Chapter 41

-[Dinah]-

She looked at the phone on the table, silently begging for it to ring or for the door to open and for Dante to walk in.

"I don't think he's coming." A blond male said sitting on the couch beside her.

Dinah gave Oliver a light glare at his words to which the man held up his hands in surrender. "I'm worried about him."

"Come on, you said it yourself. The kid can take care of himself." Oliver countered.

Dinah's voice lowered. "You know why I'm worried."

The man went silent at that, the room becoming quiet. She wanted Dante to come home so that they could have the talk that had been pending for so long. She didn't want to have to choose between the two.

She was a therapist/council. Despite how much he tried to hide it, she could clearly see the signs of trauma that lingered around Dante.

The signs were subtle but he disliked male authority figures. There were also his subtle but quick reactions to sudden sounds when he first started living with her.

What confirmed her suspicion were the first few nights that he spent in her apartment. She could still remember him murmuring fearful apologies in his sleep for the first week.

He was also quick with attachments, at least female attachment from what she observed. She theorized that it stemmed from his time in Cadmus.

From what he had told them when he and the sidekicks escaped, he was awake long before then being tested and prodded almost daily. With all the signs in front of her, she felt that he was putting it lightly when he gave those details.

As much as she wanted to confront him and help him, she also knew that forcing a trauma patient to reveal the secret they worked so hard to keep wouldn't work out well.

It was one of the reasons why she had prioritized him earlier, causing her fallout with Oliver. It was also one of the reasons she supported his friendship with Zatanna.

Dinah could do her best to be there for him but she knew that there could be times where she wouldn't be able to. His quick attachment to Zatanna and vice versa relieved her a bit but it didn't stop her from checking up on him whenever he disappeared, in fear that something bad was going to happen.

Whatever Cadmus did to him had really left a psychological scar. A scar that she intended to make fade away.

-[Dante]-

He still stood at the top of the tower in Japan, digesting the Stranger's words. The man had basically confirmed that the eyes of the chaos and order lords were on him but they had yet to come to a decision on what to do with him.

'Minor godhood huh?' He thought with a chuckle.

He knew that Klarion would come back when he killed the cat, what he didn't know was how long it would take him to do so.

It could be a week, a month…he could already be back and he wouldn't know.

Despite the many questions that the Stranger had raised, it also brought a lot of answers.

Though the Stranger's words about Earth getting destroyed was terrifying, he also implied something; that was the fact that there was hope for him.

Apparently he was a 'key' figure in the 'final fight'. Cryptic as it was, it also gave him hope that he could survive.

Another set of answers that the Stranger unknowingly brought was a revelation on an aspect of his new powers. He had thwarted the man's first attempt to teleport him but he didn't know how, it was instinct.

Only after he allowed the teleportation to take hold did he gleam an aspect of his powers. He raised a hand for a moment, taking a deliberate breath.

A few seconds later, his hand was coated in a blue colored energy. Before long, his entire body was coated in that energy.

"This is it." He muttered.

[Yes. This is the dimensional energy that is within us.] The force supplied helpfully.

The blue energy surrounded his body like a blue mist. Recreating the sensation he felt when the Stranger teleported him, there was a low pop as his perception seemed to elevate to an even higher level than before.

A blue portal opened before him, causing him to widen his eyes at the success. Just as he opened the portal, he was also able to close it.

After the first successful attempt, it was much easier to do, creating portals of all sizes before closing them.

He decided to try something else. Rather than pulling on the dimensional energy that he was now able to feel, he reached for his internal force, or Nexus as he had taken to calling it.

Pulling on it, a cluster of purple colored energy formed above his palm. Calling on the dimensional energy, he opened a portal to a random location.

Seeing a mountain through the portal, he aimed his hand holding the purple energy at it through the portal.

Releasing it forward, the purple energy burst from his hand, tearing through the distance at high speed before hitting the mountain.

He immediately realized that he couldn't hear sounds through the portal because he was sure that the destruction of a mountain that big would be anything but silent.

[That purple energy is the physical manifestation of the usual intangible psychic energy due to the influence of other energies mixed within us.] Nexus supplied, giving him more information on the damage dealing action he just performed.

Another thing he noted was that creating a portal was essentially creating a link between two places. When creating that link, he was shown the possibility of branching from the normal path in connecting two points.

He had a sinking feeling that creating a portal that branched from the normal path would create a portal to another dimension. After all, he was aware that he had the ability to travel through dimensions. He may have just figured out how to do it.

'I wonder what the other dimensions are like.' He thought, making a mental note to eventually take a trip through one of those paths.

He looked at the bag of takeouts in his hand, remembering that he still had to go home.

Getting a mischievous smirk, he called on the dimensional energy, creating a portal that led to Dinah's apartment, walking through it.

Closing the portal behind him, he saw Dinah standing in a tense stance, relaxing as she realized it was Dante before her eyes widened.

"Dante? Since when could you do that?" She asked in shock.

"I had an eventful trip to say the least. What's captain green doing here?" he asked, referring to Oliver who was in a fighting stance that fell moments later.

"I wanted us to talk and-!" The communicator in her ear beeped, audible to Dante's ears.

Raising a hand to take it, she answered as Dante waited curiously.

He watched as Dinah's face went from confused to shocked in mere moments. "What do you mean Mount Rushmore is gone?!" She asked in shock.

Dante's eyes widened. 'I knew I was forgetting something!'

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Author Rant: Since some people want an emotionless fifteen year that has his life and future put together, I've officially lost some motivation to write this. I'll be taking a break from writing for a few days or so.