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Chapter 166: The Darkness In All Of Us I
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"What happened to her?" Selina gently whispered, making sure not to wake up Harley who was sleeping in Ian's embrace.
"She... She graduated." Ian murmured as he caressed her hair.
Selina noticed the traces of tears on Harley's face, so she didn't say anything. Instead, she just took place on the other side of Ian, resting her head on his shoulder, "You seem out of it..."
"Just thinking about a few things," Ian whispered back, seeming in a daze as he eyed the universe through the Grey Rose's observatory.
All that could be seen, however, were lights, or energies swimming alongside the ship. That and darkness as usual.
The ship was in the process of warming, using the warp drive to reach a certain destination in a matter of minutes, or hours depending on the place.
Minutes and hours were of course nothing in space, not in a place where the measure of distance is light years.
"We're going back home?" Selina didn't pursue the topic any further but asked something else instead.
"Only you two. Help Layla with something. I'll be away for another week or so." Ian nodded.
"I see. You noticed, right? Zatanna's behavior." Selina spoke, drawing a look of surprise out of Ian. Truly, her senses were getting more surprising by the day.
"I did though I'm surprised you did too considering she was using magic to hide her reaction," Ian responded.
"Call it a Cat's sixth sense," Selina chuckled before adding, "But are you sure about her? You know she doesn't like murder and crime, so is it a good idea to force her into this path?"
"She's forcing herself into this path, one she knows she'd have to walk one day. She's just not realizing how evil this path can be... Or perhaps she's in denial." Ian shrugged.
"Or perhaps she's here to keep an eye on you? To make sure you don't go too far, and to just stay by your side... You're quite the charmer after all." Selina bit on his neck after she spoke, almost as if it was a mark of territory, her show of jealousy.
Selina even showed him her neck, insinuating the obvious to her. She wanted him to complete the ritual, an odd animalistic ritual.
"Perhaps," Ian let out a chuckle before bringing Selina closer, and he too left a mark on her, following in her steps.
They were quite the odd couple as they didn't mind acting in some odd ways just for their partner, ways unnatural to their usual worldview, just like how Selina accepted Ivy.
Or perhaps they're just crazy, and measuring them by common sense is a mistake in the first place.
"Is Layla okay?" Selina cozily wondered as she dove even deeper into Ian's embrace.
"She should be, but just in case, support her. Only if she needs support however." Ian let out an odd smile. He above everyone else knows that she might not need help at all.
He was watching over her after all, and he knows just what kind of demon she can be, especially after her latest transformation.
She basically became an immortal. She can still be killed, but her vampirism made that relatively hard, especially since she inherited vampirism directly from Cain.
She has grown younger as a result, looking absolutely gorgeous, more than she ever thought herself to be.
Her personality, however, didn't change at all. She was still the same person Ian knows her to be if not a bit more extreme, just a bit.
"Too dangerous to be left alive," Layla mumbled as she stood up, frowning at her bloody state.
"A monster!" Her adversary murmured back in what could be assumed to be hopelessness, and he screamed in pain. The man was in a battle suit of sorts, one broken down, giving view to his receding blonde hair.
"Tell me. Where is he?" Layla questioned as she stood before the man, looking down on him. The man couldn't escape because he had no legs to walk on.
"Do you thi..." The man was called the Calculator, someone who built many battle suits capable of analyzing opponents' fighting patterns, allowing him to win most of the time.
Unfortunately or fortunately, he was no more as Layla decapitated him the moment his words hinted he won't tell her, no hesitation because hesitation is defeat.
"A bit troublesome," She murmured with an even bigger frown, eyeing the chaos around her. Hundreds of bodies, most were humans but some seemed to be robots.
Puddles of blood. Scattered machinery. Scattered body parts. That's all that could be seen around her.
"None of this needed to happen..."
"Well, let's treat it like it never happened then." Someone responded to her as she started feeling pain in her head again.
The voice's source wasn't far from her, a body that still has a few words left spoke before completely dying out.
"No." That was Layla's simple answer as she continued to resist the enemy's continuous attempts to invade her mind and take control of her.
He was one of the most troublesome enemies she encountered so far because he can read their minds.
Not just that, he can control people, and he's doing a very good job breaking into her mind despite her unimaginable will and vampirism.
It all started with something simple, the Secret Society of Super-Villains tried to gain a foothold in the Roses by controlling some of its people.
Some of the super Villains even joined the Roses, trying to quickly rise through the ladder in some unconventional ways.
They did a good job, especially with someone like a psychic supporting them. He was, in fact, called Doctor Psychic, one of the core members of the society of villains.
However, the way the Roses were set up made it impossible for someone to take over, but easy to notice when someone tries, so it took a while but eventually, the Roses noticed the uninvited guests in their midst.
What followed was a massacre, done by Layla alone. She was basically the sole leader of the Roses in Ian's absence to the point even Ralf listens to her.
She acted swift by assembling most of the Roses into specific places, magical places. Ian made precociousness, knowing of the danger of mind control.
So he set up a few magical areas that can cancel certain effects only if one is within.
Directly after came the hunt, a hunt so bloody and dark it made even the Society of villains afraid. Even a sneaking suspicion was enough for the dark fangs to slice, Layla was ruthless.
But what was even more terrifying was that the Roses accepted her ruthlessness with open arms. In fact, some of them even jumped at the opportunity to be killed by her or cleansed I should say.
The purge went spectacularly well, and only then did the Roses focus the entirety of their information network to find out who was targeting them.
Layla didn't hesitate for a second to start hunting them down, each and every one of them. The dead calculator was the second of the core villains that fell under her darkness.
As for the common members, too many to count died, and she wasn't done just yet.
"Do not be afraid. I'll find you, most definitely." Layla spoke as her body started to disintegrate, literally. It was turning into a clump of darkness, particles of pure darkness.
And almost instantly, she vanished along the darkness of the night. Today was a silent night in Gotham, one that will not end for a while. It was a very long dark night of fear for Doctor Psycho.
He acted all arrogant and the such, but he was in reality almost on the verge of spoiling his pants. Every villain of the society in the city was exterminated, all but him.
He knew she won't stop, so he didn't stop trying to intrude into her mind either. He could still sense her, a clump of darkness moving through the sewers, searching every nook and cranny of the dark side of the city.
He even went as far as to control the body living on this side of the city to stop her, killing her was a whimsical dream.
He was starting to get more and more hopeless... Until he suddenly found all of her resistance disappearing, and he could finally enter her mind.
His hopelessness made him ignore the strangeness of the situation as he dove in with excitement. Only...