This one's a rather short chapter, but it felt like a good place to end it. At some point in the next chapter, expect more interaction between Harry and the League. Or, at least, a member of it.
I hope you enjoy the chapter. I own nothing.
The league was silent for a stretch. Each of them staring at Harry in his new, extremely different, form. He was now in the form of a red haired, female child with a splattering of freckles across his button nose and wide, green eyes that stared adorably, if he did say so himself, up at the Leaguers.
But the novelty wore off after a few minutes, and Harry returned to his own self. The sweet smile he had adopted to go with the little girl changed to a mischievous smirk, as he relished in the feel of shocking them with the old trick.
Then, upon hearing a gasp from Diana, Harry remembered why he had been given the ability. He swore as Flash's eyes widened to an almost comical sense, Superman's face fell into a look of concern, Jonn gained an expression of empathy, John looked down at the table, his hand clenching into a fist, and Batman winced very slightly while Diana brought a hand to her mouth.
Harry focused on the magic in his blood again, and his body smoothed out.
"How did you get-" Superman began, only to be interrupted.
"Do you honestly think that I made it to here unscathed? I haven't had a nice life, Superman; I didn't expect to have a nice life. I threw that option away far too long ago to still mourn its loss, and there's no need to give me your sympathy."
Clark's mouth closed, and he frowned as Harry ran a hand through his hair.
"Fuck. That's cut our… meeting short. Is there some kind of induction I should know about?" Harry was grateful when Batman decided to answer.
"Yes. It will take place on the nineteenth of July." He said simply, and then amended. "We'll get a communicator to you before then so that you can have ample warning before we teleport you up."
Harry opened his mouth to ask about the teleporter. Then, it snapped shut and he grit his teeth before nodding to the Leaguers and turning on the spot.
-()()-
Bruce turned to look at the others as their newest recruit left, and his brow dipped at the expressions they held. Ones of sympathy. Pity, even.
"Don't." He said.
Each of them gave an inquiring look, except John. Bruce knew why that was the case.
"We've all conversed with him. I may not trust him, but Harry is clearly formidable even without seeing the footage of his abilities and fighting prowess. He would not want to be pitied." Nor did Bruce. Those memories would always stay with him; being seen as the orphan whose parents were shot dead in front of him had been horrible even as a child. And, so, he understood how disgusting it must be for Harry to see those expressions now.
"He's a soldier." John hissed
"What?" Wally asked. "How did you get to that? He seemed… seemed like a goofball to me." Batman saw the man wait for somebody to shoot him a reply, and then pout. Had Bruce been nicer, and the situation been less serious, he might have even said 'it takes one to know one'.
"An act." Green Lantern shook his head. "He's not obvious about it, but I saw it. I bet Batman did, as well." Bruce nodded. "He must have been here for a good while before drawing our attention. I can only assume that he was performing reconnaissance, but that wasn't enough. Couldn't be enough for someone who's sustained those… his eyes were scanning us throughout the meeting. He doesn't trust us either."
"I'm surprised he didn't attack." Batman nodded. "I'm sure he thought about it multiple times. He knew that we were a fighting force, and was working on the assumption that we were attempting to spring a trap." Bruce saw how his eyes darted to Superman more often than any of the others. He was the biggest threat, but more than that HArry had demonstrated this at the beginning. "He took out the immediate threat even before speaking." The Dark Knight nodded at the still-restrained Flash.
"Me?!" Wally yelped. "I'm not the threat. Why would he restrain me instead of Superman?!"
"I didn't say the biggest threat, though I'm not sure Superman would have been at that," Bruce saw Clark nod. Kryptonians were not particularly vulnerable to magic, but nor did they have any resistance to it. He may well be as vulnerable as an ordinary human to Harry's spells. At most, he would be as vulnerable as an extremely tough human. "But you would have been the first of us to land an attack had this been a trap. And you gave him the perfect excuse to restrain you. That you were being annoying."
"That's right. But I don't think he would have chosen to take you out first had he had the choice. After Superman, his eyes flicked to me and J'onn the most. I expect that he was uncomfortable with variables and doesn't know how my constructs would fair against magic, while J'onn's abilities are wide-ranging. Plus, he hasn't been active for long enough for them all to have necessarily been shown."
"Oh…" Wally blinked. "That… makes sense, I guess."
"And how does that change what has happened to him?" Diana asked. "I have met many warriors before, but never have I seen such incredible injuries… not on a mortal, anyway. I have only ever seen Lord Ares sustain such wounds, and he seeks out violence."
"Harry said it himself. It was inevitable that he be injured, and perhaps he was just unlucky in the injuries he sustained." Bruce reasoned. He had already briefed the Leaguers on the fact that Harry was a dimension traveller, and they all knew that he had hinted to have visited worlds in the grip of war.
"You can say that again," Wally said. "Those scars…"
-()()-
Harry's breathing was heavy, as he looked around the room he had so thoroughly destroyed while clenching and unclenching a smoking left fist.
Scorch marks, and piles of ash had replaced the well-furnished living space thanks to the fire that fed off Harry's frustration with himself, and the situation he was in.
He was stuck on this planet for the foreseeable future. Supposedly, he would gain something from this planet, too, though Harry doubted what Death had hinted would come to pass. And he had just royally fucked himself over.
How on Earth was he meant to explain all they had seen? To explain what had happened to him without giving far too much information, and destroying any chance of working with the Leaguers? Even amongst superpowered humans, his abilities were… unnatural. Harry did not have a problem with them, but historically everyone else did. Magic tended to be bad enough, without the amendments given to him by Death both purposefully and on accident.
The scars were hidden for a damn good reason, and it seemed to Harry that they gave a very large hint about his abilities. None of the Leaguers were unintelligent, and at least two of them came across as remarkably sharp-minded. Between Batman and the Martian Manhunter, it was inevitable that they would grasp the severity of his injuries, even only based on that above his shoulders.
Harry frowned. If only he was able to converse with Death, he felt certain that she would be able to offer him advice vital to his next move. Most likely, she would know something about the situation at hand that had escaped him and would be able to nudge Harry's conversation in a certain direction to garner sympathy from the group.
But he could not. So Harry would have to deal with his mess himself. He only had a fortnight before he would be teleported to the Watchtower, and he had some things to get in order first.
He needed to decide conclusively whether he would join, for example. It was obvious that Harry would be better able to protect innocents' lives in the League should alien invasions occur, but damn near of the news footage he had seen on them had been dealing with the Thanagarians; the rest had dealt with their other epic battles. Did they deal with everyday matters as well? If so, it would be useful being a part of a trusted organisation that may well receive requests from the governments of the world. Otherwise, Harry would largely be reliant on luck in whether he stumbled upon criminal activity and would have to set up some kind of system to alert him. Runes were the best option for him, since technology was not something he had had a lot to do with over the years, but such an intricate system would be troublesome to create.
As well as that was making a list of dangerous villains. He couldn't deal with them just yet, given how new he was to this world, but if they went too far Harry would put them down and deal with the reactions of this world's inhabitants after. Better to be hated than for there to be none left to hate him. Assuming he joined the League, Harry would pitch a more proactive approach to their heroism. It was dumb to just wait for escaped criminals to act out their plots when they had such a substantial force to seek them out. That being said, maybe it would be wise of him to make a list of like-minded heroes… both in searching for enemies and in putting them down permanently.
Harry would hopefully gain access to the League's records shortly, so he would put examining the villains he was likely to face off with on the backburner. It would do to know their strengths and weaknesses.
He needed to come up with a better system of flight, too. It seemed like an altogether common ability in this world, and not having it could potentially bite him in the bum at a later date. If nothing else, he could stand to practise his current method, and get it to a more refined form; flight had never seemed that important before, and so Harry had not put any significant effort into it.
For that matter, Harry could do with training some more in other aspects. Until now, it had always seemed that when facing off against the big guns of the enemy it was only him in the fray. If he was going to have teammates with him, then obliterating everything in front of him would not do the job. And if his teammates were goody-two-shoes, then Harry wouldn't be allowed to pulverise the enemies, either.
That meant coming up with a new heavy-duty arsenal. And that sucked. Harry found spell-inventing boring, but relying on raw magic was always… inconsistent. It was much better to manipulate magic with incantations than with desire and force of will. He would find the process mind-numbingly boring until it came time to test out the finished product. Then, he'd inevitably get as giddy as a child on christmas eve and cast it a dozen times. And go back to the drawing board to create another spell.
"Maybe joining the League isn't the best idea…" Harry muttered, from his place in the centre of what had been his living room. "Bah. Don't be lazy. I have to just get on with it. Besides, I'd have to work with them at some point anyway; this'll just prepare me for it better.
"First, though, I need to fix this mess." He frowned at the room, and raised his right hand. Light sparked off it as he waved at the various piles of ash. They vanished, and were replaced by more furniture, just as magically toughened as the rest. In the fireplace that had been smashed to pieces but now was repaired, a warm homely fire burned. In front of it, there were two armchairs and a sofa. Each was ruby red with a golden trim. A coffee table was in the centre of the space.
Wallpaper sprang onto the walls of the room, decorated with badgers, eagles, lions and snakes. And Harry cast a spell that allowed one of each of the creatures to move in a playful chase. Then, he exited the room, heading instead for his work-space where he sat down and started drawing out the planned effects of his new spells.
-()()-
This first spell was an interesting one, if Harry did say so himself.
It had the potential to be extremely useful for situations inside combat and out, as long as Harry had not made any mistakes. Based on the effect it had had on him, that was unlikely, but he had woken up earlier than predicted. That suggested to him that there were variables for the effectiveness.
One of these variables, Harry theorised, was the physical ability of the target. That was why he was here today, waiting in the shadows outside of the criminal's warehouse.
It was out of character, from what Harry understood of the man, to be working in unison with common drug dealers. Presumably, the factory was also producing that which was valuable to the supervillain.
What was that called? It was escaping Harry for the moment, because the name he had read was the complicated, scientific title. Of course, there would also be the street name and he would have seen that had he not read about the man in a scientific journal.
Ah, well. That wasn't important at the moment. Harry needed to pay attention to the situation at hand, as it did not look as though Bane would be exiting the building anytime soon. Harry's examination had not revealed any traps, but the more mundane ones were difficult for him to find from this distance so he would need to be effective. Losing a leg to a mine was a painful experience after all.
Harry waited until the mercenary on this side of the roof turned away, and burst out from his cover. The dimension-traveller reached a sprint within moments, and his not-banisher hit the ground and flung him into the air. Harry gripped the building with his magic, and pulled himself towards it even as he rose in the air. He shot towards the structure, and prepared to land on what would have been a cushioning charm. Had he reached the flat of the rooftop.
As Harry's foot clipped the edge of the roof, and he slammed face first into the concrete, he decided he needed more practise.
Harry spat out a few teeth with a glob of blood, and snapped his nose back into place as they grew back and he rose to his feet. Gods, regrowing teeth was uncomfortable. He idly noted that his magic was fusing two halves of a broken cheekbone together again, and dropped into a crouch to await the guard's return.
It was not as soon as Harry predicted. Apparently the man had not heard him go splat, and was continuing his rounds. That was lucky.
Harry disillusioned himself and waited for the man to walk past before acting. He walked up behind the hired gun, and snaked his arm around the man's throat. Harry slapped the man's forehead, with his hand glowing scarlet, and he went slack. Harry lowered him to the floor, and moved on.
Then, Harry moved to the glass portion of the roof and peered down into the building. He only had to look for a moment to find his target, for obvious reasons. Bane was one of the biggest people Harry had ever seen, and was wearing his typical apparel of what seemed to be a mexican-wrestler's mask. Another man, this one significantly smaller and wearing a white lab coat, walked beside him and Harry believed that they were conversing, though on what matter he didn't really care.
Harry gestured at the window, and the glass vanished. He winced ever so slightly, as it turned out the pane had been far more soundproof than Harry had assumed, and that gunshots were sounding inside. The sound was one he associated with fighting, but he ignored the spike in adrenaline in favour of leaning through the empty space, disillusioned, to examine the occupants of the room.
Nineteen, that he could see, including Bane and the scientist.
Doable.
-()()-
When he dropped Bane off at the Gotham PD station later that day, it was incase in an inch of ice and frozen stiff mid-turn. Harry's spell had worked as well as he had hoped, and the man was frozen in an effective-stasis. Of course cracks were already forming in the ice, but that was to be expected since Bane did not want to be frozen.
Harry had left a bow on Bane's icy head, and rung the doorbell by way of three gunshot sounds. Then, he turned on the spot and appeared back in his alleyway to find an unwelcome surprise.
"Who-za-what?!" The homeless man woke at the crack with a start, and his eyes found Harry. The wizard sighed, pulled a handful of notes he had confiscated from the drug lords before sending a message to the local authorities, and tossed them to the weary vagabond. Harry then walked out of the alley, and wandered around for a while pondering on what he should do next. He would need a place of residence, and it was inevitable that one of Gotham's many homeless would find his trunk if he left it in the open. Even with the notice-me-not charms etched into it, it was far too out of place to remain inconspicuous for someone who knew the area well. Or was unusually sharp.
He paused in front of a hotel, and wondered. He did like hotels and it would only be for a short time. More importantly, he didn't know whether the League would be able to reach him if he stayed in his trunk. Might be better to have an address, even if it was a temporary one.
First, he'd need to get some money. Selling some gold was the obvious method, and the one Harry settled on. And it only took him a half hour to figure out where to do so.
An hour after he found the hotel, he was checking into another one. Harry had slept on the cold hard ground more times than he could count, but if he had the choice between a three-star and five-star hotel, he was going to pick the five.
Walking to the front-desk, he paid for a room, pretending not to notice the receptionist's blatant flirting, and headed straight up.
Harry took the stairs. He didn't like elevators for the simple reason that being in one when the cable snapped tended to have an effect on one's opinion of the method of ascension. He reached his floor, and entered the hotel room to find himself pleasantly surprised.
Apparently he had been given a suite. Well, that was one thing that had gone his way in recent memory.
Maybe this would be a turning point.
