#kalixrobin

“Don’t stand there and pretend like you planned this,” she sneers, hands curling into fists at her sides, reaching inwards for an energy in her powers that has been fading for the hours and hours it has taken her to reach far enough past his walls to reach this. Him. “This is the end of the road. You’ve lost.” 

One smiles at her. He’s young here, the version of him which she remembers so clearly, but the kindness she had once seen in that smile has turned to something toxic, dripping with condescension and hatred. 

Dripping too, however, with a bone-deep tiredness in which Kali relishes. 

They did that. Her and El and Will and Max– those of them capable of existing within this space– and that is the thing which will win this for them. Just because she’s the only one standing here now, just because he’s managed to lock the rest of them out, doesn’t mean she doesn’t still have backup. 

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know it.

“Perhaps so,” One steps forward, unsteady and clearly pained. “But can I tell you how I knew it would be you? In a dying man’s final words?” 

Kali stiffens, but she doesn’t retreat on his approach, just continues gathering her strength, waiting for enough of it to bloom in her chest in order to do what needs doing. 

“It’s because, dear Eight, you are me,” he grins, blood on his teeth staining his lips. “All that anger? All that violence? Oh, I can die comfortably knowing that my legacy is upheld, you monstrous little thing.” 

“My name is Kali,” she growls, stomach turning. 

“And you are going to make me so proud.”

“What I did was justice!” she exclaims, a step forward, a burning at the center of her power. “What you did was cruelty, was murder, but I got even. We are not the same.” 

“Justice, perhaps, but for what purpose? Still for personal gain, still self-serving at the end of the day–”