[Emissary] Chapter 30 - Dissension (II) (Patreon)

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Chapter 30 - Dissension (II)

Previous chapter

“I couldn’t care less about ARGUS or whatever that new organisation is called, but I know one thing: I will never join the Justice League as long as they continue to ignore what Emissary did. He is the one who killed Batman. As long as that murderer masquerading as a hero is not brought to justice, I will never join you!”

The crowd of heroes broke into gasps and murmurs at her words. Many of them had heard rumours that Gotham’s Dark Knight had passed away, but nobody really knew what exactly had transpired. To hear that he was killed by a former member of the Justice League who also happened to be Power Girl’s current lover was shocking, to say the least. 

⁂

At that moment, Hal Jordan raised his voice so that everyone could hear him:

“As the saying goes, it’s not good to speak ill of the dead. I did not want to bring this up, but it looks like I have no choice. I understand you and Batman were childhood friends, but Batman was far from the innocent martyr you’re making him out to be.”

Zatanna glared at him with her hands crossed to her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Not replying right away, Hal took out a hard drive from the inner pocket of his suit and threw it to Cyborg. 

“Cyborg, could you display what’s on that hard drive for everyone?”

“Alright,” Cyborg said, and a few wires grew out of his forearm to connect to the hard drive. 

The supercomputer’s large screen was turned on, and then everyone’s eyes widened at what they saw.

“This was Batman’s hard drive. Superman got a hold of it after Batman’s death and went to Doctor Hamilton to ask for his help in decrypting it. He hadn’t known his true allegiance because Hamilton was one of Superman’s oldest and closest friends. They had been partners for years. As you can see, this hard drive contains data on all the villains that the Justice League has fought over the years. But there are also things you can’t see. . . Cyborg, how long would it take for you to retrieve the files that had been deleted from the hard drive?”

“Give me a minute or two.”

With the amount of data the hard drive contained, it would have taken hours or even days for a regular computer specialist to restore all the lost content, but Cyborg’s technology and computational abilities were far beyond most humans. 

As he had predicted, one minute later, a few hundred new folders appeared. They were all folders with the names of superheroes. Cyborg specifically accessed a folder named ‘Zatanna Zatara’.

Hal was surprised to see Cyborg going straight for the jugular, but he wholeheartedly approved. 

Zatanna’s arms dropped from her chest, and her lips parted, her mouth ajar from disbelief. The folder that Cyborg had accessed contained detailed information about her. Her strengths and abilities, her weaknesses, and even contingency plans meant to take her out. 

“Impossible! Batman and I have known each other for decades!” Zatanna said in a mixture of outrage and disbelief. “Are you saying he was making plans to eliminate me?! We were friends! What proof do we have that it’s Batman’s hard drive? And how do we even know that you haven’t tempered with it?”

Wonder Woman stepped forth and raised her arm, handing her Lasso of Truth to Zatanna. 

“You know exactly how my Lasso works. Take it. You have my permission to use it on me. I’m sure Cyborg, Hal, Supergirl, and anyone else in the Justice League has no qualms about letting everyone here hear the truth.”

While Zatanna was at a loss for what to say due to Wonder Woman’s forwardness and willingness to even let her use the Lasso, Batgirl, a redhaired girl wearing a bat-themed costume, spoke:

“Everyone knows that Batman was paranoid. Him having that sort of plans isn’t unexpected to me. And while it’s terribly unfortunate that Cadmus got a hold of that hard drive, it was just bad luck. None of that changes the fact that Emissary did kill Batman.”

Before the argument could start anew, Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, said:

“How about we ask the person in question? Power Girl, do you think you could call Emissary here?”

The Kryptonian woman was actually happy to hear Ralph make that suggestion. 

“Sure. One moment.”

Saying that, she took out a thin, rectangular object. At first glance, it looked like a smartphone in its protective cover, but when she flipped it open, the ones next to her saw that it was, in fact, a mirror. Specifically, it was one of the two mirrors that Harry had enchanted so that they could contact each other when his magic was frying his cellphones. 

"Stinky," Power Girl said the activation word.

"Is that some pet name for Emissary?" Hal Jordan piped in. 

"It's my cat, you goofy goober," Power Girl rolled her eyes and Supergirl giggled. 

Flash snickered at the Green Lantern too.

A few moments later, Harry’s face appeared on the screen. It was no different from a video call. 

“Hey, Emissary,” Power Girl called him by his hero name to tip him off that others were listening in on their conversation. “We need you here at the Watchtower. Do you think you could come over? It’s important. It’s about Batman.”

“I don’t mind, but what about Astrid?”

The little girl had stayed that day with Harry to learn how to hold back her sneezes.

“I could go play with my Amazon friends!” came Astrid’s chirp-like voice, making Power Girl, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman involuntarily smile. 

“Are you sure?” Harry asked her. 

“It’s alright. . . but only if I’m going to play! No more training today!”

“Look at you! Who taught you how to haggle like that?” Harry spoke to Astrid in amazement before turning his attention back to Power Girl. “Did you see that, Kara? They grow up so fast!”

Power Girl felt her cheeks flush a bit. She wasn’t comfortable letting the others get a peek into her private life with Harry and Astrid. 

“Alright, you can go and play with them,” Power Girl told the little girl quickly, eager to finish the call as soon as possible. “Emissary, bring that magic item with you, the one that lets others view your memories.”

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Once Emissary Apparated at the Watchtower, everyone focused their attention on him. It was quite late already for the superheroes living in America, but nobody wanted to go home just yet. They all wanted to see what the wizard had to say in his defence, they wanted to see an end to the drama. 

Harry conjured a round table in the middle of the room and put the Pensieve on it before turning to Wonder Woman. 

“Wonder Woman, your Lasso, please.”

Due to being Death’s Emissary, the Lasso of Truth could not coerce him to speak the truth, but nobody knew that. Regardless, Harry had no intention of lying this time around. 

As the golden rope coiled around his right forearm, he grabbed the Elder Wand with his left and brought its tip to his temple. 

“This bowl here is a Pensieve. It’s a magical artefact that will allow you to view one of my memories. I am not going to show a false memory or any sort of fabricated lies.”

A thin, long, liquid-like strand of silver came from his temple, connected to the tip of his wand. He dropped the silvery strand into the Pensieve and he touched one of the many runes etched outside, close to the bowl’s rim. 

The room was filled with steam, and suddenly, everyone found themselves in a different version of the Watchtower’s Monitor Room, one that was destroyed and wrecked. 

A handful of heroes jumped to dodge or block the attacks headed their way, only to realise that they were illusions. Everyone moved back, sticking close to the walls of the room to get a better view of what was happening in front of their eyes. 

The memory started with Harry being summoned to the Watchtower by Batman. The heroes watched how Harry fought against Superwoman of the Crime Syndicate and her Made Men.

They also watched how Harry healed Batman’s broken ribs before going after Superwoman. 

Following that, the memory skipped straight to the moment when Harry was summoned once again, this time into another dimension, into the base of the Crime Syndicate on the moon. 

They saw John Stewart being jumped by a dozen villains, barely able to maintain his green shield of light, Lex Luthor unmoving on the floor, Batman being beaten half to death, Superman being attacked by his villainous counterpart and half a dozen more villains, and so on and so forth. The Justice League was being overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the Crime Syndicate.

Then, it happened: Emissary cast a powerful telekinetic attack that flung everyone away, slamming them into the walls of the large hall they were fighting in. 

“Protego Diabolica.”

Bright blue flames grew from the floor in a circle around him and rose high up in the air, all the way to the ceiling. But strangely enough, their proximity didn't feel hot, and the floor and the ceiling weren't singed by them either.

Casting a nonverbal Sonorus, Emissary's magically-amplified voice rang over all the other noises in the room:

"Emissary is here. All allies run into the circle if you want to live. This spell won't hurt anyone who does not wish me harm!"

The heroes watched how Wonder Woman was the first to fly through the flames, unharmed. But then, they gasped audibly, with some of them even letting out cries of shock when two members of the Crime Syndicate tried to follow the Amazon princess through the fire, only for them to be incinerated; they were killed on the spot. 

Two moments later, Flash also arrived at the circle with Batman in his arms.

Having watched how every single one of his friends passed through the circle of fire unharmed, Flash didn't hesitate and ran through it unafraid.

"AAaargh!"

A hoarse scream of agony erupted from Batman's chest as Flash passed with him through the fire. Flash watched, petrified with shock and horror, how Batman's body was instantly engulfed by the blue flames.

Batman's terrible screams of pain were cut short a moment later as his body was turned into ash.

The memory ended, and the fog filling the Monitor Room was sucked back into the Pensieve. 

While the heroes were speechless, Harry spoke:

“That fire spell is an intent-based spell. It was meant not to harm anyone who did not wish me harm. I had no idea that Batman harboured dark intentions toward me. I thought we were all teammates, comrades. Everyone else passed through the fire just fine, everyone except for him. It didn’t make sense at that time. . . but now that I know he had been making plans to eliminate his fellow members of the Justice League, well, I’m not surprised anymore.”

Zatanna and even Nightwing became silent at being shown the truth. Even Question, who loved to act like a contrarian, did not speak up. After all, with Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth wrapped around Harry’s arm, it was impossible for him to lie. As far as they knew, nobody had ever resisted the Lasso’s ability. It even worked on Diana herself, despite that she was its owner. 

“Emissary saved our lives that day,” Flash also said. “And he saved us once again when Cadmus attacked us. I won’t speak for others; I’ll only speak for myself: if not for him and Power Girl’s help, I would have died after Mirror Master strapped a ticking bomb to my wrist.”

The other members of the Justice League also spoke up in Emissary’s defence.

⁂


The Pensieve memory, Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, and the testimonies of the members of the Justice League stopped most of the confusion, doubts, and finger-pointing among the heroes, clearing Emissary’s name. 

Despite all that, when the time came for everyone to reveal their decision, Wonder Woman and the rest were surprised to see that a significant number of heroes decided not to join the Justice League. 

Nightwing was the first to refuse, and Green Arrow was the second. Other heroes who had leftist views similar to Green Arrow also refused to join the Justice League once they learned about ARGUS’ existence. They would rather join an organisation led by the government instead of being part of a glorified private militia like the Justice League. 

The atmosphere heated up once more when Black Canary and Green Arrow broke into a loud augment. 

“Are you being serious?! No matter how I look at it, ARGUS sounds no different from Cadmus 2.0.! How could you even consider joining those people after what they did?" Dinah shouted scandalized. 

“That’s nonsense! We still have no proof that the government was behind Cadmus. Hell, for all I know, Emissary could’ve found a way to negate the effect of the Lasso of Truth.”

“No one has ever resided the Lasso of Truth! Even Wonder Woman herself can’t. You are out of your mind.”

“Am I though? Have you forgotten that Emissary freaking turned back the time over the whole of New York City?! Do you not realise how crazy that is?? If he can do that sort of spell, why is it so hard to believe that he could also fool a little golden rope? Am I really crazy for thinking that?”

Back Canary and Green Arrow weren’t the only ones to break into an argument. John Constantine and Zatanna started arguing over their different decisions too, and a conflict arose between Nightwing and the rest of the Teen Titans as well. 

Initially quite upset with Nightwing’s unexpected change of mind, Starfire was now looking lost at her friends. When Nightwing started throwing heavy words at Cyborg and Beast Boy and the two of them began responding in kind, the poor girl looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

“Don’t fight! We are friends, are we not? We should not say such hurtful words to one another! How about we just continue like before? We don’t have to join the Justice League or the government. We could just stay in Jump City. Just us, the oddballs, the Teen Titans.”

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to her, Nightwing was being mind-controlled by Gorilla Grod. As for Beast Boy and Cyborg, they were too incensed by Nightwing’s offensive remarks to listen to reason. The last member of the Teen Titans, Raven, stood silently on the side, a crestfallen look on her face. 

As for Batgirl, she was quiet too, filled with thoughts as she stared at her childhood friend’s unusual demeanour. She had never seen him act so out of character until then. However, she chalked up Nightwing’s strange behaviour to him just being shocked at the brutal way in which Batman had lost his life. 

⁂


Later that night, while Astrid and Power Girl were deep asleep, Harry cast a Silencing Charm before getting out of bed. 

With a wave of his wand, his pyjamas transformed into black robes, and a white skull mask covered his face. Throwing one last look at the bed, he saw that Kara had woken up but that the little girl was still asleep. 

Harry and Kara nodded at each other before he left the magically enlarged tent and grabbed a random pebble from the ground outside. A moment later, the pebble glowed with a faint blue light, and Harry disappeared into thin air. 

When the Portkey travel ended, Harry found himself in front of a seemingly abandoned farm in the Mojave Desert, a few dozen kilometres away from Las Vegas, in the United States. 

An uncomfortable feeling washed over him. 

‘Magic wards?’ he thought in surprise. 

His ability to feel magic was like a sixth sense for him. 

‘Revelio.’

His senses had not lied to him: someone did cast more than 10 warding spells on the farm. An illusion spell that distorted the light around the farm, a spell to detect intruders, one to trigger the alarm, one to cancel invisibility spells, a protective barrier etc.

‘The barrier magic is rather formidable. Who would be capable of something like that?’

As far as he knew, with Faust and Tala dead, Cadmus should not have any other magicians at their disposal. 

Backing away from the farm, Harry took a few moments to think about his new course of action because the unexpected circumstance had thrown a wrench into his original plans. It was impossible for him to sneak in undetected anymore.

‘It looks like the head of the CIA has been expecting me to come for his head, just like I did with the members of Cadmus. He’s been preparing for my arrival.’

The safer course of action was for Harry to retreat for the night and come up with a plan to catch Roger Williams when he left the safety of his base. 

‘But we can’t afford to let him be. The government stole the corpse of Doomsday several days ago and we still have no idea what happened to it.’

He did not want to imagine the scenario where Doomsday came back to life or, worse, the creature came back to life and the government found a way to control it. 

‘It would spell doom for all of us.’

Recovering Doomsday’s corpse and disposing of it for good was imperative. Having made his decision, he took out his wand. 

‘It’s been a while since I used this spell,’ he thought, an almost nostalgic smile on his face. 

As he raised his hand and aimed his wand in front of him, his robes started fluttering in the air despite the absence of wind, from the accumulation of magic power. 

He was going to cast one of his self-designed spells, a Curse that he had created in his first lifetime, during the decades he had spent chasing Voldemort and his Death Eaters into their hideouts all over the world. 

The illusionary image of an enormous crossbow appeared behind him and he said one word:

“Ballista!”

A blinding light burst from his wand, and a sound like that of glass breaking rang in the desert as the illusion and the protective spells cast on the abandoned farm were shattered, revealing the existence of an armoured, futuristic-looking bunker base. 

Destroying the protective spells meant that the enemy knew that he was there. Time was of the essence, so Harry did not hold back his power. 

A Bombardment Curse obliterated the reinforced bunker’s outer wall, and Harry transformed into a wraith as he flew inside. 

A hail of laser beams rained upon him, but they all passed through his smoke-like body. 

‘Depulso.’

The area of effect nonverbal spell blasted all the CIA operatives to the very ends of the room, many of them being knocked out cold from the impact of their bodies with the walls. 

While they were still trying to get up to their feet, Harry ignored them and fired a Gouging Spell into the floor. He had put so much power into the spell that a massive hole appeared in the floor and into the floor of the level below too. 

‘Homenum Revelio.’

Every single human being in a radius of 500 metres around him started glowing in his mind’s eye, regardless of the physical obstacles between him and them. 

Coming out of his wraith-like form, he crouched and placed his palms on the floor. The entire facility started shaking like during an Earthquake and the floor appeared to collapse as entire chunks from it and from the walls were ripped out. 

In the blink of an eye, nearly 20 human-sized earth golems were formed and started running in different directions. It was not a powerful spell, but it would serve to create chaos and disperse the CIA agents instead of letting them converge their entire strength on him. 

The secret facility had 15 underground floors, all of them with a complex layout and swarming with security agents carrying laser guns. Nonetheless, with the 20 earth golems running around and causing untold amounts of property damage, the security personnel would be forced to fight them in order to contain them, thus giving Harry an easier time dealing with the remaining agents. 

It took him less than three minutes to reach the last floor of the facility. 

‘Bombarda!’

A moment later, Harry let out a ‘Huh?!’ of surprise. 

‘Defodio!’

Neither of the two spells left even a scratch on the wall.

“Surprised that your spells aren’t working? Hahaha!” a voice rang from some hidden speakers in the corridor. It was Roger Williams’ voice. 

“I plated the entire room and the walls with Nth mental. Your powerful magic is worthless here! You can’t do a thing!” he gloated. 

“Nth metal. . . the same material as Hawkgirl’s mace, eh? Where did you even get a hold of so much Nth metal? Then people wonder what their tax money is being squandered on. . .”

Nth metal was a unique metal that could only be found on Thanagar, Hawkgirl's planet of origin. It was an exceedingly rare and valuable metal with many extraordinary abilities. Particularly of note was Nth metal's ability to cancel all magic.

“I didn’t need all that much, so you don’t have to worry about me wasting taxpayers’ money. Whether the whole wall is filled with Nth metal or just a thin layer on the surface, its effect in cancelling all magic is still the same,” Williams bragged. 

“You dumb bitch!” Harry unexpectedly started laughing at his words. 

“I thought you to be more cultured than to resort to such juvenile insults, Emissary,” said Williams. “But do your worst. I’m going to have fun watching you spasm while you are in your death throes.”

No sooner than his words ended, a green-coloured gas came from the vent in the ceiling. 

A transparent sphere of light appeared around Harry’s head, supplying him with clear air and protecting him from the poisonous gas. It was a Bubblehead Charm.

Still laughing at Roger Williams, Harry pointed his wand at a nearby wall that collapsed like sand and all the debris, cement, and reinforced steel gathered in front of him in the shape of a sphere. 

Under the untold pressure of his magic power, all that debris was squeezed and compressed like in a hydraulic press.

The reason for Harry’s amusement was that, in his overconfidence, Williams had unknowingly told him how to break past the Nth metal protections. 

The ball of debris had been compressed to the absolute limit, shrinking in size until it was no bigger than a football. Its weight, however, was well over 1 ton. 

With a mere flick of his wand, the heavy projectile was hurled forth like a cannonball, making a huge dent into the wall reinforced with Nth metal. 

“What in the world?! How?!” came Williams’ shocked voice from the speakers. 

The Nth metal did cancel magic, but Harry could perform physical attacks too. With the thin layer of Nth metal being shattered by the ‘cannonball’, nothing stopped him from using his magic to blow apart the rest of the wall now. 

Harry broke into the most fortified room of the facility just in time to see Roger Williams run through yet another door. He turned himself into a wraith and flew after him, but, just as he was about to reach the door, a splitting headache assaulted him. 

It was a psychic attack.

The pain was so terrible that he lost control over his wraith form and collapsed on the floor. 

Turning around, he was surprised to see a massive black gorilla with a peculiar helmet on its head. It was Grodd. 

“How nice of you to drop by, Emissary,” Gorilla Grod spoke, all the while never lowering the intensity of his psychic attack. “Did you get a good taste of my mental powers? Hmm, no answer? Fine, I’ll give you more.”

Harry let out a groan as he struggled to stand up to his feet.

Now he had lived to see it all! He couldn’t believe that a damned monkey would have such powerful telepathic abilities.

His Occlumency shields were still holding on, but Grodd’s psychic bombardment was so powerful that Harry couldn’t focus on casting any other magic spells. 

“Your mental barriers are stronger than anyone else I have ever encountered. I will commend you for that. I am dying with curiosity; just what is hiding inside your mind for you to protect it like that?”

Harry let out a chuckle. 

He had done his best not to kill any of the agents he had fought against this time, but this gorilla was asking for it. 

“You’re dying to find out what’s inside my mind?” Despite the terrible pain, Harry laughed again. “You shall have your wish.”

Grodd felt Harry’s mental barriers give way to his telepathic waves, and he gleefully barged into his mind. 

However, the delicious secrets he had been looking forward to were nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was only an expanse of darkness.

There was no light. There was no sound. There was nothing. Grodd could not even feel his own body.

A cold chill travelled down Grodd’s spine. Startled by the unusual phenomenon he was going through, Grodd reflexively tried to pull out of Emissary’s mind, but, at that moment, his sense of touch seemed to return as an ice-cold, bony hand touched the back of his head. 

Grodd did not know it, but he was in the middle of experiencing one of Harry’s old memories. 

“I take it you enjoyed your second life? Master?”

Terror like nothing he had ever felt washed over Grodd at the sound of that disembodied voice ringing in his ears. 

“WHO ARE YOU?” he screamed in trepidation as he turned around. 

Again, there was only darkness. However, even in that pitch-black darkness, two spots even darker than black stood out. He realized, with horror, that those two spots of darkness were someone’s eyes. 

The moment that Grodd became aware of those black eyes, his heart gave out and his breathing stopped. 

Back in the outside world, Harry opened his eyes to see the large gorilla lying on the floor, unmoving. Grodd was dead. Harry had not lied to Power Girl when he told her that no living being could catch a glimpse of Death and survive. Not without Death’s express permission. 

Not sparring the dead gorilla a second glance, Harry rushed through the door he had seen Roger Williams escape. 

“. . . What the hell?”

Beyond the door, there was nothing but a small, 3x3-meter-wide storage room for guns and ammo. 

‘Where did he disappear to? Is there a secret exit or a tunnel?’

‘Revelio!’

He cast that spell a few more times and searched around manually too. He even went ahead and cast a Vanishing Spell on the guns and ammo, emptying the room, but he still could not find any secret trapdoors.

‘. . . Did he, perhaps, teleport away?’

“Bollocks.”