Sandwiched between the two remaining Venom-Enhanced thugs, Kirkland couldn't help but shudder at how similar the descent into his own lab was to a walk to the gallows.
Deep down, the Good Doctor still hoped this was just a nightmare, but the echoing scrapes of their boots dissuaded the notion every time it dared surface.
They followed him into the sterile, familiar space of his life's work, hulking figures turning the lab into a cramped and claustrophobic cage that made Kirkland nauseous, almost.
"Get what you need, Doc," One of the henchmen rumbled. "And don't try anything."
Kirkland nodded mutely, hands tremoring as he moved around his main workstation, gathering his research notes, data drives and dragging it out as best he could using his diminishing eyesight as an excuse.
He pleaded to God for a miracle and the Presence responded in kind.
Gaze snagged by a worn satchel tucked beside a useless stack of journals—the same one given to him by the trusty Black Market vendor, Kirkland froze, mouth falling wide open.
His hand hovered hesitantly over the satchel, unaware the conflict in his eyes had already set off a hundred alarms in the henchmen's heads.
"Hold up," The second thug interrupted, taking a step forward. "What's in the bag?"
Kirkland's heart hammered against his ribs as he tried to pocket the satchel. "Nothing. Just… Personal effects."
The Enhanced, however, was no fool.
He might be mostly brawn, but there was plenty of room for a cunning mind inside that mountain of muscle. "Well, let's see it."
He reached for the bag, his thick, meaty fingers heading toward the Doctor who, in a moment of panic, ripped open the loose drawstring and scattered the content with all his might.
The satchel burst open against the thug's chest, puffing a cloud of fine white powder into the air; powder which immediately started to eat away at his clothes and flesh gluttonously. Sizzling smoke rose from blackened tissue as the Enhanced staggered back, clawing at his own melting front. "Y-You… I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Horrified, but endowed with the knowledge that he was as good as dead once they recovered, Kirkland lunged, only he didn't run for the stairs; he dove for the corner behind a heavy-duty cabinet instead.
His hands shakily fumbled with a drawer, finding at last the familiar grip of another precaution—a G22 Kirkland instantly turned on the thugs.
The .45 roared, the shots coming not in controlled spurts but in one frantic burst as he emptied the entire magazine into the second thug, screaming all the while. The man hissed, stumbling back a step as bullets punched into his shoulder and chest, embedding themselves in the unnaturally dense muscle.
Then, the Enhanced glanced down at the wounds; clearly more annoyed than hurt as he met Kirkland's wide, terrified eyes. "Oh, you're gonna pay for that, you little bastard!"
Tossing the empty gun at his assailants, Kirkland scrambled toward the far side of the lab; to the soft hum of the refrigerated storage unit.
His nails scraped across the latch and glass, fingers meeting a rush of frigid air as he lunged for the padded rack that held his life's work and his last hope.
Ignoring the parts of his brain that were replaying Jacques' warnings, and memories of all the poor rats murdered by his unfinished Serum, Kirkland jammed the needle into his own thigh and thumbed the plunger.
He sank to his knees, the empty syringe falling from his numb fingers while his entire world began to turn and narrow to a string of frantic prayers repeating on his lips. "Please work… I beg you, please work! God, pleasepleaseple—!"
Faced with the merciless indifference of the Divine and the contemptuous snort of the henchman, a helpless sob tore from Kirkland's throat, silenced by a backhand that sent him ragdolling through the glass. "God isn't here, you fool. This is Gotham! And Lord Bane's a lot closer than any fanciful tale…"
Hauled up by his collar, Kirkland barely managed a croak before kissing the concrete. If he could, the Doctor would surely choose to pass out right about now, but what one wants isn't always what one gets... "You!"
Second time's the charm? "Should've!"
No? Third time, perhaps? "LISTENED!!!"
Bleeding profusely from every inch of his bruised flesh and split skin, Kirkland—the self-admitted 'man of science' offered a final plea for Death… And Gotham herself answered: Not with Release, nor Gentleness, nor the greetings of Angels, but with lava in his veins, hate in his heart followed by a violent seizure as the once defunct Serum was magically made functional.
Visibly disgusted by the Doctor's weakness, the thug rearranged his face with the concrete floor and spat on what he assumed was a mere corpse, before turning the opposite direction.
Bane's lapdog hadn't made it farther than three steps when Kirkland's claws clamped on his calf, nails borrowing through the Venom-Strengthened muscle fibers.
"Die already, you scrawny, miserable scum!" The thug roared, stomping on the man's head repeatedly, blinded to the fact his attacks were only pissing off the feral Mutant.
A cry ripped from the henchman's throat as the Man-Bat made quick work of his calf; claws carving through meat with the ease of a hot knife through butter…
The henchman went in for a final stomp, desperate to shake the Mutant off his heel, literally, but found only empty air. Lifting his head in confusion, the thug's eyes met those of the 'Doctor,' who had pushed off the ground with strength that belied the size of his arms, and was currently baring bloodstained fangs… Fangs that appeared… Terribly ill-fitted on his hideous, smushed, pug-like face. "What the fu—?!"
The second he wasted on those words should have been spent running, but there was no use crying over spilled milk, not when there was a far better reason for tears, like the jagged and nicked fangs sinking into his cheekbones. The Lapdog's scream lasted no more than a second before being cut short by a crunch.
Done with this prey, but not quite done with the fight just yet, Kirkland spun and leaped onto half-melted form of the other henchman, ending the man's struggles with a bite to the side of the neck and severing his spine like dry kindling.
The second corpse slumped to the floor just as a door creaked open at the top of the stairs.
Light cut through the dark, spilling around the 6'7 silhouette at the entry.
Reacting on pure, territorial instinct, the Man-Bat tore the head from his fresh kill and hurled the decapitated head up.
The stubs of its malformed wings flapped futilely as Man-Bat scrambled on all fours, bridging the distance in seconds with a hateful shriek! And the rest, as they say, was history…
.
.
.
"—Coast City was…"
Eyeing his Magical tutor, who had insisted that he stay put lest his meddling ruined the Circle, Rowan apathetically thumbed the remote while the pretty brunette on-screen droned. "—As of 22:15, there have been reports of a Meta ter—"
"You call that simple?" Hal asked, pointing at the complex, interlocking circles and smeared lines of reagents on the floor.
Neither Zatara nor Rowan wished for his presence, especially the latter due to how personal the ordeal would be for him, but without his Lantern Ring keeping the Construct pumping, Rowan would be dead, and hence…
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were summoning a demon," The Lantern joked in an attempt to cut the tension in the room, only for his quips to die at the back of his throat when the Magicals answered from across the circle in perfect unison. ""We are.""
Jaw going slack, Hal Jordan laughed uneasily. "You're-You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding."
"I assure you, Green Lantern, I never joke about such matters," Zatara replied while carefully tracing the Runes with powdered silver and mercury. "Fret not, for the Entity we intend to Summon is not some random Wretch from the Pit."
Feet dangling from the couch, Rowan snorted. "Given Its background, It might as well be."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Hal's voice jumped. "And Demons are real?!"
"You fly with a Ring powered by Willpower, fight aliens for a living, enforce some arbitrary Cosmic Laws imposed by Space Smurfs, and Demon's where you draw the line? Really…?"
A hand planted on his hip, the other waving animatedly, Hal sidestepped the verbal jab and went right to the meat of the matter. "And why on God's green Earth are we Summoning one of the Damned?!"
"We're not Summoning just any Demon," Explained the Magician who, with a dismissive gesture, pushed aside the Construct Hal had Willed into Existence. "We're Summoning His… Did my Apprentice not explain the purpose of the Ritual to you?"
"The hell he did!"
Both men turned to look at Rowan, who innocently offered a lazy, half-shouldered shrug. "I forgot… Oops?"
He hadn't forgotten, of course.
He'd simply chosen to omit it after calculating the odds.
"You have a Demon in you?! What other surprises have you people 'forgotten' to tell me about?!"
"I'm apparently the Son of the Devil?"
Collapsing onto the cushion, Hal grabbed the sides of his head, mumbling protests against a world that had clearly gone mad.
"Uhm, Teach? I think we broke him."
Zatara pinched the bridge of his nose, letting loose a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of whole centuries.
"He wouldn't be if you'd bothered to brief him."
A humorless cackle left Rowan's lips as he slouched deeper into the couch. "He'll get used to it." It was mandatory in their line of work, after all, especially given the upward trajectory of the approaching threats.
"And in my defense, dying tends to distract the mind."
"Your condition does not grant you a reprieve from basic courtesy, Apprentice."
"I'd beg the diff—"
"ENOUGH!" Hal's voice cracked. "Are you listening to yourselves?! You're bickering! We're about to call up a Demon for the Antichrist and you're bickering!"
"With said Antichrist," Rowan drawled, idly flipping through channels before settling on a News broadcast and thumbing the Volume Up button. "—Right, Jim. I'm above District 3, and the scene is anything but peaceful. We have a new Meta, looks like some kind of… Man-Bat?! Really? We're seriously going with that?!"
It was a highly unprofessional thing to do, but 'Man-Bat' was a shit alias, and he would comment on it if he wasn't all too aware who the monster was. "Goddamnit, Kirkland! I've been gone for less than a week!"
His outburst quickly pulled Hal's wide eyes from the Summoning Circle to Rowan's back. "Kirkland? You know that thing?"
"Know him? I funded his fucking lab!" Rowan divulged, absolutely livid as the Winged Mutant crash into a barricade of police cars.
"That moron—I told him," He hissed, pacing back and forth. "I told him to build in a goddamn failsafe! But, no! What the hell do I know?!"
His fist struck the table, splintering the wood. The loss of control wasn't something Rowan took pride in, but between his own ticking clock, the need to acclimate to a completely new and jarring environment, coupled with the weight of a dozen other smaller problems, he'd had just about enough!
"Sonuvabitch! Why does bad shit keep fucking HAPPENING?!"
Rendered speechless by the tantrum, Zatara hurried to prepare the Circle.
Hal, meanwhile, hesitated, then rested a hand on Rowan's shoulder. He'd been treating the teenager like a fellow soldier in the same war, assuming they both understood the battlefield. He saw now that he'd misjudged entirely.
Rowan wasn't another soldier; he was the civilian caught on the front lines by circumstances, screaming in fury and terror not just at the enemy, but at the sheer, unfair scale of a conflict he was now a part of. "Does this EVER! FUCKING! END?!"
"It never will… That's the point."
"How's that 'the point'?!"
"The point, dear Apprentice," Whispered the Magician, nodding at the crude metal trough filled with tiny ice cubes. "Is that the struggle itself is the Constant. Evil might be temporarily defeated, but it will rise again, and so we must rise to meet it.
Now, let's attend to yours…
If you'd like a moment to catch your breath—"
"No. That won't be necessary," Rowan interrupted, dragging a palm down his face. He just needed this instability corrected; this one crushing weight lifted from his shoulders so he could finally have a moment to breathe. "Let's just get this over with."
While the Demon submerged himself fully-clothed into the basin, and made himself comfortable, Zatara produced an ornate pocket watch and intoned. "The Ritual will provide you an Artifact… Locate it, then exercise its Power upon your Infernal Essence. It shall weaken the Beast."
"How do I know what to look for?" Rowan questioned.
"You'll know when you see it."
"How very helpful." Nestling deeper into the water, Rowan suppressed a shudder and focused on the simple, silver-plated watch that appeared absurdly mundane for what was supposed to be a mystical Artifact.
"Listen to it," The Magician lulled a tiny distance behind him. "Let the rhythm be the only thing you hear… The only thing there is."
It was way harder to do than it sounded, what with the freezing water gnawing at his bones, but Rowan managed the same way he normally navigated life: Spitefully.
"The world around you is unimportant. There is only the sound. In... And out."
He bit back a comment and forced his breathing to match the ticking.
For a while, there was nothing but the sound and the cold, until the feeling in his limbs dulled, the ache slipped away and numbness crawled up his toes. One moment, Rowan was braving the cold, the next, he already awoke to a crimson, ruined sky.
"Home, sweet home."
The Demon broke into a light jog, blackened soil and shattered crystal crunching underfoot.
Above, a vast membrane of crimson flesh pulsed in place of a sky, while sparse trees of ruby-red—leftovers from the Butcher's last visit, no doubt—stabbed at the Expanse.
Between the shards stood statues of half-formed figures that lit a spark in his mind, but Rowan ignored their pull, for he had a job to do, and gawking at the scenery wasn't it.
He kept walking deeper into the unfamiliar land, until he spotted a small, run-down hut in the ruination…
The same miserable shack he'd once called home after escaping an orphanage he was still fairly sure had been run by the Court of Owls. The door, however, looked oddly out of place, though definitely not new.
The hut's had been a rotting plank he'd barred from the inside.
This was a solid slab of solid metal painted a deep, angry red.
The same red sometimes still featured in his nightmares.
He stopped a few feet away, then stepped forward and pushed. The red door swung inward without a single sound, opening into an endlessly stretching Void that swallowed the crimson light whole. He stood at the precipice as, one by one, soft circles of light bloomed in the emptiness and beckoned him in.
Against his better judgment, Rowan followed the light while the darkness slowly gave way, uncovering a street cobbled from his own past.
Buildings rose on either side of the path of light, some pristine and freshly-made, others crumbling into dust, while mouthless figures stood in doorways or walked the foggy street. They were all here: Faces he'd pummeled, faces he'd adored, faces he'd tried to forget, and that one pet rat Rowan briefly owned.
It was a city of ghosts, and all of them were, apparently, his.
He proceeded through a gallery of his own history.
Half-formed memories screamed silently beside crystal-clear moments, like the one of Alfred polishing a silver tray, or Batman perched on top of a rain-slick gargoyle for instance. Smiling at the memories that came to him at a mere thought, Rowan finally came to the last statue, and the gallery fell quiet.
The craftsmanship on her was frankly impressive, from the thorny vines wrapped around the crystalline marble that formed her robe, to the chains binding Ichor to her side; chains which, strangely enough, the Stag could pull to any length it so desired.
Rowan found himself questioning the effectiveness of an extendable leash for such a dangerous Beast, but only momentarily.
His consciousness had more or less spawned into this body when he was one, but fragments from the Before still bled through every once in a while. Enough to remember the others…
To feel something for faces what should otherwise be unfamiliar.
Yet, he felt nothing for this particular statue, despite the obssessive details on its…
His gaze fell to her hands next; hands which seemed to be cradling empty air, and immediately realized she must have been holding… Him. "Mother?" It might have been his imagination, but Rowan could swear her blank eyes had twitched at the sound of his voice.
His flicked toward the Ritualistic Knife hanging from her belt as he bowed to the motionless statue and squeaked.
"Thank you… For everything."
Unseathing the knife, Rowan tossed it a few times to test the grip in his hand, which left much to be desired, but as the saying goes: A beggar couldn't be a chooser. Only then did he think to address the struggling Shade whose stomach suddenly expanded like a pregnant woman.
"There's one fucked-up kink crossed off the list." A mocking smile touched Rowan's lips as he rubbed the smooth skin where the Stag had chomped on the last time. "What's the matter, Ichor? Ate something you shouldn't have?"
The Shade answered not with words, but with a chorus of shrieks, writhing violently while its bloated stomach pulsed with the Crimson Light of Rage.
"Don't bite off more than you can chew next time, fool." Powerless on the floor, Ichor whined, silently eyeing the blade as it stabbed down. Moments before the blade struck, the Shade's stomach split open, freeing a miniature and miserable-looking Fragment of the Rage Entity, who had not been free for more than a sec before the Artifact entered in-between the crown of its skull, carving unto it Magic of Yore.
"Why, you irritating little shit! What part of 'stay dead' didn't you get?!"
Smelling blood in the water, Ichor lunged, driving its fangs deep into the Emotional Entity's nape. Victory was already theirs, but after days of unimaginable agony, neither the Shade nor its Master were keen on forgiveness or a quick, painless death.
Thus, while the Shade frothed and thrashed the Fragment in its teeth, Rowan stabbed the Bull repeatedly! And once it lay panting and still, the Stag finally hurried in for the finishing blow.
Ribs spasming beneath its skin, the Stag's entire torso opened into a gaping maw that chewed apart the Entity. Thoroughly, this time. "Don't take this the wrong way, but if you had just chewed your food properly the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess."
The Stag sent a baleful glare that Rowan acknowledged and promptly threw in the trash. "Now, if you're done, shall I brief you on what's happening?"
Its lingering gaze on his chest was all the answer he needed. "You got a fix for it? Something permanent would be lovely, but I'll take duct tape at this point…"
Blowing through its nostrils, Ichor slinked into the Shadows, abandoning Rowan while the Space around them started to crumble. "Hey! Don't just leave me here!" Outside, an ominous wind blew past, snuffing out every candle the Magician had lit as the Shade suddenly inflated and contracted unnaturally.
"Uhm, Magician, is this supposed to be happening?"
"No…! Nonono! The Artifact should've Siphoned it into the Summoning Circle! He's failed!" Zatara yelled back, already preparing a Spell at the back of his throat, only to get thrown into and through the adjacent wall by the Shade's many tendrils… It couldn't shapeshift before, not while exerting itself on Reality, at least, but that had clearly changed.
"Stop it, Lantern! Don't let it—" Ichor didn't bother to hide its displeasure at the his presence, shaking the breath from Zatara's lungs to prevent him from Casting. It stepped forward, peeling itself from the wall like ink soaking into Space. Limbs lengthening, it fully took shape, twitching awkwardly feel its new Corporeal Vessel.
Six eyes blinked out of sync across its elongated skull, glowing dim red like coals smothered beneath ash. And at the center of its chest burned the Red Lantern sigil which looked like it had been hot-pressed into the surface of its skin and just… Never healed. "La-Lantern! Do somethi—"
Sadly, faced with such horror, the Greenhorn could only gawk, while Ichor crept toward Rowan on limbs that bent just slightly too far in the wrong direction, and climbed on top of the pale, dead-looking teenager.
It leaned in close, its blackened, pitted deer skull looming inches from Rowan's face, jaw cracking and vomitting out a black, thumping. organ. Although it might be slick with saliva, malformed and utterly foul, it was a Heart! Of that they had no doubt. The problem was what it'd mean for Rowan, and for the world… 'Is it trying to Corrupt him? Possess him?'
More than a dozen possibilities crossed Zatara's mind as he was hurled through a window, and not one of them was good. "LANTERN!!!"
Snapped out of his daze, Hal steeled himself, Willpower flaring as he shoved the doubt aside.
He Conjured a hammer and drove it into the Shade's back, but it was too little, too late, for one of its tendrils now clutched the Construct that had been keeping Rowan alive.
Hal instantly barked at his ring, hoping to spare the boy a potentially horrific fate… He was late again, however, and hence forced to watch as Ichor shove its own Construct into the ring-sized hole in his chest.
Expecting the worst, neither dared speak.
None dared breathe as they waited for the Trumpets to sound, but apparently Heaven had the day off, and the Gates to Hell, meanwhile, were wide open as always.
"Ichor?!"
Jolting upright, Rowan's eyes darted wildly in their sockets until they landed on the Shade, who bobbed its head coolly.
"God, you're even uglier out here."