Episode 1: Kneeling Day part 10
WASHINGTON D.C
JUNE, 22, 2010 9.30 A.M
Sometimes things don't exactly conform to your expectations. I mean I don't believe for a second the League is still operating from the Hall of Justice. In all incarnations of the team I knew they operated from the Watchtower which makes slightly more sense for a global team than squatting in the U.S capital. How people are buying this while the rest of the building seems to be a freaking museum/shrine to the League with an official cafeteria to boot is beyond me. The museum is surprisingly humbler to what you'd expect for a team of world renowned heroes. No giant statues of the founders supporting the ceiling, nearly no frescoes depicting old battle and ancient foes. Ok the museum is dedicated to their victories, quasi uniquely from alien invaders, but the general humility is refreshing.
Granted, as I'm currently enjoying the building's food and drink, I'm not in a room to complain too heavily. The food is even not as loathsome as I expected American's confections to be, even above average for a great museum's shop. I'm more interested in my neighbors anyway. The contrast between them is enlightening.
Katar is almost Norse-like in attitude. Boisterous, quick to laugh, quick to reminisce about old battles and foes long gone, almost eager to go into a scrape once more. He seems to be a bit disappointed I didn't charge the first criminal I saw on my first day but he's very interested to hear about the phantom weapons granted by the gods and earnestly offer to train with me as, with his wife, he's one of the few Leaguers to fight with close combat weapons. Under the thunderous attitude, I can feel his gaze gauging me, evaluating me for strength and weaknesses and remember this guy was his civilization's equivalent to a western lawman and perhaps one of the Leaguers who killed before arriving to Earth.
Diana is strange. She can outboast Katar with ease: You can't exactly beat "I put the god of war on his ass one or two times in my life" in the epic department. However, I note she's engaged in many non-violent pursuit, managing contact between her island and the rest of the world, funding charities and supporting various causes in their names. I'm not dealing with the Xena-clone of the New 52, that's for sure.
I tell them my story as I remember it. Katar mutters a prayer to Mordiggian when I describe the purulent expanses of Xibalba while Diana is rather pitied by my description of dim Hades. Apparently she needed to get in there once to negotiate with Hecate the solution to Circe rampage-of-the-month, even if her divine blessings made the trek much easier. I'm at the point of my tale where I describe my coming to Gotham.
"And when I arrived, I discovered I could hear the unquiet dead. Gotham has quite a few of them as you can imagine. I didn't know what to expect so I followed the nearest that was hovering above a shadowy corner of the alley. Imagine my reaction when I discovered my first corpse."
"That must have been disquieting" says Katar "I remember my first found when I was on the force. I had to run to not contaminate the crime scene with all my puking"
"It was less horrible I would have thought. In my parallel I saw my father's corpse and it affected me way more than that. Sure, she had a slit throat and had this weird expression recent corpses apparently have. But I was more disquieted she had been left to rot than by the corpse itself. The gods apparently freed me from that peculiar sensation"
"What did you do with the corpse?" asks Diana with an intensity a little more than frightening.
"Nothing, I called the police and went on find others. These ones were old, decayed beyond all recognition. I could sense their breaths still prisoner from the dead flesh, still struggling to free itself from the corpse. I heard their ghosts scream from the state their bodies were.
So I gave them what they wanted. I freed their breaths and called birds to return them to nature. They seemed to appreciate that enough to disappear in the ether"
"They didn't want to be avenged?" Katar seems astounded by the thought. I suppose I would be too if I came from a warrior culture or didn't had parts of my feelings on death or the dead altered.
"Most of them apparently thought Batman would foil their boss' schemes whatever they were."
It's strange. I would have easily thought the League "righteous face-punchers" expecting metahumans to prove themselves by reducing crimes. However, Katar is positively happy with me burying the howling dead while Diana is actually interested if I would be able to reproduce the healing of the night at a grander scale.
The rest of the morning I listen intently to their stories, learning incidentally that the Martian Manhunter is not the last Martian in this universe but the representative of an entire cave-dwelling civilization. Most of the Rogues' gallery I'm remembering are active, even if Luthor didn't go to prison even once and is enjoying his seat as the richest man on earth. I'm their first experience in parallel universe hopping so no Crime Syndicate, Anti-Monitor, Super Prima-Donna Prime or other alternate. Diana seems to have as a project to let me spar with her to see to what limits I can push myself. After that, training and exercise regimen to at least bring me to fitness standards even without superpowers.
Fate is rarely so kind to let you plan that way. As we finish our conversations, Diana's communicator comes alive and I hear what I'm slightly sure is Superman's voice.
"Superman to leaguers in Washington, there's been a synchronized traffic accident on Arlington Memorial and Theodore Roosevelt Bridges. City services report they lost contact with the firemen and rescue team they've sent."
I have no idea what even these bridges are but that doesn't sound ominous at all.
"Wonder Woman here. I'm with Hawkman at the Hall of Justice, we're ready to intervene. ETA ten minutes at most Are there any additional information?"
"No sighting of one of our usual clients whatsoever. For all we know this is a simple accident and a series of unfortunate circumstances piling up." Beat. "I don't think we ever saw one of those, did we?"
"How Batman calls it : "never ascribe to accident what can be explained by malice, never ascribe to fate what can be explained to criminal madness. Wonder Woman out"
Katar and Diana exchange a brief glance before rising and signaling me to follow them. I think my exam just graduated from practice session to live-fire exercise. Wonderful. I pulse in my mind: "Vergil. Which of the gods would be appropriate to the situation at hand?"
"A health god would be the key to provide support. If you want to be more direct Lir's son, Oya and Sedna are gods of water."
Well then all depends on what I want to do. Joy.