Chapter 24

Once I got my breath back, I jumped into search and rescue mode using my Pesquisa to pull people out of the rubble and even kill the mutated monstrous forms of animals until Dr Fate flew out of his tower radiating golden energies.

"Huh, about damned time," I muttered as I absent-mindedly stomped a car-sized chaos-infected crab into the concrete below me.

Seeing Dr. Fate's very presence burning away the chaos presence I instead flew off towards the Fate to see if my team was still alright while the Justice League's various heroes kept teleporting into the city for disaster relief.

As I flew into the now very different crater-filled park, I saw my team just sitting on the steps to the tower and they all stood up seeing me land in front of them.

"You alright Jake?" Kaldur asked seeing my clearly wrecked clothes.

I nodded silently as I saw how exhausted the rest of the team looked in their disheveled casual clothes. "What took Dr. Fate so long?" I asked quietly and the team shared a look of shame with none of them answering me.

"What the hell happened in there!" I pressed as I better not have been fighting a fucking Choas Lord, a being who could fight gods while they were pulling bullshit teenage drama or something.

"Kent Nelson died moments after he put on the damned helmet alright!" Wally snapped angrily before slumping.

"It's more complicated... But put simply he was already dying when Klarion and Abra Kadabra so roughly captured him and then the shock of Nabu taking over him and defeating Abra Kadabra made his body fail." Aqualad explained stoically.

"Then who the hells meatsuit is Fate using?" I asked in total confusion as none of the people here except for me as far as I was aware had any real magical potential.

Robin then answered my question. "Before Kent died, he used some kind of magic to make a magic mirror in which he could contact a magician by the name of Zatara in which to be Dr. Fate's host."

Knowing I wasn't getting the full story, I then realized with how Kent died, any knowledge or progress he had made on making me a humanizing item so I could blend in with humans was lost as it was plain to all that should he had gone to the Fae realms at this point like he promised then I or the League would have shared such knowledge.

'Well looks like I need to take care of things myself' I thought as my plans to go off on a training trip were set in stone.

I needed to get far greater control over my Hollow abilities and playing in the little leagues with this team won't help me... In the end, I lost that fight with Klarion as I couldn't deal the conceptual damage needed to harm him with my cero's nor could I devour his soul like I thought I could as his soul seemingly was endless in strength which made sense in hindsight with how he was a fundamental force of the universe being a part of Chaos.

"You alright Jake, you look... Kinda scary there." Megan said and I relaxed as I buried my face into my hands.

"Yeah. Just can't help but think of how many people must have died tonight." I replied making the younger hero's nod in solidarity. "Let's get going. The league is going to be grilling me and the rest of you for the rest of the night so let's go get comfortable." I muttered as we all headed towards the Zeta teleportation spot here in Salem.

-

I was proven right as just after I got cleaned up and changed into some new clothes, I heard through my room's intercom that Batman was summoning us all for a debriefing.

Seeing both Batman and Superman who weren't really involved in our little black ops team told me quite clearly that my actions in fighting Klarion openly were going to have consequences beyond just the damages and lives lost in Salem.

"Today was one of the worst incidents of the past year in terms of causalities for one of the League battles. Granted once Superman and Wonder Woman joined the battle with Lorde they were able to curtail his widespread destruction. But in the end, many were lost and many more will pass due to the effects of Klarion's mutating chaos magic infecting the land."

"How many people died?" Kid Flash asked somberly.

Superman sighed as he brushed his hand through his hair while Batman stoically answered. "Of Salem's original fifty thousand population more than eight thousand are estimated dead at this point with even more to pass over the next couple of days as the people who were rained upon the chaos-filled rain develop the equivalents of super cancer and other forms of bodily mutations that will lead to the infected's death if Dr. Fate himself doesn't cure them."

With that chilling description of the poor townspeople of Salem Batman then looked away from Kid Flash back to me before he unexpectedly sighed and asked quietly. "Jake, what happened back there? How did this whole conflict come into being with that Choas Lord."

For a moment I wondered how to start before I just started from the beginning with how I felt their particularly powerful souls through my senses and then my plans were to merely keep the Chaos Lord busy after I separated Kent from the Chaos Lord so the team could stuff the helmet onto Kent and allow the Lord of Order to deal with his counterpart.

"And thus, with Klarion's familiar sneaking into the tower and making it more difficult for the team to get Kent to the helmet and dealing with Abra Kadrabra, your plan to merely delay him became a battle to the death?" Batman's question and his words reminded me of how just after the team went into the tower, I lost all sight of Klarion's familiar until later on in the battle.

"Yes," I said simply. Fighting a Chaos Lord was no different than fighting rouge Kryptonians and demons as they simply needed to be put down hard, in order for the surroundings not to be reduced to a wasteland.

Superman and Batman shared a look before Superman took over the conversation as he spoke gently to me. "Look Lorde although the vast majority of people weren't able to see you but with Salem being a spiritual hotspot supposedly, a number of people did see you fighting so the League has come to the consensus that you need to keep your head down for a few weeks to let the heat die down."

I knew damned well that they weren't trying to put me under house arrest or whatever and although they certainly were having thoughts of how I could have done better or even will be scolding the other members of my team for not calling them in.

I was in the clear responsibility-wise as no speakers could register my voice so it's not like I could have made a phone call to the League about Klarion going insane.

"That's fine... Honestly, I need some time away to do some training. So, consider this my notice that I will be gone for a couple of days for you guys." I said after a moment of silence earning me looks from everyone in the room.

"Where will you be going Lorde? And how can a mere couple days provide any form of training that you cannot get here?" Batman all but demanded and as much as I wanted to tell him to shove it with his tone, I understood he was just looking out for me.

"I am likely going to the Summer Fae Realms to entreat with the denizens within for training. And to get something that can allow me to merge with humanity hopefully." I explained earning a nod of understanding from Batman.

But not only was I going to the Summer Fae Realms... I remembered a very crucial treasure that was all but understated in the fae realms itself.

A Mundane Egg... Something with an extremely understated name as a Mundane Egg was the seed of one of the worlds that can grow with the Fae realms of dreams. For every dream can birth a new world with enough faith in it. But a Mundane Egg can anchor said the world to reality and for those in the know.

The egg can be absorbed to grant the wielder great power.

I simply didn't have the decades if not centuries it took other Hollows to develop their biology to create new powers and for all my ultra-durable hair could do it was simply a laughable joke in the conceptual-based forces the DC universe held.

But the force of 'imagination' and being able to project a concept of a world's natural concepts will very much change the game as with it I could have the equivalent of an Infinity Stone's total manipulation of a single concept should I align the Mundane Stone to such a thing when I absorb it.

Basically, my own little Hōgyoku is slightly more limited in the scope of manipulation.

Batman then continued to debrief the team about what happened in the tower, with Abra Kadabra being in the ICU due to Dr. Fate almost killing him as he realized his host's body was failing.

Then Robin asked a question I didn't even bother to consider at the moment. "Dr. Fate was acting weird when he took over Zatara's body, is everything alright?"

Batman didn't respond but I could see him visually tense before Superman softly sighed and explained with a frown. "Supposedly Dr. Fate is going to be holding onto Zatara's body for a while as Chaos has overtaken Order recently... The League was actually going to have a meeting about what to do should Nabu refuse to release his host."

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