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UNKNOWN
Drake Lance
“Drake!” I hear an echoed scream as it sounds like Ollie’s voice. I look around as I’m surrounded by fire, chaos, destruction and pain. I hear a screech from what sounds to be a bird and turn towards the noise seeing the skyline of Star City collapse on itself as the fire devours it. I feel a strong heat of wind hit me and it blows me away as I fall on my back on the hot red dirt. The ground beneath me begins to shake and I get overwhelmed, scared, confused, and lost. I raise myself up, seeing a giant fire in the shape of a bird rise from the red dirt. I look directly at it, and I can sense anger, rage, and pain. Its energy is strong and the fire bird begins to grow bigger and bigger, spreading its huge wings over the red sky. “Don’t let it consume you.” I hear a British voice in the distance behind me and I get distracted. The bird grows large enough over me and begins to devour the ground. I begin to run away from the bird, but I’m not fast enough until I feel the heat of its fire catch up to me and devours me entirely. I get trapped in the fire of the bird and I scream as loud as I can while I begin to burn up but something about it feels so… good.
DRAKE’S APARTMENT
I wake up, sweating and breathing hard and rise myself up slowly. I look over at the clock on my night stand and see the time being exactly 3 am. Devil’s Hour. I look next to me, to see Ollie fully asleep as he’s unbothered by my panicking and this isn’t the first time these nightmares have happened. These nightmares are consistent, they’ve been happening more frequent and always wake me up at this time.
I hear a creak near a wall in my room and I turn my attention towards it as it’s a dark spot in my room with a slit of light from the window on the other side of my room. I stare at the spot and see two shadows stand next to each other leaning against the wall starring directly at me. As I continue to stare at the shadows they turn into Adrian Chase and Ra’s Al Ghul.
Ra’s Al Ghul smiles at me and creeping towards me slowly. I quickly grab the gun under my pillow and aim it at them as it’s my emergency gun. I never liked the idea of guns, but this is for emergency purposes only.
“You’re going to kill me again?” Ra’s says mocking me and I tilt my head as I’m not afraid to shoot at him. I’ve killed him before, and I’ll do it again. “You’re a fraud. You’re not as good as you think you are.” He tells me and I already know this, yet these shadows remind me of that.
“Go haunt someone else.” I whisper to not wake up Ollie and Ollie groans as hears me talk. I look over at him to see him toss himself around the other side and grab on to me. I look back at the wall to see them both gone and I put the gun away. I sigh in relief and quickly get up from the bed leaving Ollie behind and get dressed in what I can find in the dark.
I grab my black jeans, a black ‘Black Canary European tour‘ shirt, and layer it on with my black leather jacket. I head out of my room grabbing my wallet on the way and leave my apartment to take a walk and get some city air in my system. As I walk around, I begin to automatically walk to my go to bar in nights like these, which seem to be almost every night now.
I walk into my bar as it’s quiet and it’s my favorite bar in Star City. I look at posters of myself hung up on the walls, with my guitars that I donated to this bar to bring them in some customers. This bar is my secret undercover safe haven that nobody knows about, not even Ollie. I don’t plan to reveal this bar to anyone either.
I sit down in my usual bar stool and I see the owner, Donna, walk towards me with a soft smile. “The usual?” Donna asks me and I nod with a soft smile. She pours me a glass of her strongest whiskey and places it in front of me and I take out some cash from my pocket. “Let me guess… The nightmare?” Donna asks and I nod as I take a drink of the whiskey.
“It keeps getting worse.” I say and Donna feels empathetic towards me as she’s upset to hear this. Donna has become like a second mother to me, and a better mom figure than my mom will ever be to me.
“It’s just a nightmare Drake. Probably just made out of stress right?” She reassures me that it’s nothing but I know it isn’t. Nothing is nothing to me anymore. Everything that happens to me means something. Another one of Donna’s customers walk in and take a seat in her bar across from me and they notice me, whispering about me. “Let me go take care of these folks, and I’ll be back.” Donna says and walks away with a small limp in her leg that I notice was never there before.
Donna owns her own bar and she has a husband with a bad reputation. He’s abusive and has been kicked out multiple times from her home to save herself and her kids. I’d do something about it but Donna has asked me not to. It’ll only bring her more problems.
A man sits next to me in the bar and I pay him no attention. “Hello Drake.” I hear a familiar British accent and I begin to get irritated by his presence as I don’t want to be bothered right now. I look towards him as he takes out a flask and begins drinking from it.
“Who are you?” I ask him as I’ve seen him before with Sara on her missions. We’ve never met, and I have no idea who he is, and what he could be doing in Star City. All I know is that he’s in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
“The better question is, who are you?” He asks me as he sets his flask down and I look at him confused. “Are you a scared little boy who answers to a man dressed as a bat? Or are you the most powerful creature in the universe?” He says and I begin to get lightly irritated as he’s got the wrong person. I am not a creature.
“I don’t know who I am.” I respond softly telling the truth. I’m supposed to be a hero.
“Yes you do.” He says and looks away from me. “You’re the boy that everyone dies to.” He says and takes a sip from his flask and the sentence he spoke, triggers me.
“Look pal, I don’t know what the hell you want, but you’re messing with the wrong person.” I say as I get angry and I feel myself wanting to do something violent. He looks at me observing me and I begin to get more irritated with him. I restrain myself from throwing a direct punch to his face or screaming loud enough to blast him out of the bar. I begin to realize being here isn’t good for me right now, and I get up from the bar walking away from this crazy man.
I walk out of the bar and head into an alley to shortcut home until I hear a whimpering and small cry of a woman. I hear a loud shout from a man and I spot the two against the wall as the man aims his gun at her. Time to fight. I sneak up to the man grabbing him by the shoulder and throwing him towards a wall with full force and strength I didn’t know I had.
He grabs his gun and aims it at me and shoots but I grab the gun bending it, and it explodes in his hand. I begin to get scared of myself, but quickly become angry instead. I begin to punch him in the face multiple times as he deserves it and as I do, my fist begin to be soaked in his blood. I’ve lost control of myself.
I stop myself, waking up and seeing the thief’s face covered in bruises with his broken face structure, and blood soaked all over himself. He still breathes and I get up from him confused as to what I just did. I look at my hands as they’re covered in blood and turn around towards the lady as she runs off.
“Shit.” I whisper to myself and I fall back against the alleyway wall and slide down, sitting on the ground. I begin to have a small panic attack, breathing hard not knowing what I’ve done. I close my eyes and see the vision of fire and the city skyline collapsing and being engulfed in the fire again. I hear the screech of the fire bird and I scream. “SCCCREEEEEEEEEEE.” I shatter all the windows around me, destroy the lights as they spark, and cause car alarms nearby to go off.
“Still think I’m messing with the wrong person?” I hear the British accent and look up to see the man with his long beige trench coat, orange blonde hair, and a red tie hanging loosely from his white shirt.
“Something is happening to me.” I tell him and he gets down on my level taking his hand out. “And when I lose control, bad things happen.” I say as this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. It’s happened at least 3 times, especially the time with Ra’s. That was the first time.
“I can help you.” He says and I don’t know to trust him, but I take the chance. I take his hand and we get up together. “John Constantine.” He introduces himself and throws something at the wall and a portal opens. We walk through it and suddenly we’re inside an apartment with candles and old furniture everywhere.
“Where are we?” I ask him and turn around to see the portal to the alleyway shrink itself, disappearing.
“My place.” He says throwing his coat on to his chair. I follow him around his apartment and become confused as to why I’m here. “Like I said before Drake, that power you have, has destroyed everything that has ever come into contact with. Planets, civilizations, empires, kingdoms, continents, it goes on.”
“What are you talking about? I only have a canary cry.”
“Or so you’ve thought.” He corrects me and his room begins to shift into our solar system and I become disoriented with where I am.
“7 years ago, when the particle accelerator exploded you thought only the black matter hit you.” He says and he doesn’t make sense, the black matter gave me my canary cry and that’s all.
“Your cry out to your sensei woke up that power and it struck you, yet it didn’t kill you.” He says and I watch the sun send itself out a solar flare into the Earth striking Central City.
“The black matter stabilized that energy you absorbed and has stayed hidden until you fought Adrian Chase and unleashed that power on him.” He says and then a third person view of me fighting Adrian Chase the night Ollie died appears and I see myself glowing with a bright aura of a bird walking towards Adrian before destroying him.
“And what does any of this have to do with me losing control?”
“Because that power you have chose you because of your rage and anger. The more angry you get, the more you fuel it.”
“And the more I fuel it, the stronger it gets.” I say knowing that this power could kill me. “How’d you find me? How’d you know this was happening to me?” I ask wanting to know more about Constantine before I begin to truly trust him and his room shifts back to normal from the solar system.
“There’s been a change in the balance of the universe. It’s been calling out to me, leading me to you.” He says and I don’t know how this magic stuff works but I’m beginning to trust him. “It’s been hiding in you, slowly altering the balance of the universe. You have no idea how dangerously powerful you truly are. That power you have, it’s destroyed everything that has come into contact with. Planets, solar systems, galaxies. The strongest Gods wish to wield that power, but have died to gain it… Until it found you.””
“It?” I ask confused as it’s an actual being instead of a power like he said. He’s leaving something out. “What do you mean it?” I get stressed out walking towards him violently as he doesn’t answer right away.
“The Phoenix.” He says and as he calls it by its name I feel the energy surge through me again. That’s its name.
“I came all the way here to prevent it from being freed, but the only way to truly stop the Phoenix is to kill the host.” Constantine says and I look at him as he won’t stand a chance against me, even with his magic.
“And what are you gonna do instead?” I ask wanting to know more, being defensive of what I’ll do next.
“Bound it.” He says being serious taking out a small brown book from a drawer. “I’ll bound it in your mind to prevent it from taking over you. It won’t like it, but it’s the only way.” He says and I nod letting him do it. I can’t risk hurting someone like that thief, or killing someone again like I did with Ra’s in front of Ollie or The Justice League.
“Do it.” I command Constantine and he does so. He walks up to me pressing his hands against my head and he closes his eyes saying something in latin. He finishes speaking, letting go of my head and I feel lighter.
“I’ve set up mental barriers in your mind trapping it. In whatever case, you can take those barriers off, but if you do, there’s no going back.” He tells me and I nod as I know I won’t ever need to.
“Thanks.” I say and feel relieved that this is taken cared of. It’s anti-climatic and easier than I thought, but I don’t know what I’ll do if it ever takes over me. I look at my watch and realize it’s getting late and I decide that I should go.
___________
I return back to my apartment undressing myself as I walk towards my bed, leaving a path of my clothes behind. I sneak back under the covers and lay in Ollie’s arm as he wakes up a little bit. I brush my hand through his hair and kiss him hoping the best for my life and his. Telling Ollie about this is going to be hard, it’s not everyday that your husband tells you he’s a ticking time bomb capable of destroying the entire universe right?
After everything we’ve been through, I’d like this to be kept a secret. I’ll live my life forever having to know this about myself now.
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