#and that's supposed to summon them

[luxaofhesperides]

Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!

Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.

He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.

What Duke gets instead isn’t even words. 

Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.

“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”

He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.

“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,

Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”

Jason looks him over critically, then nods. 

Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing. 

This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.

He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.

For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.

He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.

And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.

Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white. 

Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.

Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.

Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws. 

The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all. 

The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope. 

“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.

Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.

“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”

Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”

“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”

“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”

“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.

“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”

Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”

Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room. 

“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”

Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others. 

Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.

Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape. 

Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.

The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic. 

His left hipbone burns.

Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.

The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.

And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.

“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.

“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”

The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”

“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”

“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”

The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room. 

“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.

He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.

“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”

“You—what?”

“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.

Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances. 

“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”

“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”

Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”

“And you dreamed of me.”

“I did.”

“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”

“Okay.”

“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“I’ll help,” Phantom says.

“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”

“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”

Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”

“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”

“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”

“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”

There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.

Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.

“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”

“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”

Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”

“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again. 

“Let’s go find them, then!”

They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together. 

The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now. 

He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.

[weirdfishy]

John “oh my nephew gave me this thermos that souped your ghost problem” Constantine

vs

Tim “what the fuck do you MEAN your nephew gave you a ghost-eradicating thermos why have i never heard of this gimme the tech” Drake

[radiance1]

There was a day, a day where there was nothing that needed to be done, nobody to meet, not meetings to schedule, nothing to fight.

A rare, rare day for one Kevin the cat.

As the second in command of his Familia, who the Head delegates most of his responsibilities due to not wanting to do that at all, it is unusual that he no longer has much to do anymore.

With a pretty efficient system in place for each and every division to have an executive and their own second in commands who will soon take their place. It leaves Kevin with not as much to do anymore nowadays, most things being taken care of by other cats.

A meeting between the Familia Heads wouldn't be for the next few moons, and there isn't anyone around for him to fight.

So what does he do, exactly?

Snuggle up to gramps of course!

===

Danny doesn't mind Kevin invading his personal bed and personal space, as he has done it quite often and will most likely continue to do so for the rest of his immortal life most likely.

It seemed to be a pretty slow day, if his observations served anything. Nothing significant was happening, and the overall vibe was calm and slow.

A good day, a rare day, seeing the normal chaos that usually occupied this warehouse. Perhaps asking Selina to buy the surrounding ones proved effective.

Either way, it was a nice day.

Laying down, doing nothing except watching Tv and not really fighting the sleep when it came. He was drowsy, about to close his eyes and fall into a dream.

Then everything disappeared.

He snapped to awareness very quickly, feeling the familiar weight of magic in the air and what was most definitely the pull of summoning. Which is weird, because not many would summon him, most go for the King, which is Pariah Dark, and not the Prince, which is him.

Oh well, whoever summoned him is most likely some teens or adults who had nothing better to do than get together and try to summon paranormal entities and demons or such and such. He would take some of their food for summoning him, and be on his way.

Or at least that was what he thought.

Apparently, he was summoned by a genuine cult this time. He would take teens and adults with nothing better to do, as well as that one time he was summoned by wizards and got turned into a cat over being summoned by genuine cultists any day.

It's just, not for him really.

They did, however, do their research. Very powerful wards that was built to keep whatever was summoned in, that whenever he tapped on actually hurt him.

Drawn with the extract of blood blossoms for ghostly beings from the infinite realms.

A red mist flowed around the room, one that made Danny's lungs felt as if they were on fire and withering all at once.

A mist made from Blood Blossoms.

To top it all off, there were multiple Blood Blossoms scattered throughout the place, most of which were around the circle that summoned him. It felt like someone brought a hammer to his skull and kept pounding, his muscles felt taut and like jelly all at once, barely keeping him standing on his own paws as his eyes stung from the mist around the room and from the Blood Blossoms themselves.

Whoever this was, they knew their stuff, and whoever this was, decided that going overboard was far better than underboard.

He thinks he heard one of them speak, but he couldn't quite make out whatever was said from the ringing of his ears. Eventually, he had to fall, his eyes struggling to be kept open.

He should turn back into a living cat, get out of his ghost form. But he couldn't, the willpower necessary to do so slipping out of his grasp and instead being replaced by pain, pain, and even more pain. Even the very magic in the air was against him, whatever intent those who summoned him imprinted upon it was made to specifically weigh him down, as if gravity itself were his enemy, to go against him at every turn.

Weaken him.

If he could, he would laugh, but he's in far too much pain to do so. In all of his 150 years of existence, he never expected to encounter something like this. Something this strong.

He wondered, if in all of Pariah Dark's infinite power, if he would be able to stand up to something like this. Perhaps he would, infinite power would let him be able to stand up to something like.

Infinite power, while weakened, is still infinite.

But he, Danny, Prince of the Infinite Realms, did not have infinite power. With his title came a recognition of his raw power, of his ability, and given him political power almost unmatched as he was one of the few that reigned over infinity.

But that was mostly it, perhaps a bit of boost to his power, and maybe a distinct signature due to his newfound status. But not much else.

And is this what it granted him? An end, where he was stripped away from comfort, from his home, from his Familia, where each and every breath he took burned and withered. Where his limbs failed him, where his own power was useless due to his willpower being drained by overwhelming agony.

He would not die, no. For he is incapable of death.

Yet that makes it even worse.

Would he spend an eternity like this? Trapped with nothing but overwhelming pain for company, becoming intimate with it as it raked its hands through his fur, under his skin, between each strand of muscle and piercing his brain?

He doesn't know, and that scares him.

===

The Justice League, with help from a few members of Justice League Dark, appeared to prevent the summoning of the Ghost King, known as a tyrant who enslaves worlds and a being of infinite power.

What they found, however, was not the Ghost King. But instead, magicians surrounding a circle in a room of red mist, in the middle of the circle a passed out, glowing white cat floating via magic.

They saw it as preparation to summon the Ghost King, perhaps the cat was a sacrifice? Regardless, they went in, and fought. Eventually gaining the upper hand due to have far more powerful members than just magical practitioners.

The cat, without aid from magic, fell to the floor, and Zatanna was quick to dispel the summoning in case it was in the process of calling forth Pariah Dark from beyond the veil. They took the cat back with them, for surely it had some kind of importance if they were using it for their summoning.

Later on, Constantine would choke as he recognized the significance of the cat, a signature quite similar to that of the King of the infinite, yet different.

They weren't just offering any old cat to the Ghost King, no, they were offering him his Prince, and if the look of how they handled it was any indication, it was planned to use said Prince as a bargaining to get the King into their servitude of some sort.

===

Meanwhile, back at the Familia.

All hell has broken loose, what semblance of order there was broke, the head was gone, missing. Not even the second in command, who was with him the longest, had a clue where or what happened to him.

He was there one second, gone the next.

Not many stays calm about it, the ones who do mostly trying to calm down the kittens after the panic of so many other grown, adult cats.

Kevin, the second in command and de-facto leader whenever the Head isn't involved. Panicking does not help any of the other cats feel assured.

[pokimoko]

Listening to instrumentals from the silly doo-wee-ooo show is actually something that can be so painful.

[sysig]

Let me chew you out a little, since we have a couple minutes (Patreon)

[Panel 1] Prismo: *mumble* *mumble*

[Panel 2] Prismo: *mumble*

[Panel 3] Simon: Hmph. “Just because it’s in your head-”

[Panel 4] Simon: “-Doesn’t mean it’s yours,” huh?

[Panel 5] Simon: Give me all the responsibility with none of the privileges?

[Panel 6] Simon: And then you get mad at me for trying to pick up your slack? Prismo: Hey...

[Panel 7] Simon: Clearly you already expect that much from me!

[Panel 8] Prismo: Hey, hey! I did the best with what I had! I didn’t expect any of this!

[Panel 9] Simon: And yet you didn’t even consider telling me, so we could’ve avoided this?

[Panel 10] Prismo: It’s not like I could’ve just- taken it out! I was locked out!

[Panel 11] Simon: You could’ve done something!

[Panel 12] Simon: Instead you let my life spiral around this thing, kept me tethered to Ice King’s Madness-

[Panel 13] Prismo: Fionna and Cake are real thou- Simon: NOW you tell me! After I find out for myself!

[bluuscreen-png]

redraw <3 the lyrics have like no relevance to these characters anymore but oh well it’s cute

the original… it’s from 2019 i think

[rohirric-hunter]

When they went on to make The Return of the King for GBA the developers learned their lesson and instituted caps for skills so you can no longer make your character completely invincible. They did, however, proceed to add in a brand new broken ability:

How is this broken, you might be asking. It's just a basic summon and it caps out at five. Well you see, the ghosts scale with Aragorn. And the infinite leveling exploit still exists. They really should have fixed that.

[supernovaae]

Esper Leaks for 3.2.7

(Shared on Discord)

Our next event esper is Li An!

Here are the quiz answers,

And here’s what she looks like!

Also Hypnos esper textures (idk why it looks like that either),

[williamplayz-57]

Jermbo.

[satari-raine]

II might be - is?! - going on Drumeo on the 19th, it feels like my birthday came early.

[elles-home]

as soon as i finished chapter 1109 i texted my friend to let him know that hey. i have changed my mind actually, i do not think egghead arc will end in five or so chapters (my previous estimation before the giant pirates showed up) but that i think we're in it for this arc this whole year. maybe a bit of next year even, given the way break weeks are going (no complaints, rest up mister oda man)

[vermillioncrown]

i was so sure my wine mom vampire boyfriend would have wanted to hang the 'damsel' out to dry lmao

[the-manderville-mambo]

Having thoughts about Azem again

How did Azem feel when they first learned about the plan to summon Zodiark? To hear that half the world would be sacrificed for this god? To hear that Elidibus, one of their dearest friends, would become that god's heart? To the Convocation, it must have been easy to rationalize such a great loss of life. After all, only Azem left the city and traveled regularly. The rest of them would have known very few people outside of Amaurot, and left only to recruit new members to their seats. And sure, the people being sacrificed had consented to becoming Zodiark, but when you have to choose between a plan that will kill you but save your loved ones, and continuing a nightmare with no other known solution, is there really much choice to it? To being stuck between a rock and a hard place?

How much worse was it, when the skies were no longer ablaze, when the world had stilled, to learn that another of their dearest friends had been one of those sacrificed to achieve this? To learn that half of the survivors would also be sacrificed in order to restart the cycle of life? 3/4ths of the world, gone. People that you knew personally—people that you helped and laughed with and learned from—all gone before their times. It's no wonder Azem refused to be part of any of this. Hell, they felt so strongly about it that they not only quit the Convocation, but left Amaurot entirely. Were they searching for another way? Some other solution that no one else could think of? Did they think they were a failure when the skies stopped burning and they realized they were too late?

And then, after all this loss and grief and guilt, to receive an offer from a group of people following their mentor and predecessor, someone they trusted and respected, asking them to join in on the summoning of another god. One that would, admittedly, prevent yet another sacrifice—this time of the new life that had formed since the cycle was restarted—but still. How that must have hurt, to be asked to take part in yet another sacrifice that would claim a loved one

And this isn't even getting into whether or not Azem knew about what was going to happen/what occurred on Elpis, because that could completely recontextualize everything they did during and after the Final Days

[livelaughlovepedri]

im still mad about the match ffs

[tastycitrus]

made a bingo card for the remainder of the 10th anniversary story based on my baseless speculation

[cepheusgalaxy]

WHY DOESN'T ASHA HAVE A STAR MOTIF OR SOMETHINGGGGG