Chapter 602: Power Bestowed

ARKHAM ASYLUM -

The specialized containment wing of Arkham Asylum had been built, reinforced, and rebuilt more times than most of its guards cared to remember, each iteration promising to finally hold its more troublesome residents with absolute certainty. Pamela Isley’s cell reinforced glass, filtered air, not a single living plant permitted within fifty feet of the walls, was considered one of the more secure enclosures in the entire facility.

None of that mattered in the slightest when Arthur simply stepped through the wall as though it were mist.

Ivy looked up from where she sat, unbothered, an easy, knowing smile already curving her lips before he’d even fully materialized.

"Did you finally come for me, Arthur Blackwynd?" she asked, tilting her head.

"I’m getting you out of here," Arthur said simply.

Ivy laughed. "It seems you need me again, for something." She rose gracefully from her seat, brushing invisible dust from her prison jumpsuit with a faint air of amusement. "Only for me to be returned here afterward, I imagine. That’s usually how this goes."

"Not this time," Arthur said, and something in his tone left no real room for doubt. "Once you’re out, you won’t be coming back here. I can guarantee you that."

Ivy studied him a long moment, something calculating behind her eyes, before her expression softened into genuine, easy trust. "Very well," she said. "I trust you, handsome."

Arthur extended his hand toward her. "Hold on, then."

She crossed the cell and took his arm without hesitation, and in the space of a single heartbeat, they were simply gone.

The alarm didn’t sound for almost a full minute afterward long enough that the first guard to check the security feed for Isley’s cell simply stared at the empty enclosure in open, uncomprehending silence.

"She’s gone," he said finally, keying his radio with a shaking hand. "Isley’s cell...she’s just gone. No breach alarm, no forced entry, nothing on the cameras except.." he squinted at the monitor, "..some kind of light flicker, and then she’s just not there anymore."

"Did she have help?" a second guard asked, already moving toward the cell block at a run.

"I don’t know what she had," the first guard said. "There’s no hole in the wall. No cut wires. It’s like she just walked through solid concrete."

"Get Arkham lockdown protocol going. Now!"

"For what? There’s nothing to lock down!"

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THE WORLD TREE – TEMPLE OF THE MONARCHS

The chamber deep beneath the World Tree’s roots had grown considerably more crowded than its usual solemn stillness allowed for. Kara, Clark, Zatanna, and Beast Boy already stood near the center of the room when Arthur arrived with Ivy at his side, torchlight flickering warmly across the ring of towering, half-lit statues.

Ivy’s eyes went wide, taking in the sheer scale of the place, ancient stone, impossibly high ceilings lost somewhere in shadow, the faint sound of power that seemed to radiate from the very walls themselves.

"I’m afraid I’m a bit lost," she admitted, turning slowly, "though I’ll say this much... this is one absolutely beautiful tree."

"Not one you can control," Arthur said, a smile touching his mouth.

"Shame," Ivy said, entirely unbothered.

A second pulse of violet-black shadow bloomed near the chamber’s entrance, and Raven stepped through it, one hand firmly gripping the upper arm of a distinctly unhappy Killer Frost, who looked around at the assembled group with rapidly mounting alarm.

"Superman... Supergirl..." Frost’s eyes darted wildly across the room, landing on Clark and Kara before sweeping the rest of the chamber. "What the... I didn’t even do anything wrong! Why am I here?!" Her gaze finally settled on Arthur, and something in her expression shifted instantly into open dread. "Oh no.. Even he’s here."

"Calm down," Raven said. "We’ll explain."

"I need considerably more than calm down, lady, you literally just grabbed me off a rooftop.."

"Killer Frost, I’m going to bestow certain powers on both you and Ivy," Arthur said, cutting smoothly through the rising panic before it could escalate further. "Powers that will amplify what you already have. There will be certain responsibilities that come with them. And I don’t believe either of you has the option to refuse."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on!" Frost held up both hands. "What?"

"I’ll take it," Ivy said immediately, without so much as blinking.

"You don’t even know what it is!"

"I have a good feeling about it," Ivy said serenely.

Frost stared at her, then rounded back on Arthur, furious and bewildered. "Care to explain Shadow man? Because right now, all I know is I got kidnapped off a rooftop by her!" she jabbed a finger toward Raven, "...so that you can just hand me extra superpowers? Just like that?"

"Yes," Arthur said simply.

"What’s the catch? Because this whole place is giving me some seriously creepy vibes, and I’ve been trying really hard to be a decent person out there lately, so forgive me if ’mysterious tree cult offers free powers’ doesn’t exactly scream no strings attached."

"The fate of the world is genuinely at stake," Arthur said, his tone steady and entirely sincere now. "And you’ll play a part in protecting it. Everyone standing in this room is doing precisely the same thing you’re about to. You’re one of the good guys now, Frost. Follow us."

Frost opened her mouth to argue further, then closed it again, glancing uncertainly toward Kara.

"Trust us," Kara said, gentle but sure.

Frost let out a long, exasperated breath. "...Okay. Fine! Not like I have a choice with all of you being here.."

Arthur gestured toward the ring of statues surrounding them. "These represent the Monarchs," he said. "And that.." he nodded toward the low, dark altar at the chamber’s center, "..is, admittedly, a sacrificial altar. Though I promise you, we won’t be needing it today."

Both Frost and Beast Boy went visibly pale at the mention of the word sacrificial.

"I’m sorry, the what now?" Frost started.

"Not needing it," Arthur repeated, mostly to reassure them both. "You have my word."

He raised one hand toward the dim, unclaimed statues, and violet-black darkness began pouring from them in slow, gathering streams, converging on his open palm. Then, faster than any of them could properly track, he moved among them Ivy, Frost, Beast Boy, Zatanna, and Clark and opened a shallow, precise cut across each of their palms in turn, the motion so quick that even Clark, eyes wide, didn’t manage to actually see it happen.

"That was fast," Clark said, blinking, staring down at the thin line of blood welling on his own palm.

"He was rather gentle with us," Kara said.

Arthur thrust his hand forward, and the gathered darkness surged outward in five distinct streams, converging on the fresh wounds. All five of them stiffened at once, a visible struggle crossing their features as something ancient and vast pressed into them, before finally, one by one, settling. Their eyes flared, gold for Zatanna, a cold, pale blue for Frost, a deep, verdant green for Ivy, a wild, shifting amber for Beast Boy, and a brilliant, star-white light for Clark before dimming back to normal.

The statues around them blazed fully alight.

"Congratulations," Arthur said, lowering his hand. "You’re all Monarchs now."

Frost stared down at her own palm, now fully healed, flexing her fingers slowly. "Wow," she said, something like genuine astonishment breaking through her earlier hostility. "I actually...I know what the hell this is now. All of it. Just, all at once."

"Like I said," Arthur said. "Once you have the power, the rest comes with it."

"Why did you trust us with this?" Ivy asked quietly, studying the statue now glowing behind her. "Either of us?"

"Because I believe there’s good in both of you," Arthur said simply.

"Mainly," Raven added, with a faint, dry smile, "because you helped out during the Monarch gate incident. That counted for quite a lot, in his book."

Ivy’s mouth curved into a slow, delighted smile as she studied her new statue further. "The Plague Monarch," she said. "Interesting. It seems I can control insects, then.. all kinds, I’d imagine, not just the ones I’ve already got an understanding with." Her eyes gleamed. "I could get used to this."

Beast Boy, meanwhile, stood very still, staring down at his own hands with a deeply uncertain expression.

"What a weird feeling," he said.

"What are you feeling?" Arthur asked.

"...Nothing," Beast Boy said. "That’s exactly why it’s weird."

"If you weren’t compatible," Arthur said mildly, "you would have died. Heart giving out, most likely, within seconds."

Beast Boy’s head snapped up. "And you didn’t think to mention that before doing it?!"

"Would it have changed your answer?"

"...No, but I would’ve liked the option to be scared about it beforehand!"

Clark, still staring off into some middle distance, let out a low, wondering breath. "My," he said quietly. "The knowledge I just... that’s a great deal to take in all at once."

"I trust all of you to use what you’ve been given wisely," Arthur said, his tone turning more serious now, sweeping across the five of them in turn. "For the good of Earth, and the wider universe both. And remember.." he turned, gesturing toward one statue standing apart from the rest, its surface carved with sweeping draconic wings, "...that one is still our enemy. He’ll show himself again eventually. He knows the two of us can’t coexist in the same universe for long, and when he comes, he’ll likely try to court one of you into an alliance against me." His eyes hardened slightly. "Which is precisely why I chose all of you. Because that isn’t going to happen."

Frost crossed her arms, shaking her head slowly, some of her earlier hostility finally giving way to acceptance. "This is not how I planned my day going," she muttered. "Now apparently I’ve got a whole world of idiot elves to look after or something.."

Arthur smiled. Kara laughed outright, unable to help herself.

"Sorry, I guess?" Raven offered, entirely unapologetic.

"You should be!" Frost said, though the corner of her mouth had, despite everything, begun to twitch upward into a smile.

/-\

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