Chapter 12

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: The war with anubis is the major galactic plotline, while the smaller earth plots

- Chapter begin –

How the Tauri ever managed to get anything done with their useless and corrupt form of self government was a wonder to the Shinto Kami, not that it particularly mattered since eventually the Tauri would return to the fold and put these silly notions of democracy and self rule behind them. Mortals existed to be ruled by their betters, each layer of society owed its well being to the rungs above it this was just the way of the universe. "That was annoying." He commented in irritation. "So what is this important thing you had to summon me for a meeting ahead of our usual monthly gathering?"
It would take years for humanity to properly reverse engineer the technology they had acquired from the Thanagarians would take years, and time of course to properly integrate and by that time well Raiden's plan would have moved forward. It would probably be a waste anyway, well save perhaps the Thanagarians gravity lift system, and even that if Raiden was correctly informed depended on nth methal's unique properties.

Humans never had a taste for proper governance or preparations. It was always immediate gain for them. Humans would in the short term take precautions in the event of another invasion, but eventually they would loosen their guard they always did. They'd probably even be invaded again sometime next year, and then they'd complain again. Bah.

Already certain elements of the human population were complaining about the growth in military spending, and the military presence in space, and the deployment of the military assets around cities. When no attack came in the immediate future humanity would grow complacent and would push for steps to be taken to lower the alert level, which would suit the system lord's plans quite well. Let them whine.

The ninja bowed, "Please you may wish to sit down," Saki remarked, "as I doubt very much that you will like this report."

Raiden personally doubted it could be any less unlikable than dealing with the Tauri's politicians, still he took the offered seat. If the master of the Foot ninja didn't think this was good news then it was probably at least as bad as Talpa's recent setback. Talpa's efforts in Japan were a minor complication, but for him to be beaten by adolescents who hadn't mastered the magic armors they wore and a motley crew of heroes was a bit of a nuisance. Talpa had promised to quickly rush to look into such to remedy his situation, and Raiden had left him too such.

Saki exhaled, before calling in his other guest. The other man Raiden recognized from the stirring of memory, this was one of Sithis's men, one of his retainers on this miserable continent. "We have been made aware there is a growing population of Advanced humans on this world," Announced the master of the Foot clan. "They have thus far managed to remain hidden from the eyes of the mainstream population." Saki paused, "Considering the threat posed by certain other races… it has been the suggestion of the Black Hand that in our mutual interests a rotating cycle of observation should be undertaken." The ninja stated hands clasped. He frowned, normally advanced humans were a good thing but in this case, Sithis rarely took interest, which meant he either hadn't been officially told or... Raiden didn't want to consider the latter. Then there were other concerns the Shinso were devious creatures, prone to selecting strong familiars for their queens. Without the ability to operate with true freedome on this world Master, our exchange of information on these hok'tar have located several major gatherings one such facility in a nearby town of Bayville. Please understand," the Shredder stated before he handed over a folder containing pictures of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters."that this school is one with multiple instances of what is Military grade technology, by the standards of the Tauri" Shredder stated, "Raiden-sama. Additionally, there is something else you will be displeased to learn;" This came from the Brotherhood's envoy, of this Raiden was sure, "The United States Army has cloned a Kryptonian.," Again the ninja bowed, Oroku Saki's zaibatsu had no real ties to the military. It was one of those American things. "According to intelligence this is the location one of the clones training facilities. Please understand I brought this to your attention immediately."

A flash of dark energy passed the system lord's eyes, there was a stirring notion of Sithis's consciousness, but for Raiden it was just a minor note. He was glad to at least know about these developments "This day has begun to grate on my nerves." He murmured as he reached out to start flip through the folder's pictures and reports.

The Shinso were an 'old enemy', well about twelve hundred years so not really that old, but the threat they posed to humans was rather grave. Late in the seven hundreds according to the Tauri calendar Sokar had returned to Earth, no one had particularly cared back then. However when Sokar had risen again, during the Terrors, and the great war, Sokar had brought countless monstrosities with him against the System Lords. It was that war why Raiden had so few Unas in his service. The Shinso had been one of many monsters rallied under Sokar's banner.

The Kryptonians welll that was another issue. A worry to be sure. The real concern was the military cloning such a creature. Even so this group of Hok'tar were a potential asset, even if their existence was also a potential trouble, should the Shinso manage to interfere with the populous of advanced humans.

Quitely Oroku Saki moved straightening his back, "Should I prepare a strike team, my lord?" The Shredder inquired.

Unlike Talpa the master of the Foot clan's forces were spread out. The careful dispersion was usually an asset. As it stood the Foot clan's elite would be able to counter a Kryptonian with preparation. It was so simply because they would have the proper equipment, but Raiden didn't wish to tip his hand just quite yet. No the Justice League were apparently already on alert.

The system lord shook his head, "No," He remarked, though dealing with this clone would do well to remind the Tauri of their place before their gods now was not the time for pressing reckless forward. "thank you for offering Saki-kun," Raiden responded, "However we must consider the situation, and the balance of society. In contemplating such harmonies we find that for now the balance is upset, and move harms everyone. We will endure. Keep watch for now." The System lord ordered,

"Consider your already scheduled obligations first, before thinking to add additional burdens. Those existing burdens may yet produce some results." Outside of espionage work on Earth, and development there was one major purpose which the Foot clan was assigned. It had been Saki's responsibility to locate the last of the Umtrom, the truth was their continued existence was simply a variable that did not need to exist.

-scene break-

Truthfully for the Justice League no body had really been prepared for any of this. It'd really lead to, the Thanagarian invasion and the subsequent discussions with everyone, some serious considerations. In truth no one really knew how to react to these invasions, even with their relatively low loss of life there was however still rebuilding that needed to be done. For the League itself though everyone had things to explain.

Batman's contingency had set up its own problems, but the biggest issue had been Hawkgirl. That wasn't to say there weren't other issues.

No according to the Green Lantern corp the violent expulsion of the Thanagarian fleet had severely weakened the Thanagarians. This coupled with a rather sudden assault by the Gordananians, which seemed oddly timed, had pushed the Thanagarians back on the defensive. It didn't look good.

Then there was Earth. Forcing Hro to surrender hadn't meant much, but it had saved some lives. The 'alien back up' earth had gotten had been to focused on landing on Earth than really dedicated to destroying the Thanagarian fleet, sure they'd been killing ships but as soon as they had hit orbit most of their ships had started descending. Most of those ships had of course been escort vessels. So once everything was over both the alien fleets had left leaving everyone with a lot of questions, and few answers.

It'd been the Monday after that people had started going back to work. Picking up, and starting back as it were that the first calls had rang in. Everyone had known the justice league had had the Watchtower taken from them. So Batman had proposed the expansion of the league, Green Lantern had said he wasn't the only Green Lantern from Earth. That'd been where they'd first started looking.

At the same time they'd announce that other people had started calling. Government people. There had been a lot of demands for the proprietary technology involved in the Javelin 7 that the Justice League. It hadn't helped that Bruce had constructed a new model, simply renamed the Javelin, which was a newer superior model. National governments didn't like being told no, they couldn't have something. Of course at the same time the United States was also stepping up its own government development programs, which meant it had been all hands on deck for major US corporations, and that had suddenly started eating up a lot of Bruce's time.

Jonn had stepped up to handle coordination of new recruits into the League, this had mainly let Batman handle Wayne things. Superman, and Green Lantern handled a lot of the major missions on Earth, with Wonder Woman joining in when she wasn't leading the new recruits on other missions. Flash however had taken up his responsibility to his home city full time now that the league was expanding, though he was still a part of the 'council' that had been formed of original members.

"So what are we here for this week?" Flash asked, "I mean lets face it there is only so much that can be done for the New Watchtower to better protect the planet."

Batman nodded, construction was already underway, and the Watchtower II, and its annexes would be finished within the year. "The new station is not the immediate concern, Wayne Industries was recently approached by a Government Organization known as the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, their mandate is intended as a government analogue to the Justice League." It'd also been precisely what Batman had been warning about. They're negotiating with our lawyers over a string of public facilities up and down the east coast." Ostensibly it was because Gotham, and Wayne Industries were search major factors. Gotham was a major city, and Wayne Industries was one of the largest US corporations. Obstensibly SHIELD was expanding because of the Invasion, but the Justice League expansion was probably a factor as well

-scene break-

Sirius had had an interesting last few years. The wizarding world hadn't really noticed the whole war of the worlds drama that had gone down over a year ago. Only the muggleborns had been in the loop, it'd been the muggleborns and the half bloods who had gotten stirred up about it. Not that it'd really meant much for the wizarding world, especially England.

Dumbledore still was relatively iffy about this whole ancient gods of light and dark thing, and he was hardly the only one. Mad Eye's belief in it seemed to at least convince some of the order to give it a chance especially with everything that had been happening. Still the Order wasn't being terribly proactive in the fight against Voldemort's second rise, not that there was a whole lot to do truthfully.

Voldemort had started laying a little lower after some of his new Death Eaters had gotten their ass handed to them by some group of French wizard. It'd been the main thing that had taken the wind out of the Dark Lord's sails. Snape had said the Dark Lord had been looking into it.

Everyone had different ideas of what to do, but nobody wanted rock the boat. That was just the way the order was, and Sirius just hadn't been willing to put up with that. Dumbledore hadn't liked it but Sirius had rotted in Azkaban for nearly twenty years, so at the first opportunity he'd bolted for it. The headmaster had been all about wanting Sirius to sit around cooped up in his parent's old house so they could use it for a headquarters and twiddle their thumbs, but Sirius had left soon as he'd been able to. So here he was sipping what passed for coffee in one of the American's major metropolises, not the Metropolis, but it was big enough for Sirius's tastes. He'd been looking for a place to lay low, it wasn't like he was on the run per se, well from pretty much everyone in England yeah, but not anywhere else. The funny thing was for all the noise the ministry made, they weren't looking that hard outside England just a couple notices here and there. It was suspicious but nothing too major. It was the order that he was set on dodging, they didn't seem to get the hint he didn't want to join back up, so here he was. He'd heard there was a town further west, Dakota or something, where the Statute of Secrecy supposedly wasn't in effect. Judging from the news broadcasts that looked to be the case, still no sign of the company that Dumbledore had gone too years ago, actually that was the suspicious thing.

Sirius thumbed through the magazine. Picking up the pieces after the bird people had come was what everyone was doing. Sirius could hardly believe people existed on other planets. Then again Moody had said it before this or the attack of those huge walkers. Sirius traced the emblem emblazoned on the side of the ship that was pictured in the map, it made since where this 'Raiden' was if he wasn't on earth.

-scene break-

Phobos deep within his castle was brooding, it was something he spent a great deal of. The prince didn't take well to being foiled, or told he couldn't do something, so having a collection of Dark Brotherhood, to whom were pledged the god he was a ward of, tell him he could not meddle in a city on earth irked him. Cedric, his ever faithful adviser, had cautioned restraint.

In truth he had seen an opportunity in the assault by these 'Thanagarians' to get people on Earth to look around, but the Dark Brotherhood had quickly arrived to deny him access to the city the portal was open in. It had been a mystery to Phobos, but while Raiden launched his brazen petty vengeance on the Thanagarian fleets, taking cities by force of arms, Sithis had been more quiet about it.

His new guest promptly explained it, "The Dread Father's orders were clear," The Speaker commented, he was a member of Sithis's for the entire North American continent, thus within the brotherhood of no small position. "The city is not to be meddled in."

In this however he was also not of any particular concern to Phobos. the man was beneath him in the Prince's opinion, based solely on the fact that the Brotherhood divided planets into continent sized administration groups, and the Dark Brotherhood stretched operations across millions of worlds. That was a great deal of people. "I-"
On the other hand arguing with the six and a half foot tall scary black human was probably not the best idea. Phobos himself was not short by any means but the Speaker was a good head taller, "Sithis's will boy, I've served for a hundred forty years since he broke my chains. That city isn't for you to poke around in."

In raw magic Phobos new he had more, he knew it on the other... "I want access to the Earth! It is my right to look for my sister, there is a portal in that city." He shouted.

Elijiah considered breaking the blonde prince's nose, boy talked to much. "And? What about that Portal? There are other portals, you find them, use them, done told you the city ain't for you to poke around in. You don't poke around, you and I ain't going to have problems," The Speaker turned and stepped through the rippling gateway of magic his necklace opened for him. The lair of the Dark Brotherhood in the city was spacious it was a rather large library complex down on south street with a fallout bunker built underneath it.

Inside the stronghold underground was the shrine to the both the Mother, and Sithis himself, but there were also the assortment of weapons, and magic tools around it. It was a sight. More impressive however was the seven seven brotherhood members who happened to be milling about the antechamber at this particular time. Didn't matter if the boy was a prince, and all magical and such, you didn't defy the god of death's edicts lightly.

His Silencer nodded, "We've prepared to secure the portal, we're merely waiting for confirmation."
"Once we do it the Council on Kandrahkar will know something in this city can seal those portals." That was the issue, that was why they hadn't done it immediately. When the listener got back to him, that'd be when they'd do it one way or another. "What else?" He wanted to know whether they had anything else.

The Silencer nodded, "Well we have a collection of reports regarding a number of potential problems,"
"Oh and what would those be?" Elijah drawled, "Cops, or crooks, or just nosy people in general?"
"HYDRA, and SHIELD."
Elijah cursed he hated this interdepartmental bullshit. Fucking HYDRA needed to deal with its own damn problems and leave them to their own jobs.

-Chapter conclusion-

Helltanz's notes: