FrenzyAren
patreon
SM/DC Chapter 108 : Doctor Fate
🕑 Added 2025-05-03 21:56:11 +0000 UTCThe meeting room buzzed with a renewed sense of urgency as the Titans finished reviewing the artifact and Arthur’s input. Chairs scraped back, voices mingled, and the discussion reached its natural conclusion.
Cyborg pushed off the wall, nodding. “Then it’s settled. We should move.”
Beast Boy, now fully shifted back into his human form, cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go find her.”
Jaime tightened the blue plating around his fists. “Wherever she is, we’ll get her back.”
Starfire floated toward the door with her fists glowing faintly. “Yes. Let us do this.”
Robin remained still for a beat, watching the others with a contemplative stare before standing. “Everyone, prep and move out. We don’t waste time.”
They began filing out one by one, Kara pausing near the doorway, but Arthur hadn’t moved yet.
He rose slowly from his seat, the weight in his posture unmistakable.
“Robin,” he called out, just loud enough to halt him.
The Titan leader turned slightly. The others looked back, sensing the tone shift. Robin raised a hand.
“I’ll catch up. Go.”
The team obeyed, though not without a few hesitant glances. When the doors finally slid shut and left them in the room alone, the silence pressed in.
Arthur inhaled slowly, steadying his voice.
“I need to tell you something.”
Robin crossed his arms. “And that is?”
Arthur’s jaw tensed. This wasn’t easy not for someone like him, to admit something. But still, he spoke the truth plainly.
“I’m the reason she’s missing,” he said. “Raven was looking for me… trying to find me. But I was in a place where it was nearly impossible for her to reach me. Trigon took that advantage. Used that moment of weakness.”
He looked away, guilt flickering in his eyes.
“I accidently left a void, and he crawled right through it.”
Robin didn’t react for a moment.
Then, he smiled faintly dry, almost amused.
“We already know that.”
Arthur blinked. “What?”
Robin shrugged. “It wasn’t a secret. Raven never tried to hide that, even when you were gone.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice just slightly.
“But I have to admit… it’s something else to hear you actually admit it. Totally not like you.”
He turned to leave, stopping only at the door.
“I know we don’t see eye to eye. Probably never will. But just this once, Arthur...let’s work together.”
His gaze narrowed with resolve.
“For Raven.”
He walked out without waiting for a reply.
Arthur stood there, still, silent. No retort. No sarcasm. Just a brief flicker of unspoken words behind his eyes.
Then the door slid open again.
Kara stepped inside, her cape swaying gently behind her. “He’s right, you know,” she said softly. “Let’s go now… and do our part.”
Arthur nodded, the cold steel of his expression returning, tempered by purpose.
“Yes.”
Kara smiled, walking beside him.
“So… like Cyborg said? Doctor Fate, then?”
Arthur’s lips curved, just barely, into a knowing smile.
“Yes,” he said. “Hopefully he’s not missing too.”
****
The double doors of Titans Tower slid open with a hiss, revealing the broad concrete platform that overlooked the ocean. The wind whipped Kara’s golden hair around her shoulders as she and Arthur stepped outside.
She took in a breath and turned to him with a casual grin. “So, since you don’t have a shadow where we are heading, I’ll get there ahead of you. Just teleport once I arrive.”
Arthur didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked up toward the sky with a calm, knowing expression. The wind shifted.
“No need,” he said with a faint smirk.
[Kryptonian Flight]
Then, without fanfare, his boots lifted from the ground. His coat rippled as he rose, steadily ascending into the air. A soft hum of energy pulsed beneath him, an eerie fusion of mana and force, like a storm restrained beneath his feet.
Kara blinked, eyes widening. “Wait..You can fly now?!”
Arthur glanced at her, that same infuriating smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. “Does it really surprise you?”
She sputtered. “I mean… yes. I mean...no. But… yes!”
Arthur gave her a side glance. “This is nothing.”
With that, he tilted forward and rocketed into the sky air cracking like thunder in his wake as he broke the sound barrier in a single burst of movement. His silhouette vanished upward, trailing wisps of shadowy energy that shimmered like dying stars.
Kara narrowed her eyes, stunned for half a second, before a competitive grin spread across her face. “Oh no you don’t.”
She soared after him, flipping midair and flying backwards beside him just moments later, her arms folded across her chest, matching his speed with ease.
“Come on, amateur,” she said with a teasing smirk. “So slow. You’re barely cruising in second gear.”
Arthur raised a brow, eyes flicking toward her with that familiar calculating glint. “Am I?”
A pulse of dark energy rippled across his body. Then boom.
A detonation of air and shadow erupted beneath his boots. The sky split with the sound, and Arthur became a blur of velocity and magic, vanishing ahead like a black comet cleaving through clouds. The sheer force of his acceleration left Kara trailing in his wake, her hair thrown back by the gust he left behind.
She stared for a beat, her jaw slightly dropped. “Okay… what the hell was that?”
Then she grinned again, eyes glowing with exhilaration. “All right then, Athur Let’s see what you’ve really got.”
Kara’s laughter echoed through the sky as she pushed forward, a blur of gold and blue streaking across the clouds. “Try and keep up, Shadow Boy!” she called out, flying backward with her arms folded like it was a casual stroll. “You think you can match a true Kryptonian speed!”
Arthur smirked, narrowing his eyes as the wind rushed past him. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Damn right I am!” she shouted over the roar of the wind.
She tilted, looped around, and shot past him, her laughter trailing like sunlight. Arthur was about to respond maybe try and summon a burst of speed but something changed. A disturbance in the air. A ripple in the weave of reality.
His eyes snapped open, glowing a deep, unsettling blue. His momentum halted instantly, the pressure around him condensing like he’d entered a vacuum.
Kara stopped ahead of him, spinning around mid-air. “Hey what’s wrong?”
Arthur’s voice was low, distracted. “It’s strange… but..”
And then
Without warning, a presence manifested beside him. Not like a teleportation or a flash of energy more like reality accepted the figure’s existence as if it had always been there.
Arthur’s instincts reacted first. He lashed out with a sharp, clean kick aimed at the figure’s center mass only for his boot to phase through harmlessly.
Kara’s eyes widened. “Wait, that’s..!”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed as the figure came into full view: a gold helm glinting in the light, robes fluttering as if caught in an unseen current, it was none other than Doctor Fate.
“Of course,” Arthur muttered, retracting his leg. “Astral projection..”
Doctor Fate hovered in place, the blank eyes of the Helm of Nabu locking onto him with uncanny stillness.
“Quick to violence, are you, Arthur Blackwynd?” the voice echoed calm, layered, and timeless. It wasn’t just a voice it was multiple voices, all speaking in unison, overlapping across dimensions.
Arthur crossed his arms. “You can’t blame me. Demons and all kinds of things are crawling out of every hole on this planet. Can’t be too careful.”
Fate's head inclined ever so slightly. “A valid concern… though your paranoia remains a bit over the top.”
“... I assume you know our goal?” Arthur asked, tone sharpening.
“I merely wished to speak with you.” Fate responded.
Arthur exhaled through his nose. “We were literally on our way to meet you.”
“I know,” Fate replied, unfazed. “And I know what you seek.”
Arthur’s brows rose slightly. “Good. That’ll save us a whole speech.”
Kara hovered beside Arthur, her arms still folded tightly across her chest, her cape fluttering gently behind her. Her eyes remained locked on Doctor Fate’s spectral form, her brow furrowed with unease.
“This kind of magic creeps me out,” she muttered under her breath.
Arthur glanced sideways at her, genuinely curious. “And mine is fine?”
She paused, visibly uncertain. Her lips parted to reply but nothing came out at first. Then she shifted uncomfortably mid-air and said, “I guess…??”
Arthur tilted his head, a slow smirk rising at the edge of his mouth. “Huh.”
Doctor Fate, impassive and unreadable as ever, floated closer. “There is an old library… in Las Vegas. Go there and you’ll know where to find me.”
Before either of them could respond, Fate’s form shimmered then dispersed into a swirl of golden dust, dissipating with the wind.
Arthur blinked. “A library in Vegas ? Wait. That’s it?”
Silence.
He exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “So be it…”
Kara floated closer, peering at where the golden particles had vanished. “That guy really knows how to make an entrance.”
Arthur muttered, “And an exit…”
With a shared glance between them, the two turned in the air, already adjusting their trajectory toward their destination.
“Old library,” Kara echoed with a sigh. “I hate the smell of old books.”
Arthur smiled.” Well I don't, because I might find something interesting there.”
