Disclaimer: This is a cross between JLA (Season 5) and Rorscharch’s Blot’s Make A Wish Story.
Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling and various publishers. Henchgirl, The Professor, and other such objects are Rorscharch’s creation. DC Comics own the Justice League and associated characters/plot devices. The lack of plot, however, can be attributed to me.
It’s Lonely at the Top… But It’s Got a Swell View
Having left the council meeting unsatisfied, Batman returned to
his subterranean base of operations. Still occupied with the
most recent exploits of the anomaly Mr. Black, the Caped Crusader
sent his apprentices out to patrol Gotham in his stead while the head
Bat ensconced himself in front of the giant Bat computer. While
his associates in the League may accept this ‘Mr. Black’
as the living avatar of Death without any firm data to corroborate
their assumption, the World’s Greatest Detective required more
proof.
Which explained why he was tracking both Kara’s and
Courtney’s comm. signal. Apparently, someone failed to
provide Black with a communications device, forcing Batman to follow
his behavior via the girls’ devices and whatever security
systems he managed to hack. Currently, he was observing his
three objectives seated close together in a dark auditorium as they
viewed yet another showing of the Star Wars saga.
“Ah, motion picture piracy,” a cultured British voice
interrupted his ongoing analysis. “It seems to be the
craze nowadays. I never thought that the Batman would subscribe
to such behavior when the films are readily available on the open
market. Then again, I’m not the World’s Greatest
Detective…”
“Very funny,” the Caped Crusader replied.
“So, what possible reason would you have for spying on young
people while they enjoy one another’s company?” the
ex-thespian inquired. “Other than Master Tim, of course.
Or Miss Barbara, or Master Dick, or…”
“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce answered levelly.
“However, this is League business. I am observing a
potentially dangerous individual – a being who might pose more of a
threat than any meta-human.”
“Ah, yes,” the elderly butler agreed sardonically,
“the cad is cuddling with two single women at the same time;
simply monstrous. How marvelous that you will now be able to
bring this fiend to justice!”
Choosing to ignore his adoptive father’s harassment, Bruce
leaned back in his chair and rested his chin upon his joined hands.
“What would you say if I told you the League’s convinced
that this ‘Mr. Black’ is, in fact, the embodiment of
Death?”
“Had it come from any other source, I believe that they
would need immediate psychiatric treatment. Seeing as how we
are discussing the Justice League, however, I would tentatively
confirm it as fact,” the British man confided.
“You don’t find the entire concept overly fanciful?”
the other man asked disbelievingly.
Alfred smiled slightly. “Master Bruce, in the past few
years, you and your teammates have faced alien invasions, rampaging
gods, alternate universes, alien civilizations, and genetically
enhanced clones. All things considered, the notion that the
Grim Reaper would decide to pay you people a visit seems entirely
rational.”
“Perhaps…” Bruce allowed, “But it does
not follow that he should be inducted into the League without any
sort of evaluation whatsoever, regardless of who he is.”
“Then evaluate him yourself, Master Bruce,” Alfred
concluded logically. “If memory serves, did you not have
a similar problem with Miss Helena when Huntress joined the League?”
Finished with his task in the cave, Alfred began ascending the
many steps leading up to the mansion as he recommended, “Might
I advise you to invite this ‘Mr. Black’ along on your
next mission and judge his suitability for yourself?”
Contemplating the situation for a few moments, he shuffled the
duty roster for the next rotation so that Clark, Diana and he were
all present on the Watchtower simultaneously. Perhaps between
the three of them, they could resolve just whom they were dealing
with.
It was time to see just who Mr. Black really is.
After their show was over, Kara and Courtney dragged Harry around
the big city, sampling its many different amusements. Much to
Harry’s dismay, this seemed to include marathon shopping.
Apparently, a shopping partner that can shrink a mountain of bags
down to fit in a single pocket is a valuable commodity – seeing as
how the two blonde-haired women kept fighting over his services all
night.
It was with great relief on Harry’s part when their escapade
finally ended and the three junior Leaguers returned to the
Watchtower for the evening. He received word that Superman had
wanted to speak with him from numerous League members, but the wizard
discovered that the Man of Steel had departed their solar system on
an emergency call along with Green Lantern. Parting ways, Harry
returned to his dormitory aboard the space station where the earlier
ordeal sent him swiftly asleep.
Waking several hours later, Harry repeated the previous morning’s
routine. The only deviations were that Kara was visiting her
family, the Green Lantern didn’t look him up while he was
eating, and – most significantly – the coffee was back.
Harry soon discovered that there was something wrong with this
‘decaf’ brew, however. It both looked and smelled
like coffee, but it tasted nothing like the delicious concoction he
had discovered only two days prior.
With no plans of how to spend his day, Harry meandered around the
space station and finished exploring the place. Eventually, he
found his way back to the operations’ room replete with
teleporters, their Martian supervisor, and two new faces – the
oddly dressed ‘Mr. Terrific’ and the humorous Robin hood
knock-off ‘Green Arrow’.
After the introductions – and many bad jokes regarding green
tights – were made, Harry decided to just watch the monitors and
familiarize himself with the other members of this group and their
abilities. However, the wizard redirected his attention to the
platform’s entrance a few minutes later due to a wolf whistle
courtesy of the jade archer.
“Looking good, Diana!” Green Arrow praised. “Big
date?”
“No such luck, Ollie,” Wonder Woman answered as she
entered wearing a stylish business suit. “I’m
representing Themyscira at the global warming conference.”
In reply, he gave the ‘thumbs up’ sign. “Way
to go, man. Save the planet.”
“More like save my relationship with my mother,” she
disagreed.
Oliver Queen shrugged. “Hey, at least you’re
speaking again,” he pointed out unnecessarily.
“It’s the first thing she’s asked me to do since
we mended fences,” Diana explained before frowning. “I’d
rather take another day trip to Tartarus.”
“I think you’ll make a great diplomat,” the
archer replied, patting her on the shoulder. He thought for a
moment before adding helpfully, “Leave your sword.”
“I’m serious,” she said while giving the man a
half-hearted glare. “I don’t want to go by myself.
J’onn, how about you come along and keep me company?”
“The Justice League currently has twenty three active
missions in progress,” the Martian Manhunter answered flatly
without turning around. “Only I can properly
deploy what remains of our resources.”
“Oh, please!” Diana protested. “Mr.
Terrific can fill in. He’s smart enough to do monitor
duty and the Sunday crossword at the same time!”
“Go ahead, J’onn,” the addressed superhero
confirmed. “I’m already done with the crossword.”
“You did it in ink again, didn’t you?” the Green
Arrow muttered disgustedly.
The other hero just shrugged.
J’onn remained unconvinced. “Mr. Terrific is
more than capable, but I insist that I remain where I am needed,”
he said tonelessly.
“Turn around and talk to me,” Diana ordered gently.
When he complied, she continued, “You’ve been cooped up
like a hermit in the Watchtower for almost two years now.”
He started to respond. “I can better serve the
League-”
“We’re not even going to have that argument again!”
she interrupted him. “You’re a super strong, nearly
invulnerable, telepathic shapeshifter. The reason you’re
not on the ground protecting people is because you don’t want
to be.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “You
don’t actually like humanity all that much, do you?” the
Amazon realized.
The chastised Martian turned back around. “I don’t…
dislike them,” he evaded.
“You’re not the only newcomer to this world
around here,” Diana pressed. “People have strange
ways and take a lot of getting used to, but it’s worth the
effort! They’re worth it!”
“She’s got your number, J’onn,” Ollie
jumped in. “You need to mingle. Maybe take a meal
in the commissary every once in a while.”
“My Martian physiology does not require as many meals as a
human,” he answered flatly.
“You know what he means,” Diana sighed. “You
must be terribly lonely.” She looked at her watch.
“I’ve got to go, but we’re not done talking about
this!”
As she turned around and started to walk off, Harry called out and
stopped her. “Hey, Diana, if you really don’t want
to go to this shindig alone, I can go with you,” the wizard
said.
“Thanks anyway, Mr. Black, but it’s a formal event and
I don’t have time for you to-” she trailed off as Harry’s
casual wardrobe morphed into a complete suit with a blue blazer much
like her own, black pants, and a white shirt – “change
clothes,” she finished softly.
“So, do I pass muster?” Harry asked as he spun around
on his heel.
“You’ll do,” she said dryly. “You
know, you don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
Harry shrugged. “I owe you a consort gig, anyhow,”
he said easily. “So,” he gestured towards the door
to the teleporter pads, “shall we go?”
Diana rolled her eyes at the apparently bipolar individual.
She still could not match the swift and decisive warrior she saw via
S.T.R.I.P.E.’s recording yesterday with this playful,
easygoing, and probably insane man standing before her. “Come
on,” she invited finally.
“Yeth, Mahster,” Harry replied in a slurred voice as
he took her proffered arm.
As the pair began descending the hallway, the other two league
members could just barely hear their conversation.
“You haven’t had any coffee yet, have you?” they
heard Wonder Woman ask.
“Just decaf,” the mysterious male answered
disappointedly, “and not very much at that. It was
awful!”
“Thank Hera!” Diana muttered under her breath before
going silent once more.
“The proposed accords are far too drastic!” the Vice
President of the United States protested. “With all due
respect, Princess, we’re talking about committing hundreds of
millions of dollars and nobody has even proven the existence of
global warming!”
“My mother’s government fully supports the findings of
her scientists,” Diana replied, “and those of the vast
majority of the scientists here in Man’s world.”
“My government does not accept those studies,” the
French ambassador disagreed.
“Then accept the evidence of your eyes!” Diana replied
forcefully. “There’s a Viking ship at the bottom of
this mountain, hidden in ice for 1100 years! If it weren’t
for global warming, then we wouldn’t even know about it!”
“Yes,” yet another stuffy aristocrat agreed
sarcastically, “and it was clever P.R. of our host to hold the
talks here, but it is not proof.”
“You have to take this seriously!” Diana stressed.
“Atlantis has already withdrawn from the world assembly over
this. And they aren’t the only country considering
action.”
“Are you suggesting that Themyscira might do the same?”
the French woman inquired.
“If your pollution continues to affect my home, my mother is
less likely to withdraw than she is to attempt a military solution,”
Diana said bluntly. The conversation halted as the assembled
world leaders overheard the understated threat. “As a
last resort, only, of course,” she added belatedly.
“Madame Ambassador?” she heard a British voice call
out. “Princess Diana?” Harry pushed through the
crowd until he reached her side. “Telephone call for you,
Madame,” Harry said before balancing a wine distiller in one
hand and offering her the other arm. “Right this way,
Madame,” he invited before leading her to a side door and out
to the veranda. Once the two were outside, Harry turned the
chilled container up and drained most of its contents.
“There was no phone call, was there?” Diana asked
shrewdly.
“Sure there was!” Harry protested. “Reality
called. It said that threats of a military invasion aren’t
exactly a helpful part of the peace process at a world assembly.”
“I’m not much of a diplomat,” Diana said
resignedly.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” the veranda’s
other occupant said before turning around. “You’re
an international incident waiting to happen.”
“Agent Faraday,” Diana greeted the man. “What
are you doing here?”
“I’m with the security detail on the Vice President;
he’s attending this conference, too,” the secret service
agent supplied. “Of course, you know that already.
I saw you reading him the riot act earlier.”
He started walking away before throwing over his shoulder.
“By the way, if you threaten the V.P. again, my men are under
orders to shoot you.”
Diana let her sleeve fall back to reveal her armored bracelets,
one of which she flicked meaningfully.
“I wouldn’t recommend that, mate,” Harry said
sternly. “If your associate in there can’t handle
criticism, then all well and good. Pulling a heavy-handed stunt
like what you just mentioned, however…” Harry trailed
off. “Well, I can guarantee that things won’t end
well for you,” he said flatly.
“And who are you?” Faraday demanded.
“You may call me Mr. Black. I’m Lady Diana’s…
bodyguard,” Harry deliberated.
The white-haired man just mimicked firing a gun before heading
back inside.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Diana said
angrily. “I can take care of myself just fine!”
“I know you can,” Harry said unconcernedly. “My
point is that you shouldn’t have to. I’ve had my
fair share of idiot politicians in my time; threats of prosecution
just for having a difference of opinion with the leader elect put me
in a bad mood.”
Diana nodded sharply before visibly calming. “Thank
you for the exit, by the way,” the Amazon finally offered.
“Any time,” he waved off her unspoken apology as he
leaned against the railing.
A few moments passed in silence as the two stared off at the icy
landscape before the structure upon which they stood began shaking.
Sensing that her help would be needed shortly, Diana began spinning
very quickly. When she came to rest, she was once more clad in
her uniform.
“Impressive!” Harry congratulated as he willed his own
clothing back into his own ‘Battle gear’. With both
Kara and Courtney on his case about it, Harry figured that
he’d keep the ‘Punisher’ look going a while
longer. When the ‘in vogue’ alternative was tights
and wearing his underwear outside of his trousers, the wizard quickly
agreed that the black shirt/pants/coat combo was more than
acceptable.
“Let’s go!” Diana ordered before jumping over
the side rail and freefalling towards the bottom of the gorge.
Shrugging to himself, Harry followed suit. Using their separate
abilities, the two came to rest against the wooden work platform
around the Viking skiff. The source of the disturbance was
clear as four costumed villains were attacking the site’s
guards.
Harry quickly took in their opponents. The first man was in
an enclosed suit and was using a backpack flamethrower to cut the
boat loose from the frozen cliff. Out of the remaining three,
one was a blue-tinted woman who appeared to have powers over ice,
much like his own gifts he received from Oyuki. Another was a
red-haired female giant, who was cheerfully kicking the personnel –
and their equipment – far out into the ocean. The third
fighter was presumed male; it was difficult to determine, as the
figure was entirely encapsulated in a diamond-headed suit as he shot
darts at their enemies.
“You have to stop!” one of the guards shouted.
“If you pull that ship out, the whole mountain could fall
down!”
“So?” the pyromaniac demanded.
“So,” Diana butted into the conversation. “I’m
not going to let you do it!” As the giant moved to engage
the League representatives, Diana took flight with both fists
outstretched. “Out of my way, jumbo!”
“Ow!” the woman protested. “That hurt!”
In retaliation, the giant backhanded the floating Diana. The
Amazon began flying backwards towards the sea but quickly regained
her bearings.
As those two engaged, Harry began counteracting the ice wielder’s
efforts with a combination of flame charms and his own wintry
powers. After a brief grappling, Harry buried the woman under a
giant slab of ice just as Diana knocked the giantess for a loop and
landed. The pair was on the lookout for the unaccounted for
villain when Harry caught a glimpse of the diamond-shaped head as the
figure rose from behind a discarded crate and leveled some sort of
weapon at Diana’s unprotected back.
Harry shoved the woman out of the way, but a projectile had
already been launched and caught him in the side of the neck.
Harry staggered back as he suddenly felt a burning sensation overtake
his body before his unique immune system began counteracting the
toxin.
“It’s a poisonous stinger,” the man said
helpfully as his female companions regained their footing. “It
will kill you eventually… slowly… painfully. But
today’s your lucky day,” the helmeted villain informed as
he brandished both wrist-mounted dart guns. “I’m
gonna put you out of your misery right now.”
Harry felt Diana pull the stinger out of his flesh, and the world
almost immediately jumped back into focus. Straightening his
posture and drawing both wand and sword, Harry raised one eyebrow
mockingly and said, “’Fraid I’ll have to pass on
that, mate!”
Upon seeing their shock due to the ‘victim’ not
writhing in agony, Harry laughed darkly and said, “You’ll
have to do better than that! I’m immune to your little
toys!”
To make matters even worse for the lawbreaking team, Agent Faraday
and his squad came flying in by way of jet packs with pistols blazing
as they took potshots at the criminals.
“Are you all right?” Diana asked urgently at his side.
“Just peachy!” Harry growled. “Let’s
take these punks down!”
The airborne secret service agents tackled the villains, but their
charge was slowly beaten back by a combined effort of Devil Ray,
Killer Frost, and Giganta. As Faraday and Harry were attempting
to hit the frosty woman with either spell or bullet, Diana was
guarding their backs from Devil Ray, who was still firing poisoned
darts at the group when possible.
“We should retreat!” Faraday yelled over his shoulder.
“I’m not backing down from a fight!” Diana
protested immediately.
“Listen!” he barked. “Your friend’s
veins are full of poison! I don’t know how he’s
still on his feet! It’s only a matter of time before his
system shuts down!”
Harry just snorted as he fired one of the Weasley twins’
spells at the redheaded giant, finally penetrating her defenses by
the simple expedient of tying her shoelaces together. As the
extremely tall woman struck the ground with a resounding thud, Harry
turned his head to the white-haired federal agent. “Oh,
don’t worry too much about me,” Harry advised. “I’m
a resilient little bugger. I wouldn’t say no to some
friendly faces right about now, though.” He then blew out
some of the frozen supports that the other female criminal was using
to remain aloft.
“I guess calling for support isn’t backing down,”
Diana conceded as she reached for her commlink.
“J’onn?” Diana spoke into the tiny device.
“I’ve got a situation!”
“Watchtower sensors have picked up the tremors from your
location,” the Martian responded calmly. “I knew
you were on the scene and assumed you could handle it.”
“Well, I can’t,” she admitted. “We’re
outnumbered, and Mr. Black’s been hit with an unknown compound,
though he’s still on his feet.”
“We’re still shorthanded,” the League’s
telepath admitted. “I can spare Green Arrow, and…
Mr. Terrific.”
“Bring who you want, J’onn, but I need you!” she
demanded before cutting the transmission. Agent Faraday had
exhausted all of his ammunition and Harry was hard-pressed to keep
the ice mage and the flying dart thrower both simultaneously in
check.
As Giganta freed herself and rushed forward, her charge was
stopped by a two-pronged attack. The first blow was a
Conjunctivitus curse to her face, courtesy of Harry. The second
attack took the form of an explosive arrow fired from the side of the
ice cliff.
“What’s wrong, Sweetheart?” they all heard the
voice of Oliver Queen call out mockingly. “Break a nail?”
“Green Arrow?” the giantess said questioningly.
“That’s right,” he admitted as he drew another
bolt from his quiver, “and I brought company.”
At that moment, the Martian Manhunter made his own appearance,
introducing his fist to Devil Ray’s faceplate with extreme
prejudice. With that source of trouble removed, Diana took
flight and once more engaged Giganta. The archer chose Killer
Frost as his own target and launched three explosive arrows at the
woman. She noticed this attack, however, and diverted the bolts
with a wave of ice. The wintry projectile then engulfed the
archer himself, freezing him solid.
Harry rewarded this tactic by banishing the woman several feet
away and immediately casting a flame charm to thaw his teammate.
As the ice began to melt, the man finished freeing himself with –
of all things – a circular saw blade at the tip of an arrow.
“And Canary said that a buzz saw arrow was self indulgent!”
Ollie quipped.
“Right…” Harry said tentatively before bringing
his full attention back to the fight. Seeing that both Diana
and J’onn had broken off their own skirmishes, Harry and Oliver
joined the pair.
“They have the opportunity to escape, and yet they remain
fighting,” J’onn observed. “What makes that
ancient vessel so important?”
Diana looked thoughtful. “If I can get my lasso around
one of them, I can make them tell!”
“Good idea, but save your strength,” J’onn
concluded. Using his telepathic gift, he entered Giganta’s
mind and got a summary of what they were planning before some unknown
force interrupted the connection, sending both parties involved to
their knees.
“J’onn! What happened? Are you okay?”
Diana demanded worriedly as she helped her teammate back to his feet.
“I… didn’t get it all, but we can’t allow
them to get that ship! I-” he answered firmly before the
ground began shaking again, interrupting his reply. An unmarked
submarine surfaced right next to the Viking ship with Devil Ray
standing atop its control tower. The vessel launched two tether
cables into the ice on either side of the smaller boat and succeeded
in pulling the frozen skiff free.
As the worker predicted earlier, however, this started a chain
reaction that was slowly but surely destroying the cliff and, by
extension, the resort above. Diana and J’onn pulled
Faraday and Oliver to the top of the cliff as Harry Apparated up to
join them.
“I’ve got the sub!” Oliver called before firing
a tethered arrow at the submarine’s control tower and sliding
down the decline.
“What he said,” Harry seconded before Apparating onto
the ship’s surface and banishing the armed guards off the deck
and into the icy water. Arrow soon joined him and Harry
Apparated the pair up to the topside entry hatch.
As the blonde-haired archer dismissed the shock, Harry opened the
portal and the pair dropped into the boat after sealing the entrance
behind them. Remaining as silent as possible, they sneaked
forward and dispatched any opposition with either stunning spells,
gas arrows, or the highly effective ‘beating the other guy over
the head’ approach. After finally reaching the control
room, Harry happened to glance at the television monitors observing
the submarine as Arrow severed the connection between the two skiffs.
“Diana’s in trouble,” Harry informed the other
man, pointing to the camera featuring the Amazon princess grappling
with Devil Ray. “Can you handle things here?”
Oliver made a show of looking at all of the sleeping guards.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he answered sardonically.
Harry gave him a lackadaisical two-fingered salute before casting a
bubblehead charm around himself and Apparating outside of the vessel
to assist the Amazon.
Finding the heroine and villain quarreling with neither gaining
the upper hand, Harry swam up behind the suited man as he was
attempting to compress the woman’s chest and exhaust her
dwindling oxygen supply even faster.
“Here’s a hint,” Devil Ray gloated. “You
want to hold your breath for as long as you can.”
Seeing that they were not too far from the surface, Harry ripped
the man’s helmet off with a quick twist to reveal a surprised
male of African descent. Before his opponent could gather his
wits, the wizard disarmed the man of his wrist-mounted dart guns.
Pointing a finger upwards, Harry glibly informed – through the
transparent magical barrier over his head –, “the surface
would be that way.” Deprived of his former means of
underwater breathing, Devil Ray took off swimming towards the light –
and air.
Seeing Diana gesture from her mouth to the surface, Harry quickly
cast the same bubblehead charm for her. “You can stop
holding your breath now,” Harry mentioned helpfully.
Tentatively doing so, Diana was surprised that this ‘bubble’
served the same function as both scuba gear and communication
apparatus, but without any apparent means of doing so. “How
did you…?” she trailed off.
“Mag-ic,” Harry sing-songed. ‘Really,’
he wondered, ‘how many times are we going to have this
conversation?’
Pointing at the sinking Viking skiff/ice cube, Harry asked, “Shall
we?” as he cast a levitation charm on the block, ceasing its
descent.
“Sure,” she replied easily before knifing through the
water and coming up underneath their objective. With no
discernable effort, she then began swimming upwards, pushing the item
in front of her. Harry just shrugged and decided against his
original plan of levitating the chunk of ice to the surface.
After all, she was doing just fine and he had no real desire to
damage her pride again so soon.
“Where’s Green Arrow?” Diana asked as Harry swam
up alongside her.
“Captain Nemo’s minding the ship,” the wizard
replied while gesturing towards the now-motionless submarine.
“We already took out its crew before I saw you and your little
friend back here and decided to join the party. Weren’t
you and J’onn going to stop the whole cliff from collapsing?”
“J’onn’s on it,” Diana replied. “He
was going to get Killer Frost to use her powers to stop it.”
“I take it that ‘Killer Frost’ is the ice queen,
then?” Harry inquired.
Diana nodded. “She can control ice in a wide variety
of ways. Hopefully, she can stop several tons of it.”
The two finally broke the surface and Harry, catching sight of Devil
Ray swimming furiously for the shore, sent a stunner after the man
and stopped him instantly.
“Nice shot,” Diana praised. “What did it
do?”
Harry gave another mock salute. “Thanks. That
was a stunner, by the way. He’ll wake up without injury
in a few hours.” Harry looked towards the shore and
squinted. “It appears that Frosty did her job,” he
pointed out.
Making a noise of agreement, Diana maneuvered the giant chunk of
ice onto the remnants of the icy ‘beach’ at the foot of
the cliff, where the two were soon joined by the other Leaguers,
Faraday, and a few of his men. Apparently, Agent Faraday had
three Seawolf-class submarines on standby, and they had boarded the
villains’ vessel, secured the prisoners, and returned Oliver to
the surface. J’onn turned over his own captive to the
authorities and, after a brief flight by Diana to fetch the sleeping
Devil Ray, the defeated criminals were all incarcerated.
“You know, I still don’t know what this was all
about,” Faraday commented.
“They think that the Viking prince’s corpse will give
them the secret of invulnerability,” Oliver informed the
federal agent.
“That was their plan,” J’onn agreed, “or
as much of it as I could learn before something shut down
Giganta’s mind. It seemed to be set by the same person
guarding Silver Banshee’s thoughts.”
Diana looked confused. “Green Lantern said the same
thing when he tried to question Metallo,” she reminisced.
“Of course, there were other… factors that might have
contributed to his shutdown,” she added with a meaningful
glance at Harry.
The implicated wizard just looked off in a random direction while
whistling in an overly innocent manner.
“So these guys were working with Metallo?” Faraday
half-asked half-stated as he discretely kept one eye on Harry.
“And perhaps with others,” J’onn agreed.
Changing topics, he concluded, “We can’t leave Prince
John’s body here. Whoever else is involved will just try
again.”
“The legend of the Viking prince is known even to my
people,” Diana informed them. “If this is really
him, he deserves to be laid to rest according to tradition.
I’ll take care of it.”
“Meanwhile, something’s definitely not kosher,”
Oliver highlighted. “Strange thefts, super villains with
their heads wired to short out if you question them… we’ve
got a real mystery developing here.”
“True,” the Martian Manhunter agreed, “but it’s
a mystery you’ll have to solve without me.” Looking
at Diana, he continued, “I’ve been thinking about what
you’ve said, and about the horrible despair of Prince John’s
life. I’m a Martian; I’ll live far longer than he
did. And unless I find a way to connect with humanity, I’ll
live out that time totally alone. I can’t learn what I
need to learn on the Watchtower.”
Harry patted the extraterrestrial on the back as the group began
breaking up. “If it’s a meditative vacation you
want, I recommend starting with the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet,”
Harry confided. “The monks there are very helpful.
It’s probably the single most peaceful place you’ll find
on this Earth.”
“Thank you,” J’onn answered gravely.
“Hey,” Harry shrugged as he wandered off towards the
pier, “what are friends for?”
As the other Leaguers were reassuring the delegation, Harry caught
the attention of Agent Faraday and motioned him over to the water’s
edge. A few feet out into the sea, several other federal agents
were hurriedly dismantling the various weapons systems and other
valuable gear on the rogue submarine.
Gesturing to the activity, Harry inquired as to their intent with
the vessel.
“It’s too antiquated for the United States Navy,”
the white-haired man responded. “We’re going to
scrap out any of the equipment that we can use and then scuttle her.”
“Such a waste…” Harry murmured mournfully
before the metaphorical light bulb lit up over his head.
Smiling, the wizard looked back to the other man and said, “Mate,
I’ve got a proposition for you…”
After a rather impressive display of magic, Harry had thawed the
skiff from its resting place and levitated it into an awaiting
Javelin. Taking their cargo up to the space station, the group
made arrangements for the Viking’s sendoff, finally deciding to
release him into the sun so as to prevent any adversaries from
regaining his corpse.
After Harry used a banishing charm to release their freight, he
joined several members of the League as Diana unrolled a copy of the
ancient Norse funeral rites. Facing the window displaying the
slowly receding wooden boat, she began reading the English
translation. With a discrete wave of Harry’s wand, the
funeral barge became alight in blue flames as the Amazon recited the
text.
When she finished, the others slowly dispersed until only Harry
and Diana remained. “That was a nice gesture,” the
Amazon mentioned, “though fire normally doesn’t burn in
the vacuum of space.”
Harry shrugged from his place at the window. With his back
still to her, he answered quietly, “It seemed appropriate.”
“What’s wrong?” Diana asked, picking up on his
subdued manner.
“It’s nothing,” Harry answered as he quickly
blanked his expression. “Just stray thoughts. Don’t
trouble yourself over them.”
Harry suddenly smiled slightly and changed the topic. “Thank
you for the entertainment, by the way. The rest of the snobs
were boring; all they would talk about was their new palaces or cars
or other meaningless topics – worthless chatter. You
helped spice things up nicely!”
Diana smiled a little sheepishly. “I’ve never
been much for diplomacy,” she admitted.
Harry shrugged. “Hey, you’ve already got me
beat!” the wizard pledged. “I don’t usually
stop to bandy words with my opponents; I just take them down as
quickly as I can. It seems to work for me,” he finished
humorously.
Diana smiled at the sentiment that so closely resembled her own
people’s chosen method of ‘diplomacy’.
“You’re not at all like I expected you to be,”
Diana professed after a few moments of silence.
“Oh?” Harry asked curiously, “and how did you
expect me to be?”
“Well, not so personable, for one thing,” the Amazon
supplied. “No offense, but most of your male kin that
I’ve met never failed to lord their power over everyone else.”
Harry half-grinned sadly. “None taken. I
generally get into disputes with that sort myself. Some of the
finer points can get… interesting.” He thought
about all of the self-centered wizards and witches he had encountered
over the years. Voldemort and his lot were bad enough – what
with their genocidal tendencies – but the average wizarding
public was the worst. Be they pureblood or mixed, the magical
populace seemed somehow convinced of their own superiority over the
non-wizarding races. “What most of my kind seem to forget
is that they are just as fallible as anyone else and that – despite
their power – there is much that they can learn from the ‘weaker’
peoples.”
Diana blinked. “That’s a… unique point of
view,” she conceded.
Harry nodded while stifling a grin. “Yeah, I suppose
it is. I’ve caught a lot of flack because of it over the
years, but the old man is of a similar mind and his opinion is
generally enough to shut the rest of them up.” Harry
thought for a moment. “Well, except for the few really
rotten apples, but they’ve been dealt with already.”
“The ‘old man’?” Diana questioned.
Inwardly, she was slightly appalled at the disrespectful nickname.
The wizard just dipped his head, oblivious to her plight.
“It’s one of my pet names for our old teacher.
You’ve never met him – obviously – but he’s an all
right guy. Meddles a little too much for my comfort, but he
means well. In my opinion, his only real flaw is the whole
‘second chance’ syndrome. I mean, there was this
blonde ‘pretty boy’ – whom I shall evermore refer
to as Lucy – who put on a friendly face and then insulted the
old coot repeatedly. Everyone knew where the git’s
allegiances lay, but the codger wouldn’t let anyone do anything
about it. I would have been more than pleased to eviscerate the
idiot, but…” Harry shrugged. “What’s
a guy to do? You tell him stuff like this and he just puts on
his ‘all knowing’ face, smiles, tells you that he’s
holding out for their redemption, and then offers you lemon drops!”
Harry turned back to the window and attempted to unclench his
fists as the still-sore memories of his interactions with
Dumbledore’s ‘greater good’ philosophy replayed in
his mind. “I promise you one thing; if I had been
calling the shots, I would have just killed the cretin. No
trials, no listening to falsified ‘I’m innocent’
acts – I’d just cut off his lying, murderous head and
been done with it!”
Finally succeeding in calming himself, Harry turned back and
concluded, “Ah, well. What’s done is done, and here
we are.” He then took a closer look at the Amazon, only
to find her grinning strangely. If he did not know better, he
would almost believe her to be nervous. “Are you feeling
alright?” Harry asked concernedly.
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “I was just
remembering that I needed to ask… if the medbay gave you any
problems! Yes… you see, they can be sort of…
invasive. Hehehe,” she laughed weakly.
Harry smiled rather sheepishly. “Well… I’ve
never exactly liked hospital wings of any sort, and I feel perfectly
fine, so…”
“What?!” she demanded sharply, a one hundred-eighty
turn around from her previous mood. The inquisitive tone was so
abrupt that Harry was oddly reminded of Hermione right before she
began discussing the welfare of House Elves or ‘Hogwarts, A
History.’
“You get yourself down to medical right now, Mister!”
the Amazon princess commanded. “I don’t care if
you’re… oh,” she cut her rant off as if suddenly
remembering whom she was addressing.
Suddenly flushing an interesting shade of red, she stammered,
“Right… well… I’ll just go let them know to
expect you later, okay?” Without waiting for a reply,
Diana did a sharp about-face and began walking away rapidly.
Harry felt one eyebrow rise drastically as he watched her
retreating back.
‘Nice woman,’ the wizard thought as he made his
own way back towards his quarters for a short rest after the
morning’s festivities. ‘Bit strange, though.’
After Green Lantern’s report the previous evening, thoughts
pertaining to the mysterious Mr. Black invaded Wally West’s
mind and continued haunting him throughout the remainder of the
evening. When you consider the fact that the Flash normally had
the attention span of a gnat, this was an achievement of note.
With such an unprecedented fixation distracting him, the red-headed
speedster ultimately decided to approach the mysterious Mr. Black and
interrogate him in some inconspicuous way.
Which, of course, led the ‘Fastest Man Alive’ to start
rapidly knocking on the other man’s door approximately ten
seconds after he left his ‘non-powered’ job for the day.
As soon as the door opened, Flash executed his carefully preparing
conversation opener. “Oh, hi, Mr. Black! I haven’t
gotten to really talk to you properly since you arrived, and I just
wanted to say ‘hi’! I heard you caught a couple of
movies last night; I hope you had fun at the cinema.”
The other man just blinked at the stream of consciousness. A
few moments later, Harry finally managed to reply, “I did,
thanks. It was very entertaining. Won’t you come
in?” the man finished with a smile.
“Cool!” Flash accepted, closing the door behind him.
He gave a cursory glance around at the cluttered room filled with
unidentifiable knick-knacks before once more addressing the room’s
new owner. “I’ve heard you took the girls for a trip to
Vegas. You like traveling?”
“Considering that I’ve traveled all over the world and
enjoyed most of it, I would have to answer with a definite ‘yes’.
The traveling bit is sort of fun, but it’s the experience that you
truly enjoy.”
“Really?” Flash asked courteously.
Harry nodded. “Oh, yeah. For example, when I
think that most people will never learn the location of Shangri La…”
“Sounds cool,” the speed demon admitted, even as he
decided not to risk frying his brain by pursuing the topic.
Switching gears, he asked, “Ever been to Egypt? I was
thinking of going there for a vacation myself, but I don’t know
anyone who has actually been there and seen it.”
‘Please don’t let this be too obvious!’
Flash prayed to whatever cosmic force wished to listen.
“Well, yeah, I’ve been there,” Harry answered
helpfully. “I don’t know if I’ll be much help,
though. I was rather busy at the time and didn’t get to
do much of the normal tourist thing. However, I should be able
to answer any questions you might have up until the end of the
pharaohs’ era.”
Flash took a deep breath. ‘Casual conversation.
Remember that, Flash my man. Just keep things casual…’
“Well, the ancient stuff seems more interesting, anyway,”
Flash decided. “So, what interesting things are there to
see?”
“Hmm,” Harry mused. “Well, I enjoyed the
Alexandrian Library last time I was there. They have some of
the most interesting texts I’ve ever read…” Harry
suddenly made a face and snapped his fingers. “Oh,
right. You won’t be able to see it anymore.
However, you can still see the Great Pyramids at Giza –
at least, I think you still can.”
Harry smiled to himself and looked back at the costumed hero.
“If your archeologists have discovered the secret chambers
there, I’d recommend paying close attention to the
hieroglyphics on their walls. The workers left a few…
amusing anecdotes behind.”
“Great…” Wally said in a voice somewhat weaker
than he wanted. ‘Gotta distract him! Gotta
distract him. Think, Wally boy! Think! What would the
Lone Ranger do? Got it!’
“Oh, and by the way – do you think that it’s
safe enough?” he desperately asked, if for no other reason than
to prevent his mind from overloading.
The other man shrugged. “Well, I suppose it would be a
pretty safe assumption that you can go there and back safely.”
The wizard’s expression grew grim. “Unlike some
people I knew.”
Wally’s self-preservation instinct suddenly made its
presence known by screaming, ‘Change the subject, Idiot!
For the love of God, change the subject!’
“Err, well, what I meant to actually say was… I
didn’t want to be bothered by work when I’m taking a break, you
know?” Wally’s mind was signaling that it wanted out of
this conversation as fast as possible.
Preferably even faster.
To his surprise, Mr. Black actually laughed at that.
“I know exactly what you mean,” the wizard
reported. “When I was there last, I had to free some
decent folk from a particularly nasty group of Egyptian filth.
The whole thing turned out all right in the end, but there was a
certain… minor amount of bloodshed involved.”
The man shrugged. “It was more involved than I
originally anticipated, but the good guys lived and the bad guys…
well… didn’t.”
“Right…” Flash felt more than a little bit
sick. “So… maybe Egypt isn’t the best idea after
all.”
“Well, if you are looking for an interesting country with a
humid climate and a lot of old buildings, I recommend Italy.
Overall, it’s pretty nice, and if books are your thing, the
Vatican has an excellent collection. Not as grand as
Alexandria’s library, but… hey, what can you do?
Granted, Italy’s had its share of idiots where I was concerned,
but still… the whole thing ended for them much worse than for
me.”
He smiled grimly. “As luck would have it, I bought
this handy little pugio a few days earlier. The bunch of idiots
seemed to really appreciate my effort on their behalf, and it cost me
only two aurei.” He pulled an old looking dagger out of
his now-standard black coat’s inner pocket and showed it to the
other man.
Flash made the obligatory inspection of the proffered weapon
before returning it to its owner. “Neat,” he said
shakily. “I might just try Italy then.”
‘Just finish this conversation,’ the fastest
man alive thought to himself. ‘It can’t be that hard.’
“Glad I could help,” Harry smiled at his guest before
looking at his watch. “Now, I’m afraid I need to be
going. I have something of a dinner date with Kara, and I would
really hate to be late.”
Flash nodded sharply. “Sure. Have fun.”
The wizard followed him through the door. Giving a friendly
wave, the scarlet speedster watched as the man disappeared into thin
air.
Blinking, Wally spoke his thoughts aloud. “I’ve
definitely have to get this out of my system! I think it’s time
for another quick meeting…”
“So why did you call us here exactly, Wally?” Diana
asked five minutes later.
Of the seven original leaguers, J’onn was now ‘off the
grid’ and Batman was busy patrolling ‘his’ city –
leaving Diana, John, Shayera, and Clark for Flash to track down.
“I’ve got some news that you’re not gonna believe,”
the fastest man alive alleged.
“Which is…” the Green Lantern prompted.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about what GL and
S.T.R.I.P.E. told us yesterday about Mr. Black,” Flash
admitted, “and I just finished talking to him about tourism.”
“So…?” Diana asked confusedly.
Wally looked a little disconcerted. “Err…,”
he stammered, “I sorta asked him about… Ancient Egypt.”
The last couple of words were rushed through but still intelligible
for his colleagues.
“Wally!” Shayera interjected. “Did you not
think this through at all?!”
“No, he was okay about it, really,” Flash assured
them. “He even mentioned that he really enjoyed the
Alexandrian Library last time he was there. But then he seemed
to remember that I won’t be able to see it for some reason.”
Diana looked at him funnily. “Like the simple fact
that the Royal Library of Alexandria was destroyed nearly two
millennia ago, perhaps?” the Amazon offered.
“Umm… yeah, that might be why he said he can’t help
me with any modern buildings and most of the old ones he knows date
back to the time of the pharaohs,” Wally agreed.
John Stewart was barely able to control his enthusiasm over this
new source of information. “So did you ask him about…?”
Wally nodded. “Yeah, but it was strange. He
stood there – right next to me – and casually described how a
minor – minor, mind you – amount of bloodshed was needed
to enable ‘the good guys’ to regain their freedom and
escape from the Egyptians.”
“What else did you learn?” Diana inquired.
“Well, he mentioned that there are still undiscovered secret
chambers in the Great Pyramids and, if one follows the instructions
on the wall, it’s not hard to open,” Wally supplied. “He
also said something about knowing the location of Shangri La; that
was before we discussed Egypt, though. Mr. Black also mentioned
that I may like Italy better than Egypt even though, unlike the
Israelites, I shouldn’t have any problems with coming back from it.”
Flash shrugged. “Not sure why, really.”
“Did he say anything special about Italy?” Clark was
becoming curious now
Wally shook his head. “Not much. Mentioned
something about the books in the library at the Vatican not being
quite as numerous as the ones in Alexandria and then told me some
story that didn’t make much sense.”
“What story?” Superman pressed.
“That, when he was in Italy, he encountered a few lunatics
but that everything ended for them much worse then for him.
Then he told me that, a few days before he met them, he bought a
pugio and that he was glad he did. Apparently, he wasn’t
able to get any of them after that. He showed me the thing,
too. Said he paid two aurei for it.”
Flash looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s about
it, I think.”
“Two aurei?” Diana confirmed.
“That’s what he said,” the speedster confirmed.
“I have no idea how much it is since I’ve never heard of the
currency before.”
“It’s a gold coin worth 25 silver denari,” Diana
informed the group. “It was put out of use in the
beginning of the 4th century.”
“Can you describe the weapon?” Shayera asked her
speedy teammate.
“Let me think… leaf-shaped blade, a bit over two
inches in width and nine inches in length. It had the word
‘Atrum’ or ‘Atrus’ written on it.
Looked old-fashioned, obviously…”
“Was the hilt riveted through the shoulders of the blade?”
the Amazon asked intently.
For a short moment, Wally just stared. “No, I don’t
think so…” he answered eventually.
“And you are sure that the blade was wider than two inches?”
she pressed.
At Flash’s confirmation, Diana blinked. “That
weapon is over nineteen centuries old!” she breathed.
“So… how does that help us?” Superman asked a
few moments later.
“Well, if Wally read the word right, it might have been
customized on his order. Provided that it’s an original,
of course,” Diana answered distractedly. “Did you
see on which hip he wore it?”
Flash looked away for a second. “Well, I didn’t
see a scabbard, but he drew it from under the right side of his
coat.”
“Like one of the nobles…” Diana muttered.
“Not a mere legionnaire.”
“Let’s see what we can find out now that we know
approximately when it was manufactured,” Shayera commented as
she moved to one of the computing consoles. “I’ve
already put the data in the computer. We should have the
results in a second.”
Pictures of different pugios appeared on the screen. Wally
took a good look at them before pointing at one in particular.
“It looks just like that one, except his has that inscription
and is in better shape.”
“Let’s see…” Clark selected the dagger in
question and scanned through the accompanying text. “It
looks like that one was only made in… Pompeii?!”
John snorted. “Ten bucks says that the pugio in
question was made around 79 A.D. Now, I wonder what our Mr.
Black could have been doing there at that point in time…?”
he asked rhetorically.
“I know one thing; I won’t ask him for tourist tips
again!” Flash professed. “I’m not looking
forward to learning why he’s portrayed as walking on the
streets during the plague epidemics or why they call it the ‘Black
Death.’”
“By the way… where is he now?” Superman asked
Wally.
“Oh, he said something about… taking Kara on a dinner
date,” Flash trailed off towards the end.
Unfortunately for him, the Kryptonian’s superior hearing
still caught the gist of his comment.
“He WHAT?!?!?!”
“So… this is Oliver’s, huh?” Harry asked
his blonde companion as they beamed down planet-side. “And
you said that it’s supposed to be a good Italian joint?”
“The best,” Kara responded confidently before brushing
an imaginary piece of lint off her navy blue dress.
“And I have to wear the tie?” he confirmed yet again
while tugging on the aforementioned article. If only he had
known that his little ‘good deed’ for Diana would have
sparked this…
‘Well. There’s no help for it,’
Harry silently concluded.
“Yes!” the girl answered, equal parts amused and
resigned. Smoothing out his tie and fixing his coat –
again –, the Argosian took possession of Harry’s arm and
began dragging him towards the entrance. “It’s your
own fault, you know,” she said placidly. “You’re
the one who took Diana on a formal date to that global warming
thingy. If you wore a tux for her, then it’s only right
that you wear one for me!”
Harry looked more than a little confused at her train of logic.
“I suppose that makes sense…” the wizard
answered tentatively.
“Of course it does!” Kara said exuberantly as the two
entered the establishment. Once more allowing everyone present
to witness a 5’-4” blonde girl dragging a 5’-11”
black-haired man around like a toy, Kara escorted her date to the
attendant’s booth. “Black, party of two,” she
announced to the patiently waiting employee, who proceeded to check
his list.
“Ah, of course! Right this way!” the waiter
invited.
Harry looked over at his companion in confusion. “We
had to have a reservation?” he questioned.
“Uh huh…” Kara answered simply.
“In advance?” he prompted.
She nodded. “Yeah, since yesterday.”
“And you used my name?” he inquired.
Shrugging, Kara said, “Well, I thought that I would save you
the trouble of calling them yourself.”
Harry smiled despite himself. “How… thoughtful
of you,” he answered a few moments later.
“I try,” she replied modestly.
“Clark, are you sure that this is a good idea?”
John asked the Man of Steel yet again.
Not turning away from his feverish attempts to access the
communications system, the Kryptonian just bit out, “Of
course!”
Diana sighed. “Kal, she’s perfectly fine,”
the Amazon pointed out. “You don’t have to go
charging down there just because Kara’s decided to start
dating. Mr. Black has been a perfect gentleman ever since we
met him. I know she’s your cousin, but-”
“Diana,” he said carefully, “she’s
flirting with certain Death – literally! And
besides, I don’t have to ‘go charging down there’
just yet.”
“What do you-?” was all Wonder Woman could get out
before the console Clark was manipulating finally resolved into a
video stream obviously originating from a security camera. The
surveillance system was installed in what appeared to be an upscale
restaurant. As luck would have it, the camera provided an
acceptable image of the two people in question. Using another
trick he picked up from his pointy-eared teammate, Clark added the
audio signal from Kara’s comm. unit to the display.
After the two teenagers had placed their orders, – Harry
thought he was getting some variant of Fettuccini – he and Kara
spent the next few moments just staring at one another.
“So… do you come here often?” Harry asked with
a quirked eyebrow.
The blonde-haired woman snorted at the clichéd conversation
opener. “No, I actually don’t date all that much,
and there’s not much of a point coming to places like this by
myself.”
“Not a big dater, then?” Harry asked curiously.
Kara smiled ruefully. “Most guys seem a little
skittish around me for some reason. Apparently, a girl who can
bench several tons is too intimidating to be considered date-able.
And when you throw in a certain overbearing cousin of mine…”
“Hmm… he seemed like an alright bloke to me,”
Harry pondered. “Well, you can set your mind at ease.
After the life I’ve led, I don’t scare all that easy.
In fact, I sincerely doubt that there is anything that you – or
your cousin – could do that would sincerely endanger me.”
“Keeping in mind that the individual in question nominally
chairs an entire space station full of metas floating above us?”
she asked incredulously.
Harry snorted derisively as he thought back to all the other conflicts he dodged in his lifetime. “That’s one of the few perks of my peculiar… situation,” he said darkly. “In fact, I’ll give you ten-to-one odds that you, and your cousin, and the rest of the League could throw everything you’ve got at me and—at the end of the day—I&rsquo’d still be here without even have a scratch on me.”
The wizard seemed to consider his last statement. “And
then I’d be obliged to respond. It’s hard to fear
an organization if you can idly think up over a dozen ways to utterly
destroy it. So, no, I’m not intimidated in the
slightest.” Harry cocked his head to the side as he
studied his dining partner. “In fact, I find you rather
interesting.”
“Really?” Kara asked a little disbelievingly.
Here was an immortal being who apparently could remake reality as he
saw fit, and he found her interesting?! “How
so? I mean, I just fly around and punch things.”
Harry chuckled. “That’s actually part of it,”
he admitted. “You look like a woman, you talk like a
woman, you even walk like a woman – but you fight like a
man. I suppose I found that contrast intriguing. Not to
mention the extraterrestrial ancestry as well.” He made a
lazy circular motion with one hand. “And then there are
all the other members to consider. You have Diana, who shares
the same qualities that I just mentioned. Shayera, a woman who
– I’m sure – has been mistaken for an angel more than once; who
also happens to be an extraterrestrial and the only woman I’ve
ever met who uses a mace that enthusiastically. Your cousin,
Lantern, Flash, an actual Martian – all of whom have
their own interesting abilities and backgrounds. I mean, you
even have a normal non-powered human as one of your founding
members, whose inventiveness seems surpassed solely by his appalling
lack of manners.”
Harry made a shooing gesture. “And that’s
ignoring the several hundred other members that have joined in the
past couple of years.”
Kara blinked at his comprehensive assessment of the inner
council. “What did you do?” she asked jokingly.
“Review the entire member database?”
“Yep,” he answered promptly, “last night.
I figured that if I’m actually going out on missions, I should
at least know who I’m working with.”
“But how did you find the time?” Kara blurted.
“I mean, that had to be hundreds if not thousands of hours of
video footage alone! Not to mention all the text documents!”
“Reviewing both took about one thousand, two hundred, and
sixty four hours, actually,” Harry specified. “As
for the other part of your question, time isn’t that hard to
manipulate if you know what you’re doing.”
Kara looked more than a little shocked. “Are you
saying that you stopped time while you were doing that?!”
Harry looked at her askance. “No, not at all! I
mean, you couldn’t do much of anything if time was frozen, now
could you?” As Kara seemed to breath a sigh of relief,
Harry calmly added, “I kept going back into the past a few
hours at a time and reviewed the information that way.”
“Umm… did he say what I thought he just said?”
Flash voiced in an otherwise silent room.
“Well…” John offered, “That would explain
how one person can collect the souls of billions of people as they
die.”
Flash seemed to think on that for a minute before fashioning a
reply.
“Do you think that’s how Santa Claus does it?”
Harry almost laughed at the bug-eyed look Kara was giving him, but
he held it in.
Barely.
“So, you can control time?” she finally asked a few
minutes later.
Harry just nodded, a grin playing at his lips.
Shaking her head, Kara asked, “Are you sure you should be
discussing things like this in public?”
Harry finally let the persistent grin show. “Don’t
worry. I’ve put up a ward to discourage eavesdropping.
The only way someone could hear what we’re saying is if you’re
bugged.”
“What, you mean like… listening through my comm. link
or something?” Kara questioned.
Harry nodded. “Exactly,” the wizard confirmed.
“That’s impossible!” Kara blurted. “The
only people that could do that would be the members of the inner
council, and they wouldn’t do that!”
“If you say so,” Harry shrugged.
Clark hurriedly cancelled the monitoring routines, much to the
amusement of his colleagues.
“Uh oh… Supes got busted!” Flash called out as
he capered around the room.
“I hate to tell you this,” the Green Lantern added
laughingly, “but you’re in for it if Mr. Black informs
your ‘cousin’ what you’ve been doing.”
This statement prompted Diana to add her own two cents into the
discussion. “I told you that she was in good hands and
that you shouldn’t interfere.”
Superman took the gibes in his typical unflappable manner before
silencing his teammates with one statement.
“If he knew about the bug, do you really think that he
doesn’t know who was listening?”
Oddly enough, the other meta-humans were suddenly much more
subdued.
Kara struggled for something else to discuss. “So, uh…
any luck finding a way back to… wherever it is you’re
from?”
“No, I’m afraid that their transporter is still
off-line,” Harry said easily. “It will probably
take a while longer.”
“You don’t seem all that upset. Don’t you
miss your home?” she questioned, ignoring the inappropriate
glee she felt at hearing that he would not be leaving anytime soon.
He smiled sadly. “I’ve never really had a home,”
he admitted. “I’ve had a couple of good friends to
invite me into their homes, but I don’t belong there. I
even own a few houses, but I don’t really belong there
either.” The wizard looked pensive. “I
suppose that I don’t belong anywhere.”
“You belong here, with us!” Kara said honestly.
Harry gave a muffled laugh at her exuberant reply. “I’m
welcomed here,” he stressed. Seeming to shake the
depressing subject away, he continued, “But enough about me and
my social inadequacies. Let’s talk about you.
What’s it like growing up on a farm?”
Kara rolled her eyes at the clumsy change in topic and vowed to
herself to alleviate the pain she had just witnessed.
“Well, Kansas can be summarized in one word: flat. The
fields go on forever and…”
The conference room’s intercom sounded, interrupting John’s
attempts to prove that Santa Claus did not, in fact, exist.
“Yes? Can I help you?” Clark asked while
pressing the send button.
“Yes… umm, Superman? This is Denise Miles down
in Medlab Four. Do you still want to be notified of any unusual
occurrences?”
“That’s correct, Miss Miles,” the Man of Steel
confirmed. “I take it that something strange has
happened.”
“You could say that,” the bewildered voice responded.
“Can you access the file for ‘Mr. Black’?”
“Just a moment,” he instructed as Shayera opened the
appropriate directory on the League’s mainframe. As he
expected, there was precious little information available. “All
right. Go ahead.”
“Open the lab report from about three hours ago,”
Denise ordered. The Thanagarian did so before swearing under
her breath. Clark looked over her shoulder to determine why and
suddenly felt a similar desire.
“Whoa!” the Green Lantern exclaimed. “Is
this for real?”
Thanks to Clark having placed the communications panel on
hands-free, the lab technician heard the man’s query.
“I’m afraid so. We obtained the blood sample
without incident and did a quick scan earlier for traces of Devil
Ray’s toxin. That showed up negative, so we cleared Mr.
Black to leave. It was only when we started running the normal
battery of tests that all these irregularities began appearing.”
Diana cocked her head to the side as she was looking at a
magnified view of a DNA strand. “What are we looking for,
exactly?” she asked confusedly. “Genetic theory
isn’t exactly my specialty, but isn’t that what it’s
supposed to look like?”
Denise picked up the answer. “The helical strands do
resemble human DNA on the surface, but that’s about it.
Besides the genetic material for a human male in his prime, we’ve
also isolated the genetic patterns for bats, a variant of the wolf
genome, reptilian traces from at least two separate sources, and an
odd avian genome as well. In addition, we have no
classification for a few other patterns.”
“What else can you tell us?” Clark inquired.
“The cells multiply at an amazing rate, nearly a hundred
times that of a human,” the lab technician answered excitedly.
“And it’s a perfect duplication as well; the copied
chromosomes are the exact same length as the originals.”
“And that means…?” Diana pressed.
Denise laughed slightly. “That this guy’s never
gonna have to worry about wrinkles.”
“So he is immortal?” Clark clarified.
“Well, old age definitely isn’t going to be a
problem. Moreover, his system will never succumb to poison –
the little amount that we withdrew seems to be the single most
volatile substance I’ve ever seen. Every toxin analysis
that we’ve run has ended the same way; the blood sample
immediately overpowers the other compound and absorbs it, inoculating
itself in the process as it becomes even more venomous. If this
guy opened a vein in a large city’s water supply, he could kill
hundreds. Thousands, even!”
“I… see,” Clark said finally. “Thank
you, Denise. Is there anything else?”
“Loads!” The woman sounded excited, for
goodness’s sake! “When the toxicology reports came
back with that, we ran the whole gauntlet; radiation, intentional
mutation… the works. Nothing phases this stuff!
So, seeing this energetic of a reaction we began combing the cells
over, looking for where all of these responses were drawing their
power.”
“And…?” Shayera pressed impatiently. “Did
you find it?”
“Oh, we found it alright,” the lab tech confirmed.
“We even measured its potential energy that this sample has
stored. Just for clarification, you are aware that the human
body possesses a certain biological current, on the order of
approximately five milliamperes?”
“Yes,” John spoke up, “So?”
“Well, Mr. Black’s cells were charged to about
twenty,” the woman replied.
“Milliamps?” the ex-Marine qualified.
“Amps,” Denise said resolutely. “It’s
like the guy’s carrying around a power plant in his veins.
What we can’t figure out is what all of this energy is
fuelling.”
“Oh, we have some ideas,” Clark said resolutely.
“Thank you for your time, Denise.”
“Anytime, Sir,” she replied before breaking a
connection.
The five looked at each other before Flash broke the silence.
“Well, I think that I’ve had enough for the evening.
Good night.” An instant later, the Flash was gone.
“Yeah, what he said,” John seconded, before exiting
the room at a more normal pace.
“I think I may just go get drunk about now,” Shayera
thought aloud as the remaining three prepared to leave.
Diana laughed for a moment. “I think I may just join
you.”
“- and the worst thing was that we didn’t find the
tractor for a week!” Kara finished blushingly.
Harry finally lost his battle to retain his composure and finally
burst out laughing. When he was once more capable of speech,
the wizard inquired, “So, let me get this straight; you’re
virtually invulnerable and you can survive in vacuum, but you get hay
fever so badly that one time you accidentally sneezed at your
grandfather’s tractor and blew it out of the county?
Moreover, you managed to land it in a lake so that neither you nor
Superman could locate it for an entire week?”
He broke out laughing again. “I had no idea that farm
life could be so entertaining!”
“Yeah, yeah! Laugh it up!” Kara muttered,
obviously still embarrassed over the ordeal.
“I’m sorry,” he said insincerely as he wiped his
eyes with the back of his shirtsleeve. “I’ll be
good, honest.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “If you’re about done…
perhaps we can leave now?”
Harry shrugged as he threw a few bills down on the table and
jumped to his feet. Giving the blonde-haired woman a hand out
of her own chair, the mage looked down and asked, “So, what
now, boss lady?”
“I didn’t actually have anything else planned, to be
honest,” the undercover Supergirl confessed. “What
do you have on your mind?”
Harry thought for a second before smiling. “Have you
ever been deep-sea fishing?” he inquired.
“No…” she admitted slowly. “Why?”
“Well… I sorta picked up a boat, and I was wondering
if you would help me break it in?” Harry said easily.
“Sure, we can give it a spin,” Kara agreed.
“Where is it moored?”
Harry guided the girl back into the adjacent alley. Once the
two were out of sight, Harry Apparated them both to the nearby
seashore. Before the Argosian could comment on the lack of
ships, Harry withdrew the shrunken vessel and placed it in the
water. Another spell immediately followed, returning the now
‘officially decommissioned’ submarine to its proper
dimensions.
“Uhm… exactly what kind of fish are you hunting?
Moby Dick?” she asked disbelievingly.
Harry had taken her moment of shock to conjure a good replica of
the antique tri-corn hats. Grinning brightly, he placed the
relic on his head before gesturing to the vessel. “Well,
Lantern had told me that he enjoyed deep-sea fishing and it would be
rather hard to find a fishing trawler that can go deeper than this,”
he answered innocently.
“I would suppose so,” Kara answered distractedly,
still unable to comprehend what defined normality for her companion.
“But most people just settle for a ship with taller walls so it
doesn’t capsize when out at sea. This is so…”
“This one won’t capsize either,” Harry assured
the girl.
“But it’s a freaking submarine!” she blurted.
Harry nodded his head sharply. “Yep,” he agreed,
before offering her his arm. “Shall we?”
The blonde extra-terrestrial finally shook off the incredulous
response this whole scene had caused her. After all, after
witnessing the same individual ride a ghost horse, teleport on his
own, break every known law regarding probability, and generally
rewrite reality to suit himself, carrying around an actual submarine
in his pocket barely even rated.
“Why not?” she returned his grin, before flying the
pair of them to the entrance hatch. A few moments later found
the magically enhanced vessel gracefully sliding beneath the waves.
A/N: Well, this concludes Chapter Four of the MaW/JLA
Crossover. I still haven’t come up with a title for this
story that I like yet, and would welcome your suggestions. I
would also like to thank James and Patrick for their assistance with
proofreading this chapter, as well as the many of you who contributed
the inspiring drabbles I incorporated into this chapter (such as the
Mr. Black/Flash scene or Batman and Alfred’s tête-à-tête).
I hope you found this latest submission to be worth the wait, and
I await your reviews/suggestions/etc.