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Fanfic / The Dark Shard: Enemy of the Light

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The Dark Shard: Enemy of the Light is a Sequel/Sidestory of theirishdreamer's previous fic In My Time of Troubles. It's a crossover fic between DC's Hellblazer, Young Justice (2010), Dungeons & Dragons, and Worm. Due to its nature, there will be spoilers for In My Time of Troubles.

After Karguk's ascension to godhood, he decided to split off parts of himself as shards to go out and do his will. Thus Sean O'Neill, also known as John Fortune, Agent Amergin, and Tim the Enchanter, came to be born in Ireland, in a version of the DC universe, with orders to learn more and spread his god's influence. If only these superheroes would stop interfering...

Starts off as a Dungeons and Dragons/Hellblazer Crossover, then transitions into Young Justice as well. Worm isn't introduced until the third section, a considerable way into the fic.


The Dark Shard: Enemy of the Light contains examples of the following:

  • Adults Are Useless: As in the source material, the Justice League has no idea how to handle its teenage team and several parts of the story make it clear they are a very disorganized group.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Kid Flash despite being on a team with a mage, does not believe in magic. Later pretends that he doesn't for fun.
    • A lot of scientists refuse to consider that magic might be real despite the fact that it is provable under scientific study.
  • A Wizard Did It: The Justice League and other such groups using this as justification for why such and such happened, which governments and scientists hate and creates a block in actually understanding what happened.
  • Boxing Lessons for Superman: Despite being a powerful mage Sean still gets martial training in order to avert being the Squishy Mage. He also learns all about guns in order to be able to enchant them.
  • Bright Is Not Good: in his guise as the ruler/dictator of Tropico, Sean wears bright and cheerful colors. When asked why he quotes the Evil Overlord List.
  • Child Mage: Sean to begin with. Then Gemma, then Zatanna. Sean ends up with enough magic children that Shield decides to start a school.
  • Clark Kenting: Averted by Sean. He wears illusions over his polymorphed body, and has the secret identity of Agent Amergin over the secret identity of John Fortune. Sean is taking no chances.
  • Corrupt Politician: The leading members of the British government in the beginning of the fic.
  • The Cowl: Sean bases his costume off of Batman to better scare criminals. Also liberally uses the fear spell.
  • Crapsaccharine World: There are brightly colored superheroes everywhere spouting out truth and justice. It's also a Death World where there have been several near apocalypses in recent years.
  • Crime Fighting With Cash: Sean contemplates using his massive amounts of money he got from conquering Santa Prisca to get rid of an incompetent and likely corrupt government.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Sean in a nutshell. He wields dark magic, is a proficient necromancer, and wears a dark and scary outfit with a skull mask. He also is dedicated to fighting against those that threaten his home, including demons, and heals children in the hospital with his necromancy. Doesn't help that everyone thinks he's a supervillain.
    • A more humorous example is that Lucifer runs a piano bar in LA after deciding to not be Satan anymore. Despite being Lucifer, he does nothing evil and is actually quite helpful to the heroes.
  • Death World: In between the invading aliens, the various conspiracies to control the world, and all the supervillains it's a wonder that the population is as high as it is.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: The party with Lucifer and other gods in the aftermath of the split world event.
  • Evil Is Easy: Sean notes that it is easier for a wannabe occultist to get their hands on dark magic instructions than instructions on more benign magics.
  • Fictional Counterpart: It turns out that if a major international organization with a lot of power is staffed almost entirely with people who are members of or have ties to a single U.N. nation it increases international tension. This becomes a plot point when dissatisfaction with the Justice League causes several nations to form national counterparts.
  • Genre Savvy: Sean will occasionally lampshade the tropes he sees around him and quotes the Evil Overlord List.
  • God Is Evil: Sean is nearly murdered by Hera, who was trying to kill Cassie, demigoddess daughter of Zeus. Zeus also fits due to ignoring the plight of his worshippers because he was upset he was shown up by other gods who did help.
  • God Is Good: Sean's god, on the other hand, is actively helpful and a force for good. Same with the Lord of the Dance.
  • Gone Horribly Right: An eccentric billionaire decides to summon a troop of otherworldly enforcers to punish criminals. It works and they start maiming and murdering anyone that breaks the law- including the people breaking laws like the speed limit.
    • The magic ritual to protect people against Starro the Conqueror ends up completely destroying Starro and creating the Red Lantern Corps.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: The Prince of Wales attempts to summon a demon. He gets possessed for his trouble and starts eating people.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: It’s rather good for everyone that Sean can heal them. Ends up healing real!Roy's arm and inspiring a support division within the Team. Gemma, after seeing the more dangerous side of heroics, decides healing is a much better option.
  • Government Conspiracy: Several examples.
    • The Tory Satanic Cult.
    • S.H.I.E.L.D., before it went public.
    • Sean pushes for the creation of a fake government conspiracy to cover up the real government conspiracy. Makes more sense in story.
  • Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Sean has two ways of healing people using magic, divine magic and necromancy/blood magic. The second is much harder than the first, even though it is the one healing method anyone could theoretically do. The first version requires a connection to a god.
  • Heroic Fatigue: Sean and the Irish government have a vested interest in averting this. As such, Sean is put on psychiatric mandatory leave several times.
    • Hits the Justice League hard when they have to deal with several potentially world-ending events in the course of a few months and then have to support the army and cops they nearly replaced in the aftermath.
  • Holding Out for a Hero: Superman and the Justice League have been so effective that the cops in Metropolis and the American army have had their funding cut for the past few years. It ends poorly when the Justice League is overwhelmed or unable to help and people had to rely on the cops and army.
  • Kid Hero: Sean is thirteen when the story starts and is 17 where the story is currently at.
  • Kid Sidekick: John Constantine claims John is this. It's also how the Justice League views the situation. The truth is a bit more complicated.
  • Legion of Doom: what some people (Kid Flash) think Shield is.
  • The Magic Comes Back: The mass ritual down to reverse the split worlds woke up a lot of ancient magic forces. Combined with a lot of people realizing that magic was real, it caused some issues.
  • Magic Knight: Sean, in his superhero get up, wields both martial might and magic. Later adds a Flaming Sword to play the trope even straighter especially when he invades and nukes hell.
  • The Masquerade: Unintentionally because mages prefer to keep to their own kind and no one believes magic exists until a Chaos Lord kidnaps all the children.
    • Mentioned by Sean while discussing alternative worlds.
  • The Men in Black: After the Prince of Wales is possessed by a demon due to satanic cult Tories Ireland and the England create an organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supernatural Hazards Intelligence Enforcement and Legislative Division) to deal with supernatural threats. America later joins this group.
  • Militaries Are Useless: Played With. Years of Holding Out for a Hero means that America's armies are underfunded and staffed. However, Sean encourages their usage and Ireland and Britain's armies are quite useful when combined with magic users.
  • Mutant Draft Board: S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of the rare non-evil versions, focusing on mages. Helps that it was partially created by mages and is headed by Dr. Fate after Klarion's attack.
  • Never Be a Hero: one of Superman's less attractive beliefs, possibly shared by others in the Justice League, is that ordinary Muggles can't handle superpowers.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After Klarion the Witch Boy split the worlds, and in response S.H.I.E.L.D. summoned every god and higher being they could get their hands on to reverse it (including the devil) a lot of people realized that hey, magic is real. There were... mixed reactions to this.
    • Even more so in the aftermath of the Starro attack. The Light has effectively broken up and at each other's throats, there are aliens seeking diplomatic treaties with Earth, and various national hero groups start popping up.
  • Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Everyone thinks Sean is a supervillain, even his hero teammates.
  • Nuclear Option: Sean and S.H.I.E.L.D. decide to nuke hell to get rid of a security breach. Of course, to the Justice League this is the related trope Nuke 'em.
  • Oh, Crap!: At multiple times, mostly when various characters find out about... things.
    • When Sean finds out that the Prince of Wales has been possessed by a demon.
    • When the Irish government finds out that the British government is run by incompetent Tory Satanists that tried to murder the Prince of Wales.
    • When the Justice League, the Light, and Sean find out that Lucifer is real and active in the human realms.
    • When the ritual to defeat the mind-controlling alien starfish that eat people creates the Alaya human totem and catalyzes the Red Lantern Corps.
    • When the Thanagerians and the Oans discover said Red Lantern. Doubles on the Thanagerian part because for years the people in charge of reading Hawkman's and Hawkwoman's reports thought they were "exaggerated" (a.k.a. straight up lies).
    • When the the door to Sigil was discovered and Sean realized a Mind Flayer got their hands on a Green Lantern ring.
    • When Sean finds out the earthquake that caused No Man's Land in Gotham happened.
  • Police Are Useless: Years of Holding Out for a Hero means that Metropolis police are mostly just the guys collecting the criminals that Superman catches. Bites Metropolis in the ass hard when aliens invade and Superman can't save them. It ends up with civilian gun owners defending most of Metropolis.
  • Pragmatic Hero: Sean, by nature of being the cleric of a god of pragmatism.
  • Religion Is Right: Given that the main character is a cleric, and there is a demigoddess on the Justice League, this one is a given.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Nergal and his demons kidnap Constantine and put Black Canary in the hospital Sean puts together a plan to get revenge by nuking Hell and arranging Nergal's murder by the First of the Fallen.
  • Satan: Lucifer used to be Satan, but then he retired. Now Satan is the First of the Fallen. Both characters have made an appearance in fic.
  • Shout-Out: Sean renames the banana republic he conquers Tropico.
  • Squishy Wizard: Discussed by Sean while he deliberately built his bullet resistant armor. Whether the rest of the magic characters wear armor seems to depend upon how martial they are.
  • The Stations of the Canon: Despite Sean joining and wildly changing the outcomes of some of the missions, the Team takes almost all the same missions they do in canon until the Starro attack after which things diverge wildly.
  • There Are No Global Consequences: Averted hard. The aftermath of Klarion's attack and the reveal of S.H.I.E.L.D. results in a global awareness of magic and several nations working towards making their own national equivalent of the Justice League.
  • There Are No Therapists: Averted. Several times after missions gone wrong Sean has to go through psychiatric evaluation and therapy to make sure he doesn't go crazy.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: One of the Justice League's rules. Sean complains a lot about it as well as the Double Standard in how the Justice League treats the murder of humans versus the murder of nonhumans.
  • The Unmasqued World: After Klarion's attack, the global reveal of magic, and the creation of the Red Lantern Corps the magic and aliens start becoming part of life for the everyday man, not just superheroes.
  • Vengeance Denied: After Sean is nearly killed by Hera, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Olympians work out a peace treaty. Afterwards Sean grumbles about not being able to take vengeance.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The League has a Double Standard in how they treat the killing of humans verses the killing of sapient robots. Hint: one of them is basically okay, and it's not the humans.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Hera tries to kill Cassie, who's eight years old.
  • Young Conqueror: After a mission Gone Horribly Wrong- or perhaps Gone Horribly Right- the Team ends up conquering Santa Prisca. Sean renames it Tropico.

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