Population Boom, Hogwarts Part 18

"And we're good," Constantine announced as Zatanna ran out of the door to the stairs, relieved that his cobbled together spell had actually worked and that Zatanna had finished taking care of her mission in time.

"At least Beast Boy isn't here," Raven complained as she finished stripping, wanting to make sure that she didn't lose her costume when she used Mist's spell to teleport back.

Starfire snickered, fairly sure seeing Raven unclothed would halt his mental processes.

'Yeah, he'd never shut up,' Mist mused, appreciating the view of the naked grey skinned hero but trying not to stare as she had enough things to worry about.

Zatanna stopped next to the group and chanted, "Thgis slive morf seoreh eht kaolc!"

"We'll be back in five, start burning the doll in three," Constantine told Mist as he reached into the ritual circle and picked up one of the two Scion action figures that he'd linked to Scion.

"Almost forgot," Mist offered as he handed John a vial filled with a purple liquid and a copy of the stamp that increased people's mental defenses. He started the old fashioned stopwatch that Constantine had loaned him. "Three minutes."

"Thanks." Constantine put the vial and action figure in the pockets of his pants, took his trenchcoat off, tossed it on the hood of a nearby car and blew Zatanna a kiss, "Love ya," he told Zatanna as he grabbed Raven's hand and drew on her magic.

"Don't…" Zatanna trailed off as Constantine and Raven vanished. "Bastard better make it back," she complained, more than a little bit worried about her friends.

"What are the chances of Scion noticing them?" Amy asked warily, still not sure what they could do against Scion as they hadn't really explained anything beyond the fact that two of the heroes were going to teleport to the dimension where Scion's real body was hiding so they could kill him.

Zatanna turned to look at Amy. "Practically zero, but the spell is going to burn out in a couple of minutes because of Raven's connection to Trigon and the fact that they're summoning him."

"Your spell just has to hold until they teleport back, twenty seconds tops after they summon him," Mist assured her, keeping an eye on the stopwatch.

"It might be enough," Zatanna replied, fairly sure Constantine's plan was going to blow up in his face or rather everyone else's faces since he normally survived his own insanity.

0o0o0

The pair appeared in the middle of a rocky plain, crystal spires thrusting up out of the ground around them like quills from a planet sized hedgehog.

"This is a horrible idea," Raven complained as she held her arm over the car sized rock that Constantine had quickly painted with runes and used his pocket knife to make a small cut on the back of her arm.

"I'm aware," Constantine admitted as he watched Raven's blood land on one of the runes, causing it to start glowing with a sickly purple glow. "Once he starts coming through the portal, you need to teleport after I stamp your ass."

"What about you?" Raven asked, having noticed that he said you instead of we.

"I need to stay here to make sure he can't escape," Constantine replied.

Raven glared at John when she realized he'd been planning on staying all along. "You're a bastard, you know that, right? You told Zatanna that you loved her and you're planning on sacrificing yourself?"

"Story of my life," Constantine replied with a faint smile. "Everyone dies, if you're lucky your death matters."

"This is my fault, I should be the one that stays," Raven argued.

"It's not your fault, you can't pick your parents," Constantine replied as he pulled a couple of crystals filled with mana out of his pockets along with the stamp that Mist had given him. "Besides, if I die here, there's a good chance that I'll never end up in our version of Hell."

"What do you want me to tell Zatanna?" Raven asked as she moved her arm around, making sure to drop blood on all of the runes.

"Make up something heroic," Constantine replied as he used the crystals that Mist had given him to start empowering the runes, using Raven's blood to reinforce the connection so that he could physically pull her father into the dimension completely, rather than just an avatar.

"Pretty sure this counts," Raven told him, trying not to cry at the idea of Constantine sacrificing himself to save everyone.

'This better fucking work,' Constantine thought as he fed magic into the ritual that should summon Trigon and enrage the demon lord to the point of insanity, glad that he didn't have to use his own magic since he didn't want his magic tainted by the ritual or connected to it, since Trigon might be able to reach through the spell and kill him or worse, corrupt him.

Raven pressed her hand to the cut she'd made on her arm when the last rune started glowing and a massive blue and black portal appeared in the air. 'This is going to suck.' She couldn't help the feeling of dread that came over her as a massive red hand reached out of the portal.

'Just a little bit more and then the real show starts,' Constantine thought as he dropped one of the crystals when it ran out of mana. He waited until the building sized demon lord stepped out of the portal and slammed the portal shut. He stepped forward and stamped Raven's butt with the mental defense stamp, masking Trigon's connection with her thanks to Zatanna's cloaking spell pushing the defenses over the edge. "Go!"

Raven used the spell crystal that Mist had given her to cast his return spell, reappearing in the parking garage where they'd set everything up.

'Five minutes,' Constantine mused as he pulled the vial of liquid out of his pocket and drank it when Trigon turned and glared at him or possibly the runes that he'd used to summon him since Trigon was massive enough that it was hard to tell where he was looking. He blinked as a beam of energy washed over the area hitting Trigon, obliterating the summoning circle and making him really glad that Mist's invulnerability elixir lived up to his name as the clearing looked like it had been hit by a nuke.

"Treachery!" Trigon bellowed as he turned and tossed a tsunami of magic at the golden skinned figure that had appeared and attacked him, deciding that he must have been responsible for killing his daughter before he could absorb her magic and soul.

Constantine ignored the continuous and destructive blasts of energy that wrecked everything in the area as he poured magic into the binding spell, wanting to make absolutely sure Trigon couldn't flee or escape that world, in case Scion couldn't actually kill him. He was a touch surprised when Scion managed to brute force a solution after two minutes of fighting by teleporting something into Trigon's mouth that exploded and obliterated his head. "Huh."

Scion flew over and blasted Constantine with stilling and stared at him in confusion when it didn't work. "How did you defend against that?"

"Fuck off mate," Constantine replied sarcastically as he flipped him off and used his magic to float in the air. "You don't have the stones to kill me." He wasn't surprised when Scion started to rain hell on earth down on him. He smirked when black flames erupted out of Scion's eyes and the creature screamed in agony. "Bring it poof! Give me a fight ya wanker!"

Constantine laughed as his invulnerability soaked the nukes or whatever the hell Scion dropped on him over the next couple of minutes as the avatar slowly burned up because of the black flames. "Do you want to see a magic trick?" he asked when Scion stopped blasting him for a couple of seconds to study him.

"What are you?" Scion asked, angry that he couldn't kill the creature floating in the air in front of him.

"I'm a god!" Constantine lied with a smirk on his face, thinking about the old Ghostbuster movie.

"Gods don't exist," Scion stated, “there is only us.”

"I wish," Constantine replied as the potion wore off, sending all of the damage that he'd taken over the last five minutes through the action figure that he'd enchanted like a voodoo doll and into Scion's critical systems, causing the avatar to fall apart. He quickly cast Mist's recall spell and teleported back to Earth Bet, wanting to avoid the explosion that was probably coming.

Zatanna punched John's shoulder when he reappeared without his clothes. "How the hell are you still alive?!"

"Nice to see you too love," Constantine replied with a smirk. "I had this glorious plan to go out like a hero, but then I realized that I can't take you to dinner if I die, so I had to come up with a new plan. Shame it cost me my shoes, I just got them properly broken in."

"I gave him a potion of invulnerability, it gives you five minutes of absolute invulnerability but at the end of the five minutes, you take all of the damage that you would have taken during those five minutes," Mist offered, not particularly surprised that Constantine had managed to survive.

"How come you didn't say anything?" Zatanna asked as John grabbed his trenchcoat and put it on.

"I wasn't sure it would work and I'd rather everyone remembered me as a hero rather than someone that screwed up their plan," Constantine replied with a grin.

"What happened to my father?" Raven asked, hoping that her diminished connection meant that he was dead.

"Scion dropped a nuke in his mouth or something like it. The nuke destroyed his head but I'm not sure if he's actually dead or if he's going to regenerate," Constantine admitted. "Do you think any of the local bars are open, I need a drink…" he trailed off as a dark haired girl wearing a black form fitting costume that hugged her curves appeared next to a handsome man with dirty blond hair wearing jeans and a t-shirt and holding a flaming sword. "Shit."

"Be not afraid!" the man with the flaming sword announced in a voice that echoed, causing the girl in the costume to reach up and punch his shoulder.

"That never helps," Taylor complained.

"Sorry, it's tradition," Micheal replied with amusement as he let his flaming sword vanish.

"Skitter?" Amy asked in disbelief as she stared at the girl she'd watched die.

"Sorry, I'm not your Taylor," Taylor replied. "Don't worry, we're here to help."

Mist sighed as a dozen masked angels appeared in the middle of the parking lot holding a variety of weapons.

"You can't be here!" one of the masked angels screamed at the group.

"Angels?" Constantine asked warily.

"They sort of look like Thanagarians," Starfire mused as she studied the new arrivals.

"This is our world, you can't interfere," the angel snapped.

One of the other angels piped up, "You should have let the sinners die!"

"I'm just here for contract work," Taylor replied as she walked over and tapped Amy's nose with her finger and used her power to change Amy's shard based power into a conceptual power so she wouldn't have to worry about her shard influencing her or killing her if she left the dimensional cluster the shards could reach. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."

"I don't care," the angel snapped as he lunged forward with his spear.

Micheal resummoned his sword, teleported into the angel's path and cut his spear in half then kicked the angel in the nuts before anyone else could even blink, causing the so-called angel to fall to the ground curled around its crushed testicles. "Huh, I guess they technically have proper equipment."

"You're courting death!" one of the angels shouted as he stepped forward to attack him.

"Wrong genre," Micheal replied with a sigh, feeling a bit insulted by the idiots. "Look, we're just here to fix a couple of things so the Earth keeps spinning and then we'll be gone and not your problem."

"Kill him!" the angel holding half a spear shouted.

Micheal sighed then stepped forward and slashed his sword, cutting the angel's head off before any of the so-called angels could even react.

"What the fuck?!" several of the angels blurted out when they realized that he'd just killed one of them without even trying.

"Does anyone else want to earn a Darwin award?" Micheal asked as he glared at the angels, hoping they pushed their luck so he could deal with them.

"Grab a hostage!" one of the angels shouted.

Mist gestured and set that particular angel on fire with his Eternal Black Flames, causing him to scream in agony as he fell to the ground burning. "Who's next?" He demanded as he let the black flames dance over his hands, figuring he had enough juice left for one or two more shots after channeling almost everything he had into killing Scion. "Give me a reason."

One of the angels pulled out a scroll. "You're in violation of-" he cut off as Mist's black fire consumed him.

"Anyone else?" Mist asked, doing his best not to fall over as he felt a wave of weakness wash over him as he drained the tank for his black flames.

"You'll pay for this!" one of the other angels shouted.

"Fuck it," Micheal complained then danced between the raindrops of time and killed all of them before anyone could blink.

Constantine shivered as he watched the man in jeans and a t-shirt flicker and all of the 'angels' fall apart. "Nice moves."

"I'm out of practice," Micheal replied with a shrug.

"Do you know how much paperwork that's going to cause?" Taylor asked.

Micheal snapped his fingers and called all of the corpses to turn to dust. "No evidence, no paperwork. Besides, you're doing contract work, it's Lisa's job to do the paperwork."

"Point," Taylor agreed with a slowly growing smile, suddenly feeling much better about the entire mess.

"Can someone explain what's going on?" Amy asked, completely bewildered.

Taylor glanced at the rest of the people then shrugged. "Long story short, the insane collection of dimensions that the Entities can reach is nothing more than a drop in an infinite ocean of dimensions that make up the multiverse. I'm basically a version of Taylor Hebert that got the power to turn shards into companion spirits and use elemental magic. Once Scion was defeated, an Agent for a multidimensional Company hired me for some contract work."

"Doing what?" Amy asked.

"Fixing shards and stepping in if one of the local heroes fails or needs a hand," Taylor replied with a shrug.

Amy glanced at the man with the flaming sword. "And your friend?"

"I'm on vacation," Micheal replied with a grin as he let his sword vanish.

"This is a vacation?" Amy asked in disbelief.

Micheal laughed. "Compared to dealing with family squabbles, this is a cakewalk." He frowned slightly when he got a vision of the future. "I'll be right back, I have to have a chat with an idiot."

"Have fun," Taylor told her friend and bodyguard. "I'll stick with the heroes until you're back."

"Sounds good," Micheal replied then teleported to Eidolon's house to have a chat with the idiot before he summoned another endbringer because he didn't have anything to fight.

"Now what?" Raven asked.

"I could use a drink and a pizza. Stripclub?" Constantine suggested to Zatanna with a grin, figuring she'd hit his shoulder.

"Sure," Zatanna replied with a shrug, deciding to play along since they'd survived.

"I'm not old enough," Amy complained.

"Put a mask on, you're a hero, no one is going to card you," Taylor suggested, fairly sure Amy needed to relax in the worst way possible.

0o0o0

"How many copies of this grave have you visited?" Micheal asked as he walked over to where Taylor was standing next to her mother's grave or at least her alternate's mother.

"This year? Seven," Taylor replied with a sigh. "Can you tell me why I can't resurrect either of them?"

"They're not dead," Micheal replied as he glanced at the grave markers for Annette and Taylor's alternate.

"This better not be one of the worlds where Mom turns out to be the hat lady," Taylor complained.

"No, your alternate snuck out of heaven when Danny triggered with a projection of her and her mother," Micheal replied with a grin.

"That's new," Taylor admitted.

"Are you surprised?" Micheal asked.

“Not really, us Taylor’s are hard to pin down,” she said smugly.

“But not shoot in the back of the head,” Michael added dryly.

Taylor winced. “Yeah, little bit of a problem with that.”

0o0o0

"Why? How?" Danny asked as he glanced back and forth between his wife and daughter, trying to figure out how they were alive and if he'd lost his mind.

“I can answer that,” Taylor said, “but I want clothes first. Be right back.”

The two watched as their now tiger striped feline like daughter bounced up the stairs, stepping on air rather than the stairs themselves.

“Don’t ask me, my last thought was ‘Oh shit!’ as some asshat hit my car,” Annette said.

“You died,” Danny said numbly.

“I look pretty good for being dead,” Annette said smugly, turning and twisting in ways that caused him to even have a harder time thinking. “Not sure about the tail though, may get in the way.”

“Okay, I’m back,” Taylor announced. “Queen Administrator is the power I got since both of you refused to trigger. Now, here’s where things get a bit strange…”

“Oh, this is where that happens,” Annette said dryly, grinning slightly.

“Yes,” Taylor agreed. “I have a lot to tell you but to sum it up… I was a cape, died trying to save the world, my power decided to change things up as Dad finally triggered and decided to resurrect us.”

“So…” Annette waved a hand at herself.

“Ah, well to make sure she wouldn’t need a new host while dealing with… things,” Taylor said delicately not quite sure how to describe QA’s take over of the network now that Scion was dead, “so she co-opted the shard that Siberian used so we are both pretty much unstoppable and can keep Dad safe and happy.”

“So you’re projections of my subconscious?” Danny asked sadly.

Annette snorted. “No, I still know all the stuff I never told you.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Well I never told you for a reason, but I suppose I can share a few things,” Annette said with a sigh. “I hate the back hair you started growing but could never figure out how to convince you to wax.”

Danny blinked. “That’s kind of hard to prove, it might just be a product of my subconscious,” he pointed out.

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “How about the fact that I hid a present for you inside the bottom of the vase on top of the TV that we keep the fake flowers in?”

Danny walked over to the TV and pulled out the fake flowers sticking up from it and turned it over, a small box falling out.

“Happy Birthday!” she cheered.

He opened the box up and found a high end watch which he stared at for a moment before beginning to smile, his eyes tearing up. “It’s real, you’re both alive again!”

“Dear, there is a reason I didn’t put on pants, I knew he would react this way,” Annette told her daughter. “You may want to go visit friends for… a couple of hours.”

“Friends… Well, there are a few people I should say hi to,” Taylor decided with an evil grin, pointedly ignoring her parents as she sped to the door, not wanting to see how her mom calmed her dad down. ‘I wonder what Emma’s been up to…’

0o0o0