Zatanna #19 - Meg Ytic, VII: Ssecnirp

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Author: ScarecrowSid

Book: Zatanna

Arc: Gem City

Set: 24

★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★

    Amy wanted nothing so much as a normal life. And, for a time, she had lived one.

    She’d been Amy Winston, your average orphan living with a doting grandmother, a quiet aunt, and an eccentric uncle. Perfectly normal, if not a bit tragic, her life had been a calm thing. That changed when she turned eleven and discovered her three family members were a witch, a warrior, and assassin, respectively.

    Further complications arose when it was revealed that the three were not, in fact, her family, or any sort of relation. They were her servants and Amy was Amaya, Princess of some far-off magical land living in exile.

    Lovely.

    As if the 9th grade weren’t difficult enough.

★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★

    “Ames.”

    Amy ignored the call, choosing to look up at the crystalline dome currently encasing the city. That was certainly not normal, and the general havoc below wasn’t quite what she wanted out her day.

    “Ames,” the voice repeated. She didn’t hear his footsteps as he approached, but the white mask and wayfarer sunglasses were hard to miss when they hovered into view. “We got a plan here? I left my post, and now the building is… well, it has been cut in half.” He sighed, then held his head in his hands. “The Queen’s going to kill me.”

    Him and his queen. Amy had met the woman once, and while she was intimidating, she wasn’t omniscient. Even if she was a fairy.

    Amy sighed, shoving the thought aside. Fairy Queens running dive bars was decidedly not normal, and there were more important things going on.

    “Blue,” Amy said. “What’s happening?”

    Blue clicked his tongue. “Well, the city is currently trapped beneath a dome… half of it, the city I mean, is on fire… and your uncle is probably going to kill me at some point. So I’m thinking the world is ending?”

    Amy smiled at that. “Granch wouldn’t kill you, Blue.” She paused, then added. “Not unless I told him to.”

    “Ha. Ha,” Blue replied.

    Blue, like the rest of her friends, did not know about her heritage. They knew she had magic, that much was something of a normalcy for their crowd. They were all magical, in their own way, but none of them had embraced their oddities until the day Wonder Woman fought a cosmic witch in the center of San Francisco. The city had no shortage of magical orphans and, for whatever reason, that day had sparked something in the community.

    That was the day the call began.

    “Do you still hear it?” Amy asked.

    Blue grunted, his tone questioning.

    “The Call.” Amy let her sense fall away and grasped at the high-pitched hum she had learned to tune out. “It’s…”

    “I don’t want to talk about it,” Blue replied.

    For someone who tried to dress like a ghost, he certainly did frighten easily. Amy propped herself on her elbows, then pushed herself up and sat. Blue stood a few feet away, leaning against the brick railing and surveyed the city below.

    Amy imagined he wanted to look… Confident? Calm? Strong? He didn’t look anything of the sort, to her eyes. He looked like a lanky sixteen year old wearing a full bodysuit made from a white bed-sheet, and the silver bugle around his neck didn’t help to mature to the ensemble.

    “We can’t hide here forever,” Blue noted. “We could go down there and… I don’t know, help?”

    Amy frowned at him, then peered over the edge. Night was falling, and Amy didn’t want to spend another night hiding in the cold, but joining the chaos below was no more appealing. Really, she had no good options.

    Amy held out her hand, palm up, and concentrated on a point a few inches above it. She felt the cool rush of her magic, like ants crawling through veins and ice running through her bones. A hiss, too soft to be heard, marked the confluence of her powers, and the crackle that followed bound them together.

    A many-faceted dagger, wrought entirely of transparent purple crystal, fell into her palm. Blue stared at her then, and, despite the mask, Amy knew he was grinning.

    “I’m not agreeing with you,” Amy said. She gestured to the rooftop. “I just don’t think this is a good place to spend the night, especially with the cold and the…”

    “Oh, I could keep you warm, but we-” Blue stopped as she punched him in the upper arm. Amy retrieved her backpack, a thing of blue canvas, from nearby and slung the straps over her shoulders.

    “Let’s fly, Boy Blue,” Amy said, smirking at him.

    Blue stepped past her and onto the ledge, then spoke, “Don’t call me that.” He offered her his gloved hand, and she took it. “After you, my lady.”

    He pulled her up, and they both stood there for a half a breath.

    And then he pushed her over the edge.

★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★

    Jason of the Blood was sleeping. This night belonged to the Demon.

    Etrigan stifled a growl as he landed, hard, against the shattered the streets of the city center. Philomela crashed down behind him, rolling to a stop with a soft grunt of her own.

    Their benefactor stood before them, hunched into a low, predatory stance as he scanned the street. His name was Granch, and he showed a remarkable prowess in martial matters. That, coupled with his innate understanding of the crystalline beasts haunting the city, made him an invaluable ally in their lonely war.

    “Quiet,” Granch said, his voice low. “Do you hear them?”

    Etrigan listened, but heard nothing. It was too quiet here, too dead in the streets. All he could hear was that damned gemstone overhead. It pulsed like a racing heart, and it drowned everything else out.

    “Soldiers,” Philomela answered. “Two dozen, maybe more. They’re ahead of us...”

    “Not that…” Granch whispered in reply. He nodded, then held a finger to his lips. The man was monstrous, nearly as odd as Etrigan himself. Not quite a demon, that much was obvious, but the grey skin, pointed ears, and strangely long bones marked him as inhuman.

    He pointed to the sky, and Etrigan followed his gaze. There was nothing there. Etrigan waited, breathing calm, and waited for whatever new monstrosity the night would bring. Perhaps it was one of those beasts, only with wings.

    Something hovered into a view, distant and bright white. Etrigan had lived thousands of years, both here and in Hell, but nothing prepared him for what he saw then. Floating, or rather bouncing, along the tallest buildings was a man, bloated like a balloon.

    “What is that?” Etrigan asked.

    Granch did not reply. Instead, he leaped.

★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★

    Zatanna Zatara felt useless. Citrina and Laral continued to aggravate the enemy forces, striking down patrols in their path, then retreating to cover. She, by contrast, could only serve as lookout with her sorcery so withered.

    She scowled, then held out her hand flat toward the street where the latest guerilla skirmish raged.

    “Llaberif,” Zatanna muttered. A single wisp of smoke erupted from her palm, then faded away with a soft pop. “Dammit.”

    Still, there was nothing. A lifetime of sorcery had not prepared her for this sort of helplessness, and despite being proficient in basic arms, she was not a match for these otherworldly things without her natural enhancements.

    Citrina, on the other hand, suffered no such impediment. The woman looked to be at least 80 years old, but she danced through the enemy ranks with the grace of a woman a quarter her age. Two short blades flashed in her hands, glowing with the soft rage of magic, and two heads, clad in purple helms, clattered to the street below.

    Laral was no less vicious. The small, mousy servant was gone, and a warrior stood in her skin. She swung a blade of crystal nearly five feet long, and glowing like the sun. It sang and seared in the air, catching in the abdomen of an enemy. He howled, and the crystal plate shattered beneath the weight of Laral’s strike.

    In moments, the patrol was reduced to several dark shapes laying in pools of their own blood. Zatanna made her way down to the street, looking over the dead. The blood beneath them was red, so they were human after all, but it left her wondering why they were so strong.

    “I see you wasted no time,” Zatanna mused.

    Laral grunted in reply, kicking over the body nearest her. The man, wearing the shattered remains of his armor, held up both hands and shouted something in a strange language. Laral replied, apparently with the same language, and stepped on his chest.

    “Wait!” Citrina hissed. “Bring that one with us, dear. We need information.”

    Laral’s scowl turned into a wicked grin as she knelt down over the man. Zatanna neared and saw him clearly for the first time, he was little more than a boy. Well, that was odd. When you saw a mass of gemstone armor charging at you, screaming bloody murder and swinging a sword nearly as tall as himself… well, you expected a battle-hardened warrior.

    “He’s young,” Zatanna remarked.

    “Most of them will be,” Citrina replied. “Young men and women, they’re going to make up the majority of Opal’s forces.”

    “Why is that? Is your world as bad as ours, sending the young to die for the old?”

    “There are no old warriors in our homeland,” Laral replied, her eyes meeting that of the youth. She pointed back at Citrina with the thumb of the hand not holding the man’s throat, then added, “Except for this one, anyway. Centuries of war saw to that, and decades of peace followed.”

    “Only until the young were grown enough to carry swords of their own,” Citrina added, sighing. “Opal is…”

    “Evil?” Zatanna offered.

    “No,” Citrina replied. “Evil is… easy. Evil is too clean, too easy to cut away. Opal is… “ She trailed off, face scrunching. “This isn’t the time. Laral, see to the boy.”

    Laral removed her hand from the man’s throat, resting her palm on his cheek. She smiled down at him, and he smiled back. It was a nice moment, undercut only slightly by the fist forming from her other hand. Laral summoned her sorcery, and the fist was coated with a thin layer of gemstone.

    She whispered something in her native tongue, and struck.

★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★・゜゜・。。・゜ ゜★

    The woman stood in her chamber, staring down at the cards. She was complicit in this, in the murder and horror of the day, but she would find a way to make up for it. Any sacrifice was worth it if she could stop the calamity currently brewing.

    “Playing games?”

    Nimue looked up at the voice, then saw the young woman entering the chamber. She had red hair, like blood fresh from a wound, and perpetual smirk. She was named Nimue, after the sorceress of legend, and was very proud of that fact.

    Ironic, really, that the sorceress she was named after stood several feet from her, and despised her thoroughly. Nimue, the younger, was a brash fool, and a failed sorcerer with no real powers to speak of.

    “Reading the fates,” she replied, not meeting Nimue’s eyes before her gaze returned to the table. Seven cards lay, face down, in a wheel around a cloudy crystal ball. “And…”

    “Fortune telling,” Nimue said, obvious scorn in her voice. “What good are you, Xanadu? Why does he keep you around?”

    “I have no interest in educating you, child,” Madame Xanadu replied. “Go, have your way with your mischief, and leave me be.” She punctuated this with a dismissive wave of her hands, and felt the young sorceress’ glare as Nimue approached the table.

    The smell of smoke rising from the young woman’s hand was warning enough for most, and Xanadu looked up to meet her eye. She did not look at the ball flame wreathing Nimue’s hand, and the look of hatred in the woman’s eye.

    Xanadu smiled. “Are you going to do it this time?”

    Nimue’s glare fell away before that smile, and wide-eyed hatred followed. She cocked her arm back, forming a fist, and readied to strike. Xanadu met the gaze, refusing to flinch.

    “Child,” Xanadu said. “I have lived a long life, do you really think I am afraid of you?”

    Xanadu snapped her hands, and the crystal ball cleared. The clouds permeated through the glass, rising to Nimue’s face. She breathed in the memories, the fire vanishing from her grip. Nimue cupped her hands over her mouth and nose, coughing violently as her eyes flashed in horror.

    She retreated through the doorway, still coughing, as Xanadu glanced back down at her cards. They lay on their backs, still and silent, save for one.

    Xanadu picked it up, and held it aloft.

    “The Magician… of course.”