking down and to the left Mysterion felt the wisp of wind cut by him as a sword sliced through the air, barely missing his throat.
Pushing forward Mysterion drove a fist into the shrouded face of his attacker, knocking them back. Which is when he felt an uncomfortable piercing sensation around his stomach. Looking down Kenny saw a long curved blade, slick with blood, emerging from him, which to any normal person would've been cause for concern, but Kenny simply reached his hands around his back and clasped on to the hilt that was holding this steel in him.
A shocked sound came from within the head wrap of the swordsman who had stabbed him, as Mysterion's dark green gloves closed around his wrists. With a vice like grip Kenny pried the hands from the sword, and then looping one hand back to grab hold of the assailants arm, sword still stuck in his torso, Mysterion threw the man at the enemy on his other side who was struck watching this feat of pain endurance.
The other dodged out of the path of his airborne compatriot, and turned back in time to see Mysterion, clouded by the smoke, unsheathing the sword from his back. Giving it a swift flick to dispel any of his blood that lingered on the blade, he charged at the cultist.
Mysterion brought the blade down in an overhead strike, which was blocked swiftly by his opponent. Then he followed it up with a diagonal slice aiming to cut from should to hip, but that too was deftly parried away.
"She's safe! Mysterion get out of there!" Robin's voice came echoing down to him loud and clear, and throwing his sword at the ninja, Kenny sprinted out of the slowly dispersing smoke and to the edge of the reservoir, where he could see his grapple's rope dangling down, it's end suspended just above the waters. Glancing up he saw Robin clambering into the pipe they had entered from, the young girl already standing inside it.
Taking a moment to sink down into a lunge, Mysterion leapt out over the water and grabbed for his rope. His feet skimmed the surface as he wrapped himself around the line and as quickly as he could, started to haul himself up it.
He could hear the cultists scrambling around in the fog still, and Mysterion only dared to look back when he was halfway up his speedy climb. There he saw at the edge of the water, that golden cloaked figure, holding the leader by the throat in one hand, while in the other he clutched the knife Kenny had previously knocked from the bosses hand.
With one brutal motion, and a deep rumbling utterance of sounds, the golden cloaked figure plunged to dagger into the leaders neck. "Ya uln Gla'aki." Spoke the killer, in a voice like distant thunder. Then in a swift motion, he lifted the gurgling, dying man aloft, and dropped him into the great pool of thick, stinking liquid.
Mysterion watched this unfold beneath him, and as the body disappeared out of sight, the golden cloak turned its hood up to meet his own gaze. The two locked silent stares for a moment, before the golden individual stepped back into the smoke, and off towards the exit.
Kenny wasted no more time, and scaled the rope as fast as he could. Meanwhile red waters began to boil and bubble far below him, yet he reached the top of his climb in short order.
Now he was presented with a new problem, the pipe was a good fifteen feet away from him, and the web of piping he'd attached the hook to did not seem like feasible bars to grab onto. Seeing Robin and the girl waiting for him inside the opening, Kenny started to swing his legs, using his momentum to build up a swing in order to throw himself over the gap.
As he picked up momentum, Mysterion was all too aware of the indecipherable chanting that the cultists had started up down below, and of the drowned rumblings that came from beneath the water.
"I'm not, going to die, this time." Kenny growled under his breath, glaring out from under his hood at the landing he needed to make. Then with a heave he jumped off of the rope and sailed through the air.
His face fell when he realised he wouldn't make it. "Ah shit." Were the plainly disappointed words that slipped out of his mouth as he drew just a scratch too short of the ledge.
Then his fingers grazed the lip of the pipe, and a smaller hand than his own closed around his wrist. Followed by a small shout of pain from the Boy Wonder who had just grabbed on to hold him up. In a split second Kenny's other hand grabbed the ledge with a solid grip, to more than anything alleviate the pain of the kid who had just been momentarily holding his heavy weight up.
Mysterion dragged himself into the pipe to see Robin leant against one side, rubbing his should in pain. Meanwhile the girl they had just absconded with was stood awkwardly on the other side, her furtive eyes glancing from Robin to himself.
"We need to get the-" Interrupting his sentence was the sound of that distant, submerged roar, which just then broke through the waters and became so loud Kenny could barely think for a moment. "Fuck out of here!" He finished as the unidentifiable cacophony reverberated through every part of the sewer.
Robin took off ahead, while Mysterion brought up the rear, urging the as of yet silent girl onwards as he did so. They hurried through the pipe and emerged into the lightless chamber on the other side.
Looking back down the pipe Kenny saw nothing, but still he could hear that sound, the echo of a bellow that never diminished, shaking his skeleton in his skin and trembling the blood in his veins. "Keep going." He urged, moving them onwards.
Then into the corridor they went, Robin grimacing as he closed his eyes and dove through the invisible pathway. Mysterion placed a hand on the confused young girl's shoulder, and spoke in an urgent tone too rushed to bother trying to sound comforting. "Close your eyes and walk through that corner. Keep 'em closed until I say so, okay?"
She nodded in the darkness and did as he said. Sparing only a glance back to make sure they weren't followed, Kenny frowned deeply upon hearing the telltale sound of cracking and crumbling stone. Then he followed after the others.
He stepped out to see Robin leaning heavily against the wall once more, while the girl sat against said same wall looking similarly worse for wear. "It's alright." He told them. "We're not home free yet, but we're better off on this side."
Pulling out his flashlight, Mysterion flicked it on to provide both him and the nameless girl some much needed light. In doing so he illuminated the wide eyed, ashen skinned face of the girl herself, who sat, trembling against the cold stone wall. "You alright?" Kenny asked tentatively, and for lack of any more pertinent questions.
In response she shook her head, and told him in a quiet, whisper of a voice. "I didn't close my eyes."
Mysterion's face fell, along with it he crouched down before the huddled girl and spoke in an assured, comforting tone. The tone of voice he used to speak to Karen all those years ago, when Mysterion still availed the nights of South Park, Colorado. "Hey. What's you name?"
"Raven."
"Raven, listen to me. Whatever you saw in there, it can't hurt you now, not so long as I am here." With his words her eyes lifted to meet his own, and looking simultaneously afraid and confused she asked.
"Who even are you?"
Kenny smiled warmly, and gave the answer. "I am Mysterion, and we are getting you out of here." Taking her hand Kenny helped Raven to her feet, supporting her there as she stood on shaky legs after the ordeal she had just been through. Even through his gloves he could feel how cold she was, not surprising however seeing as she was dressed only in a dirty black leotard, and a fraying cardigan that was missing its buttons and whose thin wool was too big for her small frame.
In a short moment Mysterion had unclasped the cloak from his shoulders and pulled it off hood and all. "Here, wear this." He said, holding out the large blanket like cape to her, now with only a half mask obscuring his face, leaving a few strands of dirty blonde hair poking out where the black mask was tied at his nape. He did feel a little naked without that cloak, standing there in only his combat pants and dirty grey long-sleeved shirt, the dirty green M painted clumsily on its front. But better him than her, Kenny reflected as the ashen skinned young girl took his cloak, wrapping it around her diminutive form and pulling the hood over her head. It was too large for her, but that only served to warm her up faster, the purple fabric enveloping her almost completely, the hood casting a deep shadow over her face, where only the vaguest peep of violet eyes could be seen from within.
"Robin, try and contact Batman. Let's get moving." He finalised before motioning their little group out of the hallway.
As they exited the door a sound came from behind them, ringing out of the cracks between the doorframe. A terrible sound, like tearing steel and the baying of starving hounds. Then as quick as it had deafened their ears, it vanished into the air, leaving only whispers and distant echoes behind.
Mysterion held up a hand to stop Robin and Raven from doing anything, then he himself pulled the door open a fraction, to see what chaos might be held inside.
Inside was only settling rubble, the hallway having caved in completely, showing nothing of what was had been on the other side, even when he directed his flashlight all across every crevice. Closing the door again, Mysterion let out a sigh of relief. "I don't think they're going to be following us."
"I'll contact Batman then." Robin piped up after a quiet pause, before lifting up his glove and activating some sort of computer.
Rolling his shoulders, Mysterion trudged towards the now sole exit, lighting the way with his flashlight, and saying as he did so. "Alright. Raven, I hope you're ready for a long walk back to the surface."
Following after him, his cape fluttering as she walked, the quiet girl replied. "I'll be glad just to be breathing fresh air."
—?M?—
A long walk later found them at the top of the underground trail and before that flat stone wall. This time he barely had to sense for it, Mysterion just muttered a word of. "Open." And the secret door slid aside for them.
When they were outside in the filthy alleyway and under the black of the night, Robin grappled the nearby rooftop and lifted Raven up with him. Leaving Mysterion, who had lost his grapple line back down in that pit, to navigate his way up the side of the building the old fashioned way, finding footholds and vaulting up the fire escape to the roof. Where he emerged to see Robin immersed in conversation with the Dark Knight himself, while Raven waited for his arrival by the ledge.
Standing beside her it wasn't a second before Batman had addressed him. "Mysterion, watch her while I talk with Robin." Without waiting for a reply, Batman swept over to the other side of the building, his young partner following close behind.
Looking sidelong at Raven, Mysterion saw her hanging her head. "Forget about Batman, guy's a asshole." He told her, eliciting the tiniest of chuckles from the girl. "… A well meaning asshole, I think, but still an asshole." He added briefly.
After that the only sound that passed between them for a long while was the rushing of the air, and the far off sound of cars still roaming the late night come very early morning streets. Then after what seemed like an age, Raven spoke up. "… I saw you get stabbed."
Mysterion could do nothing but let that admittance hang in the chilly air for a while. So she had seen that? "Don't worry about it, I'm fine." He tried to assure her, still not taking his eyes off of the cityscape.
"The sword went right through you…" She stated blankly, turning her head to stare at him from under the hood.
"And I'm fine." He reasserted, blue eyes flicking to the side to pay her his attention.
"Are you?" She persisted gently, the smallest bead of worry climbing into her voice.
"Sure." It was all he could say. He had been stabbed through with a sword, but explaining how he was still standing would only lead down one road. And maybe she would believe him, maybe she had seen some mystical activity, hell, she must have. But the difference with Kenny is he didn't like to talk about it. Too many times he'd tried to explain his curse to people, sometimes he'd even try to play it off as something smaller to lighten the initial shock. More, i'm heavily resistant to pain, rather than outright saying, I can't die… But that had always felt dishonest, even if the lie was of no consequence. He just didn't like to talk about it.
"Okay…" Raven supplied, turning her face away from him and returning to gazing out over the gothic city. "Do you want your cloak back?"
"You keep it." He said as he waved the offer away. "Besides anything else it's cold out tonight."
Raven drew the fabric tighter around herself as it flowed in the wind, and murmured in reply. "Yes, it is."
"Mysterion." Like a lightning strike out of a silent cloud, Batman was suddenly right beside them, having arrived unnoticed. "Robin and I will take Raven here back to a League safe-house, tomorrow night at 10PM you will meet me here and we will discuss the situation as it stands. Does that sound agreeable to you."
Given the Bat's attempt at politeness, all Kenny could do was nod brusquely and say. "It does." As the sun began to approach the horizon, turning the sky from its deadly black and grey, into a light violet hue.
—?M?—?M?—
A/N: Longest chapter yet! I'm a little bit proud per se. This one was in my head from the start, and with it's close we find ourselves at the end of the first story arc which I have been calling in my head 'The Dreamer Beneath Gotham' which I thought was Lovecraftian enough to fit this introductory arc.
I initially hoped to get this done for South Park's 20th, but things got in the way. Anyway, as always, thank you for taking the time to read, follow, favourite, review or whatever you happened to do.
Now I said I'd answer some questions every other chapter, so here we go.
Master of the night Nightmaster000 had some regarding Loretta Inzerillo's role in the story, and the appearance of more South Park characters.
Loretta; Initially she was just a throwaway character, but somehow she grew into something more. And while she won't have a major role in the story, and she will probably not appear again for a while, I do have some plans for her. Unless people really like/dislike her of course, she is after all, a very fickle girl.
More South Park characters; They will appear, but at the beginning here I just wanted to focus a lot more on Kenny and establishing the tone of this story. Because South Park is so god damn funny and ridiculous, I had to put a tap on it. But we've already seen Henrietta appear, and more characters both major and minor will start to drip through.
The always appreciated Elena-chan had a question about ships, to which I will say romance is a wonderful narrative force so it'd be remiss of me not to include it on some level. I'm also an avid shipper so there's that. But y'all can tell me your favourite ships in a review; who would you pair Kenny with and why?