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Phantom 26
🕑 Added 2024-03-21 01:09:19 +0000 UTC“Well, what do we have here? A crate of cocaine? AR’s better than what the SWAT gets?!”
“It's Batman,” Foley shook his head, and he nodded as he saw the unconscious men being carried into the ambulances, “As if it is something else these days.”
“That says something about our recon and response, doesn’t it?” he sighed, eyes flicking towards the building where the Batsignal was installed, “I have given up the hope of ever arriving on a major event like this before him, to be honest. So, was a drug deal he busted?”
“And a weapons deal too, by the looks of it…but there is a man dead up there,” his deputy answered, and Jim paused for a moment, his eyes moving towards the gathered reporters. Foley seemed to understand his unasked question, as the man shrugged and walked towards the entrance, “They don’t know about it yet, but they will when the forensics bring it down—or someone tips them off for a wad of bucks.”
“Dead by Batman’s hands?”
“No,” Foley sighed, and once more, Jim was struck by just how long it had been since the two of them had been doing this. Driving through the nights, arriving at crime scenes, drudging through the files and folders of the GCPD with the forensic reports in their hands…hell, he could see the grey in Foley’s eyebrows now. Running a hand through his own thinning, greyed hair, he sighed and raised the tape over his head, following after his Deputy, “Some kind of advanced weapons they had with them. Looks like a futuristic assault rifle, without any magazines and a hell lot of firepower if the scenes in that hall are anything to go by.”
“Does it look like the work of those men we have been finding for a few weeks?” he asked, taking the photos Foley handed over to him. Looking at the initial photographs of the scene, Jim shook his head at the unconscious men lying amidst the blasted pieces of flooring and furniture, before he saw the weapons they had been using. Power, the word came to his mind instantly as he saw the thick, burly-looking rifles shaped like water guns, and dimly glowing purple spheres visible inside where the bullet chambers were supposed to be, “Seem like they upgraded from spears to guns.”
“Guns stronger than anything in the whole country,” Foley pointed out at the hole in front of them as the elevator doors opened up, and Jim’s eyes widened as he saw the rubble blasted by their feet, the inches-wide holes in the walls revealing the darkened hall beyond.
“These aren’t brick walls,” he muttered, kneeling down to pick up a piece of stone, thumb rubbing over the soot and dust upon it before his eyes raised towards the dozen holes before him, “This…is concrete. What kind of firepower are they trying to create, and for what exactly?”
“Doesn’t seem like they aim to point these guns at another doomsday dropping from the skies.”
“I wouldn’t trust the government with that excuse,” he scoffed, standing up and entering the hall beyond, ducking underneath the tapes as he saw the forensics scattered all over the place. With the experience of decades, it took him barely a moment to spot the cut window at the end of the panes, as well as the batarangs Batman had used in his confrontation glinting upon the pillars and walls. Of course, the next moment his eyes found the casualty of the night—a rarity when Batman was involved, especially in such a messy way. Having been at the helm of GCPD for more than a decade and a half, Jim was no stranger to dead bodies or even blasted apart skulls from an M16 or AK47 to the face, but even he had to admit…that the corpse before him was probably amongst the messiest he had ever seen.”
The head and the upper part of the torso were completely gone, blood and gore painting the floor around in a grisly scene of death. Shaking hsi head as he saw the forensic members pick up the pieces of bone and flesh with pincers adn tongs as they kept them inside evidence bags, Gordon turned towards the crates of weapons and drugs seized by officers on the scene, eyeing the methamphetamine and cocaine packets before walking towards the weapons.
SMGs, Glocks, and M4s were segregated into neat compartments, and below them, he could see one of these futuristic assault rifles as Foley had called them. Picking up the folded paper by the gun with a gloved hand, Jim smoothed out the crease in it before taking in the rough, scratchy handwriting on it. ‘200 shots, shoot to kill only. Don’t use near friendlies. Overheats at about thirty, needs rest.’
“Glocks and shotguns ain’t cutting it anymore for these psychopaths anymore I guess,” his deputy shook his head, stopping by his side to run a finger over the gun’s center, the purple light beanth pulsing softly, “We are already having a tough time with those spears circulating around the city, and what’s next? Handheld 50 cals gunning up and down Gotham?”
“Get the whole patrol routine ballistic shields, and make sure no one leaves without a shotgun or a rifle from the armory,” he said after a moment, dropping the paper back into the box, “and run a check on every weapons dealer and modifier in our lists. See if they know anything about these weapons and who is bringing them into Gotham. Other than that, I want to see those taken to the hospital first thing tomorrow. Make sure no one sees them aside from Edward or you. No lawyers, no supposed relatives, no journalists, and certainly not some businessman making a donation—and monitor the vents, I’d rather not deal with cardiac arrests taking them down before we get around to the questioning.”
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“Hey Diana,” Julia’s voice floated through the museum, and she smiled widely, turning around to look at the woman who had been a second mother to her for all intents and purposes in this world. It had been decades since she had met the blessed Amazon, and yet, Julia looked to have kept most of her youthful appearance, with only a few wrinkles and even fewer greys in her hair to show that she had reached well past her fifties.
“Julia!” She hugged the older woman, hearing her chuckle against her as Julia patted her head, “When did you come back?”
“Just this morning,” she shook her hair, pulling back to adjust her glasses before she turned around, “And I wanted to introduce you to someone, met Barbara, a fellow student of the ancient and history, and your newest colleague! She is British by the way, so ignore the arrogance in her voice.”
“Yes yes, paint me as the arrogant one why don't you,” a clear, confident, and mirthful voice echoed from the entrance to the hall, and Diana looked as a dirty blonde-haired woman walked into view. Dressed sharply in a shirt and skirt, Barbara carried herself with a grace that belied her profession, her dark amber eyes shining with confidence and intelligence both as she extended her hand with a smile, “Barbara Ann Minerva, it is an honor to meet you, Dr. Prince.”
“The honor is all mine Dr. Minerva,” she shook her head, shaking her hand as her eyes traveled over the badge pinned to her chest, “Ancient Cultures and Archaeology?”
“A passion of mine from watching the collections of my family in my childhood,” she shrugged, “What can I say, I am a real-life Lara Croft.”
“Well, I will leave you two to get acquainted,” Julia said, waving a hand towards the exit of the museum as Diana caught sight of her daughter standing beyond the gates. Vanessa waved at her cheerily, and Diana smiled back at her, adoring as she waved back, “I have to get our stuff back at the house. Come tonight for dinner, Vanessa has missed you—oh, and bring your boyfriend. I want to see the man who managed to make you break your vows!”
“I shall,” she laughed, imagining the meeting between her lover and her foster mother Julia gave her a wink and turned around. Remembering the last time she had been to Julia’s for dinner, Diana gasped and called out a daily childish tone, the days when she had been a stranger in this world flashing before her eyes as she called out, “Make that curry and rice will you? The one with the shrimps!”
“Vows?” Barbara asked as Julia waved back with a thumbs-up, and Diana turned her attention back towards her newest colleague, chuckling at the bemused expression on the woman’s face.
“I had a rather…harsh view of men in my younger years, so I made a vow in Hera’s name to never be with a man,” she smiled softly, remembering the teachings and tales of her mothers and aunts on Themiscyra, as well as her initial meetings with Harry, “Over the years, I learned more of the world outside our home, and years later, met my lover.”
“Sounds like something right out of a romance novel,” she smiled, giggling for a moment, and Diana just laughed along as by an unspoken word, they both began to move towards the office, with Barbara waving a hand towards the various displays they passed by “So, Diana, what are you currently working on?”
“Ancient European civilizations, specifically those of the Mediterranean,” she answered, “pointing at the vases and claywork on their right, “Excavations, cleaning, detailing, searching….I supervise everything from the arts and crafts to literature and weapons from the Sumerian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. Sometimes I also look into the Scandinavian treasures of the Vikings and the Norse, along with the Mayan and Incan structures here.”
“All that is left is the Oriental and the Indian subcontinent for you too complete the set then,” the blonde woman pointed out with a raised eyebrow, before continuing with a questioning tone, “So, find anything from the legends and stories till now? I think I remember an article about you finding the sword believed to have belonged to Heracles.”
“It was a rare find,” she reminisced, sighing as she remembered the way the smiths at Themicyra had crafted a fake sword to replace the one she had found adn recovered as a mortal, the magic laid upon it fooling even the best of machines and technologies the humans possessed. She didn’t really like fooling the people around her, especially when she considered them her friends too, but it was the mandate of the Gods that no item possessing even a shred of divine power or influence shall be left in mortal hands.
And thus, each time she uncovered or found an object, she would carry it to Themiscyra to be stored behind the vaults, and a fake would be created to maintain the cover in the mortal realm. “We also have the tiara stated to be Athena’s own here, as well as the bow of Hector himself.”
“Marvelous,” Barbara breathed out as they passed by the artifacts, her eyes flicking over the backlit panels depicting the dates, events, and importance of the items in order, “I am currently searching for some Greco-Roman artifacts as well, maybe you could lend me a hand. You have much more experience in the Mediterranean than I do.”
“I would love to,” she beamed, her eyes moving down to the tablet in Barbara’s hands as the woman showed her picture of a poem written by some traveler, the Greek upon it distorted by time and weather both—but still, the ink that was still legible 3was enough or her to get a read on what it was saying “This bit here refers to the island of…”
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“Not every day my retreat sees royalty at its gates.”
“Ah well, not every day my people come to me with reports of an island growing out of nowhere in our water,” came the reply as the trident-wielding—demigod?—man smirked up at him, nodding in the direction of the said island, “and certainly not with this amount of magic and wards cast upon it. People tend to get worried when someone causes earthquakes in the seabed you know.”
“I hadn’t realized that my activities intruded on the Atlantean waters,” he shook his head, coming to a stop on the sea right before the King of Atlantis, feeling the magic running within his veins, as well as the weapon in his hands. Meeting his eyes with a smile, Harry tilted his head toward the island and raised his hand slightly, “Don’t be a stranger now, King of Atlantis.”
“The news channels certainly don’t paint you to be this courteous and well-mannered,” he laughed as the trident in his hands dissolved away into viridian mist, and the golden, scaled armor upon him turned into a stylized, formal robe, “Now that the formalities are done, My name is Arthur. Arthur Curry, King of Atlantis and titled as ‘Aquaman’ by the humans.”
“Curry? Seems ironic,” Harry snorted, his cloak fading away to reveal robes he had worn as the Lord of Black and Potter, the sand crunching beneath their feet as the wards parted before them, “None of your subjects feel slighted by your surname being a seafood variety?”
“Oh I use that name solely for the purpose of communicating with the world outside Atlantis,” the man chuckled, and now that they were on the same level, Harry could clearly see the musculature on the monarch’s body, as well as the towering height he possessed. Sea green eyes met his emerald ones as the Atlantean grinned and waved a hand towards the oceans around them, “To Atlantis and the rest of the waters, I am just King Arthur, wielder of the Trident of Neptune and Ruler of the Seas.”
“I saw footage of you fighting the Imperium that had tried to set their factories on the oil rigs and scattered isles across the ocean,” he commented as the doors to the small house before them opened up, the insides much like destroyed house his parents had owned in Godric’s Hollow, “Hydrokinesis certainly makes for an interesting power, especially when you are in your element so to speak.”
“So does being a sorcerer of unparalleled skill and power, does it not?”
“The days certainly are not boring,” he nodded with a chuckle, finding Arthur’s frank, casual air much easier to get along with than any of the men he had met so long in this world—definitely more than what Batman and Clark had offered in terms of a conversation, “What would you like to have? Tea? Coffee?”
“A beer would be welcome if you have one now,” Arthur sighed wistfully as they emerged into the living room, eyeing the photographs and portraits on the walls carefully, “Your parents, I presume?”
“And my godfather,” he snapped his finger, a crate of chilled beer appearing on the table between them as they both sat down upon the recliners, “I modeled this house on the one we lived in prior to their sacrifice.”
“A toast then, to parents who loved their sons,” the King of Atlantis raised the bottle in his hands, and Harry silently did the same, sipping the drink. A moment later, Arthur took a breath and looked out of the window, “I admit, I hadn’t expected this meeting to go so swimmingly, and neither to find myself drinking beer with you within a couple of minutes.”
“Sometimes it just happens I guess,” he shrugged, “You just sort of click with a person randomly, but I doubt you knew that before you arrived on the shores of my island. Someone like you doesn’t arrive at someone like mine’s doorstep for a can of beer.”
“I didn’t,” he nodded, “But I knew that you are a mage of power no one in Atlantis has ever seen before. We all felt the echoes of your clash with the sorcerer Faust. And we also feel the magicks cast upon this island, hiding and warding it from all but those with the skill to sense it, or someone like me, who wields the Trident of Neptune. And as the humans say, Know Thy Neighbour.”
“You are not fully Atlantean, are you?” Harry muttered softly, taking hsi time to study the golden-haired warrior king, with his eyes and magic both. Denser muscles, stronger bone constitution, slightly differing organs, and a hell lot of magic made up the man before him, and yet, Harry knew that the biological makeup was entirely too human to be a complete sea-dwelling organism like the Atlanteans were purported to be, “Atlantean father?”
“Mother,” Arthur corrected with a chuckle, “and royalty at that. Saved my father from a storm cause she wasn’t a racist bitch like some of the Atlanteans. Returned back to Atlantis when I was a toddler, and then a whole load of shit went down with that when I was revealed, especially with me being a half-breed.”
“I imagine they weren’t too thrilled with some dirty-blooded half-blood coming into their society, especially as a suitor to the throne?” he laughed, imagining a Draco with green scales and gills warbling underwater about the prestige and purity of the Malfoy name.
“No they were not,” Arthur laughed heartily, his clear rich voice echoing the small house as he took another pull from the beer, finishing it in a single second before putting it down on the table, “But they couldn’t do anything about it, and neither could my half-brother. Years later, here I stand, King of the Seven Seas, and soon-to-be father.”
Raising a silent toast in celebration of Arthur’s statement, Harry took another pull from the bottle, enjoying the silence for a moment as he felt the wards on his island flare for a moment. Stretching out his senses, he felt the presence of two individuals right on the spot where he had found Arthur, the magical nature of their being closely resembling that of the hybrid before him. “It has been fun and all, Arthur,” he sighed, meeting the Atlantean’s suddenly wary eyes as he saw the man tense, his magic rolling and boiling underneath his iron-tight control lime the very waves he was the master of. Putting down his beer on the table, Harry leaned back and looked in the direction of where the other two Atlanteans were, and asked his question again, “But I ask again. Why is the King of Atlantis at my doorstep, I would like a straight answer this time, please. None of that Know Thy Neighbour bullshit.”
“Very well…” he murmured after a moment of uncomfortable silence, his lowering a fraction before they rose up again, and a frown pulled itself upon his regal, strong features, “I need you to take a look at something for me. Something quite…catastrophic.”
“Of course it is.” Harry groaned, snapping his fingers to conjure two more chairs beside them, while at the same time teleporting the two visitors on his island’s edge into the room, “and stop trying to unravel the wards, it gives me an irritating itch in my brain.”
“Mera! Nuidis!” Arthur exclaimed, surprised at the sight of who Harry presumed to be his aforementioned wife, and most probably a minister or advisor of sorts, “You couldn’t just stay back like I told you to?”
“And risk you getting hurt?” the redhead bit back with all the venom of a sea snake, her hair flaring out a little as her jade eyes flicked towards him, before coming to a rest on teh beers between them. Her eyes narrowed, and Harry shared a glance with the man called Nuidis, both of them sensing the ire of the pregnant woman as they both moved a little away, “You! Here I am getting worked up outside, trying my best to unravel the wards on this bloody Island…and you are drinking?!”
“My dear,” Arthur soothed as a worried expression came over his face, leaning a little away from his wife as both Harry and Nuidis quietly slipped out, his eyes screaming the word ‘traitor’ out at them before he focused back on his wife, and he weakly waved at the table,“I was making friends?”
