Often-daydreaming - Insomniac

An Ancient's Game

It started off small at first. A robbery in Metropolis. A missing persons case in Gotham. An 'accident' in Amity Park. None of it connected. Nobody thought to connect them. It was just another case after all. There would always be another case so sometimes things slipped through the cracks. It happened.

Even heroes made mistakes after all.

They overlooked things.

But in the end they messed up and someone had to pay and someone did when Clark Kent heard his wife and son’s heartbeats vanish off the face of the earth during a somewhat quiet afternoon while he was handling a disaster in France.

He was the man of steel though, he could have made it. He should have made it but he was a second too late. His family was gone and Metropolis felt the fury of the old gods as a being made of wind and storms ripped its way free of an unseen portal cackling with mad laughter as it devastated the city.

It was another distraction though.

A massive distraction that drew the Justice League's attention away from the real prize as nightmares descended on Gotham like shadows. They morphed from the darkness slipping out through the cracks like ghosts and only Oracle saw the fight as they swarmed the youngest Robin, the Dark Knight's youngest son vanishing under an endless tide of nightmares as Nocturn took control of Gotham's nightlife.

More distractions followed as more and more of the old gods, Ancient beings long forgotten returned to Earth.

Storms raged.

The ground quaked.

Creatures of myth and legend were free to run wild as reports of everything from dragons to even yetis flooded the Watchtower.

In the end it was Diana who found their first and only clue when one of her mother's messengers appeared warning them of Themyscira's fate when a portal was opened for Undergrowth deep within the island's jungles. They fought. They fell. Then they were turned into mindless puppets bent to the monster's will as the sounds of war subsided into silence within a matter of days.

Her losses gave them a name.

Undergrowth, a creature of the green who cheered the being known as Clockwork while Constantine explained its origin.

He told them of Cronos, of the pieces of him that had formed into a new life deep within the endlessness of Infinity.

And Fate opened the way.

The first thing the gathered heroes saw was a massive clocktower surrounded by gears and pistons twisting in every direction as they spilled out into an endless void. Each tenth of a second, the hands on the clocktower click one step forward.

A single tooth on one of the smaller gears is easily the size of the Watchtower and no matter how far anyone looked there was no beginning or end to the clocktower.

There was nothing except the click, click, click of endless clocks as they stormed the Titan's lair.

Nothing stopped them.

There were no enemies or traps.

In fact the doors were left wide open as if welcoming the Justice League inside and they soon discovered why when Shazam found them. Superboy stood on a scale across from Luthor, the same with Robin and Waller. They were frozen in time, trapped in a single second of a moment while in the very middle of the massive room was a kid, easily Jon's double sleeping on a throne made out of the void of space but that wasn't what had him worried.

What worried him was the silence, the sudden nothingness in his mind as the voices of the gods empowering him faded away in the presence of the cloaked figure of Cronos suddenly standing beside the throne.

Even as the other heroes flooded into the room he couldn't hear anything besides a soft click, click, click as Superman was waved away forced into a loop of repetition that began and ended with his first step forward.

Green Lantern fell next, rapidly aged into an old man unable to match a Titan's will.

Then Constantine collapsed clutching an invisible wound on his chest. It was his contracts forcing him to obey while Fate eventually faded under time's cold embrace.

There were only a few heroes left when Flash made a move blitzing the throne only to suddenly lose his speed. The others simply glitched, like static on an old tv leaving only Shazam, J'onn and surprisingly Lois Lane standing in front of Cronos as he declared a game to decide Earth's continued existence.

'Convince each of them you're worth another chance and I'll restore everything.'

'Who's them?'

I don't really know what I was going with here. I was just listening to some of the songs from Epic and figured why not let an enraged Clockwork have some fun. I'm blaming Vlad for everything cause I can and he's done it before and caused a ton of problems for everyone else so I'm just picturing something he did or tried to do backfiring badly enough that Danny got seriously hurt so now everyone's gotta pay.

Been grindin' for Kazuha for the past week or so, and decided to doodle him for fun!

don't give up

its so funny to me that danny, vlad, and EMBER are the show’s promotional characters

A Quick Chat

'Absolutely not!'

'I'm just gonna talk with him!'

Following the quickly escalating shouts down to the Batcave Bruce found Dick and a heavily armed Tim at each other's throats while their siblings oh so helpfully egged them on.

They were arguing about Wally and their last universal saving mission for some reason and Tim had nearly every contingency he could think of to handle a speedster on him.

-nna talk, that's it!'

'Then you can leave the gear here!'

'What's going on?'

All of his children froze, finally realizing he was here before they started shouting over each other.

'You remem-'

'-ick's trying to-'

'Father Dr-'

'-ng crazy, just because the universe re-'

'Enough!'

'Now, can someone tell me what's going on or do I have to get Alfred?'

And Jason was happy enough to tell him. 'Replacement's pissed because we finally discovered a pretty big difference with the universe after the League hit the reset button.'

Multiple screens on the Batcomputer held information on new heroes, a Junior JLD and everything Tim could dig up on two individuals. The first one was Phantom, a new addition to the Titans and had a number of detailed conspiracy theories tracking his appearances through time while the other held the detailed background information of a recently graduated Daniel James Fenton. Tim had dug up everything from his kindergarten grades to... Oh... Oh no... That explains why they were arguing about Wally.

Most of Daniel's latest online post covered his move to Gotham, his new job offer working in their engineering department and his new boyfriend Bernard. Looking at it all made it painfully easy to piece together that... 'They stole my life!'

And Dick and Tim were arguing again but Bruce knew it wouldn't get too heated and focused his attention on the gathered information. It was easy to see that a number of encounters his kids (mainly his oldest three) should have had with the Titans were adjusted just enough to fit Phantom now and Tim's involvement with the Children of Dionysus had been shifted around to involve Daniel in this new universe.

'-e universe reset doesn't mean you can ruin their lives. Phantom seems like a good kid.'

'Dowd would have left you eventually.'

Dick had to hold Tim back from launching himself at Damien while Jason and Steph stood by egging the two of them on, but then Tim got that look in his eye when Duke brought up the idea of reintroducing himself and everyone noticed.

'No.'

'Come on. Tim, you don't need another restraining order.'

'But it didn't happen in this universe so it doesn't count.'

'It counts if we still remember it!'

But Tim wasn't listening, too busy changing out of all of his gear as a plan quickly started forming together in his mind.

Why waste time with Wally when he can just as easily win over the new couple while ignoring everything else he's learned from his friends.

He'd figure it out one mess at a time. After he won Bernard back he'd figure out the situation between Red Robin and Phantom.

-_- -_- -_-

Reading over the sticky note Danny couldn't help but wonder what Clockwork meant when he wrote 'Have Fun'.

Again, I blame my medication for this, but this came from a couple of different prompts about Tim, Bernard and Danny and I just sort of went with it. Basically the main roster of the League has to stop (Pick a threat) and end up resitting the universe again. The problem is they still remember the old universe so they spend a week or two looking up any big changes and a sleep deprived Tim starts believing he barely knows Bernard in this universe when he's actually dating him and Danny. He just hasn't dug deep enough to figure out his own connection.

@often-daydreaming + @ohagi505 Stardew Farmers ❤️

25 posts!

Coding buddy

happy pride<3

inspired by something i saw a couple doing before school ended