I don't own anything but original characters I may add.

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Chapter 17 - Seance

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"OF ALL GHOSTS, THE GHOSTS OF OLD LOVED ONES ARE THE WORST" {Arthur Conan Doyle}

It was another week before Wally and I felt ready to return to our semi-normal lives without the need of each other's reassurance constantly. He started attending classes again, and I returned to my regular hanging around and training routine- I really needed to find another hobby.

My first week away from Wally, I spent most of my down time paging through the spellbooks I stole from Klarion when I left. Along with practicing simple spells I had formerly skipped to get the hang of general magic, I found a spell I'd never seen before. Whether it was because I'd never been actively searching for it, or because something higher was at play, I didn't know. But it didn't matter because it was time to use it.

So, I pulled my phone out and sent a quick text to Alfred asking him to pick up some supplies on his trip to the store. It was an hour before I got a text informing me that he'd returned with everything I asked for.

"May I ask why you requested that I buy 'seance materials'?" Alfred tentatively held out a plastic bag. I took a peek inside, glad that he could gather everything from the list I gave him. The things I need weren't exceptionally rare, but they weren't your run-of-the-mill items either.

"Reasons," I answered vaguely, smiling while taking the bag from his hand, "I'm assuming the ballroom is open for use?"

Alfred nodded in response. I walked to the ballroom after that. With a bag of seance materials in my hand, and a spellbook tucked in between my arm and torso, I felt like I was finally coming into my magical side. It was nice, and it made me feel whole. The knowledge that I was using a different form of it, and was actively making Klarion mad because of it helped me feel good about it as well.

The Wayne Manor ballroom was fit for royalty. Considering that Bruce held a charity gala at least twice a year, consisting of not only the elites of Gotham, but of many originating from around the globe, it made sense that it could take your breath away as soon as you stepped inside. It was a shame it wasn't used more commonly.

Walking to the very center of the room, I dropped the bag unto the floor with an ungracefulness unfit for the overall atmosphere. Still, no one was there to yell at me for it so I continued on with my preparations.

"Tale as old as time," I sang under my breath, reminiscent of my dance with Wally in a London ballroom dedicated to Beauty and the Beast.

From the bag, I produced several candles. Purple and white. Each color was significant not just to the spell, but to magic overall. The same could be said with a yellow or green candle. With a resounding snap from my fingers, the curtains were drawn, and the candles were placed and lit in a circle surrounding my body.

I crossed my legs and settled on the floor. The chill rose from the marble and snuck through my jeans, causing me to shiver. Closing my eyes, I focused on my surroundings, however calm they may have seemed.

Even in the complete isolation of the ballroom, within the darkness that I called home, there was noise. Creaking from the aged manor, chatter from the animals just outside the windows, and whispers of the mysterious breeze travelling around me.

I wasn't alone.

Wasn't alone.

Never alone.

"Hermanubis, keeper of The gate, Lord of the road between life and death, I call upon you. A follower of the ancient ways calls out to you. Open the gate between the Realm of the Living and the Realm of the Dead, for I would speak with my mother."

Waiting for a shift in the room's energy, there was nothing. I sighed in disappointment. I hadn't necessarily gone through a lot of trouble to create the seance; I hadn't even been the one to buy the supplies for it, but being able to speak to my mother was important on many levels.

Opening my eyes, I leaned forward and blew out the closest candles in front of me. I felt like a complete idiot for thinking I could use complicated magic so early on in the learning process. My heritage didn't matter if I didn't have the proper lessons beforehand.

"Why the long face?"

Gasping in shock, I practically jumped out of my skin. Spinning around, the old pictures and blurred figure I had seen in my dreams solidified. My mother smiled at my reaction. She was beautiful in the way only a mother could achieve. The white glow surrounding her body made me wonder if she had become an angel in the afterlife.

"Jesus," I breathed out.

The woman laughed, the sound a melody of bells ringing in my ears, "No honey, Mom."

"I know that but, wow. I um- I don't really know where to start. I should have planned this out better. I've never met you before so this is kind of weird. I mean, I've seen a picture, and had dreams. But you're really you now. Have you... have you watched what I've done?"

"I have. We have lots to talk about I'm sure. I'm here as long as you need me to be. No time limits, no loopholes. I'm here."

I'm here. Those words should have made me so angry. I'm here? Where was she when I was getting tortured, when I was stuck underground for sixteen years, when I had been crying and struggling through figuring out who I was? She was dead. And that . was why I couldn't be angry. Because while living is certainly harder than giving into the void, she didn't have a choice.

Lighting the candles again, I sighed and crossed my arms. A lot of my traits came from my mother, only a few smaller ones originating from Klarion."

"I only have two questions I can think of right now. But I can call you back, right?" she nodded, "Good, so I'll ask any new ones later. The first one is, why did you love Klarion?"

My mom waved her hand, and the ballroom shifted into a common street. Droplets plopped onto my exposed skin and dampened my clothes. It was raining.

"I was always into bad boys," a woman, Mom, ran down the street in a hurry to beat the rain and get where she needed to be, "Klarion being the baddest. But part of dating guys like that was to try to fix them. To bring out whatever good they held."

My mother stopped under the small bus station, groaning upon discovering how many leaks in the roof there were. Suddenly, the rain stopped hitting her, and her clothes magically dried.

"What?" Her voice carried over the rain.

"You look cold," Klarion stepped under the leaky roof, no water touching either of them while he was there, "I'm Klarion."

"Jess."

The street morphed into a hospital room. My mom was holding a baby in her arms. Me. But Mom was paler, and weaker than she should have been after giving birth. It looked like she was hanging onto life my a string, and death was fraying it with scissors.

"(Y/n)," past mom whispered to the nearest nurse. The nurse nodded and scurried off to take down my name.

Mom stepped up behind me, observing her past self sadly, "I thought I was changing him. Perhaps I was, and that's why he did it."

"He poisoned you."

"The doctors told me it was Postpartum System Shut Down. In other words, my body was giving up. My bodily systems collapsed past the point of help. No one could explain why. The Post-Partum System Shut Down thing sounded like something they came up with on the spot too, as if it would make things better."

Klarion took me out of my mother's arms, and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I'm sorry."

"I didn't know what he meant at the time. And I didn't have the chance to ask before I died. I woke up in the afterlife and had to watch you grow up from afar."

The room changed once again, and we were in an alley. Baby me was in a basket, a note attached. It was Lex's famous bedtime story. Dead bodies surrounded my basket, but what concerned me was Lex standing over me. He picked up the basket, read the note, and screened the dead bodies boredly.

"Perfect. Let's go home, (Y/n)."

We were back in the ballroom once again. I turned to my mother. She was crying, laughing when she realized she was caught.

"I missed everything. Your first words, your first steps. I should have been there. Really there. Sometimes, I wondered what would have happened if I managed to pull through, but there's no point thinking about that now."

"Mom, Klarion did this to you. Whoever you fell in love with, he killed him with you. There is no good in him anymore. That being said, question number two is; how do we kill him?"

Mom sighed loudly, frowning, "From what I learned when I knew him, his power is more than his form and that stupid cat. He draws it from chaos. To take away that power..."

That's right, that stupid little tabby that followed Klarion everywhere. At the compound, the cat was usually wherever he wanted to be, free to roam.

"What about his power?"

"There's a spell. A very hard spell. It stops all chaos for a few moments, basically pauses the world. That would drain his power to the point of being able to kill him."

"Would it stop everything?"

"No. There are different types of chaos. The chaos or fighting you would use to create the spell wouldn't count. The heroes would be safe."

"And once Klarion is dead?"

"The world resume. There are other, smaller chaos lords out there that will live. Chaos will never be over, but perhaps removing Klarion from the universe would be a step in the right direction."

"Thanks for this, Mom," instinctively reaching out to hug her, I reeled back when I realized I could actually touch her, "What?"

"You have magic, of course you can touch me. Now come here," my mom pulled me into a tight hug, tears as cold as ice burning my shoulder, "Don't forget me, alright? I would have been there for you if I could. You know that."

"I do. Goodbye Mom."

With a bright flash of light she was gone. The candles blew out, and the curtains blew open in the process; taking out one light source and replacing it with another.

Humming to myself, I picked up the formerly lit candles and placed them back in the plastic store bag. I decided to leave the curtains open. They tied the room together and made it look less gothic- unlike the rest of the manor which so desperately needed some flowers or something.

Clutching my spellbook close to my chest, I sighed, took one last look around the ballroom, and left.

~*~

"Miss (Y/n) performed a seance today," Alfred stated casually over a casserole dinner that night. Everyone around the table hummed in acknowledgment, as if it were the most casual thing in the world.

"Who were you speaking to?" Bruce asked, taking a sip of his wine and or whiskey- it depended on how strong of a drink he needed.

"My mother."

The clatter of silverware paused. I looked up from my plate, raising my brows upon noticing that everyone was staring at me.

"What did you talk to her about?" Dick finally asked after forcing down his half-finished bite.

"I um, wanted to talk to the team about this the next time we were at the cave together... I have a way to stop Klarion. For good. And I don't mean locking him up either. I know you guys have a hangup about killing people, but this is something I have to do."

Once again the clattering of silverware stopped. Even Steph and Cassandra, newly 'adopted' Batfamily members had their mouths agape. Stopping a Lord of Chaos? Unheard of and impossible. Well, before I got in contact with my mom.

Jason was the first one to break the silence, "Aw yeah, I'm not the only villain killer in the family! Suck on that, Bruce!"

"Really funny, Jay," Tim stood to put his plate in the sink.

"I think I'm adorable."