Chapter 38

-[Dante]-

While he was eager to fly around in his new bioship, that could come later. He had more important matters to deal with at the moment.

*CRACK!*

The sound of the wooden paint brush snapping loudly drew a sigh of annoyance from him.

He had gone back to the basics of his telekinesis training, starting from scratch to re-train his now grown power. While being able to exert more power telekinetically was a great thing, he valued control more than simple raw force.

He let the broken pieces of the brush fall to the ground where a small heap of broken wood laid and took out another one from a container beside him.

Telekinetically switching out the canvas for a blank one, he dropped the half finished painting next to the heap of other unfinished works.

The goal was to finish a painting without even slightly damaging the brush or the color palette.

*Crack!*

'There goes the palette.' He thought with a sigh as he lowered the cracked palette to the ground, taking up another one and mixing the paint.

[Why do you continue this task? It is wasteful and time consuming.] The force within him asked.

'Like I said before, some problems require finesse rather than brute force to solve them.' He explained.

[Then you just aren't using enough brute force.] It countered.

'That isn't how it works.' He let out an exasperated sigh.

The force may have been one with him but that didn't mean it didn't have its own opinions and thought process.

[The manner in which you handled those titan dosed foes suggests otherwise.] It brought up the time he had to actually reinforce his blows with telekinesis to almost bully his transformed opponents.

'That was different. Apparently the titan serum not only affects the body but the mind as well. They developed a sort of telepathic immunity but at the cost of more than half their brain power. Even in science there's a cost for everything.' He explained.

Though, he wondered how that telepathic immunity would fare with his heightened powers. Though he called it immunity, it was more of a high resistance than actual immunity. He would have needed to concentrate fully on his telepathy to affect them at the time. Now though, he was almost itching to test it out.

For obvious reasons, he had avoided using telepathy on people after his reconstruction, barring Batman whose mind he accidentally sifted through moments after waking up.

He had repeated his mental exercises as well as used his telepathy on a few animals out of curiosity. Unsurprisingly, other than animal impulses, there was nothing much to read.

'Now, I have some questions of my own. That other energy inside me, what is it?' He asked, referring to the yellow orb that existed beside his internal force.

From what he had been told, it had been there as long as his own force had been but it was perceived to be magic, though it was mostly a guess.

Due to its dormancy, the force had no way of interacting with this yellow orb despite coexisting. Housing a cosmic force that retained a connection to the other forces meant that he was able to glean certain knowledge from it.

[I have studied it as thoroughly as possible and have come to an appropriate conclusion as to what it is.] The force said, causing Dante to momentarily cease his painting.

[In simple terms, it is magic. Rather, an amalgamation of magic.]

'Explain.' He said, seeing that there was more to it than the simplified answer implied.

[Like you have been told during your education on Martian culture with our genetic father, Martians possess a caste system. The G'arrunn(green martians), the A'ashenn(white martians), the B'lahdenn(red martians) and the Y'ellonn(yellow martians).]

'Yeah, the A'ashenn are treated as second class citizens, the G'arrunn are the majority on Mars and the B'lahdenn are royalty.' He recited.

[And the Y'ellonn are sorcerer priests and priestess held in high regards just below the B'lahdenn. As we know, there are no yellow-born martians. A Martian of any caste can undergo a ceremony or change their skin color yellow, never changing it back.] It explained, getting a mental nod from Dante.

He was already aware of this.

[Martians have their own system of magic which can manifest in any individual, regardless of caste. Though I do not believe our genetic father ever got entangled with the mystic arts, we possess the spark for Martian sorcery.] It revealed, causing Dante to frown in thought.

'You said that what we have is an amalgamation of magic.' He pointed out.

[I am getting to that. As you may not be fully aware, the forces of the universe can generally be classified between Crisis energy and Anti-Crisis energy. Each of these houses a myriad of forces, some of which you already know. Anti-Crisis energy in particular imbues the universe with the concept of magic.]

[ When we made contact with the helmet of fate, we assimilated some Order magic from the helmet, mixing it with your innate magic. As we are connected to the Crisis energy, we also assimilated a bit of magic from it, transforming our own magic further.]

[In conclusion, our innate magical nature has evolved with these assimilations, making us compatible with most if not all branches of magic.]

Dante was silent for a few moments, digesting the amount of information that was revealed to him.

'So I went from human-martian superteen to human-martian sorcerer. I almost feel sorry for Batman…almost.' He thought, massaging his temple.

That just put another matter on his growing list of agendas. Making a mental note to steal…borrow some knowledge from Zatara, he moved on to his next question.

'Next question. What happened that day? That vision I saw, what was that?' He asked, referring to the vision he saw when he went to visit Artemis in the medical bay.

He still recalled the uneasy atmosphere and the billboard that said 'All Hail President Luthor'. Artemis said he wasn't a fortune teller and he was hoping to whatever deity that would listen that that wasn't the future.

[That wasn't the future.] The force said, causing relief to fill him only to freeze as it continued. [That was another dimension.]

'What?' That was the only question he could muster with the shock he was feeling.

[The dimensional energy used in our creation had a few other effects, one of these being the ability to traverse between dimensions. That realty you experienced was another dimension in which, as we saw, Luthor reigned supreme.] The force explained.

If he wasn't already seated on the floor, he would have fallen to the ground.

All of these things he was discovering about himself and his new powers were a bit much for one sitting. Another thought came to mind, one crazier than anything he'd ever thought of.

For all their spats, the lords of order and chaos were charged with the duty of maintaining the balance of the universe. 'What if the reason they summoned me was because my very existence, the work of Savage, could possibly tilt the scales of balance?'

It may be perceived as an arrogant thought to some but it was a reasonable worry to have on his mind.

"What am I?" He muttered, his hair shadowing his eyes but failing to hide the glow within them.

[We are an anomaly. Though no action has been taken against so far, it would be wise to prepare for such.]

'How the hell are we supposed to prepare for such a thing?!' He asked in a rare moment of frustration.

[…]

Even the force within him was silent, no feasible solution in mind.

His perception picked up the sounds of footsteps making their way into the mission room where he sat.

"Woah. Are you trying to start a museum or…" Zatanna said, trailing off at the end upon seeing the state Dante was in.

As someone who knew him intimately, the tremble of his body was laid bare in her eyes. "Dante?" She called out, quickly rushing to him.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, the trembling was more obvious as the boy raised his face to meet her eyes.

Zatanna gasped as she saw the look in his eyes. A look she never expected to see in his blue eyes, the look of pure unadulterated fear.

========[Omake]=======

-[Batman]-

Aside from the steadily growing list of things to do after Dante's growth and the discovery of the possibility of a Red Arrow clone, he still had his responsibility as Gotham's protector to fulfil.

As he unceremoniously dropped a pile of Penguin's thugs in front of the GCPD building, he hurried back to the batmobile to chase after Penguin himself.

Getting into the vehicle, he sped off through the streets of Gotham. He immediately frowned as the speed the vehicle moved at was far too slow compared to how fast it usually was.

His eyes traveled to the fuel gauge and found it almost full. He always ensured that the batmobile's tank was filled up to prevent an embarrassing incident that occurred when he first became Batman.

'Then why is it so slow?' He wondered as a car drove beside him.

The communication device in his ear beeped, signaling a transmission. "Alfred, what is it?" He asked, upon answering.

[Master Bruce, is there any particular reason you're driving a tow truck?] Alfred asked, causing Batman to frown on confusion.

"Tow truck? What do you-?!" His words froze in his throat as what looked like the inside of the batmobile now looked like the inside of a tow truck.

"What?!"

[According to the computer, the batmobile is traveling right beside you.] Alfred revealed, helpfully.

Batman's eyes widened under his cowl as he turned to the car beside him.

What was once a black sedan was now his batmobile. "What is going on?!" He demanded as the window of the batmobile rolled down, revealing a blue eyed blond haired boy in the driver seat.

The boy waved to him before speeding off at high velocity. Batman clenched his hands on the steering wheel of the tow truck he was piloting.

"Dante!" He screamed as he chased after the batmobile.

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Author Rant: Now I have run into a problem, I can't figure out a name for Dante's force and I can't keep calling it 'the force' every time so I need suggestions.

Also ran into another problem while going through my plans for this story. That problem/oversight is Artemis. Now I need to figure out what to do with her without ruining this book.