A/N: This originally had a different ending, which explained the nuisances of Nekron and the Lanterns. If you wish to read, drop me a line, but this end fits better and allows for the opening of a new book (if this ended Blackest Night).
BTW, this story takes place during Blackest Night, and special thanks to Cat, who gave me the idea of the flashbacks of revealing how Bruce found out about Ghost!Dick.
“In the Brightest Day”
The white light. That proverbial white light.
Except there was no one screaming for him not go toward it. The light was simply there, comforting, cradling him in its embrace. A warm hand touched his cheek, holding him close.
“Richard Grayson.”
Who—? A masculine voice, gentle but firm.
“You have been chosen.”
Chosen? For what?
“Rise.”
Dick shot up, his chest heaving, his heart pounding.
Fear.
Will.
Or—at least it would have pounded. It should have pounded. Why didn’t it?
It was
dark, night, but just not any night. The nights of
A lightning strike lit the sky, and he turned toward the stone holding him up.
And screamed.
Upon the tombstone was his name. His name.
“Hey, kid. Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Dick whirled toward the voice and looked up. Standing before him was an elder teen, perhaps twenty with a ruddy braid falling down her back and a leather jacket upon her shoulders. Four earrings climbed up her ear lobs, while silver eye shadow wrapped about her emerald orbs. Her face was gentle, her voice soft, and in her dark, almost sharp eyes, he saw a kindness, a glimmer of purple, hiding amongst the darkness.
“Sorry,” she laughed and met the moon. “Little death humor there. Couldn’t help it.”
“Who—What—How—Why?”
“Sorry, I’m
not
“Victims?” Dick made a point not to look back at the granite as he stood and glanced about the stone garden behind Wayne Manor. “What are you talking about? I just—”
“Think, Richard.”
“My name is Dick.”
“Okay,” she soothed. “Dick. Think back. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Dick listened and thought—then flinched as he heard the shots as if they were right in his ear, echoing for all eternity. His mouth dropped open, and Dick felt the pain searing through his chest, the warm blood soaking the “S” of his Superman suit.
He was dead.
“It’s all right, child,” the male voice whispered in his ear again, the one that told him to rise. “You are not alone.”
“Who—Who—?”
“Am I?” Sasha shook her head and once more beseeched the night sky. “I’m Matatoa’s first victim.”
Dick stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed her melancholy gaze. “But…I can’t be dead. I don’t feel—”
“—any different,” Sasha finished and lifted up her hand, palm toward the sky. “You wet, Dick?”
“…No.”
“Is it raining?”
“…Yes.”
“This ever happen to you—” She shoved her hand into his stomach. No, through his stomach. “—when you were alive?”
Dick watched as her hands swam through his stomach, giving him an uneasy, cold feeling throughout his body. “Hey—hey! Stop—!” He moved to grab her hand, then gasped as his hand went through her wrist. She immediately pulled away.
“Oh. God.” Fear. Loss. “I’m dead.”
“Yup,” Sasha growled and turned on her heel. “Welcome to Hell.”
“Hey. Wait. Why am I like this?” Dick called after her and gave chase. “Why am I in Hell? What did I do to—”
“It’s not really Hell, but it’s Hell on Earth for sure.” Sasha never turned to him, only headed toward the edge of the cemetery. “Matatoa is a soul-eater. He’s told who to kill from that Great Beyond, and he takes a part of your soul, so you can’t cross-over.”
“Then how do we cross-over?”
Sasha snorted. “Um…hey, first victim. Still here, so I think the answer’s obvious.”
“No.”
Will.
Dick stopped and stared at the back of Sasha’s head. “I don’t accept that. There has to be a way. Bruce will find—”
“No!” Whirling, Sasha would have grabbed his shoulders if she were able. “Learn this and learn it well. Whoever Bruce is, he’s moved on. They all have, and they all will.”
Dick narrowed his eyes. “He and Alfred won’t.”
Sasha laughed. “Oh, it’s so sweet. You’re a spirit virgin.” She took a step back and gave him a condescending smile. “Honey, we’re the walking dead. We’re a soul without a body, a person without a place. My advice? Go to the movies. The new Disney animated flick’s out. It’s actually pretty good.”
“WHAT! I’m dead, and you’re telling me to—”
“Or do what?” Sasha demanded. “You can’t touch anyone. No one can see you but the other victims of Matatoa’s curse. Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Face it, kid. You’re in Hell. Better get used to it. It doesn’t get better, and it lasts forever.”
*^*^*
“You want us to do what!” Barry Allen shrilled.
They stood in the Batcave—or what was left of it. Tim Drake, the new Batman, sat in Bruce’s chair at the Crays, while Red Arrow stood off to the left. Alfred served the “new” JLA and the Guardians refreshments. They weren’t strong by any means—Atom, Mera, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, Scarecrow, and the Flash with Green Lantern as their only tank—but they were enough. They would have to be enough, and Dick Grayson, a thirteen-year-old soul, was now their chairperson.
His eyes hard, his voice hoarse, he sounded like his mentor. “You have to dig up my grave.”
Lex Luthor narrowed his eyes. “Digging up the grave of Bruce Wayne’s brat? I believe that can accomplished.”
Red Arrow notched an arrow. “Lantern or not, I’ll still break you, Luthor.”
Hal snorted. “No. Enough graves have been desecrated, and Bruce turned Clark and Ollie and the others into dead soldiers for that Nekron character. Can you imagine what he’ll do to us if we destroy his kid’s grave?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not now,” Dick insisted. “They’re killing us, making us their own zombie army. We have to stop them.”
“No shit,” Red Arrow remarked. “But digging up your moldy bones isn’t going to help us.”
“
The small Justice League looked at each other before Tim blew out a tiny sigh. “Bruce’s gonna kill us—literarily.”
*^*^*
Alfred went about his daily routine. On Mondays, he went food shopping for the week, and by ten, he was putting away groceries. On one such Monday, he placed the broccoli and celery in the vegetable drawers in the refrigerator before turning—and freezing.
Hope.
Will. Love. Fear. Compassion.
Before the French doors to the patio stood a disheveled boy with dark eyes and a sullen frown. Dick watched Alfred closely, seeing the man’s dull eyes widen and his mouth open. The ever calm British exterior was broken, and Dick saw what he needed to see—Alfred cared. The older man hadn’t let him go—or so Dick thought before Alfred shook his head and went for the apples and oranges to put in the bowl on the counter.
What he never saw was the older man turn and see the boy gone, then collapse to a chair at the table.
Loss.
*^*^*
Dick crossed his arms and rubbed his biceps. Even though he was immune to the temperatures, it felt…colder, and he trembled. He tried to put it off as the weather, what with the blustering wind and the ominous clouds, but he knew the truth.
He was scared.
They stood upon the small hill outside of Wayne Manor where members of the household were buried. Dick was ambivalent about being laid to rest in the cemetery until he learned his own parents had been transferred there. Bruce had wanted him close to home, and he knew Bruce needed him. His parents—they understood.
At least, they said they did when he tried to explain.
Dick looked away as the Flash and Green Lantern dug into the hardened ground. Red Arrow and Batman sandwiched Dick.
“You okay?” Red Arrow asked bluntly, looking into the hole.
Dick kept his eyes averted. “Would you be okay if they were digging up your moldy body?”
“Man, you really are thirteen, aren’t you?”
Dick shot the older man a dirty glare. “It’s not my fault I don’t age.”
“But you’d think your mind would—”
“Lay-off,
Dick put up a hand to his brother and spat, “Just bite me, Roy.”
Red Arrow blinked and looked at the coffin rose from the ground by a green light.
Batman looked down at Dick. “He shut up.”
“You just gotta talk his language, Tim.”
When Green Lantern placed the coffin down in front of Mera, Atom, Batman, Red Arrow, Luthor, Scarecrow, and directly in the middle—Dick.
Barry zipped in front of the boy. “Are you sure about this?”
Fear. Loss.
Dick hardened his nerves. People were dying, and the key to stopping the slaughter could be in front of him.
His own coffin. His own body.
He took a deep breath and nodded. He didn’t trust his voice.
Flash lifted the lid, then pushed it off. Dick made himself look into the coffin.
The empty coffin.
His body wasn’t there.
In fact, there wasn’t any hair, any skin flakes—nothing. It was as if his body was never there.
“It—It’s one of the Black Lanterns now?” Red Arrow ventured.
Ray shook his head. “If it was, then the coffin would have torn open, the dirt ripped from underground, but it was untouched before we got here.”
“So Dick’s body was never here,” Tim deduced.
“No,” a new voice declared from behind, “it was taken for a higher calling, mate.”
Dick whirled, and his light eyes narrowed. Both Red Arrow and Batman took a step forward to cut off the newcomer from Dick, even though he was nothing more than a spirit. Flash zoomed in front, and Mera clutched her trident.
Rage. Will.
Green Lantern growled, his voice reminding Dick of Bruce. “Matatoa.”
The man in the red bandana bowed slightly. “Your body’s not here ‘cuz it’s been harvested for the master.”
*^*^*
“I won’t allow this. Not on my watch,” Superman’s booming voice echoed off the cavern walls. “I won’t let him commit suicide.”
“Well, I
should hope not,” Alfred replied, drawing Dick out of the depths. “What
happened, Mr.
Superman sighed, and he fell to a chair next to Bruce’s bed. His body looked tired and languid. “We were fighting Despero, and he took a blast meant for J’onn.” His head hung, and he rubbed his hands down his pale face. “I honestly don’t know what to do, Alfred. I don’t know what to say to him. What do you tell someone who’s lost a child and wishes to be with him?”
Alfred
placed a calm hand upon Superman’s shoulder. “There is nothing to say, Mr.
Superman patted Bruce’s hand and took off out of the cave.
Compassion.
Slowly, Dick sneaked out of his hiding place. As he reached to Bruce’s bed, he looked down at his once guardian. The older man’s now calm face was colored with bruises and bandages, while his skin looked pale in the overhead light.
Dick sighed and shook his head. “God, Bruce, what’s going on with you?”
“He has lost again,” whispered the firm voice he first heard at the grave. He had been learning to ignore it, but it wasn’t easy.
Dick raked a hand through his hair. “Look, it wasn’t your fault, y’know? It was mine. I—I should have done something else, something more, but—but he’s an assassin, a soul-eater. He kills, and he’s good at it.
“But this—this isn’t good,” Dick continued after a moment. “You can’t go through life compensating for losses you couldn’t prevent. I’m not saying move on, but don’t die because of me. I’m still here.” He gave Bruce’s hand one last squeeze. “I’ll always be here.”
Hope. Will. Fear.
Bruce groaned, and his eyes slowly fluttered open, “…Dick?”
*^*^*
“Harvested?” Dick echoed. “What do you mean my body was harvested?”
Matatoa’s dark face was sober but resigned as he came forward. “You were chosen, kiddo, by Nekron himself. There is no escape for you. You’re forever damned to servitude.”
“Why?” Flash demanded. “Why choose this boy?”
“Because he brightened the lives of others without losing his own light.” Matatoa shrugged. “When his parents died, he lost a family, but he didn’t lose his ability to feel. He created a surrogate family with you and yours, and who doesn’t love a kid in pixie boots and a charmer’s smile?”
Green Lantern put up a green shield before their League. “Not your boss. He’s never getting near the kid.”
“Please, you think you can stop him?” Matatoa snorted. “You think I wanted to be taken, mate? Hell no, but Nekron’s coming, and he will take all who are his.”
Dick’s head shot up. He couldn’t quite place the feeling swarming in his stomach, but he felt a twisted, sinking feeling swirling at the pit of his being. A tug, a tether at the base of his soul—he felt the connection to something other himself—and it was near.
“He’s right,” Dick spurted. “We have to go. We have to go now!”
The group turned, but as they started to run, a vine crept about Dick’s ankle. The teen gasped. A black tentacle grasped his ankle, actually held it, even as a spirit.
He yelped as the tentacle tugged him to the ground, and more tentacles snatched his wrists, his thighs, his waist. He fought his way to his knees, grunting in desperation, but nothing freed his soul from its restraints.
Fear. Loss. Rage.
Tim pivoted. “DICK!”
Matatoa’s dark eyes glistened in the dim night light. A black ring encircled his finger—the source of the tentacles. As much of Dick struggled against the tether, it appeared Matatoa did as well. “Sorry, but I am darkness as much as you are light.”
“Hold on, Grayson!” Green Lantern formed a saw with his power and attempted to cut the tether from Dick, but the green power dissipated once it touched the black.
As Red Arrow and Batman started toward him, Dick shouted, “NO! GO! LEAVE ME!”
“Like hell!” Red Arrow cried and shot three arrows at Matatoa.
They buried themselves in his shoulders and a left knee, but nothing seemed to faze the demon as Dick was dragged involuntarily closer to the black ring.
As soon as Dick reached Matatoa’s feet, the soul-eater’s black tethers glowed an bright white, and in that moment, Dick saw the true man buried beneath the fragments of others’ souls.
A street urchin. A boy who didn’t even know his past, only a bastard’s name . A life of coldness and hunger, stealing from cars and food markets to live before he lost to the shadows, claimed one night in an alley by a gangster’s gun. His body dragged into darkness, the black ring was his only chance at survival.
A survival through death, and a sorry existence but a hope of redemption.
A lost cause.
Fear. Will. Rage.
“You are the one who will signal the end,” Matatoa mumbled, “and the end…it has come.”
*^*^*
“Sasha?”
“Go away, Dick.”
Sasha sat
on the edge of the cliff, overlooking
“The world needs a nightlight, don’t you think? The moon just doesn’t do it for me,” he finally said. “When I finally cross over, I’m going to have a long talk who ever greets me there.”
Sasha huffed through her tears. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you see the brightside to every situation?” she spat. “Don’t you see the truth?”
Dick shrugged. “What good does it do to see the world as darkness and gloom? It’s not going to change what is.”
“Nothing’s going to change what is.”
Dick shook his head. “That’s not true. There has to be something that we can do. If we find Matatoa, maybe we can ask him.”
“And he’ll just give us the answer?” Sasha laughed lowly. “You know what he said to me when I asked why?”
No. Dick shivered but nodded nonetheless. Sasha needed this, he knew, and so he would indulge her.
“Because of love,” Sasha groaned. “Because I loved and was loved, and his master couldn’t have that. They needed to extinguish the love, so his master could rule.”
Compassion. Will. Rage. Hope.
“Who’s his master?” Dick prodded.
“Who knows? Who cares?”
“I do!” He reached for her shoulder before stopping. “Sasha, if we can find out who Matatoa’s master is, we can find out why he stole a piece of our souls. Maybe we can find out how to get them back.”
Loss. Love.
“We’ll never find out.”
“Dick’s
right!” a new voice peeped, and Dick swiveled to see
Hope.
“We have to
try, Sasha,”
Sasha shook her head. “You live with an unrealistic view of the world.”
“We don’t live, mate,” Kinsley replied in a crisp Australian accent, coming from behind the group, his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed in anger. “We’ll never live again, and that’s why when I find Matatoa—”
Rage.
“Matatoa is mine, not yours,” another boy, Phillip, replied, an orange tint in his eyes.
Avarice.
“Oh, just how Angelina Jolie is yours, isn’t she, Hotshot?”
“Oh, please. You just want to fight.”
“And you think everything is yours!”
Sasha growled loudly and pushed to her feet. “Stop! Both of you! We are all any of us has!”
“That is not true.”
Dick blinked. That voice again, a silken voice of an aristocrat with the firmness and warmth of a parent.
Just who was that?
“He has not forgotten you, child, and he never will.”
“Hello?”
The group of misfit ghosts didn’t hear his whisper, now arguing over if even killing Matatoa was possible (with Sasha abstaining).
“Who are you?” Dick asked lowly.
A chuckle, but his words were muffled until he heard, “…until you came into his life.”
“Who are you?” Dick demanded again, loud enough to break through his friends’ tirade. “Where are you?”
“Hey, you all right?” Sasha asked.
Dick shook his head. “The voices. Do they ever go away?”
Kinsley furled an eyebrow. “The voices? What do ya mean?”
“I keep hearing voices, y’know? Like on the edge of my hearing, and they only come and go, and sometimes I don’t even hear everything they’re saying.”
The three victims shared confused gazes. “So…Dick’s as crazy as Matatoa, huh?”
“You’re not,” the voice assured.
But did insane people listen to the voices inside their heads?
“It’s you!”
Dick looked away from his friends to see a boy the same age as Dick with brown hair and a transparent body. He stood just beyond Kinsley and Phillip, looking through the pack of misfit spirits.
Another ghost.
And he knew Dick.
“He asked me to look for you, but I said you were dead. Said I hadn’t seen you,” the boy bubbled. “But you’re still here, and he’ll—and you’ll—” The boy put up his hands. “Stay here! I’ll be right back!”
He dashed off.
Sasha came
to Dick’s side to see the boy disappear toward the
Dick shrugged. “I…I think he went by the name Samara. He was a ghost who could inhabit the bodies of dead people.”
“Well, apparently, someone’s looking for you,” Phillip snorted. “Why isn’t someone looking for me?”
Sasha went to smack Phillip up the back of his head, but her hand just swiped through his transparent body.
The group
finally decided to head back toward Gotham, possibly see a movie, but
“They can’t
hear them because they don’t believe,”
Hope.
“What are you talking about?” Dick asked.
“The voices—they’re our loved ones from beyond the grave. If they care about you and you want to hear them, they speak to you.” He pointed to his head. “I can still hear my mom and dad.”
“It’s not my dad, though,” Dick pondered out loud. “I’d know him.”
“Well, who else is dead and cares about you?”
*^*^*
“The resistance is over before it begins.”
The Black Lanterns came faster than believed. Surrounding the current JLA was the former JLA—Superman, Green Arrow, even Superboy, Donna Troy, and Kid Flash.
And everyone else. From Garth to the Flying Graysons.
Everyone.
On his knees, struggling against his black bonds, Dick looked up at the domineering figure that haunted the nightmares he knew he would get. That was, if he survived.
Nekron.
The devil himself.
“Matatoa,” the demon purred, “you have done well.”
The man trembled but held a strong front. “Like you gave me a choice, mate. Like you’ve ever given any bloke a choice.”
Dick finally understood the Black Lantern’s plight. He was an unwilling participant with no more control over his actions than Superman or Green Arrow.
Nekron’s hand under Dick’s chin directed the teen’s attention; the thumb massaging the boy’s stained cheek was torturous. “Hello, slave. You are finally here, and so am I.”
“Go to Hell,” Dick spat.
Nekron laughed. “Oh, we are already there.”
“Let him go!” Red Arrow demanded, and even though Dick couldn’t see him, he imagined his best friend pointing an arrow into Nekron’s chest, ready to kill for Dick’s life.
Whatever life that was.
It mattered little surrounded by an army of Black Lanterns. There was to be no battle, only a slaughter, and as Green Arrow broke his own son’s bow, Dick whirled to Nekron.
“Let them go. You have me. They are nothing.”
“Ah, but they are hope, and that, slave, we cannot have.”
“Then let me do it,” Dick asked. “Bring me to your side, and let me finish it once and for all.”
A twisted, content grin appeared on Nekron’s face, and he brayed. “Eager to please your new master, are you? Or do you have a plan to rebel? You will fail, for once you embrace the black flame, you will be mine, child.”
Never, Dick vowed to himself. No matter what, he would never embrace Nekron.
Hopefully, he was strong enough to extinguish the Black Flame, maybe save the world. He had to be strong enough for Nekron to want him.
Of course, his hope faded to fear as the Black Hand took out his secret weapon.
There was no way Dick could fight his father.
“Bruce Wayne of Earth,” Black Hand called. “RISE!”
Matatoa’s tentacles released Dick. The young spirit slowly rose to his feet as Batman’s—Bruce’s—decrepit body formed between him and Nekron, a Black Lantern symbol on his chest where usually the bat signal resided.
Unlike before, where he seemed to move with intensity and purpose, Batman simply stood before Dick, his grotesque features scarring the teen.
Dick stared
into his father’s eyes—or where they once were. In all the time since Bruce
died, not once had Dick heard his father’s voice, felt his warmth or love. Even
now, he felt his parents’ love and even the
It was because of this. His father wasn’t at peace. He was already a slave to this demon, and Dick wanted nothing more than to make Nekron pay.
But he couldn’t, and the grotesque Batman struggled with undead jerks in a zombie-like manner against the confines of the black ring.
“Oh my God,” Flash breathed, misinterpreting Bruce’s movements. “Bruce…Bruce, he’s your son. Please…don’t.”
“No,” Dick whispered, his voice gutted with emotion. Though he hesitated, he eventually broached the short distance between them to lay a gentle hand upon Bruce’s glove. “It’s okay. This is what we wanted, right? For me to find a life beyond this one.”
He knew his words were only half-truths. He didn’t want to a slave to Nekron, but he had no choice. And he didn’t want to be the cause of the Dark Knight’s pain.
Bruce already suffered enough.
Hope. Love.
Dick smiled, sweet and soothing. “It’s okay, Bruce. Really. Do it. Help me finish this once and for all.”
Bruce said nothing before his head twitched unnaturally, his movements crackling like dried branches. His cold, abysmal eyes laid upon Matatoa.
“Jason Todd of Earth,” his cold voice proclaimed. “DIE!”
The Australian’s body disintegrated into dust, the only part left of him a black ring and a red bandana.
The Dark Knight then turned his black holes of eyes to Dick, and the boy took a deep breath, his face twisted in an eerily calm expression.
Hope. Will. Compassion.
“Richard Grayson of Earth…”
Love.
“Live.”
*^*^*
Dick sat before the tombstone, his legs crossed in the grass, his eyes stern upon the words. His fingers danced over the names he knew by heart.
Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Bruce’s parents.
The pouring rain beating the dirt didn’t faze Dick, and he simply sat, comfortable in the presence of the dead.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” When the voice sounded muffled in the back of his mind, Dick continued, “You’re the voice I hear, the person who cares, and…thanks. It’s good to know I’m not alone, but you don’t have to watch over me. I owe your son everything. He saved my life that night at the circus and gave a new home when I had none. I…I don’t know what I would have done without him, and it’s not his fault he let me go. He’s already preoccupied with the other special people in his life.” He smiled fondly at the stone. “I really don’t want him focused on avenging my death, too.”
“I don’t care what you want.”
Love. Hope.
Dick swung to see the man standing a few feet away from him dressed in a long black trench coat and a dark turtleneck.
Will. Fear.
Hovering beside Bruce was Alfred with a red outline—one only Dick could see.
“Hey Dicky!” Alfred said too bright and cheerful for the older, stoic valet. “Where have you been hanging?”
Dick never looked at Deadman, his entire rapt and teary eyes focused on Bruce. “You—You can see me?” His voice was weak, unsure.
Bruce came forward and crouched down to eyelevel with Dick. “I can do more than that.”
“Are you sure?” Deadman-Alfred asked.
Bruce nodded, wordless, as he gulped down his own tears.
Dick took a silent breath as the light slowly cracked on the horizon, and it was cold.
Freezing actually.
Dick felt the wind scrap against his cheek like a knife, and the rain splattered upon his hot cheek like his own tears. Reaching up, he wiped the rain from his skin, feeling the wetness between his fingers. A hesitant hand brushed back his now sodden bangs.
Bruce’s hand.
Dick realized the wetness upon Bruce’s cheeks wasn’t the rain, and he reached out with his own fingers to brush them away.
“I would never let you go,” Bruce insisted.
Dick smiled, wide and true, and lunged into Bruce’s unsure arms. Though the man was shocked, his arms curled about the boy’s suddenly warm body.
Light.
*^*^*
The white light engulfed everything Dick could see, and as he squinted, he could barely make out a being standing just a few feet from him.
“Matatoa was right. You were chosen because of your light,” the man informed, “but not by Nekron.”
As Dick’s eyes familiarized themselves with the brightness of the landscape, he saw the tall man with a football player’s build and a brushy mustache.
“Thomas Wayne,” Dick whispered. “Um, Mr. Wayne.”
The man’s face eased with the kind smile of a healer. “I believe we are too well acquainted for such titles.”
“I…I don’t understand,” Dick looked about the area. “Where are we?”
“It doesn’t matter where we are, only where you are going, Richard.” Mr. Wayne placed his hands on his shoulder. “It is time for you to greet your destiny.”
“Which is?” Dick shook his head. “I don’t understand anything that’s happening. Who chose me if not Nekron? For what?”
“For the New Guardians. You are the Light, and the Black Lanterns wish to extinguish it.”
“The Light? What light?”
Mr. Wayne’s smile grew, and he cupped Dick’s cheek. “Yours. You are a very special person, Richard, not just because of your brightness but because of what you’ve done for my son.”
“I’ve done nothing but bring him agony, Mr. Wayne.” Abashed, Dick looked away. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”
“It’s your light that will bring him back.”
Dick’s glistening eyes snapped toward the lowly grinning man, who touched the boy’s chin.
“Everything
happens for a reason, Richard, whether it be by chance or by fault. You came to
“I didn’t want him to do it.”
“He had to. He had already lost you twice. He wasn’t going to lose you a third time.” Mr. Wayne smiled gently. “Do you know what drew you to Apokolips?”
Dick shook his head.
“The lantern. Darkseid had taken the lantern for himself and had hoped to use you against Nekron.”
“Me? And a lantern? What are you—?”
“Richard,
listen to me.” Mr. Wayne seized Dick by his shoulders, and his once warm face
became stern. “You are not just the light of my son’s life. Though you have
saved him more times than he could have ever saved you, it is not your destiny
to stay by his side. The light that lives within you brightens the universe,
and that…oh, that, Richard, is why
you were chosen.”
“How?”
“You matter. To me…Grandpa.”
Thomas Wayne lowered his head and pressed his warm lips onto Dick’s forehead. “And you matter to us, Richard.”
Behind Thomas, he could see the faint outlines of two gypsies and an older female—his parents and Martha Wayne.
“Now repeat after me…
“In the brightest day and the blackest night…”
*^*^*
Flash’s blue ring glowed first, a beckon of hope.
“…it is the universe that fears my sight,” Thomas Wayne continued.
Wonder Woman’s flashed next, followed by Atom’s and Hal’s, Mera’s, Scarecrow’s, and even Lex Luthor’s.
“For no matter where evil goes…”
Nekron looked at the soldiers as the boy before them laid on the ground, his dark hair covering his close eyes, his face naturally calm.
“…or what it does…”
“What’s happening?” Nekron demanded. He turned toward Superman and pointed toward the glowing figures before them. “Destroy them!”
“It is my duty…”
The colored lights seeped from the rings like water trickling from a fountain. It tickled across the slumping boy’s cheeks.
“TO SHOW IT MY LIGHT!” Dick screamed as his eyes shot open. They were pupil-less and completely white, and became beams that shot into the sky. Light engulfed the entire cemetery, and only slowly, did eyes adjust.
Dick’s didn’t as swiftly.
Standing now, he gaped down at his uniform—a completely black jumpsuit with a white V that started at his two middle fingers, ran up his arms, and down his shoulders to meet at his chest. At the very center of the V glowed an emblem similar to the Black Lanterns except his was white and silver.
Encircling his left ring finger was a white ring.
“D—Dick?” Red Arrow stammered.
Hope.
“Kid?” Hal
Will.
That was when he realized why everyone stared at him.
He was older.
No longer
thirteen, his head rose to Bruce’s chin, and his muscles had evened out, even
grown. He was as old as
“No…” Nekron murmured before he stamped his cane into the ground. “You should be dead! It’s impossible!”
Fear.
Dick let a dangerous smirk overtake his lips. “Sorry, Nekron. Someone else chose me first.”
Avarice.
Suddenly, Nekron saw the man standing next to him, his once great slave Superman. And Donna Troy. And Green Arrow, Kid Flash, Superboy.
“Kal-El of Krypton, Oliver Queen of Earth, Donna Troy of Earth—live!”
Nekron growled, “This doesn’t mean I haven’t won.”
“Bartholomew Allen of Earth, Conner Kent of Earth, live!”
Slowly, the powers of the Guardians glowed vibrantly, and Dick raised his white ring.
“You were doomed from the start, Nekron.”
Compassion.
The demon seethed with rage and dashed forward.
Bruce was the one resistance that stood between them.
“I won’t be defeated, not so close to my preordained victory.”
“Don’t you get it?” Dick lifted his ring, and the energy blast tore right through Bruce’s chest.
Rage.
“I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“Bruce Wayne of Earth…”
Love.
“…Live.”
Light.
When the light cleared, but night remained. Batman stood among the living, his feature no longer grotesque and frightening, his face smooth and his heart beating. Even as the loved ones around them celebrated their victory and a second—or perhaps fourth— chance at life, father and son stood opposite.
Slowly, a single tear trickled down the Dark Knight’s cheek, and his hand reached the small distance between the two.
Dick met him halfway, knotting their fingers. “Hey, Bruce, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Batman’s eyes narrowed.
“Sorry,” Dick laughed sheepishly, “a little death humor.”
Without another second, Batman tugged the younger man close and held him in a crushing embrace. Dick wrapped his arms about his father’s neck, allowing the man his moments and needing his own.
The last thirteen years were pure hell, and finally, they were over.
He was alive.
Dick reluctantly leaned out of the embrace.
“I have to go.”
Batman held the younger man’s wrist firm. “No.”
“There’s a universe that needs to be saved.”
“Why you?”
Dick smiled tenderly, allowing the light inside of him to show just slightly. “Apparently, I glow. Fancy that.”
“I don’t care.”
Sighing, Dick rubbed the back of his head before white once more gulfed the cemetery. When it died, they were no longer inside of it, instead standing in an entire white plane.
“Let the boy go, Bruce,” a familiar voice commanded, though it had been more than three decades since he’d heard it. “He has a duty you cannot prevent.”
Bruce whirled. “Dad?”
Thomas Wayne greeted his son with his hands on Bruce’s forearms. “It is time, Bruce. Let the boy go.”
“I went to Hell and back to keep him at my side. You think I’m going to let him go now?” he asked his father.
Dick smiled, gentle and calm, and clutched Bruce’s forearm. “It’s not forever, Bruce. Not this time. I just have to go jumpstart the universe.”
As he turned to leave, a hard hand clamped on his own arm. “You will come back.” A command, not a question.
Dick nodded once. “I think I’d know better than not to.”
Bruce looked skeptical. It took Thomas’s hand upon his son’s to release Dick, and when the youngest man turned to leave, he stopped. He looked back hesitantly and retreated to his father’s arms.
He let the universe wait.
*^*^*
The night was dark. No matter what, the nights had always been dark in his life, and as he ambled through the broken and decrepit streets, the young man navigated with no purpose, no chance of life.
He was, for all intensive purposes, a lost cause, drowning in an endless shadow.
A bright light flashed overhead.
Well, perhaps not lost to everyone.
“Jason Todd,” a voice called, and the young man raised his tired and uncertain eyes.
Hovering in the air less than ten feet away, the White Lantern from the cemetery cocked his head to the side and smiled.
“The abyss is kinda dark, don’t you think? Why don’t you step into the light?”
The White Lantern reached out his hand, and Jason Todd, the Black Lantern, took it.
*^*^*
The world was dark, even though
light had been restored. Thomas Elliot now had his own face, thanks to some
forced plastic surgery. Bruce Wayne once more reclaimed his throne of
Yet
Before him stood a single stone, reading, “Richard John Grayson.”
Its presence was no longer tolerated.
He lifted the sledgehammer, and a single white shot blasted through the rock, breaking it into pebbles. The entire group gasped at the team standing less than twenty feet away, Dick in the lead. The newcomers consisting of a lantern of each color—even green, a position held by Kyle Rayner.
“Dick?” Wally asked. “You’re back?”
Dick smiled. “Yup, and I brought some friends.”
Hal
Dick glanced back at his small pack and smiled. “We’re the New Guardians.”
THE END