Chapter Text
It was nine pm the next evening as Jason was sitting on his couch in his Gotham apartment, eating carbonara and watching the news, when he noticed all the lights in his place flickering and the TV buzzing with static.
“Hut da fh’k?” he garbled around a giant mouthful of pasta and questioned if this was another citywide takeover by Riddler or some other Gotham wackjob. Using the Oblivion Bar’s magic portal to enter Gotham meant that for once no bats or birds knew (or at least had acknowledged) that Red Hood was back in town and he’d like to keep it that way, but Jason didn’t actually have the spite to leave his family hanging in a real emergency just to lay low.
He squinted up at the lights and set his plate on the coffee table, getting ready for trouble. And it was a good thing he did, because an instant later a portal of purple energy opened above him and Jason was suddenly at the bottom of a dog pile.
Jason was getting so goddamn tired of portals.
“Oh man, we are so sorry, Mr. Hood!” came the apologetic voice of a male from somewhere on top of him. From being at the base of way more Robin piles than he cared to admit, he judged to be buried under a woman about Stephanie's size and a male about Dick’s height but weighing less. Fit, but not as well-muscled as a vigilante or assassin.
A sharp elbow jabbed Jason in the kidneys and the young woman crawled off him. With a snort, she said, “Don’t call him ‘Mister’, he’s about the same age as us—Oh! Is that carbonara?”
Jason felt himself relax. He recognized the voice of Traci, from Detective Chimp’s bar. Okay, so these probably weren’t particularly inept assassins come to murder him then.
With Traci off him, Jason was able to shove the remaining person aside easily enough and he saw it was a young man around his own age with brown skin, middle eastern features and curly dark hair. He was in a get-up reminiscent of Doctor Fate with a lapiz blue shirt and pants with a gold Egyptian-style collar, sash and cape. Under one arm was, honest to god, the Golden Helmet of Fate, looking very shiny but also oddly subdued, not radiating the kind of energy that Jason would have expected to sense from such a powerful magic object.
The young man managed to stand up and straighten his clothes without knocking into the coffee table too many times, before he awkwardly held up a hand in greeting to Jason. “Sorry again, we didn’t mean to land on you. I’m Khalid Nassour.” His accent was native Brooklyn, tinged with Masri. Jason was familiar enough with multiple Arab dialects from his time in the League of Assassins to recognize Egyptian Arabic immediately.
Khalid went on as Jason warily shook his hand. “Nabu chose me to be Doctor Fate but...I don’t really feel I’m worthy of the title yet. Just call me Khalid. Wonder Woman said you joined the team?”
“Yeah, I’m Red Hood,” Jason answered, wondering how this young man had escaped New York with intact manners, and why they were shaking hands like this was an interview. “Just call me Jason,” he said, before scowling when he noticed Traci pick up his dinner plate with intent. “Hey, Sabrina the teenage witch! Can you stop sniffing around my food?”
“Nope,” Traci answered and boldly met his eyes as she stuffed a big fork-full in her mouth, other hand under her chin, poised to catch any dropping sauce or crumbs. “Om ma gawb dis ish gud. Yu may’h dish?”
“You have a death wish or something?” Jason asked her in wonder. Who the hell dropped into the Red Hood’s apartment and went to town on his dinner? And yes he did make it, thank you very much! It was a very simple recipe, did she really have to sound so amazed when asking?
Traci swallowed her mouthful of his dinner. “I’ve been working the bar all afternoon so I’m hungry, okay?” she informed him testily.
“Is there a reason why you’re here?” he asked, wondering how this had become his life all of a sudden. “Ya know, other than to steal my dinner?”
“Bobo said you need a lift somewhere,” Khalid answered for them both. “Something about needing to meet your teacher? We’re the ride.”
Jason looked out the window to confirm he wasn’t crazy and it was very much after sunset. “At nine at night?” He didn’t know how other people did it, but he generally liked to begin his international journeys in daylight.
Traci looked at him like he was stupid, which Jason did not appreciate. “It’s six AM in Nepal, and prime vigilante time right now , don’t even, man.” Well okay, she had a point there...he supposed if the travel was instant, then daylight wasn’t an issue.
Traci pointed at Jason’s plate in her hand while looked over to Khalid, saying, “This is so good, you should try this.”
“I don’t want to impose,” Khalid said regretfully, all but salivating at the sight of hot food.
“We’re not imposing, we’re doing him a favor,” Traci declared with absolute conviction.
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. Christ, everyone was just here to steal his dinner weren’t they? “If I get you a plate, will you stop eating off of mine?”
Traci weighed his offer, her dark pigtails swishing as she quirked her head in consideration. “Mmm, maybe just get yourself another plate and I’ll polish this one off for you.”
Jason just sighed, giving up on the remains of his meal. He swore whenever someone came to his apartment he wound up feeding them. “There’s a bit more carbonara left in the pan on the stove or I’ve got salad and some roast chicken on the counter if you want some, Khalid.”
“I will take you up on that. I am starving,” Khalid admitted and began looking through Jason’s kitchen cabinets until he found the dinnerware.
Yeah, somehow Jason wasn’t surprised. “You too, huh? Do you magic people not eat?”
“I’ve been...distracted,” Khalid admitted, and Jason had seen enough mentally and emotionally exhausted people barely holding themselves together, to recognize that expression on Khalid’s face. Even if Khalid hadn’t been perfectly mannerly, Jason wouldn’t have had the heart to be mean to him after seeing that.
“Well...stay here and eat my food while I change,” Jason said. “If any vigilantes knock on the window, just flip them off.”
“That will make them go away?” Traci asked, skeptically.
Jason shrugged. “No, but it will amuse me.”
Traci snickered. “Right-Oh,” she said with a thumbs up and took Jason’s place on the couch, hunkered over his plate of carbonara, making herself right at home. Within seconds the magic-user had found his remote and begun flicking through the channels. “What the hell? This is just basic cable!” she complained. “I expected more from an apartment this fancy...”
“Well excuse me for not living up to your expectations! I don’t watch a lot of TV, and everything is streaming nowadays anyway, so sue me!” he yelled back before closing the door to his bedroom.
Jason sighed and leaned back against the closed door, running an anxious hand through his hair.
An introvert at heart, Jason was disappointed that his quiet night to himself had been invaded. He hadn’t expected Constantine’s promise to hook him up with a ride to the Himalayas to pan out quite so fast. He’d not even looked into flights or who to cash in favors with yet. Jason was just enjoying a restful evening to himself before he had to see Ducra, yet suddenly it was already time to face the music?
It’s probably for the best, Jason tried to convince himself. No time to morn his night-in, Jason could get this over with before he got cold feet and have more time to work on restoring his abilities to their old levels. It had taken him a year to reach the point where killing a soul-consuming eldritch god of evil was within his capability the first time. He could probably cut that in half once he had his old skill back.
Goals established, Jason put himself onto his next task: scrounging up proper attire for a trip to the highest mountain range on the planet.
Because his old armor, uniform, costume, outfit—whatever you wanted to call it—was absolutely fucked.
That morning at about seven AM Jason had trudged in exhausted and half asleep, somehow disarming all of his security and traps without nodding off, before stumbling through the door. After fumbling around in his mostly empty fridge for the box of baking soda he kept there, Jason bee-lined it to his bathroom and stripped off his uniform, leaving it to sizzle on the tile floor. He then slathered his skin with baking soda to neutralize anything still active and thoroughly washed off the remnants of acid that had begun to give Jason a nice rash. A few dabs of aloe vera gel with lidocaine and he was ready to crash, having properly taken care of himself like a good boy.
Alfred would be so proud.
Over twelve hours later, much of it he’d spent sleeping and then grocery shopping and cooking, and the skin of Jason’s right hand was red and chapped, as was most of his right shin and countless random itchy spots located anywhere and everywhere on his body, but he was otherwise feeling normal. Only mild first degree chemical burns after fighting a literal acid monster was a pretty good result in his book.
But an examination of Jason’s uniform (which he had not bothered to decontaminate like his body, clothes were replaceable, skin mostly wasn’t, and also...he’d kind of forgotten,) revealed the acid had really accelerated and managed to eat through most of his pant leg and sleeves and made swiss cheese of every piece of his outfit. His utility belt and thigh holsters looked like tattered bits of nylon and Kevlar held together by strings. His one saving grace was that his weapons hadn’t seen any action, and therefore no acid damage.
“Looks like you’re retired, pal,” he said to the clothing, sticking his finger clean through a hole in the bullet-resistant hooded red vest. The bandages he used to wrap his arms were also goners, now tattered and in multiple pieces, but he had extra wrappings and they were cheap anyhow, unlike the rest of his armor and outfit. Bullet-proof, stab-resistant, highly-insulated, lightweight combat gear wasn’t exactly a common household expense, it was a specialty item that was very difficult to get a hold of without the wrong people noticing. In his case, the wrong people included everyone from the League of Assassins, to literally any government, but most of all Batman because Jason didn’t need Bruce up in his business.
Ugh, I’m going to have to come up with a new uniform, aren’t I? he realized. Branding was not Jason’s specialty. And while he’d been called ‘ingenious’ when it came to adapting something existing to his needs, coming up with designs wholesale was more Tim’s thing than his. Bruce was pretty good at it too, though he farmed a lot of it out to Lucius Fox, these days.
“Damn,” Jason mumbled and went digging in his closet to see what he had on hand.
Okay, let’s see...brown leather jacket, brown sleeveless hoodie, red tunic, white and red biker jacket, red hoodies, green shirt, gray shirt, red shirt, cheap trick band shirt, jeans, tuxedo, sweatpants...ah, nondescript black armored suit with enough insulation to make the alpine cold bearable for a short amount of time. No bat symbol, but that would probably be better when facing Ducra anyway. She didn’t have a high opinion of Batman and didn’t like how much Jason was connected to him.
Some basic black tac-pants, a plain red t-shirt and a black hoodie with red lining that he normal wore as a civilian and Jason was feeling naked of his tools and weapons, but at least he was color-coordinated. He wore a holster at the small of his back and slipped one of his back-up pistols inside, but otherwise forewent his other firearms. Ducra hating guns was one of the few opinions she shared with Bruce Wayne; no need to piss her off immediately when he was asking her for something. Besides, his favorite thigh holsters were eaten to shit by acid.
Jason tied on an older pair of combat boots and then decided a single gun was simply not good enough to make him feel comfortable. So he dug around his room for a scabbard that would fit his sword and wore it attached to a strap across his chest, along with clipping his grapple gun to his belt. To finish his very temporary, lightly-armed look, Jason unearthed an old helmet from before he’d switched to a domino and face guard, (since even his damn domino was sporting a hole, the melted circuitry peaking out from the cloth), and tucked it under his arm. A glance in the mirror confirmed the outfit was more budget-ninja-cosplay than professional badass, but Jason was working with limited time and resources and not expecting any real danger, so he deemed it good enough.
“Whatever, it’s not like Ducra has ever been impressed by me, anyway,” he mumbled to himself.
Pushing the door to his bedroom open with a gusty, “Alright Wizards of Oz, how are we doing this?” he found both magic people admiring his wall of antique weapons while simultaneously continuing to stuff their faces with his food.
Traci swallowed and pointed to a set of ancient Chinese butterfly swords given to him by none other than Lady Shiva. “You realize these are cursed, right?”
Jason squinted at the offending paraphernalia on display. He’d never noticed anything he owned was cursed or enchanted, but admittedly his ability to perceive magic was kind of haphazard since leaving the All-Caste. “Are you messing with me?” he asked after a moment, not yet sure how angry he would be if the answer was ‘yes’.
“No, but it looks like the kind that only effects you if you’re wielding them, so it should be fine just sitting here.” The way Traci said it, cursed swords were old hat and nothing to get worked up about.
Jason ran his hand through his hair, trying to look unworried. “Shit.” He’d never used the blades, but now he sure as hell never would!
It was a good thing he’d never given them to Cassandra Cain, which he’d considered a few times. Knowing her tumultuous relationship with her mother, (who really didn’t deserve the title for so many reasons,) Jason never was sure if giving Cass something of Shiva’s would be a rare gift or just bring up bad memories, so he’d always wimped out from actually doing it. Cass wasn’t around when Jason was young and she wasn’t a Robin, so forming any kind of relationship, working or familial, continued to be difficult. His family suspecting he had it in for Cassandra was the very last thing he needed. And it didn’t help that Jason was just bad at that kind of thing to begin with.
“You’re apartment is really cool,” Khalid said, looking around. “Where did you get all this stuff?”
Jason shrugged, giving his Chinese butterfly sword set a wide birth. “Around. Some were gifts.” And some he stole from crime lords. He’d yoinked so much good stuff from this triad in Shanghai, and the Victorian dueling pistols over his mantel looked so much better in his apartment than Black Mask’s mansion.
But truthfully most of it he’d started collecting when Talia was sponsoring his training around the world, and after a time she’d picked up on his taste and just started giving him things left and right. Not just antique weapons, but a cast iron Tetsubin tea pot, Japanese Woodblock prints, first additions of the Scarlet Pimpernel and Jane Eyre, a plethora of bonzai back in an apartment he kept in Hong Kong, gilded Persian miniature paintings, Chinese Calligraphy scrolls, a cloisonne Buddhist Thangka painting…
At first he’d resented that Talia seemed to believe she could buy his loyalty, but Jason eventually realized she just didn’t know how else to show affection and this was what she’d defaulted to. It kind of put Damian’s inability to act like a human child into perspective. Now Jason could probably supply his own museum or antique imports auction, but he wouldn’t deny his apartment had benefited from the collection and he was pretty attached to them. He’d bought this place soon after first reconciling with Bruce, and it was probably the first he’d thought of as ‘home’ since Wayne Manor, not a bolthole or supply depot or safehouse or base of operations. Its existence was a bargaining chip in its own right to keep him on his best behavior in Gotham. The thought of leaving anything here behind was painful.
“So you’re rich, right?” Traci decided.
“Eh,” Jason tried to deflect. He still got dividends and a large biweekly check from the Su sisters and the Iceberg Lounge, on top of anything he swiped off the drug and arms deals he busted, and the bank deposits Bruce kept trying to shove on him like a leash, and the occasional pay from some mercenary work, and...yeah, Jason was rich. He was independently wealthy in a way none of his siblings were except maybe Tim, whose family was upper class before he was orphaned. Hell, Dick seemed to have a different job every month; it was a wonder he ever made rent.
Traci gave Jason a look. “Don’t even deny it, I know what rich looks like. My dad inherited a mansion in Europe and went to boarding school with a Premier of France. He has a Doctorate in parapsychology, which is kind of the most useless thing imaginable, and goes around the world debunking famous stories of hauntings and curses and he doesn’t even take money for it. The papers used to call him ‘The Ghost-breaker,’ which is way too cool of a name for him.”
“Wait, so your dad debunks hauntings and curses?” Khalid asked, scratching his head and sounding about as confused by this as Jason felt.
“And magic and cryptids and basically anything supernatural,” Traci added offhand with a shrug. “He thinks all that stuff is like ‘Scooby-Doo’. There’s some guy with a gramophone and two-way mirrors behind it all, or it’s ball-lightning or double-exposure. That kind of thing.”
“Your dad is aware you have magic, right?” Jason asked her, voice particularly bland as he tried to imagine a father that could tell his Homo Magi daughter to her face that magic didn’t exist. But then, Jason supposed it wasn’t any worse than Bruce telling him not to kill the Joker.
“Oh yes,” Traci confirmed with an embarrassed sort of laugh at herself. “But every time he runs into something that he can’t debunk, he’s just like, ‘well fine, this one, very specific thing is real, but everything else is still fake!’”
“I’m not sure if that’s pathetic or hilarious,” Jason remarked.
“It sounds like that was hard for you, Traci,” Khalid said kindly. “Denying that something you are isn’t real.”
Traci shrugged. “It gets me all-expenses paid ski trips to the French Alps every winter, so...whatever,” she said with something like resignation, before turning to Jason. “Also, just so you know, I’m going to expect you to give me big tips at the Oblivion Bar from now on, ‘Mister’ Red Hood.”
Jason raised an incredulous brow at the girl’s cheek, but he didn’t particularly mind the tips-thing. Rich people ought to spread their money around. If they had, Jason's childhood mightn’t have been so devastated by the manifestations of poverty and crime. “Who says I plan on going back there?” was the part he really took offense to.
Traci gave him a confused look. “You’re one of us. We all end up hanging out there, it’s one of the few neutral zones.”
“One of ‘us’?” The hell was she talking about? He wasn’t one of anything. He was barely one of the bats of Gotham.
She flapped a dismissive hand. “Magic folk. Arcanes. Supernaturals. Whatever you want to call it. You can’t even open the door to the Oblivion Bar if you aren’t magic in some way.”
“I’m not magic and I don’t use it,” Jason denied, wondering how often he was going to have to argue the fact. The power that fueled magic spells came from extra-dimensional sources, like gods or demons or other planes of existence. The All-Caste’s techniques only used what was available within a person, from one’s own body, mind, and soul. Maybe they saw it as splitting hairs, but to the All-Caste it was foundational to their philosophy.
“Bobo said you could,” Traci countered. “Something about fiery swords.”
Jason crossed his arms, annoyed. He was done with this conversation. “Look, are you people giving me a ride or not?”
Khalid looked chagrined at how much they’d been chatting with each other instead of doing the task they’d been sent for. “Oh, right, sorry. Explain to me where you wanted to go?”
Jason did his best to describe the exact mountain in the Himalayas where the entrance to the Thousand Acres of All was hidden, even busting out his laptop to give general GPS-coordinates and satellite images. Apparently, Traci Thirteen’s form of teleportation relied on the target being in a city, so Khalid would have to be the one to take them with a portal spell, which was much less accurate, Jason was told.
“I’ll be as accurate as I can but without having been there myself, or someone I know being there, the portal’s location will likely be off,” Khalid explained. “But I can fly us the rest of the way as long as you can direct us, Jason. Then once you’re finished, Traci can bring us back.”
Jason felt himself make a full-body twitch, groaning at the reminder that two more people knew where he lived. “It is not helping my paranoia to know a magician can just teleport into my apartment whenever the hell she wants,” he complained. “I literally have explosives wired in this place just to keep people out.”
Traci eyes widened at this revelation. “First of all, that sounds really dangerous. Second of all, holy crap they have medication for that!”
“There’s no shame in going to a professional, Jason,” Khalid said soothingly. “It’s more common than you think.”
Jason pointed at Khalid. “You’re lucky I can tell you genuinely meant that.” Then he rounded on Traci, crossing his arms imposingly. “Traci on the other hand is on thin-fucking-ice.”
She just rolled her eyes and flapped a hand, saying “Yeah yeah,” clearly not realizing how close he was to throwing her off his balcony.
Khalid took up the Helmet of Fate and slipped it on his head. “Alright, are we ready?” he asked, and his shoulders were straighter, his voice deeper, image more impressive. Jason wasn’t sure if it was purely a psychological effect of being in ‘Doctor Fate-mode’ or the helmet had some magic quality to impart authority.
“Ready,” Jason said, followed by Traci answering, “Yup.”
Khalid chanted in a language Jason couldn’t identify, (which was not something he encountered everyday), articulating his hands in grandiose gestures. Suddenly he pointed and a door-sized beam of light in the shape of an Egyptian ankh appeared in the air, centered in the empty space between Jason’s kitchen and living room, before the light diminished into a portal, it’s edges burning gold like the sun.
Beyond the portal, they could see a sliver of sunrise beginning along the sharp mountain peaks, their slopes frozen white with perpetual snow. The image was sharp from lack of atmosphere, the air dry with cold. All three of them were nearly blown back by the wind rushing from the ankh-shaped door to the Himalayas, as a flurry of soft snowflakes blew into the room to land on Jason’s floor and furniture. There wasn’t a bat or bird in Gotham afraid of heights, but looking down at the half-a-mile high drop open in the middle of his apartment, Jason couldn’t help but swallow nervously.
“Is any of this familiar?” Khalid asked, nearly having to shout over the rushing wind, his cape and sleeves flapping as Traci shivered and rubbed her arms.
Jason peered at the landscape below him, powering up the HUD on his helmet to increase the magnification of details, using his eyes and that sense within him that could differentiate souls to feel out the entrance. Finally he pointed at a particular escarpment, almost vertically flush, as if someone had just chopped off one side of a mountain, “There!” he called over the harsh wind.
As he was pointing, Jason felt magic envelop him. Then suddenly the floor disappeared and he was floating in the air over the mountains, the golden light of Khalid’s magic silhouetting his body.
Jason’s stomach informed it was not happy with this situation and he had to suppress a rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline. Beside him, Khalid, clearly used to travel by this method, had a decent flying-hero posture, chest forward, arms held loosely, and Traci didn’t look far from the same, suggesting she wasn’t a stranger to flight either. For Jason’s part, he had his legs bent, muscles stiff, arms out as if trying to catch his balance, suddenly lacking what little grace in the air he’d ever managed to accomplish (which never seemed like much when your basis of comparison was Dick Grayson). Jason was very uncomfortable with trusting these people he’d barely met with his life, even if realistically he knew someone who’d taken up the title of Doctor Fate wasn’t about to let him drop to his death for no good reason.
The roar of the wind became louder, and Jason realized they weren’t just floating but moving, and quickly too, as the jagged peaks and low-lying clouds began to march along the horizon.
“Why didn’t you warn us it would be cold!?” he heard Traci shout over the wind, fighting against chattering teeth. She was wearing black converse, a faded black denim skirt over black leggings, a long sleeved fishnet top under a white shirt with generic magic symbols on it and the words Bihexual Witch with the stomach torn asymmetrically and the shoulders chopped so it was more of an off-the shoulder-type than whatever it was originally meant to be. It was very aesthetically her from what Jason was beginning to gather, but not very warm.
“I literally described the Himalayan mountains and you couldn’t infer it would be cold?” he shouted back, exposed skin around his neck and wrists chilled, but core body temperature otherwise maintained by the insulating and lightly armored suit he wore under what little gear he’d brought.
Khalid spoke an incomprehensible word and there was another flare of light around all of them, resulting in the temperature rising to something more hospitable. Nifty.
Traci made a contented sound. “Ah, better. Thanks, Khalid.”
From behind the Helmet of Fate, Khalid nodded acknowledgment. “We don’t need anyone getting hypothermia up here,” he said. “Tell me if either of you start to feel shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, headache or nausea. At this height, and with the sudden sea level change, altitude sickness is a real possibility.”
Wow, mother hen over here. “You an actual doctor or something?” Jason asked, more as a joke than anything else.
“I was going to be, but then I was ‘chosen’ by the Egyptian goddess Bastet to be Doctor Fate and I’ve...kind of had to put medical school on hold. I’m still a licensed EMT, though.”
“Well...damn,” Jason answered, not sure how else to react to the news. It sounded like the magic stuff just fell into his lap out of nowhere and ruined his whole life’s trajectory. He hoped Khalid actually got to be a medical doctor someday. The guy was obviously intelligent and had that naturally calming temperament, so he’d probably be good at it. Maybe Jason could get Bruce or Leslie Thompkins to help Khalid get back into medical school if the superhero stuff ever calmed down for him...
Oh, who was he kidding, the super hero stuff never calmed down.
“Are you sure this is right? It’s just a cliff,” Traci said as they approached where Jason sensed the portal. The sheared-off mountain that housed the entrance to the Thousand-Acres of All was always similar, but it tended to move around a bit so you had to know what it was supposed to look like.
“It’s an illusion, just fly us right into it,” Jason confirmed.
“Oh, like a platform nine-and-three-quarters type thing,” Traci described in triumph. After a beat she said, “That’s a Harry Potter reference, by the way.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jason said with irritation as Khalid just nodded understanding.
Their velocity slowed as they grew closer, but Khalid took Jason at his word and didn’t quite stop them. Jason felt himself brace for impact, reacting out of instinct as they drifted towards the shear rocky cliff, even though he knew they wouldn’t actually hit anything solid. He shut his eyes just before they passed through the illusion, and by the time he opened them, the group was in a dim tunnel that was dry and only pleasantly cool, sloping for some distance towards to a blindingly bright cave opening.
“This is the right place?” Khalid asked as he gently lowered them all to the ground, the golden light of his magic fading once their feet were on terra firma.
“Yup,” Jason said, glancing around. Someone had taken the time to clear out all the skeletons since the last time he was in here, which was good. Not every monk in the caste had been friendly with him, but they’d all deserved proper burials. “The entrance to it, anyway.”
He took the lead, walking up the slope where the stone ground became carved steps, and the rough hewn walls gave way to intricately carved columns and reliefs, their sides green with moss, curling vines sprouting from their cracks. Torches on the walls lit as Jason neared them, the fire a ghostly white and blue, revealing the inlaid gold in the shape of the Eye of All on the face of every column. Traci jumped every time a sconce flared bright at their passage, eyeing the eerie lights with distrust. Khalid didn’t seem as surprised, but then again the Helmet of Nabu hid most of his expression, giving him a pretty impressive countenance for a young man, but every large relief or gilded sculpture captured his interest and he would lag a moment to examine them more closely before catching up when the light overhead snuffed out at Jason’s passing. The lands of the All-Caste clearly didn’t care for Doctor Fate and had no intention of letting him get a good look around.
Jason remembered coming here with Talia for the first time, almost immediately after he recovered from his dip in the Lazarus Pit. The sconces had lit for him back then, too—welcoming Jason before he even had the knowledge to realize it.
Back then, Jason wasn’t impressed by the ancient carvings or magically hidden entrance. He was one of the most jaded seventeen year olds you’d ever meet, not that you could blame him after clawing his way out of his own goddamn grave. She hadn’t told him much, just that Ra’s was really pissed at them both, Talia for using one of their precious Pits on the unworthy, and Jason for inconsiderately failing to prove himself unworthy by going crazy or dying from said Lazarus bath.
This was because not just anyone could survive a dip in the Lazarus Pit. The vast majority of people who tried, ended up worse off, not better, assuming they lived at all. The Lazarus waters’ selective nature was one of the facts Ra’s used to justify his world domination bullshit, by claiming the Pit’s ‘acceptance’ of him was proof he was ‘superior’ or ‘chosen’, or something. A brat from crime alley accomplishing the same thing put a real wrench into that argument, and he wasn’t about to let someone like Jason live, even if Talia had some inexplicable attachment him. This was why Talia had waited over six months before trying it on Jason—she had no reason to actually think it would work, and if by some miracle it did, her dad would be pissed.
So this, the All-Caste, was her answer: a distraction and protection in one. Jason wasn’t Pit mad, just regular old traumatized and angry, he needed something to focus on. And Ra’s couldn’t come to the Thousand Acres of All; they’d never trained him in their ways, knowing, as they knew everything, that it would lead to their ruin. Of the League, only Talia had been given any instruction, perhaps only because Ducra knew doing so would one day bring them Jason.
As the tunnel reached its end, the mouth released him, Traci and Khalid, at the top of a cliff surrounding a steep, crater-shaped valley that sure as hell wasn’t located anywhere in the Himalayan mountains. The air was warm and muggy, occasionally relieved by a light breeze, and the sky was a clear, bright blue; the climate overall was temperate rather than alpine.
Below them, timeworn stone steps led down to a labyrinthine temple complex carved directly from the pale granite, putting to shame the rock-cut temples of India and Turkey and Egypt. Waterfalls dropped from the cliff’s brink into sacred grottoes, pines growing from shelves in stone or soil-laden courtyards were pruned attractively into wispy shapes. Crawlers and small rock flowers sprouted from hairline cracks in sculpture encrusted architecture. Cozy corners were decorated with colorful cushions, glazed pottery or brass braziers and the occasional hookah (S’aru especially was very into hookah).
All the paths were lined with torches, some mundane red, others the supernatural white. Even from this distance, he could spy the ghostly silhouettes of All-Caste figures walking the halls, their bodies now dust but their spirits remaining, rushing here and there, continuing their training and meditations, even in death.
It was all appropriately ancient and impressive, appropriate to a multi-millenia old culture that had sequestered themselves from the rest of reality, if Jason were to be honest. It looked like some of the courtyards were getting a bit overgrown, what with few people around who were physically capable of caring for them, but it was essentially as Jason remembered it, with that same gut-wrenching combo of nostalgic longing and anguish as he felt for Gotham.
Khalid looked about in fascination, but he didn’t act too taken aback. He’d probably seen some wild stuff since getting that golden helmet. Traci openly gaped at everything, even the ghosts who she was probably used to from her bartending gig.
“Woah! What is this place?” Tracy wondered aloud, following Jason down the steps very carefully because they had no goddamn rails and were slippery from the mist rising off a nearby waterfall. Luckily they were pretty wide, but Jason was still shocked that no one had actually died from falling off them in the four thousand year history of the place (that Ducra had admitted to, anyway).
“It’s the Thousand Acres of All,” Jason answered her, not quite unable to keep a tone of reverence from his voice. “I trained here in the ways of the All-Caste. Don’t go poking around away from me. The All-Caste don’t much like strangers or magic and you both are magic strangers, so you aren’t going to be welcomed.”
“So this place is meant to be a secret?” Khalid asked, a tone of unease in his voice. “Is it really okay that you brought us here? You don’t know us very well...”
Jason shrugged. He wasn’t especially worried about them doing anything with him here to keep an eye on them, and coming back without him would be difficult, if not impossible. Not even Bizarro’s teleportation device or the one on Kori’s space ship could port him here, back when they existed.
“It’s not as easy as I made it look to find this place,” he explained. “Even with your magic, you won’t be able to come back here without me. It’s kind of like the Oblivion Bar; it’s on the far side of reality, not quite outside of it, but not quite part of it in the usual way, either. You can only get here if the place lets you.”
Traci tapped her chin in thought. “I guess that explains why you were pretty chill when you walked into the Oblivion Bar, even though I’d never seen you there before,” she realized. “First timers are usually more like—” Traci clapped her hands to her face in exaggerated terror and made her voice sound nasally. “Whoah! Ahh! Why are there demons here!?–that kind of thing.”
Khalid wondered aloud, “Was I like that my first time?”
“No you were more like—,” Traci had her eyebrows raised, shoulders tense and timid but mouth in a hesitant smile, giving a pretty good impression of someone who was terrified and out of their depth, failing to pretend they were totally cool with the situation. “Hi, e-excuse me, I just want a...soda? You guys do soda, right? Not just blood, potions and alcohol?”
“Yeah that, uh...sounds like me,” Khalid sheepishly admitted, anxiously tugging at the hem of his wide sleeve. “What about Red Hood, uh, Jason? What was he like?” he asked, possibly to deflect from his own embarrassment.
Jason groaned. Although he was interested to see what Traci’s image of him was last night (this morning?) when he first walked into the Oblivion Bar, he knew enough about these kinds of games to know there was no way to come out of this with his dignity intact.
Traci grinned then schooled her face before she mimed throwing up open saloon doors and giving imagined people around her the stink eye as she strutted up to the bar. Then she pretended to fling over a whole shower of dollar bills and gave a gangster-nod, deepened her voice to say, “Whiskey. Hold the curses and the ice.”
Khalid straight-up doubled over laughing. He had to take off his helmet, either to keep it from falling off his head as he bent over or to get more air in his lungs, while Jason scoffed and shook his head.
“Do not even tell me that wasn’t completely accurate,” Traci said, snickering at his expense.
“Eh,” Jason said because he couldn’t really dispute it, even though he wanted to. Apparently Traci thought he was freaking Outlaw Josey Wales or some shit, which was not the worst person he’d ever been compared to by far, but it was still embarrassing to realize he gave the impression of a spagetti-western gun-slinging outlaw, and ugh, he just realized his personal team was called The Outlaws. Fuck, he really was goddamn Clint Eastwood, wasn’t he?
Traci started making finger guns at him with pew-pew! noises, and then Khalid was somehow convinced to join her and Jason realized his best defense was to ignore them, so he just kept walking with his destination in mind and as expected the behavior soon died down.
There were only a few places in the Thousand Acres of All where one was likely to find Ducra, but more to the point, Jason was familiar enough with the feeling of her soul to sense her location. He lead his two magicians down staircases and through courtyards, passing obelisks and alcoves inset with shrines, around vimana towers and across plazas and structures of living quarters.
When they came upon monks Jason respected, he stopped to bow, with one hand clasped over the other in front of him, before leaving with an “Hasta la vista, Master Uhptu!” or “Lookin’ great for a dead lady, Master Inga!” They were all used to him, so no one even frowned at his blithe behavior, just bowed or nodded back, maybe a few rolled their eyes or glared at his ‘guests’. Aside from their obvious transparency and a spirit here or there fading between the material and astral planes, or taking a shortcut by walking through a wall, you’d barely notice most people here were ghosts.
Jason just had to shake his head. You’d think with no bodies left on the material plane, these guys would take the time to sleep in, or dive off the waterfalls, or do something fun, but nope! Business as usual.
This place was seriously dull without him around and it had nothing to do with everyone being dead.
Finally they reached the outer wall of the building complex housing the Chamber of All. Ducra was nearly always here, and S’aru lived in the place. Two monks stood on either side of the doors, one living and the other a ghost, both masters he knew well. They bowed Jason and his companions into the large, domed antechamber, being sure to give the magicians their most humorless stares.
Inside there was a platform taken up by a bronze brazier, burning more white-blue spirit-fire. Colorful cushions and mats were stacked neatly against the walls to be used for meetings or ceremonies (they weren’t big on chairs around here), and a plush carpet lay beneath an oculus in the ceiling, with a golden grate in the shape of the Eye of All, so it’s shadow would cast on the floor at high noon or high moon. In the back of the chamber were steps that lead down to S’aru’s rooms which housed the door to the Chamber of All, which he was meant to protect against intruders.
Traci and Khalid looked around curiously at the space, seemingly empty of any presence. “Maybe we’re early?” Traci offered, as if Jason had ever made an appointment to see Ducra in his life. Generally he just barged into whatever room she was, private meeting or afternoon doze be damned. He’d been that kind of rascal and admittedly still was.
“Ducra, I know you’re in here!” Jason shouted. He could feel her presence even if she was giving him the metaphysical equivalent of screening her phone calls by hiding.
The Helmet of Fate was still tucked under Khalid’s arm, so Jason could see the young man’s eyes go wide when he seemed to visibly see what Jason himself could sense. “Woah! There’s a ba of an old woman in here!”
“A what?” Traci said, confused.
Apparently the jig was up, and the pale spirit-fire inhabiting the brazier flared into brilliance, the flames swirling to the center of the chamber where they coalesced into the figure of his teacher Ducra, floating a few feet off the ground as if to emphasize she lacked a material form, and was thus no longer weighed down by gravity.
In life, Jason knew Ducra as a tiny, gnarled, stooped old woman with long, snowy hair and the Eye of All set deeply within the skin of her forehead amid the wrinkles, as if she were an old tree that had grown into a curious, woman shaped being with an eye-like knot on the face. She looked just as he remembered her, Ducra’s spirit wearing bland and simple clothing, with modest wooden and glass beaded jewelry, and a ghostly version of her plain wooden stuff, that she’d so often swung at his head or shins when angry. Her form was so strong and solid and still pulsed with power, Jason could almost pretend she were still alive.
“Take that damn helmet off in my presence! What do you want, brat?” came the old woman’s crotchety voice. She looked around, pretending to be witness to his guests for the first time, as if she hadn’t been spying on them since the moment they passed through the mountain illusion. “Where’s the redhead you came with last time? I liked that one, but now you’ve two magic children. When did that happen?”
Jason removed his helmet as asked, shrugging as he feigned nonchalance at the loss of his old teammates by his side. “It’s a recent thing. By redhead did you mean Artemis? You know she’s an Amazon with a giant magic axe, right? I didn’t think you liked anyone with a god’s blessing.”
Ducra snorted. “No no, I’m talking about the one with the dumb hat.”
Suddenly Jason realized exactly who she meant and his throat clenched in grief. He hadn’t expected a reminder of his friend, the man who called him a hero when the rest of the world villainized Red Hood. The man he still refused to mourn. “Roy is dead,” he told her, and even Jason was alarmed by the lack of affect in his own voice.
The old woman squinted at Jason, and that was something he’d forgotten about her somehow. That Ducra would penetrate his bluster and call-out his bullshit with no regard for tact.
“Really? Are you so sure, boy?” she said with incredulity and for some reason the idea that Roy might be alive, that he’d been brought back by one of those reality-shifts that kept rewriting their universe in the way that Jason kept expecting to happen, made him inexplicably furious.
He shrugged, trying to look unaffected, but inside Jason could feel his blood seething. “Last time I checked,” he told her blandly.
His teacher scoffed. “You should check again.” The implied ‘idiot!’ at the tail of statement was silent, but very keenly felt.
Jason crossed his arms, trying to hide his clenching fists, and felt his lips pull into a snarl as he snapped, “Well, he hasn’t called, so if he’s not dead, then he doesn’t want to talk to me. And frankly, he’s probably better off if he never does again.”
Ducra just snorted at his display of temper, no doubt thinking her student hadn’t progressed an inch from his angry, reckless teenage self. “Damned foolish boy,” she grouched, which from her was genuinely an endearment.
She tutted and glared around him at Khalid and Traci, who were watching their exchange like spectators at a theater. If there was popcorn available he was certain they’d be munching on it.
“Aliens and Amazons weren’t bad enough,” Ducra said with exaggerated revulsion. “But now you’ve brought magicians to our sacred Thousand Acres of All? Disgraceful! Sacrilege!”
Traci fidgeted awkwardly, and Khalid coughed into his hand and mumbled, “Sorry...”
Jason just rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah,” he dismissed. “We all know I’m the bad child.”
His teacher snorted again. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve always been my favorite and everyone knows it.”
Jason raised a hand to cover his face as he felt it warm with a blush, wishing for the safety of his helmet. He had known that Ducra favored him, but hearing it said aloud still warmed his heart. It was nice to be someone’s favorite something, even if Jason lamented that it meant Essence didn’t get to be.
Ducra’s voice was like dry gravel as she hummed in sadness at the thought that had clouded Jason’s expression for a moment. “Yes, you were the one I chose. Essence claimed she never wanted it, but her actions betray her. I fear my favoritism drove my daughter down her path. She wanted to kill you, and I let her try because she wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise. I knew she’d lose. I can only hope time spent bound to her sword will knock some sense into the girl.”
“Maybe.” Jason shrugged, not especially optimistic on that front. Last he’d seen, Essence’s sword was in Isabel Ardilla, Jason’s down to earth ex-girlfriend’s possession, and she’d declined to give it back to him even after Essence possessed her to join in battle against the Untitled. The two seemed to be hitting it off in a weird way, and he hoped that might amount to something, but he wouldn’t hold his breath. In any case, Jason didn’t think Isabel would let Essence do anything too awful, so it was probably as safe in her hands as anywhere.
“Well,” Ducra huffed, her tone changing abruptly, “if you aren’t here about your old friend and you aren’t here about Essence, then what is it? Spit it out, boy!”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Oh like you don’t know. I thought you were supposed to be omniscient?” he teased her.
Ducra made a swing at him with her gnarled staff, but the ghostly branch just passed through him, to her irritation. “Don’t sass me, boy!” she snapped, carrying on as if Ducra hadn’t just forgotten she was immaterial. “I’m not here to make this easy for you, brat! If you want something, you can damned well ask for it, or you can take your two wizards and totter on back to Gotham!” She harrumphed.
Jason pursed his lips, fully aware he had that pained expression on his face that S’aru claimed made him look constipated. He couldn’t help it, holding in his sass was physically difficult.
Well there went plan A. He was really hoping Ducra would take charge of the situation as soon as he presented himself, but Jason should have predicted otherwise. Just because Ducra could see into the future didn’t mean she’d allow him any shortcuts. The All-Caste didn’t believe in masks or repression, you had to work through and accept both your light and your darkness. To be of the All-Caste meant to be one with all. And yeah, that meant the fancy, big idea stuff like the past, present and future, as well as the energy and atoms holding the stars and planets together, and the great monad encompassing the collective unconscious of all sentient beings. But it also meant the more mundane stuff, like your own anger and grief and fear, too.
And Jason was...well, he was afraid. Afraid Ducra would reject him. That she’d say Jason wasn’t good enough to be part of the All-Caste anymore. Jason had always been unapologetically himself, refusing to change for Bruce or Talia or even Ducra. These days that was still true, he just more openly accepted how much it hurt when he wasn’t good enough for people.
Jason didn’t tell her this. Maybe if they’d been alone, he might admit it aloud, but baring himself before strangers, even strangers as friendly as Traci and Khalid, wasn’t something he was prepared to do. But he did take a deep breath, let it flow through his body, let himself feel the oxygen entering his lungs and his heart beating to carry it to every part of him. And then, with a momentous effort, Jason admitted those fears to himself, let his mind’s voice put words to his fears, felt the rush of hormones and chemicals as his brain reacted with terror, his fingers threatening to tremble if he let them unclench from his helmet.
He left himself feel until the threat of tremors died down and he’d made some kind of peace with the idea that he might be rejected—or something worse he wasn’t creative enough to properly imagine. It wasn’t really a true acceptance. It would still devastate him if that was the case, but he wasn’t trying to wall himself off from the emotions associated with his fear of rejection anymore. This was what Ducra had taught him so many years ago. What he’d been trying to bring back into his life for the past few.
One more breath, only a little shaky, and he let himself begin.
“There’s this team, the Justice League Dark, and they need my help,” Jason explained to Ducra. “Not Red Hood kind of help, but All-Caste help. So I need the memories of my training back, Master Ducra. I’m still not ready to come back to the Caste yet, but I’m ready to fight the kinds of enemies you’ve always wanted me to.”
Ducra regarded him, her wizened face pressed into deep furrows as she floated before Jason, seeming to peer within him to his very soul, weighing and picking him apart. He almost thought he could feel her doing it, like the vague touch of someone brushing against a single strand of hair, unsure if it was real or imagined. Jason just waited, trying to withstand her scrutiny with patience and grace even though both things were often beyond him.
She’s not going to do it, he realized after what seemed like an age. Somehow Jason just knew, though he couldn’t say how, other than something in his teacher’s expression that was thoughtful and bittersweet.
Jason tried to recall his teachings—those he’d been left with—and follow the ways of the All-Caste. To let himself acknowledge the rage and rejection within in, but...it wasn’t there. He could see for himself that Ducra wasn’t rejecting him forever. If she and this place hadn’t wanted him, if he were truly cast from their affections, then Jason would never be so welcomed within as he was this day.
So...he couldn’t bring himself to be angry. Jason was disappointed that he couldn’t help Diana and Bobo, or wipe that smug look off Constantine’s face, or change Zatanna’s mind about him, or see Dr. Langstrom do anything but quiver at him, but c’est la vie...he’d known it was a long shot to begin with. Like he told them, the JL Dark managed without him before, they’d manage in the future.
Ducra suddenly raised her hand, her dry, harsh voice saying, “Leave us, children.”
Jason frowned, not realizing the target of her words at first, before the doors to the antechamber banged open and Traci yelped as a force like a gust of wind sucked her and Khalid out the door before they even had a chance to protest.
He turned in time to see the glow of Khalid’s magic fade, the present Doctor Fate having floated regally down to his feet from the air, while Traci stood up from skidding on her butt to the ground, dusting off her skirt and hissing in pain as she complained, “We could have walked!” before the doors slammed shut again. He hoped Master Japhi and Master Lu’in wouldn’t glare at the magicians too harshly, they’d been good sports through this whole fiasco.
Jason could only turn back to his master with a raised brow of question. “Was that necessary?” And people accused him of being theatrical...
Ducra harrumphed and fell into a cross-legged position while still floating in the air. What a show off. “Sit down, Jason,” she commanded.
Jason followed her instructions, sighing in resignation as he took his seat, feeling a bit like a kid again under her tutelage, nostalgic for the memories he’d retained from between lessons of her telling him and Essence off for one thing or another. Ducra was going to give Jason some kind of speech about not being ready yet, he could feel it. It sucked. It really sucked. But in a way it was kind of nice, that she still thought of him as her student, that she still thought he was worthy of the title. Maybe he didn’t go around using it, but Heir to the All-Caste meant something to him.
“So, are you going to give my memories back?” Jason asked his teacher, just to get it over with. It wouldn’t do either of them any good to drag this out. Better to rip the duct-tape gag off quickly.
“No,” Ducra answered, remorselessly forthright, as ever.
“Right,” Jason acknowledged with a wince at her blunt refusal. Sure, he wanted it over quickly, but she could have let him down a little easier...Delicacy, thy name was not Ducra.
“I’m giving you a lesson,” she countered.
Jason was momentarily stunned to silence. He felt his mouth attempt to form words, but they died on his lips when he failed to derive any logic from her decision.
Ducra clearly got a kick from watching him act like a moron, a small smirk forming on her wrinkled face, before Jason finally pointed out, “But...what is the point of teaching me something when you can tell S’aru to give the memory back and I’ll already have it mastered?”
Ducra huffed and menaced him with her ghostly staff again, frowning at the way it merely gave Jason a slight shiver. “Silence, boy!” she resorted to shouting. “This isn’t something I’ve taught you before. You weren’t ready then, but I believe you are now.”
Jason frowned, once again adopting his pinch-faced, sass-repressing expression, attempting to keep his mouth from spewing something that would piss Ducra off. “Okay...I’m not sure how you can teach me anything that advanced when I barely remember the basics, but...”
“Your mind forgot, but your other selves, your body and your soul, they still remember,” Ducra informed him with a confidence that brooked no argument. “How do you think you were able to summon the All-Blades without the knowledge we taught you in your head?”
That was…a good question. “I just figured you’d left those memories behind on purpose, or set them to unlock if I met an Untitled or...something.” Jason wasn’t sure how one would go about doing that, but it was all he could come up with at the time.
Ducra scoffed. “Fool boy! S’aru doesn’t just leave memories behind, that nephew of mine is a greedy little imp! When you needed your All-Blades, your body reached for them and your soul responded.”
Jason considered this alternate description of events and couldn’t find fault with it. “Makes sense, I guess,” Jason had to allow. He supposed the knowledge of the Untitled could have leaked in from some of the casual memories of life living with Ducra, Essence and the Monks that he’d been allowed to keep, and the All-Blade part had merely been instinctual.
“Now close your eyes and enter your meditative trance,” she commanded, and Jason obeyed, his eyes fluttering shut, his body using those same instincts Ducra extolled to fall into himself and open his inner eye.
“You are one with the All,” she began to chant, Ducra’s withered, ancient voice reverberating within him, through him, as she spoke words from one of their most ancient scrolls, describing what Jason recognized to be the very foundations of their beliefs and teachings. With his eyes closed, it was almost as if not Ducra, but the very earth, or the vast blackness of space was the one speaking to him.
“...Your flesh is a part of this universal plane, your mind is a part of the astral, and your soul ties them both to the fabric of our reality. Search your senses, feel the potential in every muscle, the air in your lungs, the blood as it is pumped by your heart throughout your body. Search your mind, all of its dark recesses, the sins that mar your past, the fears that loom in your future, the grief and guilt and anger that weigh upon you in the present. Every part of you is recorded upon your soul, it is the blueprint of your very being, where all possibility is etched, everything you have done, everything you will do…This is the All.”
“This is the All,” Jason repeated the final phrase, a ritualistic and sacred one, hearing his own voice ringing profoundly through his bones and in his ears.
“Now, Jason,” Ducra said. “I will teach you to relive your past.”