Try to Remember

Chapter 12: Acceptance

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fictional material used in this crossover.

—?M?—?M?—?M?—

It would be a week before Kenny heard from Batman again, and when he did receive the call it was at the beginning of a night of patrol. The midsummer air was warm, and night had barely fallen as the crescent moon oozed gently over jagged horizon of Gotham's lower east side. When his communicator beeped softly, Kenny had to fiddle around with the wrist device a few times before it seemed to receive the call.

"Batman to Mysterion." The Dark Knight's voice came through the small speaker, quiet and slightly distorted.

"This is Mysterion." Kenny replied, pausing atop a water tower to take the call, cape whipping around him as he stood there, wrist held before his face, glaring out over the nightscape.

"I have a mission for you." The Bat continued, voice making what could have been an offer sound implicitly obligatory.

"What is it?" Returned Mysterion, still scanning both the close and the distant skyline for any signs of trouble, though still curiously wondering what this 'mission' could be.

"Do you recognise the name 'Kent Nelson'." Batman's voice shifted on the other end of the line, faint electronic sounds audible in the background.

Kenny wracked his brain for any threads of familiarity connected to that name. A fraction of a memory unravelled, of him and Henrietta late one night, pouring over the yellowed pages of that ancient and dangerous book. Kent Nelson was someone she had mentioned in passing, with regard to her increased interest in 'normie magic' as she had called it. If Kenny remembered rightly he held some important title or other.. "Heard it before, yeah. Sorcerer Supreme, right? What about him."

"Nelson has been missing for over three weeks and the League is considering sending someone to look for him." Batman informed him, continuing without pausing to question how Mysterion knew of the man. Kenny suspected the Dark Knight thought he knew more than he actually did, which was true, but only in some areas.

Nevertheless, Mysterion immediately recognised what the older hero's 'mission' for him was. "Right…"

Clearly assuming Mysterion knew what he meant, the Dark knight elaborated. "He lives in Salem, Massachusetts. You can take a zeta-tube there and see what you find. Consider it a test."

"A test of what…?" Kenny could hazard a few guesses at what the answer might be, but the nature of this test straight from the Bat's mouth would be far more convenient… Yet there was no reply. "… Hello…?" Dropping his hand Mysterion steeled his gaze out over the city, thoughts far less composed than his outward appearance would suggest. Murmuring under his breath he descended from the perch, and headed for that same piss-stained phone booth. "Son of a bitch hung up on me. Great, goodbye quiet night, hello bullshit old-manhunt."

—?M?—

"Mysterion, A-Zero-Three… Salem." No sooner had he spoken did the white light engulf him, flashing like the bulb of an old camera, and whisking him away to somewhere else. In just as quick of an instant, the light peeled back to reveal a different alleyway; his destination.

But immediately as he arrived something struck him, it was like a tremor in the Earth, or even more, like someone had swept a carpet out from under his feet. It was a level of reaction in his eldritch sense that he had only ever gotten a handful of times before in his life. As he stilled from the sudden awareness, Kenny grimaced; this was probably very bad news.

Before he could think to hard about this though, Mysterion needed to get somewhere less visible. He wasn't too fond of civilians seeing him, at least getting a good enough look to realise he wa dressed far less extravagantly than your average hero. Maybe extravagant wasn't the term, but he certainly didn't look as professional as any other hero he'd seen. Which was fine, after all, he wasn't really like many other heroes.

Ten minutes later saw Kenny catching his breath on top of an old colonial era hall, within sight of the harbour power station but still close enough to hear the noise of cars on the main road. Going from the never sleeping always shouting Gotham, to here was a bit of a shock. Perhaps since he'd made the journey in so little time, but given the overall look of the city it didn't strike him as too different from Gotham. The buildings were lower, the roads far wider, and there was a lot more greenery around. It was a different kind of city to Gotham, and Kenny wasn't quite sure if he preferred it or not. But then he slid his mind out of ordinary perception and he made his decision.

Magic flooded this place, hanging in the air like background radiation. If it was a sound it would've been akin to the ring of a tuning fork that has just been struck. The whole city thrummed with power, and it seemed to be coming from one specific place. All Mysterion needed to do now was follow that sensation and he would hopefully find some clues to Kent Nelson. Although given the power he was experiencing here, Kent Nelson took a back seat to his own curiosity.

The nexus of this power revealed itself to be

Gallows Hill Park, a wide open span of grass that seemed far too empty for Mysterion's liking. Even at this time of night there were usually one or two people in the park; joggers on a midnight run, homeless people, drug dealers, or just delinquents. Even birds and rodents seemed to be steering clear of this place. The desolation, coupled with these feelings of electric uneasiness set Kenny's nerves on edge. So, for lack of any better hiding places, he lowered himself to street level and headed across the road into the park.

To an outside observer it would look like a large but scrupulous cat slid out of the darkness and moved, shadow to shadow across the street. A travelling shape, Mysterion sank into each shadow softly, appearing only as a dark lump the few times he passed under a streetlamp's glow. He felt that subconscious desire to keep out of sight, if at all, there was anyone's sight to keep out of. Perhaps he was being overly paranoid, but when the hairs on the back of his neck tingled so, Kenny would rather be safe than dead.

In Gallows Hill there was almost no light, the only aids to visibility were the few infrequent lampposts that lit the walking paths, and of course the moon. Mysterion stayed off the beaten path, coasting the edge of the orange lamp glow. But here, with seemingly no one around he stopped moving with the stooped, hurried gait of someone who need not be seen, and started walking cautiously, the steady, tentative strides of someone who was looking for something. Something that could not be seen with the naked eye.

To search like this, fully using whatever sixth sense he had, was a peculiar thing. If his mind was a car he would be changing gears constantly, if his mind was a boat he would be repeatedly hoisting and drawing down the sail, if his mind was anything he could make sense of he wouldn't have to think in such metaphors. But that was the level he had to sense on, something beyond normal physical bounds, something that was hidden within his own mind, hidden even from himself. It was that part of him that made people forget, that part of him that could exist as easily on eldritch planes as a fish could live in the ocean. It was alarming how natural it felt, sensing this way.

All his other sense became slightly distorted as Kenny shifted his mind into that secret form; the air smelled sweeter, the keen scent of pollen and garbage. The air tasted sweet too, and thick as if he were breathing in smoke. Over the backdrop of silence in the park, he could pick up the sound of his heart thudding, his blood flowing, his feet squashing the grass beneath him. And when he looked, Kenny saw; darkness did not illuminate but became easier to see through, depth was somehow deeper, like shapes were now bordering the farthest edges of three dimensions, it was exceedingly peculiar. But through it all Mysterion could see something up ahead, standing tall in the middle of a clearing, away from the path. A great tower. And though he could see it was there, Kenny could not quite focus on it, as if the tower itself was an over exposed polaroid picture of the real thing. So he moved closer.

Fully aware that he was probably (on the back of whatever powers he had) reaching through dimensions, Mysterion stretched out with his gloved hands and pressed his palms to the tower. At that moment he seemed to tune into the wavelengths that this tower was existing on, and the rough beige bricks became clearly visible to him. It was nothing remarkable as towers go, bar the fact that it was folded into a different part of reality, but there was a door, with a handle.

Taking the next logical step, Kenny turned the handle and tried to open the door. It remained shut, but somehow that did not stop him from moving through the dark oak door and into the tower. He moved through it as if the tower were made of flowing liquid, the seemingly solid door warping over his skin and swallowing him in, returning to its form behind him as from the outside the tower once more became invisible, leaving no trace that anyone or anything had just been there.

—?M?—

Mysterion stood frozen on the other side of the door, blinking in deftly concealed alarm. 'That was a little… more, than usual.' He mused to himself, before a rich elderly voice stopped his thoughts from spiralling into questions.

"Greetings, you have entered without a key and the tower does not recognise you. I'm impressed. Nevertheless, you have thirteen seconds to state your name and business." Before him was standing a shimmering simulacrum of light, the figure of an old man in a suit leaning on a cane.

Not wanting to find out what would happen after thirteen seconds, Kenny produced an answer, not a stammer or stutter in there. Diving confidently forward in the face of the unknown. "I am Mysterion. Batman sent me to look for you Mr. Nelson, you've been missing for a while."

The illusion that Kenny hoped was of Kent Nelson, did not reach visibly. But after a brief pause that lingered a fraction too long, it said in a kindly tone. "The Tower detects my presence nearby, I'll let you through into the lounge to wait."

"Thanks." The apparition then vanished in an instant, revealing behind it a short stone corridor that led to a single door. Throwing a cautionary glance over his shoulder, Kenny quietened his worrisome thoughts and trudged onwards, stepping through the door (this time obeying the laws of physics that regarded doors) into the Tower's interior beyond.

Upon crossing over the threshold a chilling feeling rushed through him, a familiar presence to him; his sixth sense for the strange and unusual was still bristling. He didn't know what had just happened, but he was pretty sure that door had led him to some further place than euclidean architecture would allow. He had a feeling that the room now laid out in front him may not have been in this geographical place a moment ago. But then he reminded himself that this was called The Tower of Fate, and a location didn't gain such a title by being just your regular old building.

The room he now found himself in was spacious, but no more than a large living room in an up market house is spacious. It was furnished as such too, with two old, over-stuffed armchairs and a similar couch across from them. Between the opposing furniture was a long coffee table by a crackling fireplace. Both the carpeting, the wood panelled walls, and the bureaus that stood against the walls, displaying fine china, gave Kenny the impression of a house owned by a rich elderly couple. Lived in for perhaps for as long as they had been alive, for the room held a queer aura of history in its musty smell.

With no indication of how long Nelson might be, if he were actually headed here at all such as the arcane answering machine had stated, Mysterion awkwardly took a seat on one of the armchairs, looking down at the polished wood surface of the coffee table… After a moment of tremulous silence, Kenny sank back into the chair with a beleaguered sigh. There was no one here, who did he have to pretend for? Thus he resolved, if Nelson wasn't here in twenty minutes, Mysterion would go looking for him. And in the meantime… He glanced around the room… In the meantime he would wish he had something to drink.

No sooner had the thought materialised in his mind, that a cup and saucer appeared on the table before him. It was filled nearly to the brim with a steaming dark liquid that smelled like the richest blend of coffee, maybe with one or two splashes of milk added. But rather than be too surprised by the matter, Kenny rolled his eyes. 'Of course' he thought acquiescently 'magic'. Taking a draft, Kenny tasted the hot beverage and found it to be excellent, a little bit of milk and a spoon of sugar… Just how he liked it. How considerate.

Coffee cup in hand, Mysterion's patience would reach its upper limits before Kent Nelson did actually arrive. As the door swung open, Kenny was about to ask if the man got his kicks from disappearing out of nowhere, when he noticed that the old timer was not alone, and in a situation that probably explained his disappearance.

In the first second Mysterion took in the sight of Nelson, buckled at the knees and restrained with his hands bound. The large tanned man to his left, bearing a goatee that screamed 'evil version of someone' and a shirt so unbuttoned it was a wonder it didn't just fall off. An utterly ridiculous dress-up, Kenny could say, if he himself weren't dressed in the cheapest of cheap superhero costumes. Then to the right of Nelson was a thinner man, all dark colours and pale skin, a certifiable goth kid, complete with mangy cat cradled in wiry arms.

In the second second, Kenny had seen their eyes move. There was a reason, he remembered, why in a fight you watched your opponents eyes. The eyes reacted before the body could play catch up, betraying intent in a heartbeat, and what Kenny guessed from the way they reacted. He should probably do something. Nelson raised an eyebrow in confusion, but perhaps pleasant surprise as well. The broad shouldered man narrowed his eyes in suspicion. And the cat cradler reacted most interestingly of them all, his eyes widening in shock, before turning wild in an instant and zeroing in on him like some kind of predatory feline.

In the third second Kenny threw caution to the wind, along with his cup and saucer, spinning the small plate at the man on the left, and hurling the cup at the goth kid. The saucer caught the larger one in the teeth, while the cup spiralled towards the other, flicking the lukewarm dregs of coffee into his and his cat's faces before smashing against the wall next to them.

The one who'd acted as a bullseye for the flying saucer, whipped his head back to glare at Mysterion, pointing a cane at him. Sensing nothing charitable from this action, Kenny grabbed the end of the coffee table and lifted it onto its end, as from the cane shot out a dancing wave of electricity that impacted against the table that Kenny now had propped between him and them. Mysterion figured that this was no normal voltage, when the table started to crack down the middle, so in desperation he threw his shield back at the assailants before running up and over the couch beside him. Diving across the room Kenny just wished for a door that would take him somewhere, anywhere out of this room. He wasn't foolish enough to try a head on fight with two unknowns, let alone two who were capable of detaining Earth's Magic Mojo Guru or whatever he was called.

As with his coffee before, the Tower supplied Mysterion's demands, a door growing out of nowhere in the wall closest to him. So with fleeting fear crossing through him, as a shock of red energy crashed against the spot he had just occupied, Mysterion bolted through the door into whatever place the Tower had arranged beyond.

What did present itself on the other side was a spiral staircase, claustrophobically contained in a very tight stone brick cylinder. Mysterion slammed the door shut behind him, and made the split second decision whether to go up, or down. Without hesitating lest the door be imploded off it's hinges, he went up, scaling the tall stone steps two and then three at a time.

—?M?—

What he didn't expect to find, after however long scaling these steps, was a stop for an elevator. Complete with buttons to call the lift up or down. Seeing as there was no telling when this staircase would end, and that there were no sounds of pursuit, Mysterion paused in front of the doors, and pressed the up button. Shortly after there was a soft 'ding' sound, and the doors slid open, revealing inside the cosy compartment none other than Kent Nelson, along with two teenagers. One a ginger boy with his hands in his pockets, looking just as confused as Mysterion felt. The other, a tall girl with very familiar looking blonde hair. Both were dressed like they were just hanging out on a weekend, which Kenny supposed they technically were, still they proved a fine contrast to Nelson's suit and his own Mysterion garb.

Kenny blinked owlishly for a moment, before deciding to roll with it, and stepping into the elevator with them. Turning to face the doors as they closed, the action seemingly as casual as if they were all in an elevator at the local mall. Because with magic, sometimes you just had to roll with it.

They stood awkwardly in the elevator for a moment, silence surrounding them. Until Mr. Nelson turned his head to regard Mysterion and said humorously. "… I see you took the stairs."

Looking at the old man with his eyes, Kenny shrugged slightly and replied. "I asked the tower for help, and that's what it gave me."

"Well I never." Nelson remarked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. After which he glanced at the number counter that ticked by as they passed floors, and his voice took on a contemplative tone as he mused.. "The Tower doesn't usually respond so readily to outsiders."

Kenny didn't have a short answer for that, so he settled by giving a non-answer. "Guess i'm a natural."

"Hmm…" Nelson deliberated once again, taking one hand off his cane to scratch his chin in thought. "I don't believe we've met." He finally said jovially, looking back at Mysterion with an open friendly expression.

"Mysterion. And only in passing." Kenny couldn't help but feel there were better things to do than conduct introductions, but the old man seemed calm and in control, so Kenny supposed he could trust in where the sorcerer supreme was taking them.

"I'm Kent Nelson, nice to meet you. This is Wally and Artemis." The old timer swept his hand back to indicate the two other occupants of the elevator, which is when it clicked.

"Artemis?" He asked, even though it was obvious now that her and that blonde archer were one and the same.

"Um… Hi?" She ventured nervously, shifting awkwardly as they stood there, her; without a trace of superhero regalia, dressed in casual civilian clothes, and him; in full, midnight cloaked, rat-fur grey shirted splendour.

"Oh, you two know each other?" Nelson asked warmly, seeming surprised but glad.

Artemis' reply was bashful at best, after all, when last they'd met she had entangled him in a net and seen him explode in a car wreck. Whether she remembered it all or not. "We've… met."

"You leave your bow at home or something?" Kenny asked, a bead of teasing sarcasm making it's way into his voice, a minor attempt to break the ice.

"Or something." She dead panned back at him, gaze turning haughty and unamused. Clearly not one for sardonic humour it seemed.

"As I was saying before you joined us Mysterion. We're up against an opponent with tremendous mystic power." Nelson interjected with a wry chuckle.

"Abra Kadabra? Pfft, as if, guy's all show and no biz, Flash even proved he uses advanced science to simulate magic." Wally answered flippantly, waving away the threat that the two enemies posed.

Which Nelson seemed to agree with, certifying with a gestural jab of his forefinger into the air. "Right you are."

"He is?" Artemis blurted out, quite scandalised by the idea that the ginger one would be right about something. All this Kenny watched with a raised eyebrow underneath his hood and mask, holding his tongue against arguing that whether their opponents were legitimate magicians or not, didn't matter, when either could potentially kill them.

"Abra is a charlatan. But Klarion the Witch Boy, the kid with the cat?" As Kent spoke this he gave a considerate look at Mysterion, helping him to identify what up until then had been two unnamed attackers. "Is an actual Lord of Chaos, the natural enemy of a Lord of Order like Dr. Fate."

"Right, you're a 'lord of order'." If Wally had rolled his eyes any harder, Kenny was sure the boy would've seen his cerebral cortex.

Kenny couldn't help but roll his eyes at Wally's comment himself, grumbling out a response to the skepticism in the face of such strange events. Although, come to think of it, Kenny didn't know exactly how these two had gotten here either. "If he's not, that means I've just been chasing a crazy old guy around his inter-dimensional tower."

Nelson chuckled his rumbling laugh again, and asked curiously. "Are you a believer, Mysterion?"

Mysterion rolled his shoulders to stretch out a cramp that had built up from him running up all those stairs so suddenly, and responded plainly. "Magic is just a word. But then so is Science… The Universe doesn't care what words we use; magic, science, that stuff's still gonna try and kill us. Ain't no 'not believing' in that… So yeah, I guess I do believe."

Wally threw his hands up in mockingly exaggerated exasperation, before Artemis jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. Nelson however, stared at Kenny for a long moment, thoughts unknowable but expression appraising. Until he spoke again. "Smart lad. If it puts you at ease Wally, I'm not a Lord of Order. I'm just an old coat Fate used to put on. Until my wife, Inza, convicted me there could be more to life." At this the old magician brought out a pocket watch from his pocket, flicked it open and stared longingly at a picture on the inside of the casing. Kenny couldn't see the picture from where he was standing, but assumed it to be the old timer's wife.

A happier smile soon came over Nelsons's face, as he spoke almost to himself, becoming lost in memory. "Ah, she was a real pistol that Inza…" Another long moment passed where none of the three teenagers wanted to be the one to break the old man of his revery. When suddenly Kent snapped the brass watch shut and pocketed it once more, resuming. "Anywho, Klarion's after the helmet, and if he gets his greasy paws on it he'll turn the world into his own personal playground of pandemonium. Ah, here's our floor." As the sorcerer finished his explanation the elevator made a soft 'ding' sound, and the doors slid open to reveal a large, perspectively agnostic room. Stairs on the walls and ceiling, doors that looked like they led nowhere. Mysterion couldn't help but think to himself, that Dr. Fate must've met M.C. Escher at some point in his life, in order to live in a building such as this. Thankfully Kenny was familiar with these kind of geometries, but what he was not so well acquainted with was the giant brass-gold bell, occupying the centre of the room.

The next few seconds happened almost too fast to get a handle on, but as the four of them walked up to the room's centrepiece a rectangle of light seared itself into the ceiling close by and soon formed a solid portal of light, from which fell two teenage boys followed by a floating girl. Not for the first time tonight Mysterion realised what he'd been missing, and now the presence of two random teenagers in an elevator made a little more sense. They were certainly a distinct set of silhouettes after all, even if the kid in the superman shirt wasn't wearing the exact same thing as last time Mysterion had seen him. "Oh, so you're Robin's team?" He hated playing catch up, but supposed they were now finally on the same page.

As minor cries of indignation went up from several members such as "Robin's not-" and "We are a team i-" each one of them was cut off by a lance of lightning that whizzed by his ear.

"No time for chat!" Nelson hollered, before tapping the bell with his cane and eliciting a resonant 'gong' sound, that reverberated not just through the air, but through the mind as well. Kenny couldn't explain why he dove head first into the golden bell, but as Nelson disappeared into the metal he remembered why he'd been sent here in the first place. To look for the old man, and now that he'd found him? Mysterion wasn't about to lose him again.

They emerged onto a cold and windy rooftop, brutalist parapets and crenellations bordering the edge with no other architectural motifs in sight. As they stood there under the stars, Mysterion felt something, and as Wally appeared next to Nelson, he spotted it out of the corner of his eye. He'd sensed it before he'd seen it, and now, atop the Tower of Fate, he could react in only one way.

Mysterion threw himself in the path of a crimson torrent of energy, that had been, up until it struck him, heading straight for the old man. A projectile of pure chaos, thrown by Klarion the Witch Boy and embraced by Kenny McKormick.

He felt something snap around his heart. Wally cried out, Nelson began chanting something, and as Mysterion settled on the hard stone floor, he glimpsed the endless night sky above him. Among the heavens there was another, larger star, and before his eyes drifted shut and the blackness became complete, Mysterion realised it wasn't a star. It was the Helmet of Fate, floating high above him.

—?M?—?M?—?M?—

A/N:

So… Cliffhanger?~ I know, i'm the worst. But the next chapter is one I've got mostly planned already, so it won't take as long as chapters usually do. Providing work doesn't get in the way as it always seems to do. But yeah, thank you for reading, as usual if you have anything to say leave a review, I always love reading them. And if you're ever wondering when the next chapter will be, roughly, I update my profile from time to time with regards to how the chapter is coming along. I'll answer some review questions next time, but until then, thanks for reading! - Faff.