MANHATTAN
September 19, 18:16 EDT
"Before the beginning…
"Or rather before our beginning, there was no Holy Balance, no precarious armistice between anarchy and stagnation. For in the pre-dawn of our universe, there was yet no need for any such mediator. There was only… the Luminous Darkness; serene and eternal. And in the palm of the Darkness, nestled a lone point of light; the Starseed.
"The Starseed was a perfect singularity containing all potentiality, the last fragment of a previous cycle of creation. For eternity beyond eternity, matter and energy, time and space were yet unknown. There was only celestial harmony and Divine union.
"But then came the Great Schism. Without warning, the Starseed burst forth in a maelstrom of light and fury, shattering of the Pax Primordial, and the long perilous descent into cosmic time.
"The first shot in the war between Order and Chaos had just been fired."
[-]
ISLA DIABLO
September 18, 19:52 UTC-10
"Adora?"
Catra's heart caught in her throat as She-Ra, Glimmer, Bow and Kara came tumbling out of the fiery Boom-Tube, rolling to a halt at the foot of Klarion's Kobra throne. She was about to leap from her hiding place when a heavy metal hand fell on her shoulder, restraining her.
"Stay frosty, Probie," Arsenal whispered. Her squad leader's eyes narrowed as he tapped his comm. "Beta Squad to Alpha, you got eyes on this?"
"Confirmed Beta," came Tigress' exasperated reply. "Stand by."
Catra bristled. She was barely two hours into her first mission with the Justice League's covert-ops Team and everything was already going to shit. The mission brief had been simple enough: infiltrate the Kobra Cult's island HQ and gather intelligence to prep for a full-on League assault.
That was before the arrival of Klarion the Witch Boy, a self-proclaimed 'Lord of Chaos' – whatever that meant. Now Catra huddled in a volcanic crevice with Melog, Arsenal and the meta-teen called Mist (the latter two Catra was sure hated her guts), while the love of her life and her best friends were at the mercy of a cosmic entity with the personality of a demented nine-year-old.
What were they even doing here?
[-]
"Oh goodie," The Witch Boy rubbed his hands greedily. "Presents."
A dusky orange cat with arcane ebon stripes curled about his shoulders. It watched the four arrivals with blood-drop eyes, appraising them like some exotic new species of rodent. Master and cat were flanked by a squad of serpent-hooded Kobra cultists, each armed with an Apokoliptan staff-weapon.
She-Ra had barely staggered to her feet, still dizzy from leaping through the Boom-Tube, when the Witch-Boy lunged at her.
"GIMME! GIMME!"
He snatched the bundle from her loose grip. His lips twisted in an avaricious leer as he pulled back the purple cloth to reveal the darkling facets of the Black Diamond. He tittered in self-satisfied glee.
"MINE! MINE! MINE!"
"You must be Klarion?" She-Ra deadpanned, helping Glimmer, Bow and Kara to their feet.
Klarion ignored her, eyes still locked on the Black Diamond. "Oooh, I've waited sixteen million years for this, you old fart. I can't wait to crack you open like an eel and devour your gooey core!"
The cat on his shoulders mewled.
"Egg! You know I mean 'egg', Teekl!"
"Is he… talking to the diamond?" Bow asked.
"Is the cat talking to him?" Kara added.
Glimmer said nothing, hanging back.
A hooded High Priest stepped between Klarion and the four arrivals, inclining his head in acknowledgement. "The Exalted Avatar of the Kali-Yuga is grateful for your services."
"Yeah, we could really tell," Kara muttered, before She-Ra elbowed her. "Ow!"
If the High Priest overheard the Krypteen's snark, he gave no sign. "I understand our… mutual acquaintance has made some arrangement regard-"
"IT'S EMPTY!?"
Klarion's shriek of shrill rage pierced the chill air. He turned on the four, face warping into a demonic snarl. "What did you do with him!? WHERE IS HE!?"
"What!?" She-Ra stammered. "Where's who?!"
"Don't play dumb with me! I invented dumb!" Klarion snapped, before his thoughts caught up with his mouth. "I mean… wait, no… Aw fuck it, just kill them already!"
The cultists levelled their staff-weapons, bladed barrels charging as they surrounded the four. She-Ra, Bow, Kara and Glimmer instantly shifted into a defensive stance in response.
One of the cultists suddenly staggered, an unseen hand pulling their hood down over their eyes. They shot wildly, sending their fellow cultists scattering in a blind panic. Before anyone could react, two new figures de-glamoured next to She-Ra. One was the sleek glittering form of Melog, and the other-
"CATRA!? What are you doing here?!"
"What am I doing here!? What are you doing on Earth!?"
"Wait!? This is Earth?!"
"Yeah, brat!" Klarion snapped. "Earth like I'm gonna shovel on your graves!" The Witch-Boy turned to the High Priest, his voice falling into a deathly rasp. "Damien, activate… the Suppository!"
The High Priest blinked. "Muh-my Lord?"
Teekl let loose a few short sharp hisses that sounded suspiciously like snickering.
"THE SERVITOR! I meant the Servitor!"
"By your command, Avatar!" The relieved looking High Priest tapped his wrist-comm, and the entire caldera began to tremble.
A massive metallic monstrosity lumbered from the cavernous shadows on wide-splayed piston-legs, hydraulic arms ending in grasping adamantine claws. It glared balefully down on the young heroes with a single cyclopean red optic.
"Apokoliptan war-mech," She-Ra noted, raising her blade. "You ready?"
Catra smirked. "I was born rea-"
Something pounced at Catra; a solid mass of rippling muscle and saber fangs. It had the same dusky orange fur and blood-drop eyes as the creature called 'Teekl' but resembled the Witch-Boy's familiar only as much as a Crimson Waste Death Eel resembled an earth worm.
Catra only had a fraction of a second to process the sight of the beast in mid-pounce, its claws mere inches from her throat when Melog barreled into the devil-cat. The two pseudo felines rolled across the caldera floor, snarling and hissing like demons.
"MEL!?" Catra raced unthinkingly to her companion's aid.
"Catra, wai-" She-Ra was abruptly cut-off by a swipe from the Servitor's claw sending her flying into the cavern wall.
[-]
"Adora!?" Bow's eyes went wide, watching the Princess of Power flail across the chamber like a ragdoll.
"Help 'Dora! I'll keep ugly busy!" Kara barked.
"Kara, wai-" Bow tried to stop her, but the Krypteen had already launched herself at the Servitor like a cannonball. Bow notched an arrow, back-to-back with Glimmer as another wave of snake cultists closed in on them. "Looks like it's just us, Glim."
Glimmer's eyes narrowed coldly as she glared upwards. Klarion floated high above the fray, framed against a circle of naked stars. He sat cross-legged in mid-air, cackling sadistically as he drank in the mayhem.
The Sorceress-Queen launched herself wordlessly into the sky, leaving Bow to fend for himself.
"Glimmer!? Wha-"
Bow reeled back, barely ducking under the swinging ax of a berserk cultist. He fell to the dusty igneous floor, reaching for his namesake weapon only for the cultist's boot to pin his wrist to the ground. The cultist's face was hooded by shadow as they raised their blade for the killing stroke.
Before the ax could fall, the cultist suddenly jerked and spasmed as they and their weapon clattered harmlessly to the stony floor. Behind them stood a figure clad head-to-toe in glossy black armor, a taser-line trailing between him and the fallen cultist.
The crimson eyes of the figure's manta-helm flashed as he extended a helping hand. "You okay, Bow?"
"Uh, sure," Bow took the gauntleted hand tentatively. "Thanks, umm… Scary Armor Guy?"
The remaining cultists were sent packing by a flurry of crossbow bolts and yellow energy blasts as Tigress and Halo arrived on the scene.
"Bow!?" Tigress said. "What are you guys doing here?!"
"Kinda fuzzy and that myself to be honest." Bow answered before the entire caldera erupted in a nova of light.
[-]
Catra snarled as she tackled the saber-tooth Teekl looming over a stunned Melog. It felt like ramming into a wall of meat. Catra fell back unceremoniously on her ass. The next thing she knew, a heavy clawed paw fell upon her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Images of her own throat torn open with eleven-inch serrated fangs and being left to bleed out on the cold stone flashed through Catra's mind.
That was before tendrils of pale mist enveloped the Teekl-beast's muzzle, invading its nostrils and mouth. The beast staggered back, hissing and spluttering as it shrank back to the size of a common housecat before fleeing into a narrow crevice.
Melog shook their shimmering mane, clearing their head before padding over to the winded Catra and licking her gingerly.
"Thanks, Mel."
Arsenal's shadow fell over Catra, offering a prosthetic hand. "Good hustle, Probie. A for effort."
"Ggghh," grumbled Catra, begrudgingly taking the proffered hand.
The pale fog coalesced into the form of Mist. Catra and the meta-teen regarded each other tensely for a long moment.
"Hey, umm-" Catra began before the caldera erupted in a nova of light.
[-]
"That's it!" Klarion grinned ear-to-ear with devilish glee as he floated over the caldera. "Crush 'em! Burn 'em! Rip 'em to hot bloody shre-"
The Witch Boy abruptly cartwheeled through the air as a blast of violet radiance seared narrowly across him.
"Hey, I'm gloating here!"
Glimmer hovered before him, her form wreathed in violet flame, her eyes cold and hard as gemstones.
"This ends, filth," she hissed.
"Ooooh, baby mage wants to play with the big kids, huh?" Klarion scoffed, grinning ear to ear. "Fine… let's play!"
With a flick of his wrist, the Chaos Lord summoned a titanic flaming cobra. Waves of searing heat sloughed off the fiery serpent as it coiled through the rippling air.
Klarion shrugged, seemingly addressing no one. "Yeah, I know I said I'd stop doing this but c'mon, it's thematic!"
The flaming cobra lunged forward, swallowing the impassive Glimmer whole.
"Huh, that was easier than I thought," Klarion mused, almost disappointed.
The fiery serpent suddenly erupted from within in a nova of violet light that filled the entire caldera. An untouched Glimmer hovered wordlessly on high.
"Well, that's more like it!"
Klarion manifested enormous talons of crimson ectoplasm, striking at the Etherian. Glimmer responded by manifesting a blade of pure violet light, slicing through the talons as they shriveled into non-existence.
"Oh carp!" Klarion swore just before the Sorceress-Queen unleashed a lance of violet energy that sent the Chaos Lord splattering across the walls of the caldera.
Klarion peeled himself off the rock face. The tar-like pseudo-matter of his incarnate form agonizingly reknitted itself back into flesh and bone. Teekl jumped from a shadowed crevasse, landing on the Chaos Lord's shoulder just as it reformed.
"Rrrow!"
"I'm trying to kill her!" Klarion spat petulantly. "But she's keeps throwing everything I throw back at me. It's almost like she's a… a-"
His train of thought was derailed by the sight of Glimmer summoning a ring of gleaming glyphs, charging another attack. Her eyes were filled with a cold hatred that would have chilled even Klarion's blood, if he had any.
"Aw, nobs to this!" Klarion grabbed Teekl. Master and familiar melted into the shadows, leaving only a deeply frustrated mage floating high above the caldera.
Klarion and Teekl re-manifested at ground level, quickly snatching up the Black Diamond, nearly forgotten in the fray.
"See ya, lobsters!"
"Mew!"
"They know I meant 'losers'!"
Chaos Lord and Familiar were rapidly enveloped in a pillar of crimson flame, erupting from the extinct volcano like an infernal comet. They returned to the starry void above as Glimmer watched coldly.
She-Ra staggered from the rubble, her eight-foot stature flickering as she reverted to her mortal form. Adora stumbled forward, caught by Catra and Tigress before she could hit the ground.
"You okay, Adora?" Tigress asked.
"Oh hey, Tigress…" Adora squinted. "Why are there three of you?"
Catra smiled. "She's fine."
"Wait, where's Kara?!"
The Servitor crashed out of the sky like an anvil, metal limbs grinding and twitching before finally dying away. A battered and bloodied Kara landed atop the wreckage, panting heavily yet grinning unabashedly.
"Is it over already?"
[-]
MANHATTAN
September 19, 18:31 EDT
"Order was swift to retaliate, as the cosmos measures such things.
"Mechanistic laws were codified and imposed upon the roiling sea of potentiality unleashed by Chaos' shattering of the initial singularity. Matter coalesced, settling into predetermined patterns. Electrons orbited their atomic nuclei, planets orbited stars, and stars orbited galaxies. The celestial clockwork turned inexorably on its pre-ordained path; as above, so below. For a time, it seemed Order would reign forever over a cold and sterile cosmos.
"Then something new began to take root; a self-replicating hydrocarbon here, an emergent silicate matrix there. At first, all this occurred far beneath the attention of the Lords of Law and Entropy. Then came the dawn of embodied consciousness, of Fear and Love, Avarice and Rage, Hope and Compassion.
"Suddenly, a third party had entered the Long War between Order and Chaos…
"Life."
[-]
THE WATCHTOWER
September 19, 18:35 EDT
"Shhh..." Adora giggled in the darkness as Catra's hands crept up her belly and under her shirt, claws leaving an electrical trail of delicate pinpricks on her bare skin.
"Don't be such a dork," Catra whispered, teasingly nipping Adora's the nape of Adora's neck. "Nobody's gonna hea-"
Her bare foot abruptly caught on an askew mop, sending her and Adora tumbling out of the cosy dark of the utility closet and into the dizzying light of the atrium. They landed in an awkward pile on the polished walkway.
From Catra's vantage point, Bow and Melog's inverted faces gazed down on the couple with bemusement.
"Do you two need a hand?"
"No! No, we're good!" Adora sprung upright like a ram-rod, flush-faced. "We were just… uh… exploring the Watchtower's tactical layout."
"Smooth, babe," Catra deadpanned.
"Riiight," Bow said. "Do either of you know where Glimmer is? I haven't seen her since we got back from the island."
"Us neither," Adora frowned. "We just assumed she was with you."
"Not like Sparkles to wander off like that," Catra added before rethinking. "Well, not unless she's in a mood."
"She's been really closed off lately," said Bow. "I think it might have something to do with her-"
A golden glow abruptly filled the atrium as a doorway opened in the very space above their heads, shaped like a shining ankh. A figure stepped from the blinding light, walking upon the empty air. A gilded cloak billowed about his slender form as he alighted on the dewy grass like a descending angel.
The gobsmacked Etherians watched the newcomer, still and wordless as a statue. Bow was the first to break the silence, waving awkwardly.
"Umm… hi."
The figure turned slowly. His visage hidden behind the featureless faceplate of a golden helm, featureless save for a single thin crack down the right side. The only thing that could be seen of his true face were two youthful eyes filled with a cold ancient intelligence.
"Umm… Hi!" Bow waved. "Are you with the Justice League?"
The stranger made no response, taking his leave of the atrium with an imperious flourish of his gilded cloak.
Catra sneered. "Chh, and people say I'm rude?"
[-]
Kara floated in an ocean of stars, drinking in the golden warmth of Sol. The only sound in the void was her own breath slowly cycling through her air mask. The silence was a welcome relief from the ceaseless cacophony brought on by her super-hearing. It was exhausting sometimes, having to mentally filter out the sound of say an animal digging up roots a kilometer away just to follow a conversation. She'd been on the verge of dozing off when the comm-unit in her ear chirped.
"You ready to come back inside, Supergirl?"
Kara winced. "On my way."
She zipped back to the Watchtower's primary airlock. The cacophony returned as atmosphere filled the sealed chamber; the clockwork whir of the airlock itself, the thrum of the main reactor, the churning of the life-support system as it recycled hissing air and sloshing water through the satellite's gurgling steel innards. Not to mention about three or four private conversations across the various decks. Yeah, super-hearing wasn't nearly as much fun as you'd think.
"Good swim, kid?" Arsenal asked, working the airlock's control panel.
"Awesome, thanks. Can't remember the last time I got to soak in some yellow rays," Kara stretched her limbs, feeling refreshed. "Back on Apokolips, they used to keep me juiced on the artificial stuff but honestly it's not the same."
"I'll take your word for it, Supergirl."
Kara winced again. "Could you not call me that?"
"Uh, sure," Arsenal answered. "Mind if I ask why?"
"It's what Granny called me."
Now it was Arsenal's turn to wince "Ah, understood," They walked through the Watchtower's corridors as Arsenal fished about for a change of subject. "So you had a chance to look up your family since you got to Earth?"
"I tried, but they told me Kal-El was off-world on some kinda super-secret mission or whatever. It's weird; last time I saw my cuz, he wasn't even on solid food. Now he's like… the age my dad was. What would we even talk about?"
"Well, what about Conner?"
"Pfft, you mean Cloneboy?" Kara snorted derisively. "Didn't know you'd given it a name."
Arsenal came to a dead-stop, his eyes narrowing to slits. "You got a problem with clones, Zor-El?"
"What? Well, I mean-"
"'Cuz if you do then you're gonna have a problem with a lot of people here, starting with me."
"I just-"
"I gotta double-check the environmental controls, air's getting a little stale around here."
Arsenal strode off, leaving Kara alone in the cold corridor.
[-]
"Wait, are you serious?" Adora asked in disbelief.
"No, seriously!" Catra insisted. "I thought Artemis was kidding when she explained it to me but it's like this whole weird superstition here or something. Don't worry though, everyone here is coo-."
As they entered the mess hall, Melog following along, Catra froze. Sitting at a table across the hall were Angelo del Rey, Traci Thurston… and Andie Murphy.
"C'mon," Catra whispered, trying to back out before they were noticed. "Let's go som-"
"Oi, Catra!" Angelo grinned affably, waving the Etherians over.
Too late, thought Catra bitterly, trudging behind Adora.
"Here ya go, Catra," Adora pulled out the lone empty seat at the table. "I'll get another from-"
"Don't bother," spoke Andie curtly, taking her tray as she rose. "I was just leaving."
"Okaaay," said Adora. "Did I miss something there?"
"Long story," sighed Catra. "You take the seat, I'll grab the grub."
Catra caught up with Andie just as the latter was depositing her tray back into a food synthesizer embedded in the wall. Catra scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, not quite bringing herself to make eye contact with the meta-teen.
"Hey, look… I just wanted to say 'thanks' for saving my butt back on the islan-"
"Please stop," Andie said.
"I… sorry?"
Andie sighed with exasperation. "Look, we are not friends. We will never be friends. But we are teammates. Of course I'm not going to let you get eaten by a saber-tooth demon-cat. Just… respect my space and I'll respect yours, okay?"
Catra wasn't sure how to respond to that.
"That's… fair, I guess."
"Good, and speaking of space…" Andie took her leave.
Catra got a couple sandwiches from the synthesizer, returning to the table to find Adora in mid-conversation with Traci and Angelo, Melog curled at her feet.
"So, then he just gives us this weird stare and walks off without a word," Adora said. "It was creepy."
"Yeah, Nabu can be like that," Traci replied, tickling the small lizard curled on her shoulder. "He's harmless though, well… usually."
"You know him?" Catra asked.
"I am him. Or he's me, at least one week out of four. Nabu's a four-thousand-year-old Babylonian wizard ghost and Earth's resident Lord of Order. But he needs a physical host to become Doctor Fate and do… well much of anything." Traci shrugged. "It's a whole thing."
Catra turned to Adora with a snort. "Told ya there was a simple explanation."
[-]
Violet Harper hurriedly finished scrubbing their forearms in the basin of the washroom before slinging their duffle bag over their shoulder, dashing down the empty corridor to Observation Lounge 16.
They hadn't meant to cut it this close, but constantly jumping between time-zones played merry havoc with their own internal clock. Not that that was an excuse, mind. They knew they could make it up later of course, but they so rarely got a chance to be aboard just as the Watchtower's orbit intersected this particular point in space.
A breathless Violet arrived at the observation lounge to find Earth's glittering night side laid out before them like a dreaming tapestry. There, trimmed in a delicate web of light, lay the Arabian Peninsula.
Violet was about to lay out their prayer mat when they realized the observation lounge was not as empty as they first assumed. Prostrate upon a mat of his own, golden cracked helm pressed at ground level, was Doctor Fate. He knelt upright, turning his head to the right.
"As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuhu."
Then the left.
"As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuhu."
The Sorcerer Supreme rose from his mat, turning to regard the newcomer with a coldly indifferent gaze.
"I- I'm sorry," Violet stammered. "I didn't mean to intrude."
"It is of no consequence," Fate intoned in that strange interweaving reverberation that was both two voices and one. "Our observance is concluded."
He dismissed the prayer mat with a gesture, sinking it into an ankh-shaped portal.
"I didn't realize you were Muslim?" Violet asked a little cautiously.
They'd only had a chance to meet a handful of their co-religionists in 'the Life'.
"We are not," Fate replied tersely. "Nabu's trust in the gods is measured, particularly the god of Musa ibn Imran. But our experience with Giovanni Zatara has taught us the value of accommodating our hosts' pastoral needs. Thus we permit Khalid Nassour to perform regular Salah as his faith dictates."
'Permit' him? Oh, are you not merciful? Violet thought bitterly.
They knew well that Nabu had ruthlessly held his previous host, the magician Giovanni Zatara, virtually hostage for almost a decade. Nabu's spirit had used Zatara's body like some fleshy marionette to act as Doctor Fate.
The current system of alternation between Zatara, his daughter Zatanna, Traci and Khalid was the only thing that allowed all four to lead any semblance of a normal life. But to the Lord of Order's unfeeling logic, that was a purely incidental benefit.
"We shall leave you to your own devotions," intoned Fate, taking his leave from the observation lounge.
Violet tried to put the whole incident out of their mind as they stood upon the prayer mat, focusing the intention in their heart before raising their hands.
"Allāhu akbar…"
[-]
MANHATTAN
September 19, 18:48 EDT
"Among the principalities and powers of the elder universe, there existed one Entity who embodied Order in its most inexorable and merciless aspect. As life slowly spread across the cosmos, this Entity took it upon itself to pass judgment over those species it deemed 'tainted' by Chaos. World after world died screaming beneath its uncompromising wrath.
"With their dying breath, the first of these worlds gave their destroyer a name, naming it for the blackened sun that heralded its com-"
The speaker abruptly ducked to one side, clutching his midnight blue fedora as a worn jack-in-a-box went flying bare inches past his head.
"Why are you still talking, Stranger!?" Klarion shrieked, features contorting in demoniac yet aimless rage. "I already know all this!"
Teekl looked up from the cushion on the store's counter, where she had been casually grooming herself as the Witch Boy worked through his latest tantrum.
"Rwrr?"
"What do you mean 'did I know I already know that I know that'?! How can I know something without knowing that I know it?!" Klarion paused, blinking for a moment. "What were we talking about again?"
The Phantom Stranger let out a long, tired sigh.
Flickering neon cast a lurid pinkish haze on the darkness within the empty magic shop to which he had summoned the Witch Boy. Existing as it did on the borders of objective and subjective reality, the dilapidated store had seemed an appropriate place to parley – particularly with its usual caretaker currently away visiting family.
"I speak to remind you exactly of what you already know," the Stranger continued with as much patience as he could muster. "You, of all beings, should understand the threat to the Holy Balance posed by the Entity sealed within the Black Diamond."
"Hello Magpie!" Klarion slapped his head obliviously. "The Black Diamond! Thanks for reminding me, Stranger!"
The Witch Boy calmly retrieved a rust-spotted crowbar from beneath the cash register before turning to the aforementioned gem, currently lying at the center of the room. He then proceeded to mercilessly beat the offending mineral formation with renewed infantile rage.
"STUPID! STUPID DIAMOND! WHY ARE YOU EMPTY!?"
The Stranger shot Teekl a pleading glance.
"Mrrr?"
"Perhaps my time would be best spent elsewhere," the Stranger sighed once more, vanishing into the shadows with a flourish of his cape as an irate Klarion continued to hammer futility at the Black Diamond.
"WHY ARE YOU EMPTY!? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING!?"
The iron crowbar shattered in Klarion's hands, forcing Teekl to scurry under the countertop to avoid fragments of rusty shrapnel. The Witch Boy's tantrum continued unabated as he beat the Diamond with bare bony fists.
"WHERE!"
"ARE!"
"YOU!?"
[-]
THE WATCHTOWER
September 19, 18:52 EDT
"Glimmer? Are you in here?" Bow poked his head into the blackened observation lounge, lit only by cold stars. He muttered to himself, feeling blindly for the switch. "Why is it so dark in here?"
Light abruptly filled the room, illuminating a Glimmer who had previously been staring into the void. She turned on him like a startled viper. For a moment, her eyes were cold and baleful.
"Glimmer?" Bow asked warily. "Are you okay?"
She smiled, her eyes once more warm and sparkling. "Sorry, Bow. I just had a teensy headache, nothing serious. What's up?"
"Uh, Tigress wants to talk to us in the conference room."
"Lead the way, Beau," Glimmer twinned her arm around his, pecking him on the cheek. "So, what does she want to talk about?"
"Don't know. It's probably nothing."
[-]
"You cut a deal with Vandal Savage?!" Tigress snapped, her voice ringing across the cathedral-like conference hall.
"Well… it was complicated," Adora protested feebly as Catra gave her hand a supportive squeeze.
"Mrrow!" Melog mewed in solidarity.
"Father can be most persuasive when he sets his mind to it," intoned Fate gravely, standing with arms crossed by Tigress' side.
"Wait, he's your dad?!" Catra asked, eyeing the Lord of Order. "How does that even work?"
"That is no concern of yours, Etherian. What concerns us is this Black Diamond. If Chaos covets the artefact than we must-"
The polished doors hissed open, admitting Bow and Glimmer. They'd barely crossed the threshold when Glimmer and Fate locked eyes. Both mages froze for a moment…
Then went berserk.
Neither Adora, Catra, Bow nor Tigress could have said whether the Mage-Queen or the Lord of Order struck first. All they knew was that in less than an eye blink, the entire conference hall had erupted in a mystic maelstrom, hurling back the mortal onlookers.
Tigress was the first to clamber unsteadily to her feet, her voice struggling against the sorcerous tempest that whipped about the chamber.
"NABU!? THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
Glimmer and Fate stood impassive as violet and golden magicks clashed about them, twin eyes of the storm.
"Fate shall not suffer this abomination to live!"
Tigress drew her crossbow. "STAND DOWN NOW, NABU! OR I SWEAR TO GOD!"
Bow staggered through the mystic storm, grabbing his partner by the arm. "GLIMMER!? WHA-" She struck him brutally across the mouth with a wordless hiss, sending him reeling back.
The sorcerous tempest continued to swirl about Glimmer and Fate, locking the two mages in a stalemate. Then the violet energies began to darken, becoming ebon as the deepest void. Fate's eyes widened in horror behind his blank helm.
Glimmer's lips curled in a cruel smile.
[-]
Catra's ears rang, her eyes and lung were stung by the smoke billowing through the conference room as Melog nursed her back to consciousness.
"Kaf- Where's Adora-kaf?!"
Melog chin-pointed to Adora, lying prone by a shattered table. Catra crawled over, checking Adora's pulse to find it mercifully strong and her breathing steady. Catra's relief didn't last long.
Across the devastated hall, Glimmer stood over a fallen Doctor Fate. The Earth mage began to stir. Glimmer summoned a blade of pure night, sinking it deep into the Fate's belly before giving it a vicious twist.
"Back to your grave, little ghost," intoned Glimmer coldly, a chill rasp coiling about her own voice.
Catra's blood froze. "Sparkles?"
Glimmer turned, her flesh corpse-pale save for the deep mauve shadowing the right half of her face like a waning moon. Her normally sparkling amethyst eyes had become twin pits of blackest onyx, empty and soulless. Fused to her clavicle like some obscene tumor, pulsed the forgotten shard of the Black Diamond.
Catra tensed. Her own experience with Horde Prime had taught her bitterly to recognize the signs of bodily possession. "Who… what are you?"
"Your grotesque meat-flaps could not even form our True Name, mud-thing," intoned the creature wearing Glimmer's flesh as it stalked towards Catra, cloaked in writhing shadow. "But in the Etherian tongue, we believe the closest approximation would be…"
The creature paused for a moment as though to savor the word.
"Eclipso."