Klarion groaned, pushing himself up, or at least trying to. He felt broken, and more than a little disoriented. He attempted to look around, but the world seemed to be spinning. Nothing he could make out seemed familiar. "Where the hell am I?" he murmured under his breath.

A voice huffed from across the room, sounding half annoyed, half relieved. "I don't know how you are already awake, but at least you woke up." There stood a man; he was on the smallish side, maybe not even quite five feet tall, wearing purple and orange clothes, and clearly elderly. He stood there looking authoritative yet with hidden depths of gentleness that made Klarion's stomach churn because it reminded him of his mother.

"Who are you?" Klarion asked, making no effort to mask his distrust.

The man sighed, "Telling you compromises me greatly. I suppose not telling you still compromises me, though... So if you don't know, I am known as Mxyzptlk."

"Mxyz- What?" Klarion exclaimed, already confused, "Well, whoever you are, what did you do to me?"

"Pardon?" Mxyzptlk asked in pointed tone.

"Well, I just woke from- whatever the hell happened, I don't know where I am, and you're the only one here. So I wanted to know, what the hell, man?"

Mxyzptlk blinked in surprise. "I did nothing to you. I found you like this, floating between dimensions. My best guess is that you were tampering with a spell of some sort you weren't ready for yet. You know, kid, you really should stay away from magic- at least until you are older."

"I'm an ageless lord of chaos!" Klarion growled, "I can do whatever I want!"

Mxyzptlk remained unphased by his words. "Whatever you are, and let it be known the you lying and telling the truth are of equal believability to me after all I've seen, you weren't ready for it. Not in that form, at least." He gestured to Klarion, who looked upon his own form with a mixture of pride and spite, an odd mix of feeling that he was familiar with. "What is an ageless lord of chaos, if I am to believe you, doing looking like that?"

Klarion scowled at Mxyzptlk. "It's just how I enjoy looking. People don't give a fuck about what kids do."

"Now, I know I've been lenient," Mxyzptlk murmured, still retaining his full composure, "But I would prefer it if we kept our vocabulary clean.

"No," Klarion snapped stubbornly.

Mxyzptlk shrugged, clearly not shaken by the boy's disobedience, nor any other thing he'd learned about Klarion. "I tried," he said calmly.

Klarion, glanced around. He was slowly gathering his bearings. He was lying in a bed in a strange room, with one window he could not see through for his position, even after he finally was able to push himself up into a seated position. The walls were bare and purple, the curtain obscuring the window even further were orange, and the blanket across him were also orange and purple, in a zigzagged pattern.

"Between his outfit and the decor, this Mxyz-whoever really likes this ugly color combo," Klarion thought to himself, "And even though I've never been here before, something is missing. Maybe I've been here before and forgot? No, this Mxyz guy would've recognized me then. Arg, if only my mind could stop spinning for five seconds, I could remember! Maybe Teekl can-"

"Teekl!" Klarion exclaimed suddenly.

"Come again?" Mxyzptlk asked. It had been a long time since he truly felt flabberghasted. In his opinion, this kid deserves an award or something.

Klarion looked up at him, and for the first time, Mxyzptlk saw something besides anger in Klarion's eyes. He saw vulnerability. "Teekl! They're my fa- uh, my cat."

"Oh, the cat. Yes, I found the cat with you. It was in worse condition than you."

Klarion's heart skipped a beat. "Was?" he asked, adding, "And Teekl is not an it! They're a They, and you will respect that!"

"My apologies," Mxyzptlk replied, not sounding apologetic in the slightest, prompting a vicious snarl from Klarion, "And your cat's fine. I took excellent care to heal them."

Klarion sighed in relief.

"And you don't need to hide it- Well, I suppose you can't hide it from me since I already know- I know a familiar when I see one. Teekl seems to be wonderful at their job. Although-" Mxyzptlk scanned Klarion up and down, "I suppose they could do better."

"Don't criticize them! Whatever happened was probably my fault, or, even more likely, some bumbling idiot interrupting my work!" Klarion shouted.

They stared at each other for a minute. In that minute, there were two brilliant moments, one of immense understanding, and one of immense miscommunication. The brilliant moment of understanding was with Mxyzptlk, who could see nearly see everything in Klarion's face. The anger that almost never faded, the spite over mistakes and showing signs of fear or weakness, an unchanging childish nature no matter how old he was, and yes, now Mxyzptlk could see the boy was being truthful about it all. The brilliant moment of miscommunication was with Klarion, who saw Mxyzptlk as too knowledgeable, too calm, too open yet too secretive all at once, and far too caring to be genuine. Klarion saw Mxyzptlk as a threat, just like he saw everything through his eyes clouded by rage and mind jumbled with chaotic power, just like every other damn thing he'd encountered in his very long life, everything he'd learned to hate, and he hated everything except Teekl.

Well, Klarion wasn't going to just stay like this any longer. He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling like he had jello for legs, yet determined not to fall, somehow managing to keep his balance. He took a shaky step towards the obnoxiously orange door.

"Woah there," Mxyzptlk called to him, "Chaos lord or not, you shouldn't be walking around quite yet, kid."
"Stop. Stop calling me kid. My name is Klarion," He yelped in frustration, "And I'm not a kid."
"You certainly whine like a kid," Mxyzptlk muttered, and began to chuckle. Klarion shot him a more demonic glare. Mxyzptlk stopped laughing.

Eventually, even on his wiggly legs, Klarion made it to them door. He opened it gently, despite his strong desire to fling it open with a dramatic flourish. He just would never been able to forgive himself (Probably) had Teekl been on the other side and had gotten hit during their recovery. Seeing that they weren't near the door, he called out "Teekl!"

The cat strutted up to him with a both a glare of bitter content and a pur of relief.

"We're leaving," Klarion remarked curtly, although he was fully aware that his powers were just barely usable in his current condition, even painfully easy things like teleporting to the Earth dimension..

"Now, Klarion," Teekl meowed, "Mister Mxyzptlk has been a very good host to us. Maybe you should give gratefulness a try."

Klarion shot him a look that firmly said no.

"Be careful, kid," Mxyzptlk said.

"I told you not to called me kid!" be snarled.

"Klarion, then," Mxyzptlk sighed in exasperation, "Watch out for yourself."

"Always have, always will," Klarion growled, not bothering to turn to face the man.

"Hey! You've always had me!" hissed Teekl, clearly not appreciating being undermined, even if indirected. Klarion shot them another look' this time it was a look of "Not now."

"You're reckless. You need to use more caution with your magic," Mxyzptlk continued.

"You don't know anything," Klarion mumbled, seething.

"I used to be like you," Mxyzptlk added, "Caught up in the frivolous lives of mortals, finding beauty in their pain, and wonder in how complex they were even though built so simply. It was an amazing chapter in my life which has since passes me by. I was just like you. You need guidance."

Even as the lord of chaos, the accuracy of the statement struck him as near eerie. He had found humans to be a depressingly, yet still somehow hilariously hopeless species, easily influenced and damaged, and so eager to damage and to love and to hate. Basically, the perfect toys. He found all he could reply is, "I have Teekl. I don't need you."

"I suppose you don't," Mxyzptlk remarked, shrugging like he didn't care.

Klarion stood in silence, preparing himself for the surge of magic that he would surely be drained of again once he was back on Earth. He wasn't quite fond of the idea of passing out again, but he wasn't going to say here with that.... Whatever the fuck it is. "Ready?" he asked Teekl. They meowed back a yes. Then in an instant, he was gone.