Clean Sweep Ch. 33 (DC Comics) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Practical Magic.

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As they leave the lecture hall behind, Raven stays close to her Master’s side even while Zatanna leads them to their next destination. Admittedly, the half-demon is trying hard not to be too pouty about everything.

She’d had a plan, one that she had worked on with Mystery together. It was supposed to have worked. Push Zatanna in the right direction and then give her the opportunity to join them in their nightly fun. With Master Cole aroused, he would have jumped at the chance of collaring yet another beautiful woman… Raven was sure of it!

Unfortunately, Zatanna hadn’t taken the bait. And Mystery… well, it felt a little bit like Mystery had betrayed her with how well the two of them were working together now. Indeed, as they step into the next room and Raven finds herself face to face with a rather large stadium-style space, complete with an incredibly high ceiling and a massive amount of room to move around in… that feeling only grows.

Zatanna had led them here like she’d always known this massive training room existed, as though she had expected it to be here. Which meant her and Mystery were definitely conspiring together. Why? Why would Mystery stop conspiring with Raven only to conspire with Zatanna instead? What was the logic behind the betrayal?

… In the end, Raven puts it out of her mind for the time being. She stays close to Master Cole and watches Zatanna carefully, trying to find any sort of weakness within her that she might be able to exploit. Unfortunately, the other woman looks the exact opposite of weak… she looks like she’s ready to take on the world.

“Alright, let’s get some targets set up and see what we can do, shall we?”

As targets spawn in a few dozen yards away from them, Master Cole frowns.

“I… I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do here if I’m being honest. My magic isn’t exactly offensive in nature.”

Zatanna arches a brow at that.

“You dealt with Chemo easily enough, did you not?”

Cole slowly nods.

“Yes but… well, that was different. Chemo was a mess in and of himself. He was literally made out of radioactive waste. My magic cut through him, not because cutting is its usual state of being, but because my magic cleans and he was one big mess to clean up.”

Raven nods along with her Master’s explanation of things. He’s right, though she has to resist the kneejerk reaction that tells her to leap to his defense. As powerful and amazing as Cole is, his skillset does not lend itself to magical fighting. Indeed, in every battle they’ve been in together, the things he’s done have been… tangentially related to combat at best.

Chemo was the only enemy that Cole was able to truly destroy with his own power and that was solely because Chemo was the perfect sort of threat for her Master to face down given his magic.

Only… Zatanna doesn’t seem to think so.

“Interesting. So because Chemo was made up of radioactive waste, your magic could harm him. Or is it because you knew his composition that your magic was able to harm him?”

Cole’s brow furrows in confusion.

“I… don’t understand the difference?”

Zatanna hums… and then lifts a single finger and intones a spell.

“Tuc ym regnif.”

Raven’s eyes widen right alongside Cole’s as the flesh of Zatanna’s finger suddenly splits down the middle, blood welling up within it. Uncaring, Zatanna flicks the finger out, letting a splattering of red droplets hit the ground.

“Tell me Cole, is what I just did a mess that your magic can clean up?”

Frowning, Master Cole slowly nods.

“Then do so.”

Raven bristles a little bit at Zatanna’s commanding tone. She shouldn’t be giving Cole orders, she should be taking them! But… ugh, that ship seemed to have sailed. And unfortunately her Master wasn’t complaining so getting upset on his behalf was… juvenile at best and actively disruptive at worst.

With a wave of his hand, Cole cleans up the blood on the floor before looking to Zatanna expectantly. She, meanwhile, arches a brow at him, still holding up her injured finger.

“What about this cut? Is this a mess that you can clean up?”

“Err… I suppose so, yes?”

“Go ahead.”

Again Cole uses his magic. Raven watches as the blood outside of Zatanna’s cut is cleaned away in an instant. However, the cut itself remains… and after a moment, fresh blood begins to well up in the wound.

“Hm, so you can clean the mess but not heal the wound.”

Cole shakes his head.

“Yeah, I’ve never been able to heal anyone…”

“And why not? Why shouldn’t you be able to do so? No, first… one last thought exercise. Please don’t actually use your magic this time, just think about my words. If blood on the floor is a mess and blood on my skin is a mess… why is the blood in my body not a mess? Why can’t you ‘clean’ that as well.”

Raven blinks even as Cole stares. Her Master falls into a contemplative silence while Raven shivers a little bit at what Zatanna is proposing. The idea that Cole could just… clean the blood out of a living person was… well, it had terrifying ramifications to say the least.

“… I can’t ‘clean’ blood in that sort of manner because the blood is supposed to be there. Everything is in it’s place so long as the blood is still inside the body where it belongs.”

That made sense. Raven nods along with Cole, pleased that he’d come to such a reasonable conclusion. Unfortunately, Zatanna isn’t convinced.

“And what if someone had a disease of the blood? Do you think you might be able to clean them then? If they told you that their blood was infected with some malady, could you clean it of the malady?”

Again, Cole falls quiet for a moment, brow furrowing in thought. Until finally he’s forced to shrug.

“… I don’t know. It sounds dangerous… I wouldn’t know until I tried.”

Zatanna smiles and nods, clearly pleased with his response.

“That’s exactly right Cole. You don’t know until you try. Here’s a question… can you mend things? If I tore open my blouse right now, ripping it into pieces, would you be able to repair it with your magic?”

Cole’s face goes a bit red at the mental image that Zatanna is invoking. Raven also spends a moment blushing a little before scowling. Zatanna had to know what she was doing! Teasing her Master like this… did the other woman have no shame?!

“I… yes. Yes I think I can do that. My magic… should be able to repair things maybe?”

He sounds uncertain. And Zatanna… Zatanna smirks.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

For a brief moment, Raven thinks that the other woman is actually going to rip off her own top and make Cole repair it. Cole chokes on his own spit beside her, making it clear that her Master thinks that’s what Zatanna is about to do as well.

But… she doesn’t. Instead she whips around and points to Raven and then one of the targets.

“Raven, destroy that target.”

When Raven hesitates, Zatanna arches a brow at her and glances to Cole.

“Perhaps it would be better coming from you, Cole.”

Still looking a little uncertain, Cole slowly nods.

“Raven… please do as she asks.”

That’s the thing though, she hadn’t asked! Ugh, Raven just knew Zatanna was getting her back a bit for yesterday. Whatever…

With a flare of her magic and her telltale activation phrase, Raven whips out a tendril of glowing black power and rips the target into shreds, rendering it into a barely recognizable pile in mere moments.

As soon as she’s done, Zatanna turns back to Master Cole again.

“Alright Cole. You remember what the target looked like, yes? You remember how it was ‘meant to be’. So go ahead and try to repair it. Mend it… ‘clean it up’.”

Cole slowly nods and steps forward, focusing on the destroyed target.

“Right. Let’s see here…”

He reaches out and Raven watches him as he casts his usual magic. At first, the remains of the target just sort themselves into neat little piles. But her Master just frowns and furrows his brow, concentrating harder and still casting.

Slowly, piece by piece, the target’s remains begin to rise into the air… and reassemble themselves. Raven hadn’t been gentle or exacting in her wanton display of violence and yet Cole is able to completely remake the target despite the dozens of pieces it was reduced to.

And when he’s done… the target stands whole again, not even a seam to be seen to show what Raven had done to it.

“… Huh. I did it.”

Master Cole’s tone is shocked, something Zatanna doesn’t fail to note with a chuckle.

“You sound surprised.”

Shrugging, Cole glances between his hand and the target.

“I mean… it’s not really something I’ve done before, I don’t think? I guess there was that time I refilled a hole with dirt until it was in it’s natural state. That was right before we fought Chemo as a matter of fact. Still, I also had this… strange intuition that it was something I could do the moment you asked about it.”

Zatanna nods in understanding.

“Much of innate, internal magic is intuition-based. As is magic that comes from making pacts with… greater powers. It’s only those who study the magic of the universe who have to be especially careful with every spell they cast, lest they wind up getting one thing a little bit wrong, turning themselves inside out in the process.”

Master Cole’s eyes widen at that mental image and Raven has to admit that her stomach gets a little queasy at the idea as well. If Zatanna notices she doesn’t comment on it, however. Instead, she abruptly lifts her cut finger back up and places it right in Cole’s face.

“Now then… heal my finger.”

“What? I can’t…”

But Zatanna just tilts her head to the side as Raven’s Master trails off, his eyes fixating on her wound.

“Can’t you? You just put that target back together, did you not? And its so well done that I can’t even see any of the places where Raven slashed it to ribbons. If you can mend inorganic material… why can’t you mend my flesh and repair my skin?”

“I…”

Raven scowls a little bit. Zatanna is pressuring her Master, pushing him to do something he’s not yet ready for. She takes a threatening step forward… only for Zatanna’s eyes to slide over to her and stop her dead in her tracks. Raven freezes in place, her own eyes widening at the intense look she sees in Zatanna Zatara’s eyes.

The other woman looks down the bridge of her nose at Raven like… like she’s nothing but a nuisance. Like she’s an irritating fly who is getting in the way of things. The feeling only lasts for a split second admittedly, but that split second is all that’s needed.

Before Raven can fully recover and interject anyways, Cole suddenly reaches out and takes ahold of Zatanna’s hand with his own, focusing intensely on her finger. And right before Raven’s eyes… the gash in Zatanna’s digit slowly but surely seals up, mending then and there.

It’s over in just a handful of seconds, but when its done it was like it never happened at all.

“Holy shit… I did it.”

The smile that graces Zatanna’s face as she looks upon Cole with approval is such a far cry from the way she’d just looked at Raven that it gives the half-demon serious whiplash. But then again… her Master deserved every bit of praise for what he’d just done. Pushing past his limits like that was undeniably impressive.

“I knew you could do it, Cole. You see, as we’ve spoken about previously, your magic is not something nearly as pedestrian as cleaning magic. You can’t just block a tyrannical Demon Lord’s connection to his own flesh and blood with something like that. No, you can do a whole lot more than clean up other people’s messes.”

Then, Zatanna takes on a considering look.

“That said, do be a bit careful at least. While mending a cut on a finger is well within your capabilities, healing more grievous wounds might still be beyond you. And like you said, trying to do something on a much smaller but far more complex scale, like healing a disease of the blood… well, that would be very dangerous indeed.”

Master Cole nods seriously, prompting Zatanna to go back to smiling.

“Still, I hope today’s lesson showed you that you’re capable of far more than you ever thought possible, Cole. You’re just scratching the surface of what you’re truly capable of.”

She’s right, of course. And Raven knew that too… but damn it, this wasn’t how things were supposed to go…

And yet, seeing the broad smile on her Master’s face, Raven knows that she also wouldn’t have it any other way. Today’s lesson had been exactly what Cole needed, especially after that disastrous first attempt yesterday. Zatanna had completely and utterly redeemed herself as a mentor in the eyes of Raven’s Master.

Hmph… so long as Cole was happy, Raven would be happy too. But she still felt like Zatanna would look better wearing nothing but a collar and kneeling at her Master’s feet…

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zkuXt_N-i6SgHGL4fzOKv70_qI2g_JWNFdNtdX6tDFg/edit?tab=t.0