Attack of the Flying Birb People part - 3/7

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The name meant nothing to him, but the way this stranger said it, a half-smile and with the utmost surety told Cadmus that this Mordru was used to people knowing who he was, and reacting accordingly- with great deference and fear.

He would be sorely disappointed if he expected that here.

But that did not mean he wished to anger this entity that was capable of dragging him out of his place and into...wherever this was. And the gift of Nectar was a sign and promise of hospitality. Cadmus doubted it was poisoned, there would be no need for the pleasantries.

"I thank you for your gift, and accept the honor of your hospitality, Mordru." He said, the words flowing from a part of his mind that he yet did not know, but was and will be.

"Freely given to welcomed and honored guest," the stranger intoned and Cadmus felt a sense that a ritual between the two had been completed, one whose roots buried deep into the earth.

Cadmus brought the chalice up to his lips and drank. A flood of sensations danced upon his tongue, sweet and burning like cinnamon and chocolate quickly overwhelmed by the taste of pomegranates and passion fruit and berries, a hurricane of flavors that should not work and yet did, delivering succor to a part of him that he did not even know was parched.

He with great reluctance pulled the drink away and when he looked down, he found the cup to be nearly empty.

I only took a sip, he thought.

"A drink reserved for only those for with ichor in their veins," Mordru said. "but even they themselves may become ensnared by the drink."

"Was this a test then, to prove that I am not?"

Mordru's laugh was not a pleasant sound, like rocks grinding against one another. "You are anything but a mortal, child. One would simply need to look at you to see the truth of it."

You have your father's eyes. Mordru's hidden words said.

"Then what was the purpose of bringing me here?"

"Peace, I have no ill intention, we are bound by laws as old as time." The old man smirked. "I come to administer your initiation, and in that same capacity, I come as a warner."

An inexplicable weariness came over him. He was so tired of riddles and half-truths. "Initiation to what?"

"Why, the gods, of course."

"You are a god?" The notion was not as surprising as it was when he first laid eyes upon the man.

"Of a sort, not like those of Olympus or Nile, they are of a different stock. You, however, have encountered one of my kinsmen before, Klarion." There was an audible distaste in the name's utterance.

The witch-boy's name brought with a current of rage and well-remembered pain, of ichor staining his hands as life fled from him. But Cadmus pushed those thoughts away. Themiscyra had given much time to learn to rule his temper rather than let it rule him.

He looked at his host through new and less trusting eyes.

"You're a Lord of Chaos."

"Indeed. But do not make the mistake of thinking we are all the same. Many of us have no love for Klarion's antics, there are formalities to be observed after all."

More hidden truths that he did not understand. Were all gods like this, or just this Mordru?

"You spoke of a warning."

Rather than answering, the god posed his own question.

"What do you plan to do when you leave this place?" He gestured to the bar.

"Kill as many Thanagarians as I can, until there's not one left on earth," Cadmus answered honestly.

"An admirable goal, you are a god who now defends his home. It is only right. A question to ponder then, why do the others not do the same?"

Cadmus thought then of the dream of the ruins of Othrys, the might the sons of Kronos could bring to bear. These beasts would be nothing more than a pest for them to swat. And yet, they did not.

"Because they're apathetic or cruel or both. They don't care about what happens to earth."

The Chaos Lord cackled and took a sip from his skull-chalice. "Oh, my dear boy, on the contrary, they care very much."

His anger flared, righteous and demanding.

"Then where are they, Mordru?"

Mordru was unfazed by the display.

"As a matter of fact, I counted no less than twenty-seven deities watching your actions with keen interest just before I invited you here. I am sure there were more, " he shrugged as though they were as noteworthy as sheep in a field. "but such minnows are beneath both mine and your ponderance."

The god's words were disquieting. So many, Cadmus thought. Then where were they? Where were they before during Roanoke? Resentment tinged his unspoken words.

"You are wondering why the gods are not here," he said knowingly. "why they choose not to intervene personally. Do not think their domains have been abandoned. They have always been where they are, watching, waiting."

"The earth is in danger!"

"The earth?" the lord of chaos laughed. "You think Gaea herself would be threatened by ants? And the Mother of all Things needs you of all people to protect her? Gaea does not move because She knows the outcome already, prophecy sprung from her womb. Likely the conniving bitch has already tailored it to her own ends."

The Lord of Chaos leaned forward conspirationally. "Do you know why the gods do not walk the earth anymore? I shall tell you. Because if the divines ever tread upon this earth, there would be no earth left. Where one of us walks, the others watch. And when one of us indulges too much, the others are drawn like sharks to blood. Chaos invites its own miserable company. Destruction upon destruction. Mortals would not be able to stomach it, they would resist and destroy themselves and the gods are loath to lose their entertainment."

Cadmus' thoughts were a whirlwind, too much information too many new truths and lies dispelled, and perhaps new ones introduced. How could he trust this god's words?

"What of Klarion, he caused so much destruction, so much death all for his pleasures."

"Some of us overindulge in our vices," Mordru admitted without shame.

"Invariably, there is a price. One he paid, and you too paid. Oh, yes we all know about your little sequesterment on the Island of the Amazons. A small price to pay for a valuable lesson. You indulged did you not? There are far worse fates for those who would overstep proper bounds. What is the saying humans so love to use? Ah, yes, do not shit where you eat. Remarkably crass as expected from such a mongrel species but it does get the point across."

"And why should I care about proper bounds?" Cadmus asked derisively. He had no reason to believe any of these god's words. What could he have possibly overindulged himself in?

"Only those who know the rules are respected. Those who can break them without consequence are feared. But those who break them without forethought are derided. Klarion's kind are the latter. Would I be right to assume you would not want to be associated with him?"

"No," Cadmus replied begrudgingly after a moment.

"Then it is important that the rules are taught and communicated, knowledge is a weapon with many faces."

"And why are you here telling me this? What do you get out of it?"

Mordru shook his head mirthfully. "A favor to an old colleague, whose company I did enjoy. And you amuse me, few have accomplished that in the past millennia. I have said my piece, my part is complete. It is now upon you to hear and learn."

"And before I send you on your way, ah, yes, your pesky avian problem." Mordru clapped his hands and light illuminated the bar.

The corpses of Thanagarians were scattered across the interior. Dozens.

Stomachs torn out, limbs tossed to and fro without care, dark pits where their eyes had once been, their innards and organs painting a macabre tapestry across the walls.

Each of their mouths was carved into a silent unending scream of agony and fear. A single soldier was alive, frozen like stone. Mordru beckoned him closer with a crooked finger, and the Thanagarian floated closer not of his own will.

With a snap of his fingers, black flames wreathed the alien's feet and quickly climbed upward. The man did not even have time to scream before metal and flesh peeled away to remove the shining white of a skeleton. Mordru twirled the ghastly effigy with a twirl of his index finger, idly tracing the fragile bones that composed the Thanagarian's wings.

"This will make a fine piece in the guest wing," he murmured. The god clapped his hand once more and the skeleton disappeared.

He then turned to Cadmus and spoke. "We may have our pleasures, young Titan. So go on, indulge, but only in moderation."

Cadmus looked closer into Mordru's eyes, and within those depthless pits, he found only madness and death staring back at him. This is what Mordru truly was.

And with a wave of his hand, the strange and terrifying god bade Cadmus' exit. The ground beneath him disappeared and he found himself spinning and falling into darkness.

When he opened his eyes, he was back in the hallway at Cadmus Labs. Not a single second had passed.

A strange sense of vertigo overcame his senses, and he grasped at the wall for support. He gasped loudly, it was like a rail spike had been drilled into the back of his skull. His eyes burned, vision was a haze of mist, images of the now and future grafted on shards of broken glass.

He stumbled forward and the images lurched, thousands shattering into nothingness while others arose from the abyss below to take their place.

Had Mordru done this to him? No, he had been under the protection of hospitality, and the god did not seem like the type to attack so forwardly.

The Nectar. It had done something to him, something he could not even begin to understand.

He forced his breath to stillness, restrained the undercurrent of panic within him, and immediately the chaos subsided. He saw then that they were not shards scattered without purpose, but there was a direction to them, each collection of images a road of some kind, a path to follow. Some of them were lit and their extent visible extending far into the horizon while others ended abruptly after but a step.

Cadmus realized then that these shards did not progress in any order dictated by a linear or causal relationship, they were independent of it, the future occurring before the past and coexisting with the present.

Why else could he see the corpse of Firestorm carried off by Thanagarians, the earth reduced to cragged splinters within space's endless expanse? He saw horrors and torments he could not even begin to imagine, aliens with names he could not place, a demon with four vermillion baleful eyes descending upon Jump City, figures cloaked in yellow and green waging war above a planet with two moons.

Were these beginnings or ends? The idea of before and after did not apply, Cadmus concluded. They had happened, would happen, and were happening in some way, and every step he took brought some closer than others.

He had to enforce purpose upon chaos, bring order to it for him to gain any insight.

Stein, he thought. I need to find Stein.

The shards of glass obeyed forming into latticework that solidified within his mind's eye. Infinite possibilities became finite and distinct paths made themselves clear.

A singular immediate purpose gave way to a singular path with a defined and visible end, and at the last step, he saw Firestorm in the sky, battling with dozens of Thanagarians.

Cadmus stepped onto the glass bridge and a sense of weightlessness overtook him. Form began ephemeral and time's sands took to where he desired it.

He appeared on the grounds of Hudson to find the university descended into chaos. The blare of police sirens and ambulances could be heard everywhere, screams and shouts, and in the sky above, swarms of Thanagarians like clouds of flies, their wings casting deadly shadows across the ground. Just ahead hidden in the sun's blazing light he could barely catch sight of an equally incandescent figure being buffeted by waves of Thanagarians, like moths to a flame.

"Agh! I'll deep fry all of you!" A voice that was most definitely not Dr. Stein shouted animatedly.

A crackling hiss was followed by a jet of flame that consumed a dozen Thanagarians in its wake. The aliens plummeted to the ground, their angel-like wings lit aflame and leaving trails of smoke in the air.

A squad broke off from their path and suddenly plummeted downwards, not towards Cadmus but towards a barricaded building to his right. The Metaphysics department. He always did wonder what they did in there. A familiar black-haired figure stepped out of the building, passed its wooden barricades, and flung her arms wide.

A sudden conflagration of multi-colored lights burst from her air and sped towards the approaching attackers with ear-screeching wails. The Thanagarians split off attempting to evade the attack but the orbs followed and when they made impact, a puff of smoke concealed both orb and alien.

Then rats began to rain from the sky.

So that's what they did in that building. The woman turned, surveying the scene before her eyes landed on Cadmus.

Betty Rowan, head of the department gave him a wide-toothed smile and a slightly manic laugh. "I always told you to come visit. You chose a hell of a time!"

"I like a dramatic entrance!" Cadmus shouted back. He pointed up to the sky. "Are you planning on helping him out?"

"Wasn't planning on it until a big gun showed up." There was a moment of quiet amidst the chaos. "Are you a big gun?"

Cadmus thought back to Mordru's words. "Yeah, you could say that."

He counted out his enemies, two dozen maybe, but all of their attention focused on the floating fireball in their midst.

He would need to hit them with something that would knock all of them off their feet, err wings.

He took in their numbers, the veritable swarm that flew around Firestorm. What would it take to bring them all crashing down? He had always been better at destroying things than making them. He saw the haze of what he wanted, strength giving way to weakness to frailty, broken by time's inexorable march. Why not make them feel all the years they would live in this very moment?

It wasn't like they were going to live long anyway. It is a tricky thing he found, to usher someone to the edge of Atropos' knife, curling a thread never meant to be changed in upon itself, bringing the future to the present. The laws of causality forbade such a thing, but that wasn't something Cadmus had ever cared about.

The unseen sands that governed reality began to spin, accelerating into a storm that surrounded his enemies, and it was only with a learned deftness that its eye came to only encompass Firestorm.

It was a precarious dance to change reality, and yet all those who saw Cadmus at that moment would see him standing stock still, glasses removed, revealing two erratic swirling golden orbs.

With a great grinding crash, the future entered the present. Flesh shriveled and desiccated before his eyes, and feathers, shriveled and broken, began to drift slowly to the ground.

Then the Thanagarians themselves began to fall one by one, their bodies too weak to keep upright in their armor, living corpses crashing onto Gaea's uncaring surface.

Firestorm slowly drifted down, landing a safe distance away, confusion and wariness playing across his face. A face was most definitely not the professor's.

"Where's Dr. Stein?" Cadmus called out, he idly kicked a crawling Thanagarian that was too close to his foot shattering her ribs with audible pops.

"You know this dude, Grey?" Firestorm muttered. "He's kind of crazy." He cocked his head as though listening to a voice only he could hear.

Ah, now he understood. There was an inner persona distinct from this one, and Grey could only refer to Dr. Stein. So he was in there.

"He's with us? You're sure? Like positive, one-hundred percent? What do you mean he's your TA, you put this guy in a room with kids?" Firestorm shrugged. "Alright, geez, I get it. Anyone cool with you is cool with me."

Betty walked over, tip-toeing over the bodies of the Thanagarians and the odd rat scurrying about. "Who's he talking to?" she asked in a loud whisper.

"Beats me."

"That's not healthy, you know."

Cadmus nodded in agreement. One should only monologue internally to themselves.

Firestorm finally broke from his one-sided conversation and walked towards them, hesitance clear. Each step he took made the temperature increase dramatically, it was like a furnace.

"Nice to see you again, Jax."

"I didn't know you have super powers. That was some crazy shit."

"Thank you."

"And whose this?" Firestorm turned and waggled his eyebrows,

"I'm Betty." She beamed. "Nice to meet ya."

"So, everything's gone to shit, huh? Attack of the Flying Bird People or something." Jax said. He frowned at something only he could hear.

"Something like that," Cadmus said.

"There'll be more coming soon, we should head inside."

"What about them," Jax jerked his head to the surviving aliens, who were in varying stages of incapacitation.

He looked down at the Thanagarians, the faces behind their rusted helms, beaten and scarred, bearing the signs of age that shouldn't have even begun to present for dozens of years, the weak rise and fall of their breathing and the haggard gasping lungfuls of air.

"We'll need one for to question."

"And the rest?" Betty asked.

"We don't have a prison to drop them in."

"You're not saying you want to kill them?" Firestorm asked, horrified at the thought. "They're defenseless!" Cadmus wondered if that was Jax or Stein talking.

Betty remained silent.

"If it offends you so much, take your pick of the litter and go inside. I'll deal with them. Then, I have to go check on something."

He could see small smoke clouds rising out over the skyline of the city and his thoughts drifted to Frost. The very thought of her being hurt or captured stirred something violent in him.

No one takes what is mine, he thought furiously.

Firestorm looked ready to argue and the air grew hotter before it suddenly petered out. He slumped his shoulders and along with Betty grabbed one of the Thanagarians, tossing one of the soldier's arms around each of their shoulders and slowly limping into the metaphysics building.

He could feel their gazes piercing his back as the doors closed leaving him alone.

Cadmus withdrew Hro-Talak's mace from his belt and approached the nearest Thanagarian. The alien looked up at him sightlessly, pale blue cataracts consuming the iris, and spoke softly in a language the Titan did not know but understood all the same.

A plea, one that sunk into his very being, pulling and begging, a supplicant's request demanding his attention.

The mace fell and the voice too fell silent. A sudden breeze fluttered from the east rustling the crimson-stained grass beneath his feet.

He swore in it he heard the sound of a woman laughing, a heavy mocking laughter that sent shudders down his spine.

He silenced twenty of those voices in all, and with each one the laughter grew louder until it was like the voice was right next to his ear, goading him along.