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.
The Expedition
“Man, I can’t believe that I missed that!” Kara
exclaimed to a patiently listening Harry. “And in
Metropolis of all places!”
Once Kara and Flash returned from
settling an escalated riot in Madagascar, Courtney lost no time in
informing the other blonde teenager about her team’s
most recent mission. As Stargirl continued to regale the
Argosian with the mysterious Mr. Black’s exploits, the blonde
powerhouse silently vowed to seek out the man of the hour at her
first opportunity. Fortune smiled on Kara a few minutes later
when Courtney paused for breath; the nearly invulnerable superheroine
quickly made her excuses to the staff-wielding girl and set out on
her quest. Fortunately, her journey was short and Kara found
the wizard in question in a matter of minutes. Wasting no time,
the girl quickly recapped what she had recently learned, ending in
her exclamatory remark.
“Perhaps it was for the best,”
Harry offered mildly. “After all, the clod was
planning to murder your cousin.”
As luck would have it, the
Kryptonian cousin in question was traversing an intersecting corridor
and overheard their exchange. Having finally settled the matter
of Gallatea’s provisionary induction to the League, the council
decided that Clark would be the best choice to break the news to the
cloned girl. However, given the nature of the conversation he
had just gleaned… perhaps it would behoove him to delay his
retrieval of his other cousin for a few moments longer.
Ignoring the short blonde-haired
woman’s increasingly crimson skin tone, Harry continued,
“There’s no telling what a brute such as he would do to
you if he had his way.”
“I can fend for myself, thank
you very much!” the blonde spitfire stated heatedly.
“That little fluke in Shambala was a one-time deal.”
“Your prowess in battle was
never in question, Kara,” Harry replied with poorly concealed
amusement. “I merely point out that I know his type.
Trust me when I say that you do not want to be near him more than you
must. I’ve encountered such hypocritical morons in the
past and will no doubt continue to do so until the end of days.”
Harry sighed audibly. “The
act never changes, really. I first heard the story straight
from the chief snake-faced bugger himself; he never shut up about
it. Every time I turned around, it was ‘there is no good
and evil, just power and those not afraid to use it’ blah blah
blah. ‘Join me and we can rule this world for eternity’
blah blah blah. Of course, all of that was interspersed with
bouts evil laughter.”
The wizard shook his head
irritably. “It’s really bloody annoying! On
the bright side, I’ve learned that anybody else talking that
way can be immediately put on my ‘to flatten’ list.”
“’Snake-faced bugger’?”
Kara questioned amusedly.
Harry shrugged. “Well,
he technically wasn’t a snake,” he admitted, “but
the idiot certainly acted like one. The pest was rather partial
to the serpent form as well, as I recall. Bane of my existence
practically as long as I can remember, but I guess it doesn’t
matter now. It took some doing, but he was defeated.
Granted, not without a great sacrifice…”
The reminiscing mage cut off his
recollection. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”
he suddenly asked. “Say, how about we go sailing again?
I just so happened to stumble across the location to the Isle of
Avalon earlier and it’s only accessible by sea. You
wouldn’t happen to know of any budding archaeologists that
might be interested in accompanying me, would you?”
“Are you serious?” the
blonde girl squee’d. “I’d love to go!
Are we taking anybody else?” She seemed to think for a
moment before adding, “And if you don’t mind, could we
stick to the surface? I think I’d prefer to smell the
ocean breeze this time.”
Harry put aside his private
ruminations on exactly how the short feminine form facing him was
able to emit such a high-pitched squeal and smiled slightly.
“Well, it just so happens that a friend of mine loaned me a
more… traditional ship. It’s a wooden
Concord-class Dutch flute with sails and cannons and
everything. My associate assures me that it practically flies
across the waves, and it can carry a good-sized crew. And yes,
I was considering inviting some others to join us, but I’m open
to suggestions.”
“Really? I’d love
to try an old ship like that!” the girl exclaimed. “Let
me change into something more appropriate and we can go recruiting.
Meet me at my room in fifteen?” she asked hopefully.
“With bells on, as they say,”
Harry confirmed. “Never did really get that reference,
now that I think about it,” he mused.
“Great! See you then!”
she called out as she hurried in the direction of the living
quarters.
Harry just chuckled as the energetic
young woman literally flew down the halls. Donning his black
leather tricorn from their last adventure, the dimension-hopping mage
sedately began walking in the same direction as his companion while
humming a jaunty tune.
Superman leaned on the wall for
support as he absorbed this latest information; the Flying
Dutchman was real! Granted, his previous conversations with
the pivotal immortal figure had marginally prepared him for such
sensational tales but still… the Dutchman was real.
Once that particular piece of information finally percolated
through his thought processes, another off-hand tidbit became
obvious.
“‘Snake-faced’?”
the Man of Steel whispered to himself. “‘As long as
he can remember’?” The other man’s casual
remark brought to mind the Council’s most recent conversation
regarding Eden and the Fall of Man. Even with his prior
experiences with the… man, Clark could scarcely comprehend
that the League was playing host to an eyewitness for one of the most
pivotal points in human history.
Thinking of his adopted father’s
interest in matters of the Old Testament, a half-formed thought of
introducing the ancient being to his folks scurried through his mind
before he squashed the notion. He was hardly in any position to
make demands of Death’s time and doubted the wisdom of
introducing the Grim Reaper to his aging parents in any event.
Putting the issue from his mind,
Superman slipped through one of the external hatches and flew
nonchalantly in direction of Metropolis. Galatea would just
have to wait – what he needed now more than anything was some
normalcy.
If such an alien concept still
existed.
“Brainiac, I know you’re
in there. I can almost feel you!” Lex Luthor
growled as yet another experiment ended in failure. “Abasing
myself before Grodd, then running this unwieldy super gang! It
will all be worth it if I can just free the only piece of you that
remains.”
Tala rolled her eyes and stepped
between the bald criminal genius and the sedimentary object of his
frustrations. “Lex… don’t talk to the rock,”
she ordered breathily as she leaned against his shoulders in a bid to
focus his attention elsewhere.
“Stay out of this, witch!”
Luthor barked before brushing her aside without concern.
Irritated, he ran the next experiment in his battery of tests, only
to meet with failure once more. “It doesn’t make
sense!” he complained as he stalked away from the machinery.
“The smallest scrap of Brainiac should be enough to
reconstitute him!” Luthor sank into his control chair in
thought.
“Don’t worry about it,
Darling,” Tala cooed as she began massaging the master
criminal’s scalp. “I’m sure that it will be-”
“Unless Grodd is
somehow preventing it,” he interrupted, lost in his
ponderings. Seeming to give the idea more credence, Luthor
sprang out of his chair and began striding purposefully towards the
Legion’s prison cells. Rolling her eyes yet again, Tala
followed the taller figure as he deactivated the maximum-security
cell’s automated systems and entered.
“What do you want,
Luthor?” Grodd demanded dully from his bound position against
an upright steel slab.
“How do I unlock the Brainiac
code?” the other criminal demanded immediately.
“You’re a genius,”
the intelligent ape replied sarcastically, “figure it out!”
Luthor sneered at the restrained
primate. “Tell me, you leering manipulative
knuckle-dragger, or I’ll-”
“Lex, Lex,” the talking
simian interrupted in a smug tone, “you can’t expect me
to give up my only bargaining chip! What’s in it for me?”
“When this is over,”
Luthor growled as he began to leave the cell, “I’m going
to sell your body for dog meat!”
As Luthor stalked away, Grodd raised
his voice to the patiently waiting Tala. “It must pain
you to see me like this after what we’ve been to one another,”
he entreated.
“My taste in boyfriends has
evolved,” she said shortly before exiting the cell and closing
the door behind her.
Out in the hallway, Luthor was
pacing in barely suppressed anger. “Lex, you’re the
leader now,” Tala said in an attempt to calm the man down.
Laying what was intending to be a comforting hand on his shoulder,
she added, “You don’t need to lock horns with
him.”
Brushing the woman’s contact
away, Luthor protested, “The only thing that matters now is a
speck of information locked somewhere deep inside Grodd’s thick
skull!”
“Yes, okay. So…
we break his head open and take it,” she answered simply.
Lex turned around and graced her
with a truly terrible smile.
The sound of a motorized door
interrupted Harry’s continued perusal of Henchgirl’s
Animagus text. The author was very thorough in his research and
provided simple step-by-step instructions to determine one’s
form – or forms, as the case may be. Deciding to try the
technique when he returned that evening, the wizard looked up at
Kara’s expected hailing – and blinked.
The girl had changed into a
tight-fitting light blue t-shirt, a pair of khaki-colored shorts, and
sturdy hiking boots. Additionally, she braided her long blonde
hair so that it fell down her back and not in her face. To
round off the ensemble, the Argosian had a pair of dark sunglasses
perched atop her head.
“Ready to go tomb raiding?”
Kara asked amusedly.
Harry felt one eyebrow rise at the
girl’s enthusiastic actions. “Pardon?”
“You know… the Tomb
Raider?” she said while smiling indulgingly.
The wizard nodded. “I
know a few tomb raiders, yes. What’s your point?”
The blonde Argosian looked at her
taller companion disbelievingly. “You’ve never
heard of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider? Female archaeologist that
always goes on the most unbelievable adventures?”
Harry just shook his head while
trying to stifle a grin.
“Playstation?” she
demanded desperately.
Harry frowned in thought for a
moment. “That’s some sort of video gaming system,
isn’t it?” the mage inquired tentatively.
The girl shook her head resignedly.
“You are so deprived!” Kara finally announced.
“That settles it! When we get back from this trip, I’m
gonna set you down and explain the unbridled joy that is the home
entertainment game console.”
“I’m looking forward to
it,” Harry dutifully replied a few moments later. “I
take it that this… Lara Croft wears an outfit similar to
this?”
“Yep,” the blonde girl
answered as she gave her ensemble another survey, “though she’s
got this cool bottomless backpack that can hold practically anything,
whereas I don’t even own a satchel.”
Harry looked contemplative for a
moment before replying, “I think that I just might be able to
help you with that.” Retrieving his school trunk from his
coat, the wizard rifled through its unorganized contents until he
came upon the travel pack from his last major expedition. “Ah
ha! Here it is! It even matches those boots of yours.”
“Cool!” Kara exclaimed
as she looked over the accessory. “Too bad that you can’t
make it bottomless as well,” she commented.
The mage snorted and her eyes
widened in anticipation. “You mean it?”
Before he could reply, the girl had already opened the flap and
shoved her entire arm into the bag – which would have been
impossible for an ordinary pack of that size.
“Awesome!” the Argosian
praised as she tossed the carrier on her back and settled the straps.
Harry smiled at the girl’s
enthusiasm and repacked his trunk while she craned her neck to take
in her new accessory. The wizard had no sooner returned the box
to his coat, however, before a pair of slight arms enveloped him with
no more warning than a soft-spoken “Thanks”.
Blinking repeatedly at the
unexpected reaction, Harry finally replied with a highly original,
“Uhm… you’re welcome.” Vowing to
someday reach the point where such displays of affection no longer
discomforted him, the wizard hesitantly patted the shorter figure on
the back before asking, “Shall we get started then?”
Kara gave the spell caster a close
eye. “Wait a second. You aren’t planning on
wearing that on this little expedition, are you?” she
demanded while taking in his casual black shirt/pant/coat combination
with complementary pirate’s hat.
Harry looked briefly at his own
attire before meeting the girl’s pointed stare. “Err…
no?” he offered tentatively.
“No,” Kara stated
decisively. “You can make your clothes look like
anything, right?”
“Yes…” the wizard
answered uneasily. “Why?”
“We can do much better than
that,” she offered while ignoring his voiced question.
Grabbing a hold of his black t-shirt, Kara ordered, “First,
this should be white with a collar and buttons.”
Rolling his eyes at his fussy
companion but playing along, Harry complied. “There.
Happy?”
Waving off his slight sarcasm,
Supergirl unbuttoned the first couple of fasteners on the shirt’s
front and announced. “Good. Now, those pants should
be olive green and cotton, not denim.”
Harry made a visible effort to
restrain a retort and did as she bid.
“Okay, the leather coat is
alright… except it should only be waist length and brown
leather, not black,” the blonde girl offered after a moment’s
thought. “Can you make a brown felt hat with a leather
band? You know, sort of Fedora meets Western?”
“I suppose so,” Harry
finally admitted. “Why are-”
“In a minute,” she
interrupted. “Just do it.”
He ‘did it’ and the
Argosian took in her handiwork. “All it needs now is a
bullwhip and leather shoulder bag and you’re done.”
Shooting the girl a mild glare,
Harry retrieved his whip from its new home in his gauntlet and
conjured the other accessory. “Can we leave now?”
he begged.
“In a minute, Indiana Joe,”
Kara chirped before latching onto the wizard’s arm and pulling
him back into her room. “Just let me get a few more
things for the trip and we can go rifle through the League for the
rest of our party.”
“Erm… okay,”
Harry agreed after finding himself in the girl’s quarters, “but
you do know that I’m not from Indiana, don’t you?”
“You mean you’ve never
heard of ‘Indiana Jones’ either?” she demanded as
she opened her closet door, only to be met with a flurry of junk.
The blonde-haired woman shrugged in a ‘what can you do?’
gesture before she began routing through the mess in search of some
hitherto unidentified possession. “It’s like one of
the best movies ever!”
“Uhm… no. Sorry,”
he admitted as he took in the rest of the room. Parts of the
domicile were exactly like what one would imagine a teenaged
superheroine’s bedroom to look like, what with the scattered
clothes, trophies, and newspaper clippings all over the place.
The rest of the space, however, was a completely different story.
In fact, some of the dissected machinery and technical manuals would
have been right at home in Henchgirl’s laboratory back on Black
Island.
Looking over some sketches for some
sort of crystal and laser array, Harry noted, “You know, I
think that you’d get along smashingly with a good friend of
mine. She’s a magical engineer and a pretty good one,
too, if I do say so myself.”
“Really?” the girl asked
as she looked up from her search. “Oh, those…”
Kara said quietly as her eyes fell on the source of his comment.
Harry noticed her suddenly tense. Forcing a bright smile, the
girl offered, “Would you believe that I keep them for the
pictures?”
Harry cocked his head to one side in
confusion. “Uhm… no,” he negated, “but
nice try. Why are you so uneasy? Are these a part of some
secret project you are working on or something?”
“Well, no…” Kara
hedged, “it’s just that most people find my being from a
technologically superior planet to Earth intimidating. I’m
sort of trying to keep from ‘rubbing it in’, so to
speak.” She shrugged slightly before adding, “And
most guys seem to think intelligence is a turn-off in a girl.”
“So you hide part of who you
are?” Harry asked disbelievingly. At the girl’s
hesitant nod, he exclaimed, “Sod that! You are who you
are, and that’s all there is to it. If somebody else has
a problem with that – tough! Now, as for your other point…
I’m a bloke, I’m single, and I realized that there are
people out there who are a lot smarter than me a long time
ago. Oddly enough, most of them seem to be female, as strange
as it sounds.”
The wizard made a gesture to
encompass the mass of technology. “Personally, I’d
love to understand this sort of thing more, but I can barely
operate a computer system. Just because I grew up living
without all of this doesn’t mean that you have to wallow
in the Stone Age.”
Kara looked at him askance for a few
moments before she huffed in suppressed laughter. “You
have a very unique way of looking at the world, you know that?”
Harry chuckled ruefully.
“That’s a more polite way of phrasing it than I normally
receive,” the mage admitted, “but that’s just who I
am. I can’t change it. Anyway,” he continued
in an obvious effort to change the topic, “is there something
that I can help you find?”
“Nope,” she replied as
she dropped a few more garments and some books into her new
backpack. “That’s got it. Thanks anyway,
though. So… you’ve got everything but the crew
squared away then?”
“Well, I haven’t picked
the best spot to start sailing from yet, but everything else is a
‘go’,” the wizard admitted.
The Argosian nodded. “Alright,
how about I sound out a few people to tag along while you pick the
departure point?”
“Sounds fair,” Harry
agreed. “See you in a bit.” Parting comments
made, Harry Apparated off the space station to begin his geographic
assignment.
Suddenly alone in her apartment,
Kara just shook her head even as a slight smile began to appear.
“One of these days,” the Girl of Steel vowed to no one in
particular, “he’s going to slip up and leave a room just
like everybody else.”
The blonde powerhouse nodded
decisively to herself before musing aloud, “Now, who can I get
on such short notice…?”
“Hmm…” Harry
mused as he surveyed the area from atop a stone tower, “this
isn’t good.” The wizard had Apparated to the
coordinates that the map indicated as being Glastonbury.
According to the old parchment, this tiny settlement was adjacent to
an extremely large lake surrounding the mist-shrouded Isle of Avalon.
This specification was most
unfortunate for the magically inclined archaeologist, however, since
someone had apparently moved the lake without telling him.
He quickly disproved his first
explanation of Apparating to the wrong village when he readily
located the famed Glastonbury Abbey. Likewise, the wizard could
easily spot the mystical Chalice Well, which his guidebook indicated
as being a sacred garden for Muggles, as well as his current
impromptu footing – the Glastonbury Tor. Much like the
other two famous landmarks, the stone tower was shrouded in myth to
the point that no one truly knew of its purpose.
While his traveler’s guide was
singularly uninformative on the topic, the wizard found that the
freestanding edifice gave an excellent view of the surrounding area.
From its lofty heights, Harry could see endless fields of fertile
farmland, which led to his previous summary of the situation
pertaining to the missing body of water. Looking closely at the
area surrounding the tower, the wizard could just make out a worn
line about ten feet above the base of the Tor where the water must
have washed against its sides. Harry expanded his scrutiny to
the grassy fields again and could see a definite rationale behind its
terraced appearance. Combined with the land’s obviously
fertile nature, it became obvious that the area was once completely
submerged in water.
‘Of course, this doesn’t
answer where the lake went,’ Harry mused sourly, ‘or
what became of the island once the water was removed.’
A sudden buzzing in his pocket cut
off his private ruminations. After ensuring that there were no
Muggles nearby, Harry withdrew his Zippo from its place within his
coat and thumbed the lever. “Black here,” he
answered.
“Mr. Black, it’s
Henchgirl,” a familiar female voice responded from the one-time
cigarette lighter, “did I call at a bad time?”
While the blonde potions’
mistress sounded perfectly normal on the surface, Harry thought he
detected a slight undercurrent of nervousness. “Of course
not, Henchgirl,” the wizard responded. “What’s
up?”
“Oh, a little of this, a
little of that,” the witch hedged. “You know how it
is.”
This response definitely
raised some mental alarms. Demonstrating his tact and subtlety
once again, Harry carefully approached the issue with a
compassionate, “All right, what’s gone wrong now?”
The woman uttered an obviously false
chuckle before she finally replied. “Wrong?
Nothing’s wrong,” she denied. “Everything’s
perfectly fine here. Yep, definitely nothing wrong.”
“Henchgirl…?”
Harry growled. “Spill. It. Now!”
He heard the woman take a deep
breath before rapidly responding,
“I-found-the-details-on-Caledfwlch-and-you’re-not-going-to-like-it!”
Gasping for air, she added, “There, I said it!”
Harry blinked as he sorted through
the witch’s last comment. With a sense of dark
foreboding, he calmly ordered, “Explanation – now.”
Hesitantly, his all-but-sister
relayed numerous myths and pieces of folklore surrounding the
legendary blade. Some originated in the time of King Arthur
fifteen centuries previously, while yet others dated back even
further. When the magical engineer had at last fallen silent,
Harry heaved a great sigh before tiredly massaging his temples with
one hand.
“So… this woman I
bumped into is some sort of immortal faerie creature who was charged
with protecting some fancy magic sword,” Harry stated flatly.
“Countless centuries later, I come strolling along and accept
the sword, thereby freeing her to flee into Faerie heaven while
simultaneously obligating myself to fulfill some vague role as a
champion of the Light? Is that more or less the size of it?”
“Well, the sword should help a
bit,” Henchgirl muttered tentatively while ignoring his
inquiry. “After all, supposedly even Muggles were able to
wield fire and lightning when using it. In the hands of a
wizard, its power would be… immeasurable.”
“Henchgirl!” Harry
barked warningly.
“Err… sorry about
that,” she added sheepishly. “It’s just that
I’ve been re-reading several interesting books on the subject
and I got excited. I mean, this is one of the biggest magical
finds in history! It could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt
that King Arthur truly existed.”
“Henchgirl,” Harry
whined pleadingly.
“Just wait until we tell the
others!” the infuriating woman exclaimed giddily. “Our
own Mr. Black, wielding the High King of England’s sword!
Do you know what this means?”
“Stop right there!”
Harry ordered sternly. “Tell no one! I’m
still living down the other rumors – I am not about to
spark off some half-baked idea that I’m the reincarnation of
some medieval warlord, and I am most certainly not interested
in being the King of England – or anywhere else, for that
matter.”
The witch huffed irritably.
“Fine! Take all the fun out of it! See if I care!”
she protested childishly.
Harry felt his headache worsen yet
again. Stifling a groan, he replied, “Thank you for the
information, Henchgirl. Is that everything?”
“Yes!” the inventor
replied disappointedly.
Releasing a sigh of relief, Harry
smiled as he responded, “Great. Thanks again, Henchgirl.”
“You’re welcome, Your
Majesty!” the blonde woman chirped before disconnecting.
Growling at the now-deactivated
device, Harry tossed it back in his coat pocket. Pausing for a
few moments in thought, the wizard muttered darkly before summoning
the object of his frustration from his gauntlet. As with the
last two times he held it, the weapon began to glow.
Unlike the previous times,
however, the silver map attached to the tower’s roof also
began to shine. No longer blindly believing in coincidence,
Harry engaged his Mage Sight and examined the blade in his hand.
As he expected, the magical weapon seemed to have some sort of
connection to the map – more specifically, a small illuminated
slot in the center of the Tor’s icon on the map.
“How curious,” Harry
murmured while studying the bond between the two objects.
Bolstering his inner Gryffindor, Harry held the blade over the
indention with one hand, and – before common sense could regain a
stranglehold – he plunged the mystical weapon into the floor.
His action created a tremendous flash of light, forcing him to
instinctively close his eyes. After the unexpected illumination
faded, Harry cracked open one eye to survey the damage.
“Hmm,” Harry deliberated
as he scanned his surroundings, “that’s odd.”
The wizard’s ‘oddity’
was the complete and unexplained transformation of the entire tower.
Unlike its former weathered appearance, the structure now possessed a
reinforced top, which bore what he thought might be a Greek temple.
This monument was circular in design and boasted a beautiful mosaic
as a floor instead of the former metallic map. To finish off
the temple motif, twelve white equidistant columns supported the
domed ceiling.
Wanting a closer look, Harry rose to
his feet, dragging the sword out of the tiled floor in the process.
The fragrant scent drew him to the edge of the temple, where the
wizard received yet another shock. Instead of the modern
village and abundant arable land, naught but trees, rushes, and water
met his eye.
And off into the distance, his Mage
Sight could just make out the form of an island – exactly where
the map said it was.
“Well, Toto,” the wizard
muttered to himself, “we’re certainly not in Kansas
anymore. At least there isn’t an old hag with an aquatic
allergy or a mob of hyperactive garden gnomes lurking nearby –
I hope.”
Wondering how much time he could
spend exploring before he had to return to the Watchtower, Harry
glanced at his watch. Repeated looks separated by furious
blinking did little but confirm that the timekeeper had indeed halted
– just as it did whenever he ‘paused’ the universe
with his remote.
The wizard nodded as he felt the
metaphysical penny drop. “Okay… somehow, this pig
sticker opened a gateway to some sort of sub dimension,” Harry
commented aloud. “Time seems to be stopped in here, so…
someone must have created this time bubble and stuck Avalon in it.”
He frowned in confusion. “Why the bloody hell would
someone do a thing like that?” he demanded. “Was it
for defense? Hmm… maybe the case of the disappearing
lake had something to do with it.”
Harry shrugged. “Ah,
well,” he exclaimed lackadaisically. “Since time’s
not exactly a wasting, let’s go exploring.”
Some indeterminate time later, Harry
felt that he had a good grasp of the pocket dimension’s general
layout. He quickly discovered that this Glastonbury was
completely deserted, unlike the one he had inadvertently left.
Taking to the skies, the wizard got the lay of the land and compared
the sight to his map. Thankfully, the fog-shrouded shadow out
in the bog appeared to be the exact size and shape as his island
objective.
Feeling a great deal of relief at
succeeding in his scouting mission, Harry returned to the Tor.
To bolster his confidence even further, he had found a large skiff
moored at the tower’s base. A closer inspection revealed
that the wooden craft was enchanted to sail between the Tor and the
island, much like the sleds available back in the Canadian
wilderness. Nodding happily to himself, the wizard sauntered
back up the hill and entered the tower’s base.
Considering the mission a success,
the immortal mage began ascending the winding staircase to depart
when an odd niggling sensation at the back of his neck caused him to
halt. Harry could not quite put his finger on it, but he sensed
a certain ‘wrongness’ about the room, as if it were being
disguised somehow. His Gryffindor side rallied to the unspoken
challenge and Harry began methodically casting revealing spells
around the granite room. He finally hit pay dirt when one of
his spells caused a patch of wall to ripple and dissolve, revealing
an archway and a set of descending stairs.
“Oh, why not?” he asked
himself quietly as his feet began their downward journey.
Conjuring a Blue Bell flame to light his way, Harry continued until
the stairway yielded to a small cavern. A few quick charms
sufficiently illuminated the space, leaving the wizard more than
slightly shocked. The cavern was not much larger than a
normal-sized room and could probably have been mistaken for the
tower’s cellar – if it were not for its rather morbid
contents.
Two funeral biers of uneven
dimensions sat in the center of the subterranean space. Moving
closer despite himself, Harry gazed at the two crystal encasements.
Upon the larger bier, the wizard found two occupants – one male
and one female. The male figure appearing to be in his early
thirties, wore medieval armor, and had a battered shield replete with
dragon coat of arms draped over him like a blanket. One
gauntleted arm held the dainty appendage of the second body, which
was that of an attractive blonde-haired woman. The female
corpse wore a formal gown and a simple golden circlet upon her brow.
Blinking at the perfectly preserved
pair, Harry caught sight of a strange script that was repeatedly
carved around the platform – ‘Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex
quondam, rexque futurus’. His disbelief rose tenfold
when the translation filtered into his consciousness.
Here lies Arthur, Former king,
and future king.
“King Arthur?” Harry
demanded dumbly of the armored corpse. Getting no answer there,
his attention turned to his bedmate and announced, “Then that
would make you Guinevere.”
His eyes widened in sudden
anticipation. “But if you two are Arthur and Guinevere,
then who is…?” He slowly turned around and looked
at the other, smaller bier. It also supported a crystal casing
but bore only a single occupant. He looked to be very old, what
with his gray beard extending nearly as far as Professor
Dumbledore’s, and yet still seemed to be well preserved.
He was clothed in a simple robe and held a gnarled staff in his
crossed hands.
Even without his Mage Sight, Harry
knew a powerful wizard when he saw one. “No… it
cannot be! Merlin?” he whispered disbelievingly.
The young wizard immediately spotted a simple inscription in the
slab’s side. The topmost line stated plainly Myrddin
Emrys, and Harry began to feel inexplicable disappointment.
Such emotions quickly gave way to amazement as his eyes fell upon the
second line of text.
Merlin Ambrosius.
A thousand different thoughts flew
through his mind and headed in as many directions. For a
moment, Harry pondered a range of issues from who built this
well-hidden mausoleum to disbelief that he was standing at the feet
of the supposedly greatest wizard of all time. With such
conflicting thoughts overflowing his consciousness, it is perhaps
understandable then that he chose to summarize this latest experience
in his usual brief style.
“Myrddin and Merlin
are the same wizard?” he demanded awkwardly. “Blood-y
hell!”
After Harry regained the use of most
of his faculties, he raised himself off the floor. ‘Odd,’
he mused, ‘I don’t remember sitting down.’
Shaking off the disorientation, he moved to leave the grotto when his
gaze fell on a simple leather bound book lying at the foot of
Merlin’s bier. Seeing it outside of the crystal barrier
and wondering how he overlooked it before, the mage gave in to his
curiosity and carefully picked up the volume.
Squinting at the unfamiliar script
of the text, Harry retrieved his glasses and attempted to read the
book again. He succeeded on his second attempt and quickly
scanned the first few pages. The book had a simple format; each
sheet of parchment bore a date at the top, and the entire collection
was ordered chronologically. It was not until he had skimmed
several paragraphs that he realized the true nature of the ancient
volume in his hands.
‘It’s a journal!’
Harry realized suddenly. ‘Merlin’s journal!’
He quickly flipped through the rest
of the tome, catching glimpses of spell forms and ritual diagrams in
addition to commentary on topics ranging from Dark Creatures to
theoretical conjectures on the nature of the universe. He was
only barely aware of his jaw falling open as he returned to the first
page and began to read.
Some relative time later, Harry
finally finished perusing Merlin’s journal. His head
spinning from concepts he had never even heard mention of from
contemporary wizards, the dimension-hopping wizard decided to bid the
three famous individuals farewell. As his booted feet trod the
stone access up to the roof of the tower and his ultimate egress,
Harry contemplated what he had learned about the famous sorcerer
lying in state.
It was, quite simply, eye opening.
He quickly learned that the famous magician was deeply cynical, for
one thing. His private memoirs contained several biting
references that would quickly dispel any illusions of his sainthood.
Quite the contrary, Harry pieced together that Merlin’s father
actually was a demon, although the eventual Royal wizard
worked tirelessly to make amends for his less than desirable birth.
In fact, Harry found himself
identifying with the long-dead wizard a great deal. Like Harry
himself, Merlin was as widely feared as revered in his day.
Additionally, while he did not have a famous scar, his very name was
quite effective in ostracizing him from his own people.
And yet, the man still kept on
fighting against the evils of his age despite all the discouragements
life threw at him. Thanks to his longevity, Merlin had lost
nearly everything he held dear. His adopted family, his
friends, even his dream of utopia that was Camelot. Even after
all of the death and destruction, however, the man still defended the
realms – both magical and not – until his own eventual
end.
Harry reached the climax of his
climb and stood once more upon the mosaic floor. He had
discovered that this little pocket of space was of Merlin’s
design as well. His journal documented how the monks of the
nearby Glastonbury Abbey were draining the lake to allow for
farming. Fearful for Avalon’s survival, Lady Viviane of
the Lake entreated Merlin to move the Isle beyond their reach.
The mage did as she requested, tying the sub dimensional space into
the intersecting Ley lines at the Tor.
Harry smiled slightly at the many
lurid passages about the water-dependent creature’s…
capabilities. A slight chuckle escaped him at the thought.
A half-demon wizard and an aquatic faerie – who would have guessed?
Finished with his scouting mission,
Harry summoned Caledfwlch to his hand and just stared at it for a
moment. After his impressive shifting of the island, Merlin
documented that he laid a series of protections over the magical
nexus. These safeguards would shield the entrance through the
Tor from those individuals he considered undeserving of Avalon –
which seemed to mostly encompass the entire Wizarding World at that
point.
Harry laughed again – though more
ruefully this time – at how well he had been manipulated into this
role. Merlin’s plan was actually quite simple. Only
a wizard or witch would be able to trigger the transportation magic.
To do that, they would require the use of Caledfwlch, which refused
to serve wicked ends. Additionally, even if that individual
could force the sword to do their will, they would first have to
wrest it from his lover’s possession – who could be quite
formidable when vexed.
Merlin was quite vivid when he
documented one occasion on how well she responded to his forgetting
their anniversary. Needless to say, he was very cautious to
remember the holiday for the remainder of his days.
Shaking off his reminiscing, Harry
inverted the sword and plunged it back into its tiled receptacle.
A blinding flash and a vow to purchase some sunglasses later, Harry
found himself once more standing on the unadorned tower. A
glance at his watch revealed that time was once again moving
normally, although it seemed that no more than a second had passed
during his long absence.
Having formulated his plan earlier
of sailing from Boston to the English seashore then taking a portable
black hole to Glastonbury’s Tor, the mage Apparated back to the
Watchtower to rejoin Kara and the others. Reappearing behind
the party waiting in the cafeteria, he revised his evaluation to the
many others.
“Kara?” Harry asked
levelly, hiding his amusement at the girl’s slight jump at his
unnoticed arrival. “What’s going on?” he
asked as he exchanged greetings with Galatea, Zatanna, a
distinguished man that he believed to be Jason Blood, and all of the
League members he had fought alongside earlier in Metropolis save
Vigilante and Crimson Avenger.
The blonde powerhouse just looked at
him innocently. “What? You said to invite a
few others along.”
“True enough,” Harry
allowed, “but I was expecting another person or two – not
a dozen.”
“Then you should have been
more specific,” the Argosian immediately countered in a teasing
manner.
Harry blinked repeatedly before
looking aside at the uniformed Green Arrow and robed Zatanna.
“I’m not going to win this, am I?” he asked
resignedly.
“Not a chance,” Oliver
replied while Zatanna shook her head with poorly concealed amusement.
Harry just closed his eyes and took
a deep breath. “I could really use some coffee
right about now,” he grumbled before redirecting his gaze to
the impishly smiling Supergirl. “Fine,” he
muttered, “but exactly why are they dressed like that?
For that matter, why am I dressed like this?”
The blonde metahuman looked over the
gathered people and made a show of inspecting their strange dress.
While Zatanna wore some sort of mystical traveling cloak, both Sir
Justin and Sir Jason had opted to garb themselves in armor.
However, while the Shining Knight’s ensemble was more suited to
ancient times, the human host of the demon Etrigan sported a more
modern weave of Kevlar. Both Pat Dugan and his stepdaughter
were dressed in casual wear, but Courtney retained her staff and the
wizard hazarded a guess that Pat’s suit of armor was likely
residing in his old satchel strung across Kara’s back. As
for the Green Arrow and Speedy, they both opted to remain in costume.
“Well…” she
hedged, “’Tea sorta likes Archaeology, too, and since I’m
already the Tomb Raider, she chose the pith hat and safari gear.”
“So I see,” Harry
replied levelly. “And the rest…?”
Kara smiled brightly at Harry before
replying, “Well, seeing as how this is like one of those
medieval quests, you can’t very well go without a couple of
archers, some knights, and a sorceress, now can you?”
Harry just shook his head resignedly
– he would never understand women. “And people say
that I’m crazy,” he muttered.
“You are crazy,”
Kara agreed readily. “Now, how are we getting to wherever
this ship is?”
Harry just crossed his arms and
glared half-heartedly at the shorter female. “You know,”
he announced casually, “it wasn’t all that long ago that
entire nations trembled at the mere mention of my name.
I could defeat whole armies without so much as raising a
finger – I know, I tried it once just for the heck of it –
and none of them would have ever dared say that to me.”
Kara smiled before patting his cheek
mockingly. “And we’re all very terrified of you as
well,” the girl announced while sounding anything but.
“Now, let’s make with the magic already – time’s
a’wastin!”
Harry just chuckled at the spirited
girl as he withdrew one of the Professor’s reusable Black
Holes. The wizard cast the inky black shadow at the nearest
wall while silently directing it to open on a secluded stretch of
beach on the States’ Eastern seaboard. “Your
portal, oh impudent one,” Harry declared.
“See how painless that was?
Things would have gone a whole lot quicker if you just did what I
told you the first time,” the girl replied through a grin
before she confidently strode through the portal.
Harry just stared at the retreating
back of the sassy girl before his Marauder heritage once more made
itself known. At least, that was rationalization he adopted to
explain the sudden appearance of the water balloon flying on an
intercept course with the back of Kara’s head. Smiling
smugly, Harry started whistling a cheerful tune as he traversed the
magical doorway – to the accompaniment of a certain Argosian’s
heated protests.
The remaining eight people just
looked at each other before their attention riveted to the sounds of
an impromptu wrestling match on the other side of the gateway.
Oliver Queen ultimately put the
group’s collective thoughts into words with one brief
statement.
“Well, at least we know that
this trip won’t be boring!”
“Look,” Green Lantern
forcefully stated after a tiresome bickering session between Dr.
Fate, Mr. Terrific, Flash, and Red Tornado, “we know Grodd’s
running some kind of organized group. I’m tired of just
putting out fires!”
“We need to find his new
secret society and take the fight to them,” Mr. Terrific
seconded from his desk at the monitor womb.
“Guys, I’m not arguing
that!” Flash protested. “There’s just
got to be another way.”
“This is it,” Mr.
Terrific disagreed. “When Grodd took control of your mind
a couple of years ago… even though that connection was broken,
he left a psychic resonance.”
“I can mystically access that
resonance and trace it to Grodd, wherever he hides,” Dr. Fate
continued.
“And when we do find Grodd,
we’ll likely find Luthor, Bizarro, and any number of wanted
criminals,” Red Tornado pointed out in his mechanical voice.
“No doubt,” Flash
agreed, “but I don’t like strangers nosing around in my
brain!” He paused for a second before adding, “No
offense, Doc.”
Ignoring the slight, Fate replied,
“I assure you that I won’t be reading your thoughts.
Your mind is simply a portal.”
Flash began backing up uneasily.
“This really seems like its more up J’onn’s alley,”
he responded nervously.
“J’onn’s not
here,” John Stewart replied forcefully as Mr. Terrific pushed
the Scarlet Speedster into a chair. “Neither is Zatanna,
Jason Blood, or Mr. Black.”
“What do you say we go check
with Batman?” Flash demanded as he grasped at straws.
“He’s got clues.”
“You saw Batman’s
report,” Mr. Terrific answered the unspoken question.
“Grodd covered all of his tracks.”
“We need to find him before he
hurts anyone else, Flash,” John pleaded. “This may
be our only shot.”
“Man!” Flash whined as
he gave in to their combined arguments. “Just be careful
with my head,” he ordered as Dr. Fate approached him.
“It’s where I keep all my one-liners.”
Ignoring the quip, the sorcerer went
to work. He quickly established contact with Flash’s mind
before mentally traveling along a wispy path towards Grodd’s
own consciousness.
“You see how much I’ve
learned from your mind control technology,” Luthor boasted as a
few minions finished connecting his headset to that of the restrained
Gorilla Grodd. “Of course, I don’t have your
natural talent for the work, so my process is relatively crude.”
The bald criminal picked up the helmet and paused before placing it
upon his head. “Last chance,” he warned the talking
ape. “Tell me what I want to know or I’ll tear the
information from your bleeding frontal lobe.”
“You’re a technological
cretin,” Grodd insulted the man, “a sadistic child
playing with power tools.”
Luthor looked at the primate blankly
for a second before activating the machine.
“My spell has already found a
trace of Grodd’s mental signature,” Dr. Fate reported to
his companions. “It should be a simple matter of
following it back to the source.”
As he said this, his mind reached a
strange feedback. Though wispy and indistinct, Fate observed
some sort of mind linkage between his intended target and Lex Luthor
before the powerful interference assaulted him moments later, forcing
him to lose the contact. As he found himself once more aboard
the Justice League’s watchtower, he saw Flash’s body
struggling to rise as Green Lantern went to the downed speedster’s
aid.
“No, something’s wrong!”
Dr. Fate cried out as he suddenly realized what caused the broken
connection. “That’s not Flash’s mind,
its Lex Luthor’s!”
“What have you done to me?”
Flash-Luthor demanded before running away in a blink. Dr.
Fate’s comment settled in a second later and the present
Leaguers began attempting to catch the now super fast criminal
running amok aboard their orbital headquarters.
After several narrow escapes,
Flash’s body ran out of the control room. As the team
prepared to follow their target, Green Lantern voiced a newly risen
concern.
“If Luthor’s mind is in
Flash’s body, then where’s Flash?”
Jason Blood grinned as he stepped
through the Black Hole and found himself near a harbor in Boston.
Aside from being slightly overcast and foggy, it was a great day for
sailing, and it had been a long time since he had done so. His
jubilant demeanor lasted until the group made its way to their ship’s
berth and his jaw fell open.
In front of him was a ship whose
design had been obsolete for well over a century. Worse, he
recognized this particular vessel. There were not all that many
Dutch flutes built like the Concorde after all, especially
with its forty guns. This particular ship had been the bane of
many during the eighteenth century after its capture by pirates.
Renamed the Queen Anne’s Revenge, it had been
Blackbeard’s floating headquarters and the prize of his pirate
fleet.
Ignoring Etrigan’s
inappropriate glee at sailing with the infamous pirate, Jason
swallowed his objections and climbed aboard. At the least,
perhaps their captain would have a store of rum in the hold.
Considering how things were going, the one-time knight felt that he
would soon need it.
His precognitive thoughts haunted
him many times during their voyage at sea. The first occurrence
took place when the uninformed members of their group learned their
eventual destination – something that the infuriating miniature
Argosian had conveniently omitted.
“I’m glad you could all
come,” Mr. Black announced to everyone once they had left
port. “I hope that this trip will prove educational for
each of you. We will be sailing to the closest port to
Glastonbury, after which we will have a slight stop at the village
itself before proceeding on to Avalon.”
Jason, who was rather enjoying their
Captain’s supply of liquor, spat it back out as Sir Justin’s
eyes widened. “What?!” he demanded incredulously.
Black seemed to miss the point of
his protest as he replied, “I figured that we could all use
some down time, and I needed to pick up some old spell books on the
Isle of Mists.”
Sir Justin nodded in agreement.
“Verily, I am honored to join this quest, but I have never been
to the revered Avalon and do not know the way.”
Black smiled knowingly. “Not
a problem,” he answered. “I happen to know exactly
where it is.”
Jason still cringed at the
unwavering respect and almost outright subservience that the other
Knight held for Black and rolled his eyes yet again. ‘More
than a thousand years have passed and the man was still a
trusting idiot!’
Another instance of Black being far
more knowledgeable and skilled than he initially appeared came up
when some fool had the idea to hold an archery competition on the
fore deck. Blood was initially confused when Mr. Black
requested that Green Arrow give him some pointers before they
commenced. After all, if the man were truly an immortal from
ages long past – as everyone believed -, he would surely be competent
with the simple weapon.
He held his tongue, however, as the
green-garbed goofball introduced the basics of archery and
demonstrated the technique by hitting a passing bird before inviting
their host to try it. The other man seemed to listen patiently
throughout the lecture and, once he held the bow in his hands, smiled
for an instant before releasing the bolt and sending it passing
through the retreating flock of birds. While the arrow came
close to the fowl, the shot failed to hit anything and continued
arcing towards the Atlantic’s surface.
“Well, that wasn’t too
bad for that distance,” Speedy commented from an adjacent spot
to his own at the stern. “I figured that he could still
make the shot, though, being who he is and all.”
Gallatea, who was practicing with
the redheaded youth’s bow, overheard his comment. The
cloned metahuman glanced in the direction that Black’s arrow
had traveled and began to chuckle. “Who said he missed?”
she asked archly.
Jason frowned and retrieved his
binoculars. His eyebrows raised as the arrow he was tracking
seemed to hit something and stay upright. Focusing a bit more,
he noted that it had pierced the glass lens of a periscope. At
their current positions, the demon-keeper estimated the distance at
just under twice that of the bow’s rated capacity.
As Queen Anne rapidly left
the submarine behind, Jason watched as the apparently Atlantean
vessel surfaced and its captain, the renegade Lord Orm, emerged from
the top hatch and began gesturing wildly. The knight chuckled
darkly as a second ‘wild’ shot caught King Orin’s
traitorous brother right between the eyes – an almost impossible
shot.
“Well, I guess that he’s
hijacked his last ship,” Jason summarized with a satisfied grin
as he turned the binoculars over to the squinting youth. ‘As
if that pampered prince could have out-pirated the renowned
Blackbeard, reformed or not.’
As he expected, the question of the
ship’s unique design arose during their voyage. Oliver,
who apparently had researched some of the pre-Victorian era designs,
inquired as to why there were twenty cannons on each side of the
vessel instead of the traditional thirteen. Black’s reply
was very brief; a woman of his acquaintance decided that it looked
lopsided without that many.
It was that off-handed comment that
finally convinced Jason of Black’s identity as not only Death
and the Black Knight, but Blackbeard as well. Even with modern
record keeping, very few people knew that Edward Teach’s
consort at the time was the one to give him the idea for adding more
cannons.
Jason was also able to put another
mystery to rest. Despite the commotion that Intersall, Inc.,
had raised over the last few years, they had yet to prove that the
few ship fragments recovered belonged to Blackbeard’s Queen
Anne’s Revenge.
The entirety of the scheme suddenly
coalesced in his mind, and even the resident demon was humbled at its
simple effectiveness. After all, the only witnesses to the
‘accident’ that ‘claimed’ both Queen Anne
and Adventure were Blackbeard and his crew. All he would
have to do is hijack another couple of ships, run them aground on
Beaufort Inlet, and claim that they were his top two pirate
frigates. No one ever looked closer at the wreckages, and so
believed that Blackbeard no longer posed a threat. As a result,
he and his ‘surviving’ men were all awarded pardons from
Governor Charles Eden at Bath, North Carolina. Now, he not only
had his freedom, but his treasure and the best of his pirate fleet at
his disposal as well.
Jason looked over at Black, who was
teaching Kara how to pilot the ship, and laughed. It was such
an ingenious and yet simple plan – and it worked! Here they all
were, standing aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge nearly
three hundred years later, and not a soul was the wiser that the
greatest pirate that ever lived still walked amongst them, thumbing
his nose at their naiveté.
Dismissing his thoughts, Jason
concentrated on the matter at hand; namely, the exploration of fabled
Avalon. With Mr. Black involved, who knew what adventures were
just around the bend?
It made him feel a thousand years
younger.
“Whoa!” Flash exclaimed,
before a look of confusion crossed his face. “Hey, what
happened to my voice?”
“He’s cooked his own
brain,” a sarcastic voice announced from behind him.
Wally turned around and saw Grodd
strapped to some weird device. Giving a small shout of
surprise, he spun around and ran to the other side of the room.
“Okay…” Flash voiced aloud when he was winded
after a short sprint, “something’s really wrong here!”
“Lex?” Tala questioned
as she approached the bent-over man. “You don’t
look at all well.”
“Yeah, I’m just a little
winded,” he answered. The rest of the woman’s
statement finally registered, forcing the displaced Scarlet Speedster
to face the sorceress. “Wait… did you just say
‘Lex’?” he blurted.
“Psycho!” Rampage
muttered as she made a circular gesture over one ear.
“Much has changed in 1,500
years,” Sir Justin announced to Jason Blood once the group had
exited the black hole into the outskirts of Glastonbury.
“I remember this entire
area being a monstrous bog when our King did reclaim Lady Guinevere
from King Melwas at the Tor,” the other man agreed.
Jason grunted in acknowledgement.
“The monks finished draining the swamp for farmland over a
millennium ago,” he answered shortly.
The group looked over the small
village. “So, this is Glastonbury?” the younger
archer voiced aloud. At receiving a few affirmative nods, he
questioned, “Can we look around for a few minutes? I’ve
read all sorts of things about King Arthur’s exploits at this
settlement, but I’ve never been able to come here until now.
Is it true that Arthur was buried in Glastonbury Abbey after he and
Mordred last fought?”
Having read of the bankrupt monks’
convenient claims in his travel guide, Harry snorted. “Hardly,”
he denied immediately, “the monks who made that claim were
strapped for money and invented that hoax to weasel out donations.”
“So he really was buried on
Avalon then?” the youthful archer inquired.
Harry shook his head with a slight
smile. “Sorry, but no,” he negated. “The
King was interred near Avalon, however.”
The younger archer frowned.
“But if he isn’t on Avalon, and he isn’t at the
Abbey, then what does that leave? The Chalice Well? The
Tor?”
Harry raised one eyebrow and the
youth sputtered. “You mean that King Arthur is really
buried at the Tor?”
“Along with Guinevere and
Merlin, yes,” Harry acknowledged simply.
“I’ve walked all around
the Tor,” Jason exclaimed, “and I’ve never found
them.”
Harry chuckled. “Did you
really think that Merlin would allow his adopted son to become a
spectacle for people to gawk at and criticize? Their tomb is
far out of the reach of those who would desecrate their memory.”
He grew silent as he recalled the many fond reminisces in Merlin’s
journal.
Kara, noticing his melancholy, broke
up the uncomfortable silence with her typical easygoing manner.
“So, what’s that over there?”
Harry shook off the recollection and
followed her finger. “Oh, that’s the Chalice Well
gardens. Many people consider the gardens sacred. The
grounds feed off the orange water that comes from an underground pool
called the Chalice Well. Most people agree that the water is
colored due to its high iron content, since the rocks in the creek
bed are stained orange. Others believe that Joseph of Arimathea
hid the Holy Grail somewhere underground, and the water is orange due
to Christ’s blood that still runs through the water and gives
it its healing properties. There was even some entertaining
business a long time ago about the inhabitants using the Well in
their fertility rites.”
The wizard just shook his head at
some peoples’ gullibility. “In any event, the
gardens are still very lovely to behold.”
“Do we have time to look at
them before we leave?” the blonde metahuman questioned.
Harry just shrugged. “If
you all wish to explore, how about we meet atop the tower once you
are done?”
“Awesome!” Courtney
seconded. “That will give me a shot at those gift shops
down there.” Before anyone could speak up, the blonde
girl was already jogging down towards the mercantile area.
Her father just shook his head at
her ability to sniff out boutiques no matter where she was. “As
for myself, I plan to take a closer look at the Abbey,” Pat
announced before he withdrew as well.
“Are any of the rest of you
interested in coming to the Wells with us?” Harry asked the
rest of the party. Zatanna and Gallatea spoke of in favor of
the idea, but the remaining Leaguers declined and headed towards the
Tor.
“So… that battle with
King Melwas really happened, then?” Speedy asked the two
knights as the quartet began climbing the path to the Tor.
“Indeed it did, my young
friend,” Sir Justin confirmed.
“It’s certainly
impressive, I’ll give it that,” the young archer admitted
in reference to the stone tower as the group approached a set of
stairs built into the face of the grassy hill.
Jason snorted. “If you
think its impressive now, you should have been with us when we
laid siege to the miserable heap of sod while measuring the snow in
feet!”
“So,” Oliver spoke up as
they continued up the hill, “what exactly is the Tor, then?”
“You are standing upon it, my
friend,” Sir Justin explained. “It is naught but a
triangular hill. The tower, however, is a whole different
entity altogether.”
“And a controversial one at
that,” Jason added. “Most people believe that it
was originally a church – the church of Saint Michael.”
“Michael as in the Archangel?”
the blonde archer inquired.
“You know any other Saints
named Michael?” the demon-possessed knight demanded crossly.
Green Arrow held up his hands in surrender and the other man
continued. “I can’t vouch for that, but I do know
that Melwas was using the tower as a watchtower fortress. At
one point, it was even believed that the tower is sitting on a
doorway to the underworld, though I never found any proof of it.”
Shining Knight added to his knightly
brother’s comment, “Our Lord King was most persistent in
conquering the tower, however, though he never explained why.
Whether it is all a coincidence or not, I cannot say.”
“Great…” the
billionaire ground out slowly. “We’re going on a
magical field trip being led by either an angel or a death god, and
we’re headed towards a dimensional gateway reportedly leading
to the Underworld. That’s just swell! Well, at
least it’s got a nice view.”
The blonde superhero was, if
anything, understating matters. Having completed the 160-meter
climb to the top of the hill, the group met with a truly spectacular
display. On one side of the giant hill lay Glastonbury proper,
which consisted mainly of village houses and small buildings.
On the other side and farther away, however, lay the panorama of
Somerset County.
The party unanimously approved when
a brisk wind picked up, cooling them off after the dusty climb.
Figuring that the others would be a while in coming, the group
wandered over towards the tourists milling about the base of the
tower.
“Well, at least the old pile
of stones itself is vacant,” Jason muttered. “That
should speed up whatever it is that Black’s planning.”
“Hey, look!” Speedy
called out while waving some brightly colored brochure he had
procured from one of the civilians. “This thing has all
sorts of spooky information on the Tor. Apparently, paranormal
stuff happens around here all the time, like UFO and ghost
sightings.”
Oliver dragged one hand down his
face. “Speedy, UFO sightings aren’t all that rare
nowadays, and ghost stories are just that – stories.”
“Not here, Mister,” one
old woman spoke up from the small crowd. “I’ve seen
a ghost right on this very hill with my own eyes.”
“Really?” the teenaged
archer asked incredibly.
“Yessirree,” she
confirmed, “it was about ten years ago. I was walking
back down the Tor one afternoon, just minding my lonesome, when I
noticed a man in a long black cloak walking down about ten yards to
my right. We didn’t have these nice paths back then, I
can tell you, so I paid him no never mind. Anyways, he passed
behind a stand of trees and should have come out still parallel with
me, but he didn’t reappear. I stood and watched because
he seemed to have just disappeared. Round about then I got
suspicious, so I looked round behind the trees, but he wasn’t
there and there was nowhere else he could have gone to.”
The woman took a breath and
scratched the back of her head in confusion. “I know that
seeing ghosts in full daylight is unheard of, but I can’t find
any other explanation.”
“Really?” Jason inquired
curiously. “Did you get a good look at him? Could
you describe him for us?”
The woman frowned slightly.
“It’s the strangest thing. I was real close to him
and could see him just fine but… I just couldn’t make
out what he looked like.”
“You don’t say,”
the knight offered in a neutral tone as he pondered just what Black
would have been doing on the Tor a decade ago. “Thank you
for your time.”
“You’re most welcome,
young fellers,” she replied easily. “Just a word of
warning, though. You had better clear off the Tor before
nightfall. Better still, get indoors if you can.”
“Oh, and why is that, Ma’am?”
Sir Justin questioned.
“The ghost of the Black
Knight, of course!” she explained, as if it were common
knowledge. “According to the stories, he’s been
haunting the Tor ever since King Arthur died way back when.
Some say he’s trying to destroy all the records of that time.
Others disagree and think that he’s trying to save whatever
remnants Arthur left behind.”
The group tried to hide their
interest in this new tidbit about their current tour guide.
“And what do you believe?” Speedy asked curiously.
The old woman preened. “Well,
personally, I think that there’s something up here that he’s
of a mind to protect. And if he’s stood watch over this
hill for nigh over 1,500 years, it must be something mighty
important. From what I can tell, he shows up whenever someone
gets a mischievous idea to commit tomfoolery ‘round bout these
parts. He’s never really hurt anybody, but he’s
definitely put the fear of the Almighty into any vandals that happen
by.”
“Thanks for the tip,”
Oliver said. “We’ll definitely be keeping a lookout
for anybody wearing a dark cloak or suit of armor.” As
the woman drifted off again, Oliver turned to his teammates and
muttered, “I’m going up top to wait for the others.
All this folklore has got me curious.”
Green Arrow led the way towards the
stone steps and ascended to the pinnacle of the edifice. The
more contemporary Leaguers were shocked to discover that the top of
the tower consisted of little more than a single area no larger than
a room and had no roof. The space had two exits to the circular
parapet, one of which they stood in and the other led out the
opposite side.
“Fancy,” Speedy
commented sarcastically as he looked around at the Spartan
conditions. “Any idea why Mr. Black wanted to meet here?”
“Not a clue,” the elder
archer commented as he settled in to wait.
Approximately an hour later, the
group reconvened atop the tower. After Courtney finally
persuaded Harry to shrink her latest purchases for easier
transportation, the dimension-hopping wizard ensured that his Muggle
repellent charms were still functioning around the tower.
Satisfied that any ‘unnatural’ proceedings would be kept
secret from the public, Harry summoned his latest sword.
“All right, everybody, just
close your eyes and we’ll be there in a second,” Harry
announced as he lined the weapon up with the corresponding hole.
Several of those gathered did as
they were bid, but Oliver hesitated and interjected, “Wait a
sec! How are we-?”
Harry slid the blade home,
interrupted the blonde archer in a pulse of magic and a blinding
flash of light.
“-getting there?” Green
Arrow finished bewilderedly.
“Whoa, that was bright!”
Speedy exclaimed, openly admitting that he had watched the
proceedings.
Harry replaced the sword in his
gauntlet and leaned against one newly appeared marble pillar as he
waited for the others to acclimate to their new surroundings.
The rest of the group was awkwardly
attempting to inspect the rather unexpected displacement.
Courtney ran one hand down the fluted pillar before turning to their
guide and asking bewilderedly, “What just happened?”
“We were shifted into a sub
dimension,” Harry answered nonchalantly. “You might
have heard them called pocket universes. Merlin moved Avalon
out of your world when the Glastonbury monks started draining the
fens several centuries ago.”
The wizard patiently waited as the
others struggled to accept all that they had just heard. When
it seemed like he was in for a long wait, Harry began tapping his
foot as he hummed a song Kara had introduced him to the previous day.
After catching several concerned
glances, Kara leaned over and muttered, “Now probably isn’t
the best time to sing ‘It’s the End of the World’,
Joe.”
Harry grinned apologetically. “Oh…
sorry,” he uttered sheepishly. His mind already moving to
the next course of business, the wizard spoke briskly, “Alright,
everyone, shall we get started?”
After another unsubtle hint from
Speedy, Harry took the group by the basement crypt for a few minutes
before leading them outside to the moored skiff. Once everyone
was aboard, the wooden craft silently guided itself through the misty
bog. While not quite as exhilarating as the Gringotts’
carts, Harry still found the enchanted boat enjoyable. Sooner
than he expected, his planning session on how to incorporate the mist
ward and the reusable transportation on Black Island was interrupted
by several gasps of surprise.
He looked up to find the mist
disappearing in front of them, revealing an inviting beach surrounded
by a thick forest. Harry immediately felt a sensation of
familiarity, and it took him a few moments to place the memory.
He had felt the exact same way back in his first year at Hogwarts
when his detention led him to the Forbidden Forest. As the boat
began beaching itself, his enhanced eyesight immediately spotted a
small, winding trail leading further back into the woods.
“Alright, everyone out!”
Harry called as the boat ground to a halt. “Let’s
get this party started.”
“This place looks humongous!”
Kara breathed excitedly as she kept turned her head to take in the
entire scene. “There’s no way that we can explore
all of this before we run out of time,” she added
disappointedly.
Harry snorted in amusement before
asking in an overly innocent tone, “Kara, do you have the
time?”
The girl twisted her arm around and
looked at her watch. “Sure, it’s… hey!
My watch is broken!”
“Mine, too,” Courtney
added dejectedly. “It was working just a minute ago,
too.”
Similar comments were uttered by
most of the other people present. Their brainstorming session
as to the possible reasons why was shortly cut off by a poorly
suppressed guffaw from Harry.
“Alright, Joe, what did you do
to our watches?” Kara demanded as she put her fists on her
hips.
“Me?” he asked
innocently. “I didn’t do anything to them, mostly
because there is nothing wrong with them for me to have done.”
“Then why aren’t they
keeping time anymore?” she asked.
Harry’s grin widened further
as he replied, “Because time has been suspended in this place.”
“You mean we’re outside
of time?” the redheaded archer demanded.
The wizard nodded. “Yep,”
he supplied, “we can stay here as long as you like and, when
you’re ready to leave, only a single second will have passed in
the outside world.”
Several of the group looked
fascinated at the possibilities this offered. Kara, being her
typical outspoken self, shared her own positive sentiment on the
matter. “Awesome! That mean’s that we won’t
miss the Halloween bash tomorrow night!”
Harry looked at the smaller girl
curiously. “’Halloween bash’?” he
parroted.
“Yeah!” she exclaimed.
“You know, the last night of October, costumes, candy, that
sort of thing. Don’t you celebrate All Hallow’s
Eve? I figured that it’d be a big deal for you.”
Harry shook his head negatively.
“No, I’ve never exactly felt all that celebratory.
Samhein brings back too many memories that are best left forgotten.
The ‘Ye Olde Powers of Darknesse’ always seem to have
something planned for that particular night, and it usually means
more work for me. Besides, I don’t really get all that
many party invitations – at least, not from amongst the
living. I think the last Samhain celebration I attended was
hosted by a ghost of my acquaintance; the company was entertaining,
but I can’t say that I would recommend the food or music.”
“Well, we’ll just have
to make sure that this Halloween is a good one, then won’t we?”
she asked smilingly. “You know, singing, dancing…
the whole spiel.”
“Dancing?” Harry
demanded disbelievingly while suppressing a rising sense of dread.
“What is it with you females and dancing at every gathering,
anyway? I never did understand the compulsion.”
The girl had the audacity to smile
at him! “Let me see if I can explain. You see, you
start…”
As the expedition was walking along
the path towards where Harry remembered the map indicating a
settlement, they were accosted with a sudden shout from the shady
glen. “Wait just a minute!”
Everyone turned in the direction the
voice came from only to see an old man in robes, with wild white hair
hanging down around his shoulders, a long nose, and a scraggly
beard. “And just where do you think you’re
going, young man?”
Before Harry could work out if the
elderly man – evidently a wizard – was addressing him,
the stranger continued. “I hope that you weren’t
planning to head straight into town and forget to come see us.”
Gesturing in a flamboyant ‘come hither’ manner, the man
approached Harry and invited, “Come, come! Bring your
friends. Mustn’t keep the missus waiting, or I’ll
never hear the end of it.”
Harry shrugged at the others
inquisitive expressions, unsure himself of what to do. He knew
that he did not want to insult the old man but, given his usual luck
in such matters, this encounter might be anything from an innocent
greeting from a lonely old couple to some manipulative scheme by a
barmy old codger. Following the senior citizen along a smaller
and less clear trail, the group came upon a small clearing.
Several small buildings took up the cleared area, with the exception
of one slightly larger building offset from the rest. Given the
man’s heading, Harry surmised that the latter structure was his
dwelling.
As he surmised, the stranger led
them to the largest edifice and opened the door. Gesturing
everyone inside with a spirited sweep of one arm, the short gentleman
shouted, “Nem, we’re home!” When the group
hesitated at the doorstep, the man looked back and replied, “What?
We have plenty of room! What do you think I am, some sort of
meshungina?”
Kara giggled. “No, Sir!
We’re just a little surprised at how neat everything is.”
“Bah!” the man said
humorously. “My other half doesn’t allow dust in
her house, so never fear about that! And call me Ray;
‘Sir’ makes me feel old.”
“That’s because you are
old!” a female voice announced the presence of the matron of
the house. “Now, come on in, Dears. Ray, get out of
their way!”
“I’m not in their
way, woman!” the elderly Ray protested mischievously as he
walked over to a well-worn chair.
“Come in, Dears,” the
woman repeated. “No need to huddle on the stoop! My
name is Nem, by the way.”
Harry, being a true Gryffindor, took
several steps forward and was greeted by a spirited hug on par with
Molly Weasley’s finest. Without releasing him, the
gray-haired woman turned to her husband and said, “See! I
told you that he’d be by here today!”
“Alright already! I’ll
admit it; you were right!” the old man grumbled as the woman
squeezed the young wizard again – much to his intense discomfort.
‘Thrice damned
shopkeepers!’ Harry silently cursed while vowing to get
back at every last one of them someday – in some way that could not
be traced back to him, of course. He had not been on the island
an hour yet and he had already encountered two people who were
obviously expecting him. Now, Harry could envision two
explanations for this occurrence: they recognized him because
either they were Cassandra’s Children or were entangled in this
latest quest courtesy of yet another shopkeeper.
While Harry’s mind occupied
itself with searching how to escape this latest trap, Galatea’s
information gathering ears perked up at finally finding a personal
contact to her objective. The old people here obviously
recognized him, and it did not seem to be because he was a
globetrotting uber metahuman, either.
The cloned woman decided to look
around discretely with her x-ray vision in the hopes of unearthing
some clue to the man’s mysterious past. She reconsidered
this plan almost immediately, however, when her vision immediately
grew distorted. The deformation was so extreme that she felt a
headache building just from witnessing the confusing scene. It
was almost as if they were inside some sort of bend or fold, which
prevented her superhuman gaze from penetrating any of the buildings.
After everyone had been made at home
and been served tea, the old woman looked straight at Harry with a
no-nonsense gaze. “Well, are you going to take that coat
off so I can have a look at you, or am I going to have to force it
off of you?”
Harry sputtered. “Excuse
me?” he demanded.
“Oh, for all that’s
holy!” the woman exclaimed as she tossed up her arms. “I
knew it! You were injured again and didn’t treat it,
didn’t you? That’s it! Into the bedroom now,
Mister, I’m tending to it myself!”
Harry blinked. ‘This
was certainly outside of the norm,’ he noted to himself.
“I assure you that I’m
perfectly fine,” he attempted to reassure the witch. “I
haven’t been in a serious scrap in months.”
The old woman obviously did not heed
his advice, however, as she grabbed Harry and dragged him towards a
backless chair in her bedroom.
Her husband just shook his head, as
the rest of the expedition looked rather shocked at the turn of
events. “He really should know better than to argue with
her by now.”
Already on the look out for clues as
to Black’s identity, Jason Blood noticed that aside and
questioned, “What do you mean?”
Ray smirked. “Oh, it’s
the same old story. He’ll go out and patrol the world a
few times, find some wrong to right, bite off more than he should,
and then repeat the process until he finally gets hurt. Then,
you have to browbeat him into having his wounds tended.”
Oliver grinned. “I take
it that he doesn’t like being mothered?”
“Exactly!” the old man
agreed. “He’s got it in his head that he’s
invulnerable and that all the world’s injustices are his
personal responsibility to correct.”
Ray looked thoughtful for a moment
before adding, “Of course, it doesn’t help that he
practically is invulnerable where it counts. Believe it
or not, we have three sisters who occasionally drop by with news from
the outside worlds. They were telling us the other evening
that, In the last year, he’s faced down dragons, several breeds
of demons, a hellmouth, just about every creature that goes ‘bump
in the night’, and put down an entire Wizarding war –
single-handedly. Don’t even get me started on his and his
brother’s little romp with an insane Hell goddess a few months
ago!” Ray frowned in thought for a moment. “Or
was it a demon? It might have been a vampire, now that I think
about it. Bah! Who can keep everything that goes on in
that madhouse straight, anyway? In any case, our boy
walks right up to the little rabble-rouser, calm as you please, and
says, ‘You don’t belong here. Surrender or die.’”
Jason very nearly winced at
Etrigan’s booming laughter at Black’s confidence.
“So what happened then?” the demon’s host asked.
The old man snorted. “Well,
from what I heard, he or she or it – whatever – refused
and started spouting off some prattle about setting the world on fire
and feasting on the human cattle. Our boy in there just nodded,
said ‘Very well’, and burnt her to a cinder! The
next thing you know, this giant invading army numbering in the
thousands takes one look at him and runs right back through the
portal to Hell and closed it behind them.”
“Well, that would explain why
Joe decided to take a vacation!” Kara interjected.
“He’s going by ‘Joe’
now?” Ray asked bemusedly.
“Err…” Kara
hesitated, “I sort of decided that he needed a first name other
than ‘Mister’ and that was the first one that came to
mind.”
The old man chuckled. “I
like it. I think it suits him, in a strange way. In any
case,” he continued, “he’s grown used to relying
chiefly on himself, rather than endangering his friends. That
is why I am so glad to hear that he met up with your League. He
has never had a firm grasp on the more positive emotions such as love
and friendship, and we were beginning to fear that he would withdraw
from human contact altogether.”
Ray leaned forward and met the eyes
of every one there. “For what it’s worth, you have
the gratitude of a couple of old people for treating him like an
average member of your group. He’s normally met with
either awe or fear, and it gets to him more than he lets on,”
the elder explained to his young guests.
While the old man had been giving
their group his heartfelt monologue, both Jason and Galatea had kept
one eye on the losing battle between Nem and their guide. The
old woman had already removed Mr. Black’s coat and shirt and
was methodically inspected his torso for damage. It was obvious he
was uncomfortable with this, but was unwilling to harm the old woman
in any way.
Jason, who had concealed a miniature
camera in his armored vest, was carefully recording Mr. Black’s
exposed chest for future analysis. Even from a distance, the
one-time knight could see both scarring and bruising along the man’s
upper body. While such information meant little to him, Jason
was well aware that his pointy-eared teammate would be anal enough to
categorize every blemish and attempt to correlate them with
historical accounts to prove or disprove the other man’s
identity. The Batman’s single-minded drive to accomplish
his goal was, in fact, the chief reason why Etrigan so enjoyed being
around the Dark Knight.
While performing her own
reconnaissance, Galatea also noticed the scarring on their teammate’s
upper body. In fact, her keen vision allowed her to notice that
one such scar on his back – possibly caused by a sword, judging
from its clean edges and general size – lined up perfectly with a
similarly sized scar on his chest.
The blonde clone felt her eyes widen
voluntarily when she realized that, if one blade had truly created
both scars at the same time, the sword would have gone straight
through the man’s heart!
Not for the first time, Galatea
wondered if Belle Reeve was such a terrible place after all.
“Listen,” Harry
protested as the old woman was rubbing some kind of salve over all of
his visible scars, “this really isn’t necessary!”
She clucked and continued to apply
the cream. “You should take better care of yourself, you
know,” she commented, completely ignoring his rebuttal.
“And you should get yourself a wife instead of running all over
the world! Do you think that we’ll be around forever?
I want to see some great-grandchildren!”
‘Oh!’ Harry
realized as the metaphorical penny dropped. ‘These two
aren’t in league with the Shopkeepers. They just mistook
me for their missing grandson.’
He briefly considered setting the
old couple straight, but the plan was quickly scrapped by his
‘saving-people-thing’. Harry finally decided that
it would be better if he said nothing and let them believe that their
grandson was still alive and well, at least for the interim.
While his wife was attending to
Harry, Ray was looking carefully at both Kara and Galatea.
Reaching a decision, he hoisted himself out of his chair and beckoned
the two blonde-haired women to follow him. “You know, I
think I’ve got something in the attic that the two of you could
use. The rest of you make yourselves at home while we’re
gone. If you want, you can use the far viewer.”
After the trio had left, Courtney
looked at the remaining six Leaguers and commented, “Well, this
is kinda disappointing.”
Oliver looked over at the ‘far
viewer’ with a speculative glint. Wondering if the
elderly couple had a cable box attached to the high-definition Plasma
television dominating one wall, the billionaire archer shook his
head. “Don’t knock it just yet. They might
just have a game on.”
“Attention, all decks!”
Mr. Terrific announced over the Watchtower’s public address
system. “This is a station-wide alert! Lex Luthor
has control of Flash’s body. Contain him at any
cost. Use whatever force is necessary.”
“I don’t want him hurt,”
Green Lantern stated gruffly.
“That’s not the
problem,” the other man replied grimly before showing a
real-time security video of a dozen League members already disabled.
“I’ve tracked Flash’s ID badge. It looks like
he’s hiding in a storage room.”
“C’mon!” Lantern
admonished as he lifted off the ground.
“Just you and Fate,” the
League’s controller negated. “There’s
something weird about this.”
“Fine!” John bit out
before Dr. Fate and he flew towards the storage locker in question.
Once the pair arrived in the staging area, however, they only found
Wally’s ID badge and comm. device.
Huffing in irritation, Lantern
activated his comm. unit. “Yeah, it was a trick,”
he grumbled.
“It figures!” Mr.
Terrific replied. “I’ve sent extra muscle to the
backup teleport pads, G.L. You and Red Tornado cover the
Javelin bay.”
As Fate sequestered himself to
research a spell to reverse the mind swap, John sighed resignedly and
went towards the League’s transportation hub.
Time flew by – relatively speaking –
and the group engaged in many adventures, both together and apart.
Kara and Galatea had each received
their own wands from Ray, although they received their magical
tutoring primarily from Harry, Zatanna, and Jason. While
neither of the girls had much patience for the higher-level
Transfiguration and Charms spells, they took enthusiastically to the
various hexes, curses, and defensive spells that the mage trio
demonstrated for them.
Harry discovered that Nem was a
rather accomplished swordswoman in her day. As it turned out,
the old woman was far nimbler than her elderly exterior indicated,
and she taught the young wizard much in the realm of swordplay.
Once they had exhausted her skills in the ‘blade’ arts,
his instructor contacted her younger cousins Artie and Thena to
arrange for an advanced tutorial in archery and tactics,
respectively. Harry soon found the redheaded archer to be
extremely spirited and often brash – especially when it
involved interacting with men -, but she eventually warmed to him and
the pair came to enjoy the lessons. Thena, on the other hand,
was always a perfect example of composure and etiquette. In
fact, Harry came to believe that she represented an older version of
Hermione, given the blond woman’s studious demeanor and
frequent morality lectures.
Nem also supplied him with her
family’s crest – a curious bronze casting of a lightning
bolt in front of a storm cloud. Once he attached the token to
his coat, the village’s elders were more than happy to grant
him and his friend’s duplicates of various books in their
library. The fact that a remote township had such modern
technology as a photocopier came as quite a shock, but the wizard was
delighted to find a magical settlement that had progressed beyond the
dark ages.
During the course of his stay, Harry
succeeded in combining the duplicated texts with what he learned from
Merlin’s diary to perfect his self-transfigurations – or
his ‘changing’ ability, to use Merlin’s
terminology. Among many interesting discoveries, Harry
confirmed that the Count’s prediction as to his Animagus form
was correct. When he brought his ‘inner animal’ to
the fore rather than consciously forcing himself into a form of his
own choosing, the wizard became a large black wolf. Much to his
private appreciation, he found that his animal form held many
similarities to the late Padfoot in both size and coloring.
Sir Jason and Sir Justin kept
themselves amused for the duration mainly by discussing long-ago
battles with several of the island’s resident knights. As
one might expect from such a gathering, this conglomeration resulted
in many tournaments reminiscent of days gone by.
Not to be outdone, both archers
quickly became acclimated to the different culture. Shortly
into their stay, Green Arrow packed his uniform away and began
dressing in a Lincoln green leather outfit and a hooded leather
jerkin. His arsenal also received an upgrade of sorts when he
replaced his high-tech equipment with a handcrafted Yew bow and an
old-fashioned quiver of arrows. In addition, Oliver began
wearing a sword at his side at all times. When questioned about
the change, he replied that he won his new gear in a competition and
that it would serve him better than his old stuff. Given the
likely magical origin of his new equipment, Harry did not doubt that
he would be better prepared should another Eiling situation arise in
the future.
His former apprentice followed
Oliver’s example of changing his outfit and weaponry, including
the addition of a sword. However, unlike the Green Arrow’s
selection, Speedy chose to don a dark, close-fitting leather outfit.
Additionally, the youthful archer equipped himself with a large
assortment of weaponry, ultimately giving the impression of a
medieval Batman.
Pat Dugan went through the trip with
mixed feelings. While the other mages used the library to
research the mystical arts, Pat used his perpetual library pass to
review a great many rare historical and technical documents.
This unexpected honor made the single father very happy, but his joy
was tempered with the knowledge that Mr. Black’s ‘charity’
allowed his daughter to purchase an amazing quantity of ‘souvenirs’.
After an indeterminate time had
passed, the group decided that it was time to rejoin the outside
world. Making their goodbyes to their new friends in town, Ray
and Nem escorted the group to the lake’s edge where, after many
admonishments to return soon, they sailed back towards the Tor and
the exit of the realm.
After the leaguers left, the old
woman turned to her husband. “Well, I told you that my
grandson was a good boy,” she pointed out smugly.
Rao chuckled as he let his disguise
go, resuming the appearance of a handsome blonde-haired man in his
prime. “Yes, you did, and yes, he is. I cannot
fault his taste in friends either. With any luck, perhaps one
of my two granddaughters will marry the boy. They both seemed
quite comfortable around him as he taught them magic.”
Nemesis rolled her eyes as her form
began to age in reverse. “Even a blind person can spot
how smitten Kara is with him,” she commented in a rich
contralto. “I believe that you will need to search
elsewhere for Galatea’s match.”
The Kryptonian Sun God laughed
aloud. “Well, it’s not as if they want for time.
As long as the girls stay under a yellow sun, they are as immortal as
my old pantheon. Not to mention your grandson;
considering his ties to both Tyche and yourself, can he even
be destroyed?”
The Goddess of Vengeance smiled in a
satisfied manner. “No, I don’t think so,” she
answered cheerfully. “From what the Fates told me, he’ll
be fighting the good fight for a very long time to come.”
Nemesis diverted her attention as
two women approached the pair of deities. “Hello,
Athena. Artemis. You just missed them.”
“I know,” the Goddess of
Wisdom replied, “but we were detained by a meeting with Zeus.”
“Oh?” Rao inquired
idly. “And what was Mr. ‘Hey-you-get-off-of-my-cloud’
so excited about?”
“Well, it actually concerns
you – this time,” Athena supplied dryly. “It
has come to Olympus’s attention that your descendent Kal-El is
affianced to a mortal woman.”
Rao nodded in affirmation.
“Yes… a colleague of his at his human job. Her
name is Lois Lane, I believe.”
“Correct,” she avowed.
“Someone also rather inappropriately informed him that the
Amazonian champion Diana has her eye on the mortal calling himself
Batman.”
“I said that I was
sorry!” Artemis blurted. “He just kept going on
about the Amazon’s ‘no men’ policy, and it just
slipped out before I realized it.”
Nemesis smiled brightly. “Oh,
yes, the Dark Knight of Gotham,” she recalled. “Nice
man, holds righteous vengeance in high esteem. I think that the
two of them will make a nice match.”
“Well, your king does not,”
Athena answered wryly, “and wants Rao here to drop by to
discuss pairing her with Kal-El.”
“You have got to be
joking!” he protested bemusedly. “Has he ever
watched them interact? They’re all but siblings!”
“I know,” the goddess
replied tiredly. “I think that was his point, to be
honest.”
The tall man snorted. “Don’t
worry about it, ‘Thena’,” he responded in a teasing
tone. “I’ll drop by later and set him straight.
And speaking of setting people straight, are you sure that we
shouldn’t have just told the kids just who is in their family
tree? They’re bound to figure it out sooner or later.
I mean, your grandson even has Zeus’s own mark on his forehead
where that death curse failed!”
“Very sure,” Nemesis
answered resolutely. “None of them like being the center
of attention, Harry least of all. Not to mention that they’re
only children. Let’s give them a chance to enjoy the
lives they lead. After a century or two, they’ll start
feeling less attached to the mortal world and then we can inform them
of their heritage.”
“Well,” Artemis
interrupted smoothly, “since that little chore is out of
the way, who’s up for a little celebrating the next
generation? I, for one, would like to try this ‘coffee’
that my nephew mentioned so fondly.”
Laughing at the several stressed
warnings they had received from their other guests about Harry’s
reaction to anything caffeinated, the four Celestial beings
disappeared from the shores of Avalon in search of java.
After returning to the mainstream
Tor, Harry provided a Black Hole to bring the group back onto the
Watchtower. Having had several months to acclimate themselves
to the man’s more eccentric displays of power, the group
traversed the portal without hesitation. Unfortunately, the
wizard’s luck was as strong as ever, for just as soon as Harry
had replaced the Hole in his coat, an urgent message was emitted from
the overhead speakers.
“Attention, all decks!”
a male voice he identified as being Mr. Terrific announced.
“This is a station-wide alert! Lex Luthor has control of
Flash’s body. Contain him at any cost. Use
whatever force is necessary.”
Harry sighed. “It’s
always something, isn’t it?” he demanded resignedly.
Kara smiled slightly. “You
know you’d miss it otherwise.” She looked off for a
second before adding, “Incoming.”
By then, Harry’s enhanced
hearing had already identified an approaching racket as belonging to
Flash’s body running at super speed. Gesturing for his
companions to stay behind him, Harry backed up against one side of
the corridor and retrieved one of the Weasley twins’
inventions. Just as Flash-Luthor appeared at the end of the
corridor, the wizard tossed the portable quicksand bog out onto the
floor. His timing could not be any more impeccable as the
possessed superhero did not even register the hazard before he was
completed trapped.
Smiling darkly, Harry petrified the
scarlet form before levitating him out of the bog. A small
burst of magic from a gauntlet immediately removed the mire, leaving
Flash’s body to dangle helplessly in front of one extremely
irritated wizard.
“You know, Luthor,”
Harry said in a conversational tone, “I normally have to have
to track you people down myself. I do believe that you’re
the first client to actually seek me.”
A muffled noise came from the bound
man’s chest.
“Oh, I’m not going to
kill you, although your sins have certainly earned that fate,”
Harry replied as if he understood what the man was attempting to
communicate. “You are in my friend’s body at the
moment, after all. Now, I know that Flash doesn’t
have any extra mental abilities, and I’m fairly certain that
you don’t either. That means that someone has been
meddling in things they shouldn’t be.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed at the
thoughts of another Legilimencing Snape running loose. “Come
with me and we’ll straighten this out,” the mage ordered
snidely as he cast a Mobilicorpus on the restrained body.
The mismatched duo led the rest of the expedition group to the
bridge, where a surprised Mr. Terrific summoned Dr. Fate and Green
Lantern.
After Harry gave the helmeted
magician a dressing down for his poor judgment and spell execution,
the immortal wizard brought Flash’s body to hover before the
other man. While Dr. Fate performed the spell to correct his
mistake, Harry established eye contact with the arch criminal and
intoned coldly, “Know this. When next we meet, that day
shall be your last.”
A few moments later, Dr. Fate
finished his incantation and Wally West was restored to his original
body. Realizing that the exchange had been made, Harry stepped
back and cancelled his spell.
“Guys!” the Scarlet
Speedster exclaimed. “I was starting to think that I’d
go out at the bottom of a super villain dog pile!”
“It sounds like Wally,”
John Stewart hesitated, “but is there any way to be sure?”
“You want proof?” Wally
asked with a certain amount of excitement. “Until he went
off into the Marines, G.L.’s nickname was-”
“Stop!” the Lantern in
question interrupted. “It’s him,” John
announced to the group. He then glared at Flash and bit out,
“You promised never to repeat that story!”
Smiling smugly, the redhead leaned
back in his chair. “I know,” he replied impishly.
“I was just messing with your head.”
“Well, can you tell us
anything about Grodd’s secret society?” Mr. Terrific
demanded. “Where’s their headquarters?”
Wally shrugged. “I don’t
know. In a swamp?”
Several of the gathered Leaguers
groaned in unison.
After learning of her acceptance
into the League and eventually making her excuses, Galatea discreetly
left the Watchtower and flew to a certain residence in one of
Washington D.C.’s outlying suburbs. Entering a code into
the secured skylight, the blonde-haired woman entered the house and
stealthily made her way into lower recesses of the dwelling.
The metahuman’s rifling of the
home’s refrigerator was interrupted by the sudden activation of
the overhead lights and a sarcastic, “Make yourself at home!”
“Hey, Waller!” Galatea
greeted through a mouthful of turkey. “You know, this
bird’s rather dry. Still good, though.”
“Is there a reason why you’re
gracing my home?” Amanda Waller demanded from the doorway
leading to what appeared to be a living room. “And how
did you get in here without setting off the alarms?”
The blonde clone tapped the side of
her head significantly. “Cadmus,” she answered
shortly, “and I’m giving you your report on Black.”
“Already?” the short
woman questioned disbelievingly. “I was under the
impression that it would take several days at the minimum.”
“It did,” the younger
woman responded. “In fact, it took about three months for
me to get a complete feel for the man.”
“Three months?”
Waller echoed, the demand for a clarification evident in her tone.
The metahuman proceeded to inform
the other woman of her transdimensional vacation with her target,
sister, and teammates. After many requests for clarification,
she resumed devouring the leftover turkey while the Secretary of
Metahuman Affairs pondered what she had just learned.
“So,” the squat former
Cadmus operations manager beckoned, “what is your assessment of
the target? Were the rumors accurate?”
Galatea snorted. “Personally,
I don’t think they do him justice. If anything, they omit
his more… impressive abilities.”
“I meant in terms of hostility
against the United States,” Waller clarified.
The blonde woman shook her head.
“He doesn’t like harming people and will not do so unless
forced.” She thought over the many little conversations
she had held with him before continuing. “I noticed that
he doesn’t trust politicians,” she admitted, “but
he would prefer to just ignore them as opposed to annihilating them.
He won’t attack simply because he dislikes the administration.”
“Well, the President will
greatly appreciate that sentiment,” Amanda acknowledged.
The other woman was not yet
finished, though. “However,” she continued, “I
believe that sponsoring such an immoral organization as Cadmus would
definitely raise his ire, no matter how well the paper trail
might be hid.”
“Is that so?” Waller
questioned.
“Yes,” Galatea replied
seriously. “He doesn’t believe in using his power
for selfish pursuits. It simply isn’t in his nature.
However, if he became aware of a threat needlessly endangering
innocent lives – like your attempts to play God -, I do not
doubt that he would intervene.”
A rueful smile briefly graced her
face as she relived certain sparring sessions on Avalon, as well as
the gossip the old couple shared on his earlier exploits.
Satisfied that Waller was paying complete attention, Galatea added,
“And should he truly get irritated, no force on this planet
could stop him.”
A/N: Thus concludes Chapter Eight of Terminal Justice, at a
detailed 16,000 words. In spite of its verbosity, I hope that
you found this latest entry entertaining. I drastically
shortened the original Justice League episode (mostly because I felt
that it contributed little to the overall storyline), but I hope you
found that the lengthy journey to Avalon made up for it.
I am particularly interested in receiving your opinions as to how
much/little the Greek deities should play in future encounters.
In particular, I have a humorous scenario involving Harry being
called to Paradise Island and running afoul of some plot by Hades
and/or Ares, all the while ducking the ultra-feminist Amazons.
I would like to express my gratitude for Luinlothana’s
‘Learning Possibility’ drabble at the beginning of the
chapter, as well as Chris’ addition of ‘Expedition’.
Additionally, kudos for anyone who caught the references I worked in
from Chris’s BtVS crossover fic.
Additionally, thanks go out to James for his insightful beta
reading and helpful suggestions.
The next chapter will cover the all-female ‘Grudge Match’,
as well as the repercussions of the expedition. I’ve
considered including an Etrigan/Black/Morgan leFay incident, but I am
unsure as to whether she is still a villain or not. In any
event, your opinions on the next episode are welcome.
As always, your helpful feedback is appreciated.