Chapter Text
"Well, this is f*cking awkward as hell." I couldn't help but mutter as I realized where I currently was.
In typical DC fashion, I was thrown into another dimension after a hiding villain managed to use a powerful explosive on our Zeta teleporter when I was in the middle of transit.
"Why is a hollow here in the Seireitei?" I heard someone say below me and as I looked down, I saw the forms of Ichigo and the soul reaper captain Byakuya Kuchiki breaking apart from one another as they battled one another.
"I apologize but I need to speak for a minute," I said as I landed on the ground in a Sonido that made Byakuya frown at my speed.
"Hey, you the strawberry Mary Sue of the world," I said pointing at Ichigo making him gape at my nonsensical words and my next words didn't help any further.
"Quit being a sh*tty dense and ignorant protagonist and have that Hat's and Clog's give you real training to have all your other race's abilities unlocked you dirty mutt," I ordered making him turn red in anger as Ichigo was never known as a calm and cool-headed person.
"What the hell are you talking about Hollow? All I have is soul reaper powers." He cursed and I just snorted before bursting out in laughter.
"You are a Vasto Lorde... How did you get into the Seireitei." Byakuya asked obviously unnerved by my presence and I could understand why as my spiritual energy eclipsed his own by a great deal after I had gone to other dimensions to 'train' or more specifically eat monsters that the justice league and people of earth wouldn't know about or not care about.
"Shush... Little captain I will have words for you as well but for now let the adults talk." I chided him making the noble's face twitch in irritation.
"Now what the hell else could I call you but a mutt? You are an amalgamation of Soul Reaper, Hollow, Quincy, and is capable of becoming a Fullbringer. The most surprising thing is how you haven't exploded like a nuclear reactor from conflicting energies, but with your Zanpaktou spirit actually being the spirit of your Quincy powers and your inner hollow being contained by your human Fullbringer energies. Maybe that combination is what allows you to live." I explained half thought aloud before I shrugged.
As I was fairly obviously broadcasting my hollow energies without care I could feel the other captains quickly making their way to me even abandoning their own battles to see what in the hell a Vasto Lorde Hollow was doing in the heart of the Soul Reapers heart of power.
I could only grin as I saw the first trio of people and here and then another more interesting trio came.
Feeling the titanic spiritual pressure closing in I closed my eyes and merely relied on my spiritual energy to 'see' as I felt the forms of the Head Captain Yamamoto and what was certainly the disguised form of Aizen.
"A Vasto Lorde... I believed after much loss we had dealt with all your ilk?" Yamamoto said as he walked towards me with his cane making loud tapping noises on the way towards me.
"Woah hold on their old man... I need to share a couple little warnings before I make my epic escape that will astound you all for eternity." I said as I very carefully kept track of Aizen as he walked around all but invisible due to his hypnosis already affecting all these people at some point.
"Hmm." The wizened old man hummed before he chuckled. "This old man still has some strength so I suppose after I let you speak; I will kill you and retire these old bones."
Well good to know he respects my strength to know such a battle would all but cripple him, but I had no interest in fighting the f*cking sun of all things stuffed into his sword.
"I am afraid you have bigger fish to fry than a simple Vasto Lorde old man..." I said making him draw up short in confusion then I heard the wooden cane encasing his sword creak as I recited a chill poem that made even Aizen freeze.
"Quincy folklore spoke of him as "The Sealed King": after 900 years of being sealed, he would regain his pulse; after another 90, he would regain his intellect; and after 9 more years, he would absorb the power of every "impure" Quincy to make their abilities his own." I then turned to Ichigo and continued.
"Thats how your mother died Ichigo Kurosaki. The King of Quincy's purposefully ripped her powers away in the middle of battle leaving her already half dead and an easy target for that Hollow."
Saying my piece, I looked back to Yamamoto and before I spun around flaring my Haori and drawing their attention to the prominent zero on it. "I am with a certain group Yamamoto knows, and Aizen your little rebellion and plan to become a 'transcendental being' is well known by that damned old monk above us." I said alluding to the scary ass monk who could control the concept of names that was beside the Soul King.
"Now I suggest you all just play nice for now as the Quincy King is back and even stronger than he was before old man." I said making the Head Captain snarl as he knew all too well if I was actually with the Zero Squad, I was untouchable both politically and had the strength to back up my title.
"I do not know what you mean to call me Aizen I am merely one of Captain Gin's lower ranked members in his squad." I heard Aizen speak out and I laughed shortly before shaking my head.
"Even if I was sure I could throw off your hypnosis after dealing with bullsh*t mind controllers over the years I don't want to take the chance... Aizen go ahead take the little marble plot device and attempt to become the Soul Kings equal. I don't care, just understand that should you kill him then you will need to become or find another lynchpin to hold together reality as he does." I explained making the form of Aizen still before I felt his spiritual essence sealing itself sort off as he probably sheathed his blade, but I still didn't open my eyes.
"Very well I shall play along then." He said finally and then bedlam happened as people began shouting how Aizen was 'alive' and how this how invasion was a plot of his blah blah blah.
Noticing how everyone's attention was on Aizen and how Ichigo had smartly decided to just pick up Rukia and book it I decided it was time for me to attempt my own little escape plan.
"Welp, I will see you all later I am going back otherwise a certain lady is going to steal all my clothes and make terrible outfits with them like the ones you are all wearing." I teased as I dumped most of my spiritual energy into making an ultra-dense Garganta that hopefully would lead me back to the DC universe.
"Stop Hollow! We have more questions!" Yamamoto roared but I had already dashed into my Garganta with it closing behind me as I realized with how spatial unstable my portal was that I may very well not make it directly into the DC universe or even the Young Justice timeline I was from.
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 f*cking Choas Lord, a being who could fight gods while they were pulling bullsh*t 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 Leagues 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 deal 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.
"Thats 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 if 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."
