Spark of Genius
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, Girl Genius verse, DC comics or any of the other smatterings of pop culture and literary ideas that I refer to in my story, I just tread through a few other sandboxes. Oh, and several names are made up, some are real, but the facts have been changed to protect the corrupt and innocent equally.
AN: I want to thank people for the very high quality reviews and messages regarding ideas, though I'm amazed at the drop off in responses per chapter; less than half of what I received two chapters ago when I was thinking of pulling the plug on this story. Shrug* Oh well, though I won't be using all of them, or even any of them exactly like you suggested, I will be pulling lots of bits and pieces from your reviews and messages as inspiration for coming chapters. On a related issue related to the poll, I think I'm going to keep my chapters on average of 10k+ and just get them out when they are done, which should be about one a week if the response stays positive and the ideas keep flowing. That said, I hope you enjoy this next chapter but I need to give a bit of a warning. In this chapter Xander falls afoul of cultural norms and religions that he is unfamiliar with. I do not in any way imply to slander any religion, nor do I want religion to even be a real topic in this story. Rather the religions and cultural references in this chapter are merely props used for purposes of furthering interactions and story progression. Nothing more, nothing less. Please take it with that in mind and don't flame me if you feel insulted. Besides, flaming me only gets you banned while my minions track you down to your house to pick up your live organ donations. Anyway, hope you enjoy the fun and frivolity of this chapter, please let me know what you think as reviews and feedback is what inspires me to write and update with larger chapters, and to do so quickly. Cheers!
'Thought'
"Speech"
/foreign language/
Chapter 31: A Mix of Good and Bad Luck
"It is bad luck to fall out of a thirteenth story window on a Friday."
~American Proverb
Currently, Xander was running and dodging through the streets of New Deli, keeping several steps ahead of the teeming mob of just slightly angry people; and by slightly angry it means that their anger had cooled to the point where they only wanted to castrate him and stick Xander's head on a pike.
'I thought these people were supposed to be Vegetarians who respected all forms of life!' Xander screamed frantically in his head as he dodged a flying skewer of chicken tikka that nearly turned him into a Xander kabob.
Xander launched himself up and over a little scooter by doing a one handed cartwheel over the charging driver, launching himself into a spin that carried Xander over another wave of what Xander figured was a never ending supply of angry New Deli Hindi's.
Xander spun through the air like a whirling dervish before landing in a crouch and started dodging through the tightly packed streets again. Every now and then somebody would scream something in Xander's direction in one of the local dialects, and the crowds around Xander would all turn towards him and charge with murder in their eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that Xander really didn't want to show off his powers and have word get back to Ra's al Ghul of where he was at the moment, then Xander would have tried to use his powers to escape. Well, that and the fact that it's really hard to run at super speed when the streets are literally packed shoulder to shoulder, and the streets are covered with so many overhanging roofs, wires, and clothes' lines that it made it impossible for Xander to fly without engaging his armor; again something that would give his identity away.
Instead Xander relied on the training gained from Cassy in order to dodge, weave and block all attempts to attack him while he sprinted through the streets in the hopes of finding a place where he could privately activate his chameleon system and disappear.
Xander rounded a corner and thought he was safe to take a breather for a second to try and figure out a way out of the situation.
Though he was pausing to look around, Xander's sense of self preservation was still in high gear. Thus Xander fortunately sensed the leaping forms heading for his back with enough time to duck as two human figures dove through where Xander had just been standing, both attackers missing Xander and flying face first into a curry stand.
Xander ignored the screams of the old woman and man as they had just landed in a large red colored dusty bin that was labeled in English, "Mother-in-law's revenge, Red Curry." Xander assumed it was spicy, based on the reactions of the two screaming people.
The smell of the curry had him feeling a bit hungry, but Xander decided it was probably best if he was hungry to find another part of India to enjoy the cuisine in, preferably many, many miles away as the screams of the two individuals attracted the mob that had been tracking him through the city for the last couple hours.
Xander's eyes got large and he sprinted around a corner only to be confronted by a solid mass of humanity that were apparently lined up to leave sacrifices at a shrine or temple ahead of them.
Xander looked behind him, then at the solid wall of humans, then back at the on rushing Mob who were once again screaming for his blood.
Xander turned towards the onrushing mob and raised his hands above his head like he was surrendering, "Can't we all just get along?" He yelled.
The Mob continued to surge towards him with murder in their eyes.
Xander shrugged to himself, 'Fine, be that way.' He thought quickly as he looked for a way out of his particular predicament, only to find two solid walls on both sides of him and no were to escape to, turning to look at the crowd blocking the way.
'Fuck it, street level isn't working, have to get higher!' Xander thought as he leapt off the ground only to land on the shoulders of a man who was part of the masses standing in front of him.
Dancing from head to head and shoulder to shoulder, Xander saw that the pursuing mob had impacted against the crowd that was waiting to leave gifts at the gates of the temple, but rather than stopping there, apparently the message about Xander was corrupting the crowd and Xander's 'footing' was quickly turning against him.
'Fourteen million Indian Nationals in New Delhi, and they are all trying to kill me! How the hell did this happen to me?' Xander asked himself while reviewing the situation again for the fifty second time, just as his footing gave out and he found himself no longer crowd surfing but falling to the ground in amongst the angry New Delhi citizens.
Xander flashed back to how his morning began, just as about a hundred people tried to dog pile him into the hard dirty street.
After giving Viktor and the Queen Bee their orders and discussing the nature of their new blood born gene altering retro-virus, Xander had returned them to their bases of operation where the Queen Bee went back to sleep, and Viktor set about ordering the repairs to his club. The virus that Xander had unleashed in them was very specific in its targeted capacity and effect. Just like the AIDS virus, the Minion retro-virus was transferred via sharing of bodily fluids. However whereas AIDS was deadly and was transferable to all humans via accident, the minion virus could only infect non-meta-humans and should hopefully only be transferred purposefully. To try and assure this, Xander had told his minion Queen Bee to use her blood born virus to secure her position in Bialya and then to invite other dictators and warlords to a 'specially' prepared meal to talk over alliances with Bialya. At the same time, Viktor would be securing his position in the Russian mafia and criminal enterprises before reaching to take over control of the rest of the human criminals that he had contacts with. If Xander's calculations were correct, then the virus should only transfer to those individuals who were corrupt or a threat to innocents and Xander's family. This was all the surety that Xander felt he needed. After all, Xander's calculations were almost always spot on, and it wasn't like the spread of some gene altering virus could really come back around to bite Xander in the rear end.
Xander meanwhile had once again embarked on his journey around the world and had decided to take a short cut and "cheat" rather than follow Elder Woman Magda's vision that Xander should run or fly to his end destination. Therefore, rather than running or flying from Moscow towards India, Xander decided to just transport himself to the north western boarder of India with a mental question of, 'What could it hurt?'
Xander should have guessed that by skipping the journey to India wouldn't be that easy or without ramifications. Apparently both Murphy and Lady Luck's attention had been drawn to Xander's thought of 'What could it hurt,' and decided to give him another training session regarding the results of such statements. Further, since Xander was in India, Karma decided to join in on the fun and games; and Karma was a bitch.
Everything had been going well when Xander sprinted into the outskirts of New Deli and started making his way through the packed streets. The teeming masses of humanity smashed together in an amalgamation of incredible poverty tugged on his heart strings, but he realized that just giving out money to the people swarming around him was not the answer. Everywhere Xander went in New Delhi, he was amazed at just how many people there were. The masses of people clogging the streets made running at super speed impossible, and taking to the air was hampered by the fact that he would give away just who he was; something that he decided that he didn't want to do given that he felt he had given Ra's al Ghul's people the slip.
"Nope, I'm just another western college aged kid tramping through Asia with a backpack." Xander mumbled to himself while threading his way down a packed street wearing a long sleeved white t-shirt and khaki pants. "I should blend right in." Xander finished to himself more as a way to convince himself that as a six foot plus tall white man in bright clothing, that no, he didn't stand out in the crowd of mocha and tanned skinned people that he towered over.
"Yeah right." Xander grumbled as he came to the end of the smaller market lined street and found himself on a major thoroughfare.
Now normally when somebody refers to something as a "thoroughfare" they think of a wide multilane road, filled with vehicles and with fast moving traffic.
The problem with the thoroughfare that Xander found himself confronted with was that it only had two out of the three things going for it as far as thoroughfares were concerned. Yes, it was a wide street with multiple lanes and filled with vehicles. In fact, it was very much filled with vehicles as the Indian nationals didn't believe in only one vehicle to a lane, in fact it seemed like cars, trucks and mopeds were so packed together that the road was one solid metal and human structure.
No, what this thoroughfare lacked was fast moving traffic.
It was eleven o'clock in the morning and it was shear gridlock on the street that Xander found himself on. Not a car was moving, not a truck was budging, and it was so bad that even the ever present little scooters that normally dodged in and out of traffic were all piled up not moving.
Stepping up onto some boxes that were on the side of the road, Xander was able to look towards the front of the traffic jam and saw that it seemed to originate at an intersection about a block up the street.
Shrugging to himself, Xander figured that he might as well take a look-see at what the problem was and see if he could help out in any way; such was his saving people thingy.
Threading his way around the outskirts of the crowded thoroughfare and picking his way around the boxes and street vendors lining the side of the street, Xander was finally able to make his way to the intersection where all the problems were happening.
What he saw amazed him, for though it was the middle of a busy populated city all four directions of traffic at the four way intersection were backed up because of two cows.
"Cows? Really? What, did some cowboy try to do a cattle drive and lose a few little doggies?" Xander asked out loud, looking around for an answer as he watched a police officer standing waving at the two cows happily chewing their cud in the middle of the road.
To the right people sat in their cars and trucks or on their scooters or bikes, all waiting for the cows to move. The same for the traffic on the opposite side of the street and in fact in all four directions coming into the intersection. The Indian nationals just all sat there, none of them doing anything to actually try and move the cows, and the police officer who was trying to get the cows to move looked to have no way of dragging them out of the way so that traffic could get going again.
Xander smiled to himself, "Hey, maybe I can help give the guy a hand?" He mumbled as he walked out into the middle of the street and towards the police officer with a big smile on his face.
The police officer stopped waving at the cows and turned to look at Xander with a frown.
"Can I help you move the cows?" Xander asked, pointing to the two fat white heifers that were blocking the road.
The dark skinned policeman shook his head and said something in Hindi that Xander didn't understand.
"Hmmm," Xander hummed before his eyebrows rose as he got an idea. Xander pointed to himself, and then the cows, and then towards the side of the road. "I help you." Xander pointed from himself to the police officer. "Move the cows. Yes?" Xander finished, pointing again at the cows and then at the corner where the cows would be out of the way.
The officer waved his hands in front of himself and pointed to the cows and then Xander while doing this sort of head shake nod thing that Xander didn't know how to interpret.
Xander looked from the cows, to the police officer and then shrugged and smiled, "Um, ok, I'll just take that as a yes."
Xander finished while walking up between the two cows and resting his hands on the sides of the cows.
At doing this, the people in the traffic started yelling at Xander, but Xander just smiled and waved as he appreciated the encouragement they were offering.
Taking a horn of each cow in hand, Xander gave a gentle tug, but neither cow even registered the motion.
The officer started waving his hands above his head and at the cows' bodies and started issuing commands in Hindi, but Xander had no idea what he was saying.
"You want me to lift up the cows?" Xander asked a bit confused before shrugging. So lost in the puzzle of moving the two cows that he didn't think about the fact that perhaps lifting two cows wasn't the best way to stay inconspicuous.
Xander bent over and crouched down while situating an arm under the belly of each cow, kind of wrapping them and pulling them snuggly towards his head so that they were sort of resting on his shoulders.
The 'encouraging' yells from the crowd were getting louder and louder, and the police officer was almost chanting some sort of encouraging statement about Xander and the cows.
Xander merely smiled and nodded as he tensed his muscles to lift.
And that is when Murphy figured he would add his two cents.
Xander started to push off slowly, just as a truck behind him loudly backfired, sounding like somebody was shooting at Xander.
Xander launched into a standing position and spun around in a blur to see where the supposed gunfire was coming from, only to feel the weight of both cows lighten and disappear off of his shoulders.
Now any rancher will tell you that cows are not built with easy access handles or any sort of real gripping point beyond the neck, the tail, or the horns; none of which Xander had been holding onto when lifting the cows.
Things seemed to slow down for Xander, as they always seemed to do when he was placed in a stressful situation.
Xander looked towards the crowds of drivers, and saw that rather than the encouragement he thought they had been yelling at him, the crowd of hundreds if not thousands of people around him all looked angry.
It was at this point that Xander realized that he no longer had two cows on his shoulder, so he looked upwards…
Only to see both cows spinning like helicopter blades as they disappeared into the sky with twin frightened bellows,
"MOOOOOoooooooooo!" Both cows cried as they disappeared out of sight spinning into the sky, which could be translated as either, "SHIIIIIIIIItttttttttt!", "Moommy!", or "Oh no Mr. Bill!"
A little voice in the back of Xander's head said, 'Psht, Houston, we have ignition. This is one small flight for two cows, one huge leap for bovine kind.'
Xander wide eyed looked down at the crowds, and watched as they all stood staring open mouthed at the flying cows, before as one they all turned to look at Xander and growl.
Xander put on a chagrined looking smile and shrugged while holding his hands up in the international symbol for, "Oops. Sorry, my bad."
The Indian nationals decided not to accept Xander's apology and charged him screaming bloody murder.
They came from the left. They came from the right, from in front and back of Xander. So just before the mob dog piled him, Xander did the only thing he could do. He jumped into the air.
Xander popped into the air like a cork from a champagne bottle, just as the crowd of people clawing and diving at him crashed like a tidal wave beneath him in a loud THUD of flesh smashing into flesh.
Then it was Xander's turn to invent a new sport that his mental voices were calling, "Crazy Crowd-surfing." In order to perform said sport, one first needs a bloodthirsty crowd calling for your death after you launched their reincarnated ancestors into space without a space shuttle. Second, you need to be quick on your feet, as the game requires you to do a part snoopy dance, part crowd surfing, and part Olympic gymnastic routine to stay balancing on the heads and shoulders of the clawing screaming crowd. The forth part of the equation is luck, which in Xander's case he had in spades. Unfortunately it was a mix of good luck and bad luck, hence the situation he found himself in.
"Oops, sorry. Hey, sorry about that, ow, didn't mean to put my foot there. Oh, sorry!" Xander apologized as he dodged clawing hands too quickly for them to grab him, moving his feet out of the way of the crowd that was trying to pull him down while at the same time he was jumping from head to head or shoulder to shoulder as he attempted to get out of the middle of the street.
Suddenly an old woman went flying through the air and landed on Xander's backpack, where she commenced to scream in his ear and attempt to claw at him.
"AHHH! Crazy Granny! Get it off! Get it off!" Xander yelled wide eyed and spun around, sending the old woman flying into the crowd due to the centrifugal force of his spin.
Inside Xander's mind his little voices were on damage control, 'Um, Houston, we have a problem.'
'No Shit Sherlock!' Xander mentally screamed as he finally made it out of the middle of the street and up on top of a truck that had been stopped at the intersection.
Quickly looking around, Xander mentally debated what to do, all the while his feet were busy slapping out to kick people off the sides of the truck while his hands were flying, hitting pressure points, pinching nerves, and flipping people away from him and back into the mob trying to kill him.
Thank God for Cassy's martial arts skills!' Xander mentally spat as he ducked under a swinging machete and punched the guy in the gut before kicking the man in the chin to send the attacker flipping backwards into the crowd surrounding the truck.
'I could go chameleon, but then everybody would know that I can do that if I exhibited the armor in public. Same goes for super speed or flight, not that I could really do either without really hurting a lot of people.' Xander mentally debated while dodging what he thought was the same leaping old lady as the last time. The space above the teeming mob were crisscrossed with wires, and there seemed to be nowhere to run to except on the tops of the crowd that was pressed up tightly around him.
Suddenly a shot rang out, and a bullet zipped by, nicking Xander's ear in a small splash of blood.
Turning quickly, Xander saw the police officer who had been working with the cows had climbed up on a car and had shot at Xander.
"Fuck this, I'm out of here." Xander spat, crouching down and then exploding in a leap towards one of the tall buildings that surrounded the intersection.
Reaching out, Xander snagged the windowsill he had been aiming for and quickly pulled himself inside.
"Excuse me, pardon me, sorry, mind the feet." Xander said as he dodged through a family of people eating the mid day meal in the room.
Xander darted out of the apartment he had found himself in and then swung to the right as he heard the sounds of screaming people thundering up the stairs towards where he was.
"Up it is then." Xander decided as he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, trying to get out of sight long enough so that he could activate his armor and disappear.
Xander raced up the stairs but on every landing he came to people were coming out into the halls, and he had no place to hide long enough that he wouldn't be seen.
"Fuck you Ra's." Xander cursed as he smashed his shoulder into the door to the roof and blasted it off its hinges as he ran out onto the top level of the apartment building.
Running across the roof, Xander continued to mumble under his breath, "When I find out where you are Ra's, I'm going to fucking kick your ass for adding complications to my life such as not letting me use my powers without giving myself away." Xander finished his statement just as he reached the edge of the roof and then jumped out into nothing towards the building that was slightly lower than the apartment building; just as a portion of the mob spilled out onto the roof that he had just left.
Xander hit the roof of the target building and rolled once before popping back to his feet and then sprinting diagonally across the flattish surface, weaving in and out of the clothes lines, antennas, pipes and electrical lines that dotted its surface.
Xander jumped off the diagonal of the roof, attempting to get to the building that was on a parallel street from where the mob had been gathered. The leap was so far that Xander had time to turn in mid air and wave at the crowds that had chased him to the tops of the buildings.
"So long Suckers!" Xander yelled right before he impacted the roof of his next targeted building.
It was at this point that Xander found out that the building code and construction standards for New Delhi were not up to the same par as those in Istanbul, Turkey.
Xander's feet landed, and rather than rolling with the blow like he had expected, Xander's feet and body punctured right through the thin layer of concrete poured over cheap old wood that had probably been decaying in the humid environment for the past forty plus years.
Xander plowed feet first through one floor, at which point the toes of his boots accidentally hooked on the headboard of a bed, causing him to continue his descent through the next solid seeming floor; only this time head first.
Xander's body exploded through the mix of stone and wood in a CRACK/Thud before his body's momentum was finally stopped by the floor of the third floor level.
Xander lay staring up at the ceiling, crunched in the corner of the room and upside down with his legs above his head. With a groan he finally slid his legs to the side so that he could lay flat on the floor in a daze.
"Ow… That's going to leave a mark." Xander grunted as he straightened his back with a pop and felt his bruised ribs and broken nose and cheek bone start to mend.
Laying panting on the floor, Xander gave himself a good ten seconds to let his healing factor and nano-clanks start healing the damage before he even thought about standing up.
'Ha Ha!' A high pitched teenaged male's voice laughed at Xander's pain from within his own mind, sounding very similar to a bully on the television show The Simpsons.
Xander growled in reply before standing up slowly and brushing himself off.
A shout from his left caused Xander to spin towards the sound, only to look out the large open balcony doors that he was exposed in and see the crowd all pointing at him and then charge towards the building.
"Oh great, here we go again." Xander groused before leaping off the balcony and hooking on a clothes line to slide to a building on the opposite side of the street.
"This is going to take a while." Xander said to himself under his breath as he once again burst into a room and then fled up the building's stairway towards the roof, just as more members of the mob started to race into the building in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, in the city of Platinum Flats, the Oracle sat at her control center poised to send aid at a moment's notice to needy heroes or heroines. She was ever ready to help her friend the Huntress, ready at a moment's notice to dial The Huntress's cell phone in case she needed an "out" on the date she was on. Basically, Barbara Gordon was doing her part to watch her friend's six while said friend went on another date with The Question.
Party voyeur and part invisible wingman, Barbara watched the third date that week for The Huntress and The Question through the security cameras planted or hacked throughout city of Platinum Flats.
Barbara thought it was both a bit romantic as well as creepy how The Question knew exactly which food, flowers, or chocolates were The Huntress's favorites, and the Oracle was there to watch the two off duty heroes stroll hand in hand through the parks together.
Every so often The Question would stop and wave at one of the hidden cameras, and Barbara would in turn just smile and shake her head at the zany crackpot's actions.
"I wonder what she sees in him?" Oracle said to herself as she panned from one camera to the next while at the same time multitasking on the tracking program to try and see what if anything she could dig up on the Grey Knight or The Leviathan.
Watching both heroes walk hand in hand into the Huntress's apartment building, and watching The Huntress drag The Question in by the lapels and wrapped in a kiss, seemed to answer Barbara's question.
Shaking her head with a smile, Barbara turned off the security cameras tracking the Justice League couple, for though The Oracle was a bit of a voyeur she wasn't a peeping tom.
Barbara's fingers flew across her keyboard as she worked on one small screen to her right before popping a wheelie with her wheelchair and swiveling to man the big computer screen and command keyboard before it.
Tapping in a few commands, the data streaming through her systems started popping up on the main computer screen; the green glow of the screens showing facts and dates of known activities and started to cross reference them to try and build a better picture.
Sighing to herself, Barbara bit her bottom lip in thought before an idea popped into her head and she smiled. Quickly typing in a command that would start a randomized data mining program that would link similar capabilities of individuals detailed in the news, Barbara mentally crossed her fingers hoping for a hit on other individuals new to the super hero/villain scene that had super strength, speed, or flight capabilities of comparable quantities with The Leviathan or Grey Knight.
A flashing light started blinking on her screen, and then a news sticker drew up information suggesting a hit in Turkey coming from the Istanbul Times newspaper's database.
Clicking a few buttons, a translation program started to run and the Turkish words on the screen started to translate into English.
"Hmmm, thwarted terrorist attack. Unknown male of… oh here we go, here is a picture." Oracle said with a smile as she clicked a button and a picture of a very handsome dark haired male, six foot three to six foot five tall, flashed up on the screen. The picture was from an upward angle looking down, and it must have come from a security camera given the graininess of the shot.
"Bingo!" Barbara said, and leaned forward to hit a button to send the information to the Batcave as a possible lead, only for the power to die and all of the lights and computer screens to go dead with a powering down snap sound.
"Dang it!" Barbara cursed, quickly swiveling her wheelchair around and quickly scooting over to an emergency power button.
Slapping the big red button, the power came back, and the room full of computer equipment came back alive with a hum and ticking sound.
Quickly wheeling herself back to her computers the screens slowly came back to life, only rather than a picture of a handsome man tearing the arm off of a suicide bomber, a large digital representation of a willow tree with red willow leaves appeared on every screen.
Barbara's eyes went large, and her jaw opened wide before she started pounding on the enter key, the escape key, and even tried to ctrl alt del her computer. Even hitting the power key didn't get the images off of the screen.
Frustrated, Barbara wheeled back and even tried to reach over and manually power down the monitors, only for them to not respond.
A second later, and for no apparent reason, the screens flashed and the willow tree disappeared, only for a flashing command icon to blink on the screen, and then start leaving a message.
"Argh matey, yer computer's been hacked by the dread pirate Red Hair. Abandon all searches ye who enter commands here. Arrrrrrrr, we've come for your digital booty." Was typed up on the screen.
The next thing that happened was that an upload symbol started ticking across the screen, showing that all of the Oracle's databases were being copied.
"AGGGGGHH!" Barbara screamed and tugged on her hair in a mix of anger and fear.
Barbara pounded on her keyboard, she depressed the manual off button on her computer, and she even turned and quickly pushed herself over to the emergency power button before slamming her palm repeatedly on the big red button, all to no avail.
"No, no, this can't be happening! Damn-it, No!" She screamed in frustration as the upload bar hit complete.
"Ding! Job's done, Have a nice day." Issued out of the computer speakers the friendly male voice that most AOL users are familiar with when they receive email.
The screens in the room all flickered black, and then when they came back up they all showed the desktop of Oracle's operating system.
"No! Please say it's not all gone!" Barbara spat as she quickly wheeled over to her main control center and her fingers started flying over the commands to bring up her data storage systems, looking for anything that was missing.
"Still here, still here, yeah that's still there… Whew, it looks like it's still all… Oh shit, it's gone." Oracle read through the files, finding most of her database was still whole until she got to the part where information housing data regarding The Leviathan and The Grey Knight was contained. The files on the Romanian dictator and his armored demon-hunting cousin were all gone; in fact, there wasn't a trace in the system that they had ever existed.
Eyes large, Barbara bit her lip hard enough to make them flush red as she quickly tried to bring up the information of the Istanbul Times regarding the thwarted terrorist attack.
"It's gone." Barbara stated with dread, for not only was the information housed on her system regarding the mysterious man gone, but every online edition or copy of the article from the Turkish newspaper was erased from the internet along with the Istanbul Time's own news databases.
"What am I going to do?" Barbara gasped, before an idea popped into her head and a smile crept across her face.
Quickly popping another wheelie in her wheel chair, she raced out of the room to the private elevator and used her keycard to go to the sub-subbasement that wasn't even listed as a possible floor on the numbers in the elevator.
Smirking to herself, she wheeled out of the elevator and up to a steel vault door with a state of the art biometric locking system, courtesy of Wayne Enterprises and Bruce Wayne.
Plugging in the right code sequence, laying her hand on the scanner, then scanning her iris and stating her name to the computerized security system, the vault door opened and Barbara wheeled into her stand alone backup database system.
Scooting through the maze of servers, super computers and backup raid systems, Barbara pushed herself up to the only computer consol in the room and logged in and booted up her database management system.
"Heh, mess with my data will you." Barbara snipped under her breath while keying in a search for the data on The Leviathan and the Grey Knight.
"You might be able to get at my system connected to the outside world, but there is no way you could get at my backup data in the unconnected system, heh." Barbara said smugly to herself as she crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair to wait.
Barbara stared smirking at the screen and waited. And waited… and waited.
At the five minute mark her smirk started to fade, and by the ten minute mark Oracle was starting to look worried.
"Search complete, no files found matching your search parameters." The computer system stated after fifteen minutes of fruitless searching.
"Arrrrrrgghhh!" Barbara screamed in rage and punched her fist into the keyboard, causing keys to go scattering across the floor around her.
In her ranting and raging Barbara never thought to look behind her at the top of the computer racks, where a little one-eyed square metal box with little arms and legs blinked at her before stepping into a black transporter portal and disappearing from the server room.
The Justice League orbital Watchtower was in the middle of the third shift, and Batman was manning the consol watching over the world.
"Hmmm, interesting." Batman said to himself as he read over the email just sent to him by The Oracle. "It sounds like she is a little angry." He muttered, deep in thought as he reread the paragraph laden with curse words and ending with the sentence that The Oracle was going home to cry on her couch and eat large helpings of chocolate ice cream.
Batman flipped a tab on his utility belt and pulled out a recorder, "Note to file regarding Oracle, give her three days to calm down before asking her what has her so angry." Bruce paused mid dictation while he wavered on whether or not to let Nightwing and Robin know that approaching Oracle within the next twenty four hours may be hazardous to their health.
'No, the painful lessons are the best remembered ones.' Bruce Wayne thought to himself and allowed a slight smirk to cross his face. Sometimes it was the small things in life that made being a mentor to other crime fighters so much fun.
A flashing light and an alarm sound on his dashboard drew Batman out of his introspection on his latest torture...um, he meant training of his protégés.
Pressing a few buttons on the command keyboard, the main screen in front of Batman flashed up with an image of two unidentified flying objects breaking the upper atmosphere and set for a near collision course with the Watchtower.
Frowning, which Batman was oft to do, Bruce triggered his communicator. "Plasticman, are you completing your Javelin sweep of Earth's orbit?" Batman asked.
"Plasticman here oh dark one, roger roger smokey on my pokey." Plasticman quipped over the channel.
Batman growled over the communicator, "Plasticman, do you remember why you are scheduled for the same shifts that I'm in charge of?"
Over the communicator came the sound of Plasticman audibly gulping before giving Batman a shaky reply, "Um, uh, yeah. It's because I'm scared of you."
Batman smirked before growling again into the communicator, "That's right, and unless you want me running your practice sessions in the Watchtower's holographic training room over the next month, you will be serious when you are on shift. Is that clear?"
"Uh, yep, um, I mean yes Sir Batman Sir." Plasticman quickly replied before remembering Batman's original question over the communicator. "Um, yeah, I'm almost back to the Watchtower with Javelin space craft four, is there something I can help you with? Plastic man finished quickly and very politely.
Batman looked up at the screen and typed in a few commands, plotting a vector path of the two unidentified flying objects and realizing that they would easily pass within sight of the watchtower's viewing sensors.
"I'm sending you the coordinates to two objects rapidly approaching the Watchtower, I want you to swing by them and tell me what you see. Batman out." Batman commanded.
"Roger Batman, I'm on it." Plasticman said, a bit of his normal zaniness coming out in the elastic hero's voice yet still staying serious.
A few seconds passed with Batman staring resolutely at the screen as the two objects drew closer. Finally Plasticman's voice split the silence.
"Um, Batman, you're going to think I'm joking, but um, they're cows." Plasticman's voice stated.
Batman frowned and glared at the communicator before answering back with his deep voice, "Repeat again Plasticman, and you better hope you aren't joking."
"They are cows! Cows I tell you! Bovines! Frozen white cattle of the grass-eating cud-chewing persuasion!" Plasticman replied excitedly.
"They appear to be dead and frozen from their assent into space, though there seems to be some singed and blackened portions on their hides, probably from breaking the atmosphere. Hey, somebody's delivered fresh stakes to the Watchtower, I call dibs on the New York strip!" Plasticman couldn't help it, and cracked a joke at the end.
"Plasticman!" Batman snarled.
"Sorry boss, but you have to admit that flying cows are a bit odd, even for us." Plasticman said, a smile clearly in his voice. "Still, the least they could have done was send pigs, flying pigs would have made so much more sense."
Batman tuned out Plasticman's continuing diatribe about flying pigs being the new other white meat, now with half the fat. Instead, Bruce went about plugging in the controls to pivot the cameras on the station to zoom in on the rapidly approaching cows.
Sure enough, on the main screen of the Watchtower were two frozen cows, forever halted in the middle of a lowing moo.
"Hmmm, white cows, large girth and of a central Asian variety typical for India. The trajectory path leads from New Delhi." Batman stated out loud, the great detective putting together the visual clues along with the trajectory data to get an idea of what exactly happened.
Looking up at the duty roster Batman saw that Wonder Woman was currently assigned to that region of the world.
"Wonder Woman," Batman called into the communicator while directing the communications system to send a message to the Amazonian Princess.
A few moments later a reply came.
"Wonder Woman here, go ahead Batman." The Amazon Warrior Princess replied professionally.
"Wonder Woman, what is your current location?" Batman queried.
"I'm on an ambassadorial peace negotiations mission, meeting with the Indian Foreign Minister and the Pakistani Ambassador to India regarding the unrest in the Kashmir district. What can I do to assist you Batman?" Diana answered back.
Batman reviewed the data one more time to make sure he was correct, before panning the watchtower's main Earth directed sensors towards New Delhi.
"Would you please ask the Indian Minister if he is aware of the Indian space agency launching cows into orbit without a capsule or shuttle? I have two frozen cows set on a fly by with the station in a moment here. Trajectory suggests they came from New Delhi." Batman replied.
There was silence over the communicator for several moments, and then Wonder Woman's voice hesitantly questioned, "Batman, please repeat, did you say you have two free floating cows about to pass the Watchtower space station? Are you joking?"
Batman gritted his teeth, "I never joke about things like this." He stated unequivocally.
"Oh, well good. That's what I thought, you never joke about anything. One second please." Wonder Woman replied.
Batman spent the next several seconds grinding his teeth together, once again faced with the double standard of both being happy and miffed that people didn't think he had a sense of humor.
"The Minister states that they would never launch cows into space with or without a capsule, of this he is sure as the cows are sacred and believed to be reincarnated ancestors by the Hindi nationals." Wonder Woman explained.
Batman growled under his breath and panned over the city, looking for some sort of launch facility or something that was out of the norm.
"Hmmm, busy streets, busy streets, mobs torching stores and fighting in the streets, busy streets… wait a second." Batman stated as he quickly panned his cameras over New Delhi.
Zooming in on a particular bloody brawl going on in front of a temple, he was shocked to see a large muscular figure, painted whitish blue in color and wielding tridents, swords and a lotus flower in multiple arms charging out of a nearby temple roaring at the suddenly stunned and fearful crowd.
Hitting a button, Batman quickly uploaded the images to Wonder Woman's communicator.
Wonder Woman took one look at her communicator and replied, "I'm on it!" before shutting off the communicator connection.
The crowded tangle of bodies screamed and frothed at the mouth as they attempted to pound the defiler of their reincarnated ancestors into a bloody mash on the ground. The crowd punched and kicked what they thought was the man who had fallen off of their shoulders and to the street, not really caring who they were really hitting as long as there was the chance that the heathen was at the middle of the melee and no doubt dying.
Meanwhile at the back of the crowd, Xander finished crawling on his elbows and knees out from under the last body, a shimmering shield floating just a half inch away from the surface of his body and protecting him from the crush and blows that had been aimed at him.
So focused was the crowd on the supposed murder of Xander, or at least on where Xander should have been, that they didn't see him rapidly crab walk out from among the legs of the mob and through the semi closed gates to the temple that appeared to be under construction or restoration.
Xander peaked out from around one of the gate's posts and stared as the rabble devolved from a targeted attack on one man into an out and out bloody brawl with blood, clothing and hair flying.
"Whew, glad to get out of there, but now what am I supposed to do about the mob?" Xander questioned under his breath, feeling glad that he had finally escaped the mob but aghast at the bloodshed that his unknown attempt at help had caused.
Xander watched as the people seemed to turn on each other and devolve the chaos into an out and out blood bath; as knives, pipes, hammers and tools were picked up off the street and used by the rioters to bludgeon or stab one another.
Xander started to look frantically around while trying to think up some way to stop the bloodshed.
'I can't use my armor or then I'll get blamed for the riot, and if I go out there like this they will just turn on me again.' Xander thought frantically as he turned to look at the temple behind him, at the abandoned scaffolding, wood piles, paint cans, tools and masonry lying around.
'If only there was some way that I could scare the people away without showing who I really am, maybe I could get them to all go home.' Xander furiously plotted, looking around at the beautiful yet scary paintings of blue and white multi armed gods smiting down demons or chasing away evil beings.
Xander looked back to the bloodshed, only to pause and his eyes went big.
Turning back around quickly, Xander looked at the murals painted on the wall. Under one of the larger pictures of a whitish blue figure with a lotus blossom in one hand, a trident in another and several weapons in other arms, Xander saw a sign that was written in both Hindi and English.
"Shiva the Destroyer," Was all that the English said, though the description in Hindi seemed to be much more detailed and go on at length about the so called God Shiva.
Xander smirked an evil genius smile and turned and ran for the scaffolding that held several buckets of paint. Dropping his backpack on the ground, Xander pulled himself onto the scaffolding and reached for one of the tools sitting on the wooden scaffold floor.
Grabbing a nearby putty knife, Xander slipped it under the lid of the large multi-gallon bucket of paint and slammed his fist down on the back of the putty knife; snapping the knife in half, but not before both the lid and the front part of the knife flipped through the air to land far away on the ground.
Looking into the paint can, Xander smiled. The color of the paint in the can matched perfectly the color of the angry God Shiva as depicted on the walls of the temple.
"Bwa ha ha ha ha ha." Xander chuckled as he picked up the bucket of paint, lifted it above his head, and then upended it all over his head, face and clothing.
"Pew, blah, ugh, tastes horrible." Xander spat out the paint that had gotten in his mouth while using his nano-clank clothing to form a rag with which to wipe the paint out of his eyes.
"Not your best plan of action Xander." He said to himself as he fished a finger in his ear to get a bit of paint out of it so that he could hear. Still, he didn't have a lot of time as blood was continuing to flow on the streets outside the temple.
Closing his eyes, now painted white from head to toe, Xander mentally commanded his armor to form a body suit such that Xander would look naked.
Xander's white painted body continued to stand still for a second, before his normal dark hair suddenly seemed to vibrate and shake off the white paint clinging to it, leaving the rest of Xander's body painted the proper colors depicting Shiva with the whitish body and the dark black hair. Then with a mental command, several additional arms spread out from the sides of Xander's nano-clank clothing, mirroring the two arms that Xander had been born with originally.
Opening his eyes, Xander looked at his new arms and hands and smirked evilly to himself. "Wa ha ha ha… hmm, I wonder if the girls would ever want to play with this whole multi arm thing some time?" He mumbled to himself as he checked himself out, twisting from side to side.
Xander heard a blood curdling scream come from the other side of the temple's wall and his eyes got big.
"Bad Xander, Bad! No thinking about sex when people are potentially dying, even if said people were originally trying to kill you due to your own ignorance." Xander berated himself and face palmed himself before shaking his head and then closing his eyes again.
In the multiple hands now sported on Xander's body, a trident and multiple weapons grew and formed in his grasp.
Opening his eyes and taking a tentative swing with his new limbs, Xander smirked to himself for a second, then stilled his features and looked around quickly. There on a pond to the side of the temple gardens was a lotus plant in bloom. Plucking the flower with one of his new arms, and relying on the nano-clanks to move it realistically, Xander sprinted for the temple's main gates and the street on the other side.
Bursting out into the street, Xander saw that there were several bodies lying unconscious in the street, and injured people were trying to drag themselves away from the brawl.
Thinking fast, Xander new that he needed to grab the crowd's attention, so he decided to do what always worked for his friend Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "when you absolutely must have their attention right away, charge head first."
"ROOOOOAAAARRR!" Xander yelled as he charged the crowd, activating the speaker system in his armor to broadcast his yell so loudly that it shook the windows of the cars along the street and knocked down the first ranks of rioters closest to Xander.
As one the crowd stopped fighting and turned to look at the charging Xander, and like a deer caught in the headlights, they all froze wide eyed.
Xander skidded to a halt about twenty paces from the leading figure of the crowd, his arms waving around him threateningly, but the people were all just stunned in fear at what looked a whole lot like the very angry Hindu God Shiva.
Xander stared at the crowd unsure what to do, since he didn't want to attack the people and had been counting on his charge to scare them into running away.
The people stared at the God Shiva, unaware of what to do, and too scared to run away.
Xander stared at the mob.
The mob stared at Xander.
It was at this point that one of the little voices in Xander's head yelled out in panick, 'Do something Idiot! When in doubt, just do something!'
So Xander did do something.
He started to snoopy dance.
Little did Xander know, but one of the principal images of the God Shiva, and Vishnu for that matter, was of the God's dancing before laying the smack down on their enemies.
The image of the God dancing hit the minds of the rioters, and for some unknown reason something clicked in the back of their minds, and they screamed in terror and fled from the snoopy dancing God, Shiva the Destroyer, aka Xander Harris covered in white paint.
Xander waved his arms and skittered his feet from side to side while bobbing his head, and like a receding tidal wave, the mass of formerly rioting humanity that was in the street before him fled in fear.
'I don't know what you're doing, or why it's working, but keep it up you beautiful bastard.' The voice of panic ranted in the back of Xander's mind.
Fifteen seconds later, Xander couldn't even see a single soul on the streets.
'You know you can stop dancing now, they're gone.' A voice stated at Xander.
'Yep, heh heh, snoopy dance wins again. Thank God for organized religions and superstitions… or in this case thank gods.' Xander mentally quipped while stopping dancing and looking around.
Turning back towards the temple gates, Xander wandered back to where he had created his costume, picked up his backpack, and then proceeded into the temple to look for a towel or something to get him fully clean; leaving a trail of white footprints behind him.
Xander mentally joked around and had a few laughs with the voices in his head as he found what appeared to be a room for the priests in the temple to clean up in, using a small pool of spring water that bubbled up from the ground. Well, either that or it was a sacred pool that was now despoiled by Xander washing off all of the white paint off his skin before grabbing a couple colorful handkerchief like things to get the paint out of his ears and wiped off of his arms. His nano-clank clothing completed the cleaning effort by covering him from head to toe for a moment, absorbed the left over paint chemicals, and then transformed back into his original outfit of the white T-shirt and khaki pants and boots.
Whistling a little jaunty tune, Xander turned to close the door to the "clean-up room" behind him, turned around, and bumped into something solid yet pleasantly squishy.
Xander stumbled backwards a step, and was surprised to see a woman in a tight red-white-and-blue starred outfit with gold highlights take a confused stumbling step backwards as well before she bounced up into a fighting stance.
Xander looked over the woman, and two voices in his head went to war.
'Oh, Boobies! Looky looky at the wonderful boobies!' The little voice of Xander's libido yelled in Xander's head.
'No, look her in the face, for god's sake and everything holy, look her in the face. Do you really want to get knocked out by an Amazon? For God's sake man, think of the children!' The voice of self preservation shouted back in Xander's head.
Xander's libido stopped chanting, 'Boobies!' and asked, 'Wait, what children?'
'Xander's future children. As in if you look at Wonder Woman wrong or make a comment about her breasts, you are likely to lose the ability to procreate beyond even the ability of our nano-clanks to heal.' The voice of self preservation answered frantically.
'Good point. All in favor of looking Wonder Woman in the eyes, say Aye.' The voice of the libido stated, for some reason strangely mature for once.
'AYE,' Almost all of the voices stated, except for one who called out, 'hippopotamus.'
The little voice continued stating the results of the vote, 'The Ayes have it on a unanimous vote with one abstention due to insanity. Look at the face. Oh, and whatever you do, don't act guilty, there's a chance that if you spin this right it could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship; or at least wild passionate sex!'
Xander gave Wonder Woman a beaming smile and looked her right in the eyes, "Wow, hi Wonder Woman. What are you doing here?" He questioned, putting on the theatrical mask of the innocent harmless happy-go-lucky Xander that had always worked back in Sunnydale.
Wonder Woman bounced back from the stuttered step, feeling like she had been briefly pushed back by a wall of steel. However when she looked up and examined the tall young man in front of her, a man who was actually taller and appeared more muscled than she, his smile and easy going demeanor seemed to belay any threat.
Diana shook her head to clear it, 'No, this couldn't be the cause of the riots or the attacking beast, but I better check anyway.' She thought to herself when she looked at the goofy smiling handsome man in front of her. There was something about him, like a big cuddly puppy, something that made her want to like him, but she just shook that off and gave him a resolved business look.
"What are you doing in here? Did you see a being come through here? Colored white with multiple arms and weapons?" She questioned him quickly and impatiently, crossing her arms across her chest.
'Look at the eyes man! Do it for your testicles, ignore the fact that her crossed arms are pushing up those lovely lovely oh so succulent melons of perfection…' The first voice started off directing Xander to pay attention to the question and not the woman, but as Xander was still a teen, and a sparky teen at that, his libido did tend to get distracted by women and their amazing curves.
'SMACK!' The sound of a mental slap rang through Xander's head and pulled his attention back to the question she had just asked him.
Wonder Woman looked quizzically for a second, as she could have sworn the young man's eyes had glossed over for a brief moment there before he was smiling back at her again.
"What am I doing here? Well hello, didn't you hear the riot that was going on out there? This place seemed the safest place around here given the mood on the streets." Xander explained, gesturing back towards the front gate with a self deprecating shrug. "I did what any sane individual would do and came in here to avoid the mob."
Wonder Woman started to relax her guard a bit, almost naturally in the presence of this man. However what he said next had her spinning about and dropping into a fighting stance.
"As for a multi-armed god with weapons who is painted white, well he's behind you." Xander said with a smile.
Wonder Woman's eyes got large at his statement and quickly swung around to look behind her… only to find the hallway empty.
Turning back to glare at the young backpacker, she bit out, "That wasn't funny. This is a serious situation and there was nobody there."
Xander took a step back and put his hands up in front of him, "Whoa there Princess, I never said that a person was there, I just said that I saw what you described behind you. And I did see… um, do see… It's on the mural behind you. Apparently this is a temple to the god Shiva." Xander said, finishing with a 'don't kill the messenger' type of smile that had always worked around Buffy. However when Xander used it on Buffy he usually had a box of donuts in hand to shield him; Xander had learned that it was always good to bring sweets to distract angry warrior women. The fact that he was without a box of donuts and didn't have any chocolate of the distraction kind Xander feel strangely naked and unprotected at the moment, what with Wonder Woman glaring at him with a look that promised severe pain.
Wonder Woman slowly looked around at the walls that surrounded them, and sure enough the paintings and sculptures of Shiva the dancer, Shiva the destroyer, were everywhere.
Xander took Wonder Woman's distraction as a chance to try and escape, once again trying to get out of the situation unidentified.
So while Wonder Woman examined the art work regarding the ancient Hindu god, Xander started whistling innocently to himself and shuffling to the side without her noticing.
One slide to the left was followed by a second slide to the left. Then Xander had an opening to pass the Amazon Princess who had been blocking his path.
Xander took one step, and then a second, followed by a third, trying to stroll nonchalantly down the hall while whistling; he even slid his hands in his pockets as if he was just going to stroll away.
'Almost there! Almost there!' Xander mentally chanted to himself as he passed the princess and could see the light of the temple's entrance hitting the floor only five feet away.
Suddenly a golden lasso appeared above Xander's head and then synched down around his upper torso, pinning his arms to his chest.
'Drat! So close, yet so far away.' Xander mentally groused while flinching a bit at getting caught in his escape attempt.
Xander turned around to face the now darkly glowering Wonder Woman who was holding tightly to the lasso.
"Uh, can I help you Wonder Woman?" Xander questioned, trying his hardest to put off an innocent look; which was surprisingly more difficult to do now that he stood somewhere around six foot five and as muscularly hulking as Superman.
"You're leaving white footprints." Wonder Woman growled.
Xander looked down wide eyed, and sure enough, there was a trail of white footprints leading from the room he had exited and right to his feet. Picking up the bottom of one of his feet, he saw that there was still paint stuck to the bottom of it from where he had exited the room, no doubt stepping in the vestiges of the white paint that he had used for his costume.
Xander stared up at Wonder Woman, then down at his feet, then back at the golden lasso.
Wonder Woman opened her mouth to ask a question, but a thought popped into Xander's mind and he quickly held up a hand and shouted, "Wait!" to interrupt her.
"Fast question." Xander started, "Um, this lasso, its magical, right?" He questioned hopefully.
Wonder Woman didn't catch the hint of hope in the man's voice and stood straight and regal as she answered him, "Yes, it is magical and was forged by the Gods of mount Olympus. With it you will be forced to tell the truth and the whole truth." She stated looking back at him challengingly.
Xander just smiled back at her. "Well in that case." He replied, "All I can say is, ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies." He finished with a big toothy grin.
Wonder Woman's eyebrows furrowed, this wasn't how most people reacted when told that they were captured by the lasso of truth. Further, since he was already tied by the lasso, then she figured that his comment about asking questions and lies had to be the truth. This was confusing.
Shrugging off her confusion she focused on the man and demanded, "Who are you?"
Xander just shrugged and answered with a smile, "Alexander Harris, but my friends call me Xander." He finished, leaving off his full name or any other of the pertinent facts or names by which he was called; it wasn't like the magic could really force him to tell the truth yet he didn't really want to out and out lie to Wonder Woman either. After all, Nth Metal had been originally used by the Thangarians to destroy the gods that had plagued their planet. It wasn't like some measly rope forged by some Greek god was going to have a whole lot of effect on Xander given the amount of Nth Metal coursing through his body.
This wasn't the answer Diana expected. Such a simple answer and a simple name, though she did recognize the name Alexander as meaning "Protector of Man" from Greek. Then again she had often come upon humans, born in Man's World, with many names that held deeper meanings. It didn't mean that the person held those qualities nor that there was some deeper meaning than that the parents had just liked a certain name for their child.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, a little bit unsure that this man could have anything to do with the current situation, but having to ask. She left the question as broad as possible, hoping to divine more information.
Xander just smiled and gave another shrug while answering, "I'm just passing through New Delhi on a cross country trip to a destination that I'm not really sure of. I was just about to leave New Delhi when I bumped into you, literally."
At this point, Wonder Woman was starting to feel a bit guilty about waylaying a normal human. That and the fact that if this man wasn't the culprit for the supposed attack by Shiva, then she was wasting time and was letting the guilty party escape. Still, he was the only one in the temple which the beast had fled into, and he was tracking white paint.
"And the white paint, why are you leaving tracks?" The tall dark haired beauty questioned with the rise of an elegant eyebrow.
Xander smirked and waved around at the walls as best as he could while tied up, "Look around you Princess, the temple is under construction and the paint on the walls is fresh." He felt a bit bad about not really answering the question, and his answer was the closest he had come to out and out lying. Still, in situations where the choices were to lie or to gamble with possibility that lives could be lost, namely his in this case, the lie was going to win.
Xander finished explaining while painting a smile on his face as he watched the realization flow over Wonder Woman's face that she had been wrong in semi attacking him. The disappointment in herself that flashed across the beautiful woman's face was almost more effective in getting Xander to tell the truth than the lasso and its ineffective magical effect. Ultimately he held strong in his silent smile, and waited for her to hopefully let him go without a fight.
Wonder Woman looked around at the walls, and she blushed a bit as she cursed herself for jumping to the wrong conclusion about this man. She had seen a large man with an intimidating, though handsome, figure step out of the room in the temple and had figured him for a threat. Not only that, but when they had collided she had actually been pushed back a step from the force of the impact, a feat that only beings of equal super strength should have been able to succeed. However, now in hind sight she doubted herself and figured that she had just stumbled backwards due to being startled or from the unexpected contact. All these thoughts flowed through her mind and were briefly shown on her face.
Finally with a sigh and a slumping of her shoulders in shame, she flicked her wrist and released the lasso from around Xander, returning it to her hands with a deft twist and a tug.
Pulling her shoulders back regally, she briefly gave a head bow, "I am sorry Alexander Harris for detaining you forcefully. I was mistaken in my belief that you were the cause of the troubles in the street, and I apologize." She stated regally, looking Xander in the eyes.
Xander's heart tugged a bit, both from her beauty and regal attitude, as well as the fact that he was basically duping her and taking advantage of her assumptions. Still, he couldn't help but smile back at her and wink.
"No harm done Princess. Any time you want to play with tying people up, feel free to look me up. But next time I get to tie you up." Xander finished with a wink and a toothy smile.
For some unexpected reason, Diana found herself blushing and a hint of a smile came across her face before she could stop it. Normally she would be offended or ignore the insinuated statement. But then again Alexander did cut a very attractive package, and there was just something about him that called to a portion of her being. She didn't know what or why, but he was attractive to her. Still, she was an Amazonian Princess and had standards and honor to uphold.
The blush disappeared from her face and she looked a bit haughtily back at Xander, "Thank you for accepting my apology Mr. Harris, and I'm sorry for your time. I must go as League business is pressing. Good day and safe travels." She stated with another head nod before wheeling on her feet to track back into the temple.
"Oh princess." Xander cried out, stopping her progress away from him. Diana turned to look at Xander briefly over her shoulder.
"No hard feelings, and really, I understand how sometimes things or people can be more than they seem, and sometimes they are less than they seem. I wish you luck in your Justice League business. Happy hunting." Xander finished with a jaunty wave and a smile as he pulled his backpack snug against his shoulders and walked happily out of the temple with a whistle and a spring in his step.
Wonder Woman stared after the figure of Alexander as he disappeared out of the darkened temple and into the bright light. Shaking her head in a mixture of frustration and unexpected admiration, she turned and went to search the temple.
Thirty minutes of searching the temple left her without a clue as to where the supposed living embodiment of the god Shiva had disappeared to.
However as Wonder Woman was leaving the temple she saw the closed door which Alexander had left right before she had run into him, and she decided with a shrug that she would examine the contents of the room.
One look at the room with the spring of water in it told her that there was more white paint in there than just what could be tracked in via stepping in spilled paint at a construction site. There was even a set of three hand prints on the wall, two right hand prints with one above the other and one left hand print, as if some multiple armed being had used the wall for support by touching it with multiple hands while using a free arm to clean themselves of paint. It was possible that one person with two arms could have simply leaned against the wall multiple times with either hand, but then again white paint was simply everywhere in the room, tracked across the floor, dripping in the water, and wiped across the prayer flags. Further damning was that there was a lotus flower with white paint on it lying forgotten on the floor.
Wide eyed, Wonder Woman remembered Alexander's parting quip.
"Sometimes people can be more than they seem, and sometimes they are less than they seem… Holy Hera, it really was him!" She cursed, flinging herself out of the room and running for the entrance to the temple.
There, leading out of the temple were the even white paint prints exiting the temple and heading towards the gate.
However, the footprints didn't proceed through the gate.
As Wonder Woman looked around for any clue to track Alexander Harris, she realized that he had disappeared.
Just like the white footprints that suddenly stopped five feet before the gate to the temple, there was no further sign of Alexander Harris anywhere to be found.
AN: Heh heh, Xander duped Wonder Woman, and RedTree is driving Oracle crazy. And we are off to the destination location, bonus points if you guess it. Those of you who guess it get a brand new noprize. I congratulate you in advance on your noprize, but seriously, you can at least get bragging rights for claiming that you guessed it before I wrote it. Talking about bragging rights, a while back I made an author's note regarding guesses on who would be in the harem. We are finally getting to the point where you can start to make some educated guesses. Those who guess right will have their names put in the end notes in the chapters where their guesses comes true, so give it a go if you want. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and please send me more of the good ideas. I really do appreciate the reviews and the well wishes. I can't tell you how much they make me smile, and they are actually the first thing I check on the internet in the morning, and the last thing I check before I go to bed. I share the best ones with my wife who just smiles and nods along while inching away from me and my maniacal laughter. I think that means she likes them too. Shrug* Oh well, keep them coming please! Cheers!