And the drama continues...
Kyla-el finally spoke, voice soft but heavy with authority. "The soul doesn't simply disappear. It changes. It breaks. It reforms. Sometimes, it returns stronger. Sometimes… not at all. She was an empath after all. I think what we see before us as versions of her emotions."
Starfire stepped forward, her voice trembling. "Raven… can you hear me? Are you still in there?"
Starfire's hands shook as she turned to Diana. "What… what have you done?" she whispered, tears running freely.
The air above Mogo twisted as the Ravens—newly born, radiant echoes of the goddess—hovered in silence. Nine in total, each surrounded by a halo of power so dense that the very space around them rippled and bent. Mogo's normally serene sky shimmered with the unnatural distortion of divine energy. Mogo couldn't move through space leisurely as he always did and had to stop now and try his best to contain such power within.
"What the fuck…?" Kyla-el's voice trembled in awe and disbelief. She floated higher, her eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. "Each of them… almost as powerful as the main Raven." The fact chilled her. It meant that any one of them could threaten the balance of power here—or anywhere in the universe.
Below, Diana was quiet, her sword gripped tight in her hand. Her mind swirled with regret and confusion, the aftermath of her impulsive, violent act.
'Why is she still calling her Raven?' Diana wondered as she watched Starfire, whose gaze was locked upward at the floating Ravens, her lips trembling. 'But what I did… Irrespective of all that was revealed, that was very disloyal as a romantic partner and an aide. Fuck.'
Starfire's own thoughts were less philosophical, more immediate. "Wait! These Ravens don't have cocks!" she blurted out, squinting up at the figures above, eyeing their flowing loincloths with suspicion. "Maybe…"
Kyla-el, sharper and calmer, pieced together the line of thought almost instantly. She glanced at Starfire, understanding her question before she asked it, then looked back at the real Raven, still suspended in a shaft of searing white light. The goddess radiated such power that it stung the eyes of a divine Krptonian.
Diana's sword—a weapon forged in the heart of themysciran creation, sharpened by gods and now, with her own divinity ascended, able to split atoms before her ascension, and now can also rend dimensions, and slice through space-time itself—rested heavy at her side. The thought that she had turned it on her own goddess, her own lover and leader, filled her with a shame that felt radioactive in her chest.
'Will she survive this?' Kyla-el wondered, her blue eyes flicking between Diana and Raven. 'This wasn't just a physical or soul attack—it was emotional, too. I can feel you don't want to fight this, Raven, but you have to!'
Meanwhile, on the periphery, Metron stirred. The Mobius Chair hummed beneath him, newly restored. It shielded its master, working with his own motherbox to knit his wounds, but Kyla-el's assault had been something beyond mere physics or flesh. The Mobius Chair could mend timelines and minds, but even it had limits. For now, Metron's pride and curiosity outweighed his pain.
He had his pride as a New God and couldn't just let this humiliation pass. Even though Metron had already admitted—if only to himself—that arriving unannounced was a misstep, he clung to the customs of those who considered themselves above everyone else. Why bother with formality when addressing what you perceive as lesser beings?
But even pride can be dangerous when it's wounded. With a sneer, Metron set his sights on Raven once more, watching as the brilliant light from her body faded, leaving a strange hush over the throne room. He wasn't the only one to react swiftly—Kyla-el, whose mind always seemed three steps ahead, had already anticipated this. As Metron's hands danced across the controls of his motherbox, blending its arcane circuitry with the near-limitless tech of the Mobius Chair, she slipped from her thoughts and materialized behind him.
"AWW, FUCK YOU!" Metron spat, realizing too late that he was no longer in control of the room. He barely managed to summon a shimmering forcefield before Kyla-el lashed out, her kick launching both Metron and the Mobius Chair like a comet across Mogo's surface.
The impact was thunderous, shattering stone and sending up a plume of dust visible from orbit. "Such ridiculous strength!" Metron gasped, still within the chair's energy bubble, his pride bruised as much as his body. "Kicking the forcefield of the Mobius Chair and me together—absurd!"
But gods weren't given time to lick their wounds. Metron closed his eyes, focusing past the pain, past the chaos—he reached out with his mind, commanding his motherbox and the Mobius Chair to try again. Space warped, reality rippled, and a new boomtube blossomed into existence right in the center of the chaos—encircling Raven in a split-second of blinding blue light.
"BANG!" The sound was like a thunderclap. Starfire, moving faster than most eyes could follow, shot forward in a blur of orange and emerald. But Metron anticipated this too—his forcefield sealed around Raven like a glass coffin, making Starfire's rescue attempt futile. She slammed against the invisible barrier, howling in frustration as the boomtube snapped shut, swallowing Raven whole.
Metron, back in the battered shell of his chair, raised his hands in triumph, his laughter echoing like a madman. "FINE! IF YOU WON'T SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE, THEN YOU'LL SUFFER FOR IT—FOR ALL ETERNITY!" His voice ricocheted through the battered halls, as the gods below watched in mute shock.
For a heartbeat, there was only stunned silence—then Metron's attention snapped to Diana. "I have no one to thank but you, Diana. Without you, I wouldn't have had the chance to punish that imposter—so—"
But Diana was done being anyone's pawn. In a blur of movement and steel, she lunged, her sword blazing with the fury of the Greek gods. The Mobius Chair jerked out of harm's way just in time, but not before she sliced through the forcefield as if it were nothing but mist. Metron's eyes widened in disbelief—just a split-second late. Had the chair not acted on its own for Metron's safety, he would be no more.
'But she was just below me… Tch!' he thought, his anger burning cold.
'The Dianas I know of eventually get so powerful, but I have never seen one that exudes such speed, even my heart went to my chest!' Metron thought as he calmed himself down.
"YOU ARE ALL ANOMALIES!" Metron screamed, his hands whirling across the Mobius Chair's controls, blue, red, and white lights spiraling around him. "YOU SHOULDN'T EXIST! ALLOW ME TO FIX THAT!" The chair pulsed with cosmic energy, and a shimmering wormhole yawned open behind him.
"He's travelling through time—WE HAVE TO STOP TIME!" Kyla-el shouted, already powering up to give chase, but the damage was done. Metron was gone, vanished into the river of time, leaving the broken gods behind—shocked, furious, and even more determined to rescue Raven… whatever it took.
Things are popping off faster on the patreon... new characters and... some deaths???
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