The soft thrum of the cosmos enveloped me, a timeless vibration that hummed deep within my soul. Following the battle with Raven, I had come back to the center of the Justice League headquarters. Though I had won back reclaiming her, something inside me was… wrong. The universe was in flux, the fine balance of power and destiny hanging on the precipice of something I couldn't yet grasp.
I stood by myself in the darkened room, the holographic images of Earth and the stars dancing before me. My senses were attuned, attuned to the finer frequencies that only a being of my level could detect. But something had shifted. I could sense it in the very texture of time and space. The stillness before the storm was oppressive.
I shut my eyes, concentrating on the beat of energy that ran through my veins. The odd thrum in the recesses of my mind grew louder, becoming a low vibration that shook the walls of the room. It was not a noise, not really, but a sensation a sense of foreboding that clung to the air.
Something is coming.
I could feel my own mind repeating itself inside my head, but it was not only me thinking it. The universe itself was whispering a warning, a murmur of doom that coursed through the very fabric of existence. The pressure of it bore down on me, and even with all the strength I had built up, there was a feeling of helplessness, an inexplicable weakness.
I opened my eyes, gazing at the image of Earth. My cosmic awareness blazed, straining through the universe as I attempted to reach out for the strings of fate. The area around me rippled, and the world that I knew seemed to bend before my eyes. The stars danced, dissipating into a hazy vortex, and then it arrived the vision.
I saw it at first in glimpses snippets, like a shattered glass puzzle, hard to fit together. A city, its heart torn out by some unseen power, aflame in the light of a dying sun. Men running, shouting, helpless. I saw heroes battling, but the enemy they were opposing was unlike any that I had known. It was chaos raw, unchanneled, but vast.
And then, the scene changed. I saw Raven, standing by herself, her expression stern and unyielding. A gust of cold wind swirled about her, and she was not alone. There were figures following her, shrouded in darkness. One was familiar, a tall figure, aflame with an otherworldly fire Zatanna? No. This was something darker, something tainted. My gut twisted.
The vision distorted again, and this time I was seeing the Justice League Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman each of them shattered, lying defeated under the power of some unseen force. But there was one that remained the same me. I was present, standing amidst the devastation, but I was not the hero. I was the one that they feared.
The vision drew close to me, my own face hidden by a dark radiance that seeped out of my eyes, my hands, my entire being. I was so much stronger than one could possibly know, but joy, there was no joy to be found in it. There was only ruin.
And it was over.
I gulped, jarring myself back awake. My chest was pounding against me, the pulse of the vision still lingering within my skeleton. I lurched back, grabbing hold of the table in front of me to support myself. It was as if I had witnessed everything witnessed the destruction of not only Earth, but the fabric of the multiverse itself. The power I had been so keen to learn, the skills I had been practicing, they were now something to fear. An omen of something much, much worse than I had thought.
What had I witnessed? The visions were too disjointed, too indistinct. But one thing was certain the future I had caught a glimpse of was one of destruction. And no matter how hard I tried to push it away, I was at the center of it. My ability, the same one that made me valuable to the League, had the potential to cause the downfall of everything I had fought so hard to safeguard.
I had to learn more.
I spun hard, moving towards the communications room, haste in every step. I had to talk to Raven. She was the answer. She had knowledge old magics, forbidden lore, knowledge that would help me piece together what I had just seen. The fragments of the vision were too vague, too broken, but there had to be something. A clue.
I couldn't deal with it on my own. I'd always considered myself invincible, beyond touch, but I'd come to understand that my course ahead was something that I would not be able to tread in solitude. What I had perceived, the ruin it wasn't something that could be stopped simply through brute power or intelligence by itself. There was more required. There was an understanding, deep, that the forces present required. Forces we could barely grasp.
I reached Raven's quarters and tapped once, the sound resonating through the corridor. When she opened the door, her eyes locked onto mine, guarded but unmasked. Her expression relaxed when she read the look in my eyes the same expression that had been etched on my face when I first understood the enormity of the threat that I was dealing with. The expression of someone who had glimpsed the future and didn't know how to alter it.
"Raven," I told her, my own voice firm but laced with desperation. "I need you. I've seen something something awful. I need to know what's happening."
She didn't argue. She moved aside, opening the door for me. Her face was still closed off, but there was something new in her eyes now something that said she felt the burden of what was approaching, too.
"I've been seeing it too," she whispered. "I've been sensing the shift. The balance is tipping. But I don't know how to stop it. Whatever's coming it's not just a threat to Earth. It's a threat to everything."
I nodded, a cold shiver creeping up my spine. The vision had been more than a warning it had been a glimpse of something much, much worse. We were up against a power that none of us were ready for. And if we didn't move fast, the future I had seen would become our reality.
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**End of Chapter 27**