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In which the authors display a gift for fish-out-of-water comedy
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Don't break it entirely.  But fray it.  Disrupt it.  Make that bond technically there but useless.  You can do this.  We can do this.  We will do this.

"Oh shit um I'm helpiiiing!!"

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Fortunately, you definitely don't become one of the world's top-tier superheros without developing good reflexes. Superman veers to intersect her wild, green-tinged arc, latching an arm around her waist to steady her.

"Ma'am, this is a delicate situation — can you help with the evacuation?" he asks, because telling rookie heroes to stop because they're not helping never works, and sometimes redirecting them out of the main battlezone does.

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The nasty blue man is too hard to scratch. But the screamy green woman might not be. Teekl bats her in the face with a paw.

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"Can't let this wait -" she grabs Teekl's swiping paw, and activates her magic-disruption spark, aiming at the rope of magic that stretches away from the evil cat, to someone else - "but I can't fight Klarion so yes I will go do that."

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"Once we have hopefully made this familiar much worse at its job."

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Teekl yowls, and contorts in the way that only a cat can, trying to pull her paw away.

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... but she's still in Superman's grasp, and he was going to just take the cat far enough away to disrupt the ritual, but probably this works too.

He flies down to a roof, and wraps a bit of sheet metal torn from it around the cat at superspeed. Not tightly enough to hurt it, just enough that it won't be able to get away from the probably-helpful magician.

And then he leaves at speed to try punching the definitely-unhelpful magician in the face again. Maybe this time it will take.

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Right.  Let's finish this.

The cat is tied up...  For the moment, she doesn't know if Superman knows just how good escape artists cats can be - anything that they can fit their collarbones through, they can fit through - and she has a grip on it sufficient to use her powers.  She is now going to try and break as much of the useful parts of the familiar bond, such as 'anchoring Klarion to this reality' and/or 'serving as a power tap', as she can, whilst still, hopefully, leaving the Witch Boy stuck with this cat and no other.  Avoiding the split worlds event will be much easier if she can just render Klarion moot nowHe had to anchor the thing on the young side of reality.

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Visions of fanfic dance through her head - but even were she in the world of that one fic where all the available under-18s (across continuity lines) coordinated with eachother to pull off a proper reunification ritual, she'd still try to stop this right here and right now, because less potential mass casualty events is more gooder.

(Yes, she knows 'gooder' isn't a valid Scrabble word.  Blame the Internet for why she thought it anyway.)

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Teekl yowls and writhes and does, indeed, try to pull free of the wrapping. She tries to claw at her assailant.

But then something within her snaps, and in the distance the barrier around the monument flickers.

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Superman hits it with renewed force, and then he's through, and the fight becomes a fast-paced thing of dodged purple blasts and heat-vision.

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Her assailant is feeling quite hopeful that she has just averted a major disaster, depending on what that was precisely that just snapped, so she will take a few hits to win if she needs toThey'll get better, and she's sure Batman has something for any weird cat diseases Blue might not have type advantage over.

 

(She may or may not also be a bit more dissociated than she's used to, because really, what the fuck is her life now.)

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"I really am sorry about your present situation, I think, but also, you're an asshole and so is your master and I really can't be having with that, you hear me?"

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"Lords of fucking Chaos, not even once.  Well, no, I suppose it's entirely plausible there's a nice one but where are they - mumble mumble New God bullshit?"  Yes, she did, in fact, enunciate 'mumble mumble'.  "Fuck if I know.  Absolute fuck if I know.  And now I'm starting to sound like fucking Constantine or something.  Best be careful with my soul."  She laughs, but not because that was funny.

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Rambling on like that doesn't mean that they're going to stop making an utter mess of the familiar bond if it's still a thing that exists, though.  Just to be crystal clear about their priorities here.

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But does it mean that the alien with super-hearing (because he has super-everything) heard? Well, he is distracted. Time will tell.

It doesn't take him long to wrap up the fight, actually, once he can reach the squishy magician. A minute or two later, he comes floating over with Klarion held under one arm.

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"I was trying to do you a favor, you know," he grumbles, crossing his arms at her. His wrists are decorated with rune-laced metallic bracelets of some kind, and from the way he keeps tugging at them, they're probably restraints and not fashion accessories. "Everyone else was appearing in Central City, and we've already done that. Boring!"

"But if you're going to try and steal my cat, see if I ever do anything nice for you again."

He turns away with a huff, as far as he can manage when being held by Superman.

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Superman blinks.

"... ma'am, I wouldn't get too upset about anything he says. He's an ... odd sort. But, just to check, do you have any prior history with Klarion? Have you met him before?"

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"Oi! Careful with the name! I don't care if you know, since you're about as magical as a louse, but you can't just go around calling me things to people who actually matter," Klarion protests.

"I would say you could call me The Witch Boy, but if you're going to maul my cat I don't think we have much to talk about," he adds in her general direction.

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"I regret to inform you that I both know exactly what he's talking about - more or less - and that I've also never seen him before in my life.

"As for talking...  Now that I know that you know that I know, however you know, The Witch Boy...  There might actually be something we could talk about.  Which, at the time I made my decision to act as I did, I did not know.  Proper communication is important, you know!  You could have at least left a note!

"I could be convinced to give a sincere effort to heal your familiar.  But I would have conditions.

"I do understand if that's not your speed, but it can't hurt to make the offer, I think.  There's plenty of places that could use a little Chaos.  I mean, can you imagine the look on Lex Luthor's face?  That egghead has so many control issues."

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"I know that you know that I know that you know that ..." Klarion says, counting on his fingers.

"Right! So that's how it is! If you put my familiar back, I could have had left a note this whole time ..." he suggests, leadingly. "Causality is for the narrow-minded."

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Superman glances back and forth between the two magic users with a conflicted expression.

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"Not in meta-time, I don't think; I know I wouldn't want to put all that effort in to undo what I've already done, if I was playing Queen of Fables."  And that would likely leave her at a disadvantage.  So she hopes the idea will fly right out of his head at about the same velocity it entered.  "And, nice try, but we still don't have a deal yet.  As I said, I have conditions, though I do understand if it's simply impossible for you to make agreements.  Unfortunately, if that's the case, then I likely won't be healing your cat."

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"Blah blah 'Law is the only way to keep agreements' — spare me the proselytizing. I'm a magician! Making deals with powerful outsiders is practically my whole deal!" he protests, before slumping in Superman's grasp.

"Okay, okay. What are your conditions? Not saying I'll agree, mind you, just hearing you out."

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"Well.  As I don't expect I'd have any luck getting you to stop doing your thing, and am therefore not going to try - you're a Lord of Chaos - I'd like to propose that in exchange for this, you make your chaos more equal-opportunity - which is to say, expanding your targets to super villains.  Lawful Evil is still Lawful, you know?  As it is, your getting involved in supervillain plots on the side of the villains is, dare I say it, rather predictable.  Doesn't it get a bit repetitive to pull on Superman's metaphorical pigtails all the time?"

(Honestly, she'll take probably mostly obviating her metaknowledge of whatever plot she might be in, if it means Klarion will be as much a thorn in various Big Evils' sides as he is for the good guys.  Darkseid, the Reach, planner villains more generally, Larfleeze to name someone she doesn't expect to show up - they're all not particularly chaotic.)

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