/*
I don't own anything. Review and Enjoy. Yes, both of those are commands.
*/
Gotham
"Luckily for you, Julian, I still have a few bridges in Gotham I haven't burned." Constantine began to search a heavily graffitied wall. "Ah. Here it is. Bloody vagrants have practically covered it up."
He touched a complex symbol and it began to glow. The glowing made the script that was before illegible, readable. Well, readable to anyone who knew Medieval Latin, Ancient Egyptian, and Enochian. A jackal sat in the center of a ring of Egyptian; the Egyptian read: "Portal of the Owls' Underworld". Around the ring of Egyptian text, the Enochian read: "Herein lies lands protected by invocation of the demon Anubis." The two inner circles of text glowed white and intricate lines connected various words in both languages, allowing power to flow between them. The actual spells were hidden, lest someone puzzle out how to break them.
However, the outermost ring of text in Latin glowed red and was not connected to the inner two rings. It read: "The way is sealed by order of the Court of Owls. Present letter of safe conduct, and enter."
Constantine rubbed his face. "You've got to be kidding me. Bloody amateurs pretending they can police magic."
Julian, The Gentle Man, looked curiously at the red ring of text. "Can you break it?"
"Don't insult me, of course I can. The question is if I can get through without them knowing it was me."
"Puppet me."
"What?"
"Puppet me. Some magicians, back when I was roaming the Earth, were capable of temporarily commanding the will of others. I heard a story of one sorcerer who was even able to perform magic through a willing proxy from dozens of miles away."
"Hmm." Constantine thought for a moment. "It could work. I doubt whoever made the seal was well-versed enough in Confinement to detect when a proxy is being used. Let's try it."
Constantine began chanting, but Julian stopped him. "Don't you want to do this away from the wall in case there's any visual detection?"
The warlock laughed. "Sorry. It's just, after people started referring to recording charms as 'magic security cameras', almost the entire magical community stopped using them. You'll find that my profession is full of those so proud that they distance themselves from any possible comparison that could be made between what they do and what science can do." He led Julian around a corner. "But I'll indulge you since there is, I suppose, a chance."
Constantine placed his hands on either side of Julian's head and began to chant. It felt strange having an entire other body as an extension of his will. He had done this before, but only briefly, and never with someone willing. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could suddenly see through Julian's. It felt like being extremely intoxicated, his vision was blurred and swimming and he had to focus intensely just to get Julian's body to walk forward. Once positioned in front of the symbol, he had Julian touch it and pushed some of Julian's energy into it to activate it; the symbol began to glow again. Through Julian, he showed just how much of a master of the dark arts he was. Julian's arms moved through the air, trailing energy behind them as he weaved a spell as a spider would weave a web. Once it was complete the spell hit the wall in the deep blue of Julian's energy.
Julian came to and felt somewhat sick having been seemingly teleported several meters. The blue web of energy on the wall in front of him-that looked like it was attacking the red script-was not helping. The red letters seemed to burn off the wall, leaving a scorched ring around the intricate, white symbol. The blue energy condensed into a small circle with an inscribed triangle. Constantine came around the corner and backhanded the wall where the blue symbol was. The symbol disappeared from the wall and appeared on the back of his hand as a tattoo.
"Alright, follow me."
The two walked through the wall and as they walked through it felt like the whole world rotated 180 degrees. After they had overcome their nausea they found themselves on a street with dozens of buildings, all of them disobeying the laws of physics in some way, shape, or form. Constantine led Julian down the street until they reached a crossroads. It was unlike most crossroads though, since the road that crossed the main one only extended a few feet in either direction. A rugged old signpost stood at one of the corners, Constantine made a beeline for it. The sign had a dozen or so different names for the "cross street" they were now on. He paused, reading the signs and then touched one. As soon as he touched the sign, the street extended in both directions, laying down bricks as it went, buildings rose up from the ground, and people appeared.
Julian looked around in amazement. "That magic is just a little more robust then what humans were capable of in my day."
Constantine smiled. "Most cities are not like this. Gotham is old and large, so it's a magnet for magicians. This is just what can be accomplished if you manage to get a few dozen talented sorcerers to work together. You should see Aleppo's version of this; 6,000 years old."
"I'm afraid I don't know that city. Or Gotham really. When I was imprisoned civilization was still just a twinkle in humanity's eye. I remember my wife was with this nomadic tribe who..."
Constantine rolled his eyes and focused on finding someone who could provide them the space and resources to locate the nephilim's wife. As they walked down the street several shopkeepers saw Constantine and shuttered their shops, sometimes magically sometimes not.
"Oh come on, lads! We're not in a Western! Show some hospitality to an old friend!"
One shopkeeper hesitated and Constantine capitalized on the opportunity, rushing over and gently pushing his way into the store.
"Nice to see you again, Villentretenmerth! I know you prefer me calling you by your dragon's name when you have company. I need to purchase some magical oddities off you and perform a quick locator spell in your backroom. I promise, just a locator spell, nothing with fire or explosions or damage of any kind."
"First, I'd prefer you didn't call me anything, or show up at all. Second, a codename doesn't work as well if you tell everyone it's a codename. Third, everything is full price, including renting the backroom for spell casting."
"Villy, come one, everyone knows that's a codename as soon as they hear it. Can't you spare a small discount for an old friend."
"We aren't friends, we worked one job together and I barely escaped with my life, no thanks to you. Make it a ten percent markup." The man who had been introduced as Villentretenmerth gave Constantine a cold look implying there would be no negotiation; he knew Constantine was desperate and had nowhere else to go.
"Very well. How much will-" he turned to Julian and whispered in his ear, "Did you and your wife...you know...consummate your union?" Julian nodded. "Good, that should make this easier." He turned back to the shopkeeper. "-some orichalcum infused chalk, a silver pin, and the backroom for fifteen minutes?"
"Fifteen minutes? With orichalcum, silver, and I assume an eye of providence amulet? You must be fairly confident in your abilities."
"Just name the price."
"Well, both of those are fairly common items, so they usually only run around $50 each. But for you it'll be $120. Plus the backroom will bring the total to $220."
"That's not a ten percent markup!"
The man shrugged, so Constantine handed him the money. He grabbed the items as Julian and him found their way to the backroom. Once they were in the back, Julian spoke.
"You don't seem to be very liked in the magical community and while most of the items on sale in there were not even known in my day, the ones that were around were never that expensive."
Constantine shrugged. "Magic is an expensive business, and not just monetarily. If you aren't willing to turn a blind eye to all the corruption and evil in the magical community then your relationships will run thin as quick as your wallet."
Constantine drew a quick (and poor) sketch of the world on the ground with the chalk and pocketed what was left of the stick. He chanted a few things in Ancient Greek and like some sort of autocorrection, the chalk glowed gold and rearranged itself into a perfect rendition of Earth, even more perfect than modern maps.
"I'll never get tired of orichalcum." Constantine chuckled.
"How does it work?"
"Well, it's magic, don't rightly know. Some have theorized that orichalcum has some sort of magnetic tie to the Platonic Forms. So, in the right setting it can be coerced into recreating whatever Form it is closest to. To the best of its ability at least."
"What are the Platonic Forms?"
"Uuhhh- never mind."
He chanted a few more things and a globe of golden light rose out of the chalk on the ground like a projection and began to slowly rotate. Constantine pricked Julian with the pin without asking and then threw it into the center of the rotating globe. As Julian rubbed his arm, the warlock flicked the pin and it began spinning rapidly. Within a second a spot on the globe glowed a bright red and the pin pointed directly at it.
"Looks like she's here in Gotham."
Julian smiled. "She stayed near the portal. Now how do we find out where she is more precisely?"
"That's a lot easier actually." He opened a pocket dimension and pulled out an amulet with an eye depicted on it. "An eye of providence, or more colloquially, 'the all-seeing eye'."
He spoke a few words in Latin and pointed the eye at the spot on the globe. The eye grew wide and the room seemed to grow dark and shrink. A whisper of chanting could be heard emanating from all directions that sent chills down their spines. The pupil shrunk more and more as it focused on the bright red spot, and with it shrunk the room and the light. Then the eye turned on Julian and stared at him intently. Terrible images that Julian had seen before but forgotten assailed his mind. They were the stuff of his nightmares, but he could not tell if they were past or future. Constantine shut the eye's lid almost immediately and threw it back in the pocket dimension.
"What was that?" Julian was shaking.
"One of the least understood magical objects known to man. We can practically mass-produce these things at this point, but we don't know how they work at all. They have some form of limited omniscience and are, for that reason, incredibly useful. But they are definitely dark magic and have a mind of their own. They invariably drive those who look into them too long insane."
"Why do you use so casually, something so dangerous?"
"Why do people use cars? Computers? Fire? Cars kill people everyday, computers damage their souls, and fires burn entire cities to the ground. Sometimes the convenience is just worth more than the risk, and we convince ourselves we can control them."
"Then did you find her?"
"Yes."
Metropolis
The documents Perry White had given him were useless. They were just statements of objective fact and observations; no matter how many times Clark looked at them, no information on their compiler leaped out at him. He could get Lois' opinion on it in two days, but for now he was on his own. Bruce came to mind, but he had made it abundantly clear that he was not to be the Justice League's on-call detective; to only approach him about a mystery or investigation if there were lives currently on the line. However, Clark came up with a way to circumvent this, he would not approach Bruce on the pretense of the mystery, but to get advice on how to deal with having to investigate himself. He never made a rule on asking for advice about living a double-life. If he got to sneak in a conversation about the investigation he was doing into the freelancer, that would just be an "incidental benefit".
His communicator buzzed on at his touch and he called Bruce. The communicator buzzed, but no one picked up. Clark figured Bruce must just be busy even though he was usually a prompt responder. He sighed, Bruce may be insular, but he cared enough about the league that he always responded within an hour or two; Clark would just have to wait.
Istanbul, Turkey
"Saudi Arabia has a very different story, they say that you have been actively displacing Syrians into their country. Where would they get that idea?"
Erdogan's eyes were on fire, but he remained composed. "Turkey has done no such thing. Syrian refugees flood into both our countries everyday. Turkey has the beneficence of NATO to aid it in the support of these displaced Syrians, Saudi Arabia does not."
"Are you implying that Saudi Arabia is attempting to defame you in the hopes of making itself look better on the international stage?"
"I said nothing of the sort."
Lois scratched some notes into her notepad. "One last question then. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has gone on record saying, and I quote: 'The hostilities between Turkey and Russia are ancient, but these past grievances should not inform our policies today. Russia assumes, on principle, that the nations it has diplomatic relationships with agree with this assertion. In light of this, the Russian Federation treats all acts of hostility coming from Turkey in these modern days as new aggressions uninformed by the past. For this reason, we can confidently say that Turkey has been the main source of aggression in both relations and in the minor skirmishes with Russia and Turkey's neighbors. Our people are currently compiling a portfolio of all Turkey's misdeeds to present as evidence for the revocation of Turkey's NATO membership at the soonest possible United Nations World Assembly.'"
When his interpreter finished repeating what Lois had said, President Erdogan of Turkey stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. "Yorum yok." He left the room.
His interpreter translated immediately: "No comment."
There was no hospitality left for Lois Lane in that foreign country. She was left in the room alone to fend for herself, a silent retaliation for her insult.
Metropolis
Clark rubbed his eyes after finishing the letter the freelancer had written to the Daily Planet for the fifth time. It was the only document in the whole portfolio that was at all personal. He looked at the time, four hours of pouring over this portfolio and all he had been able to deduce was that his quarry was intelligent, obsessed with Superman, and was still a while away from figuring out his identity. Clark drummed his fingers on the table, Bruce still had not called and it was well past evening. Any of Bruce Wayne's duties should have ended and the Batman's would not have started yet.
He contemplated whether or not to do what he did next, but decided that there was no harm done if Bruce actually was occupied. Clark reached out to J'onn J'onzz telepathically.
"J'onn, could you let me know if Bruce is okay."
"One moment...I can't locate him."
"What does that mean?"
"Usually it means nothing, he found some way to block me a while back and uses it every once in a while. However, whenever he does that I can tell he's blocking me, this time I do not even feel blocked, I sense...nothing."
Clark grew concerned immediately. "I'm going to Gotham to speak with Alfred."
"I'll keep trying to reach him, it is possible he just improved his methods."
Clark made a quick change before heading out and soon enough, Superman was in the sky. He had not gotten far before he heard J'onn in his head again.
"Superman! I cannot locate Diana either."
The sound barrier had never been so brutally broken.
Gehenna, Year 10
Diana threw her spider silk lasso, looping it around a massive creature's neck. She pulled hard across her body and toward the ground, shouting as she did. Her muscles strained, but she managed to get the beast's neck close enough to the ground for Bruce to hack through it with his sword. After three or four swings the monster stopped writhing and screaming, the fifth swing severed the head. Diana fell over from the sudden loss of tension on the other end of her lasso. They both gasped for air; Diana tried to stand up, but she could not find the strength.
"NOO!" Bruce threw himself between Diana and the claw of a monster she had not seen.
He did not manage to completely stop the claw with his sword, it slid off his helmet and found the gap between his left spaulder and his helm. Seeing Bruce hurt, Diana found her strength and shouted once more as she thrust her spear up diagonally through most of the monster, impaling it. She spat on it as it fell to the ground. Bruce started to get back up, but Diana stopped him.
"No, Bruce, rest. There's only a few left. Put pressure on the wound."
She had lied and hoped Bruce would not notice, there were more than a few left, but she felt confident she could handle them. Her body ached all over, but she had a reason to push through the pain and exhaustion, and he was lying injured on the ground behind her. They had both gained several new scars during their time there; it looked like Bruce would have a new one. One of them getting even moderately injured was a huge problem, the other person always had to carry significantly more weight for the next few days. Thankfully, neither of them had yet broken a bone, which would take several weeks to heal at least, even with the help of Bruce's medical knowledge and Amazonian medicine.
She dreaded the next few days, not only would she have to fight for both of them, but she would have to convince Bruce to stay at home. He could be really stubborn about that sort of thing, but if he kept trying to fight he would only aggravate the injury until he actually could not fight. He usually listened to reason, he just hated watching her go off to fight alone. Diana really could not blame him, every time she had been injured Bruce had to convince her of the same thing, and she went through the same anxiety knowing he was out fighting alone.
Her doru was impaling one of the beasts, so she slashed open another one as she unsheathed her sword. She swung again and again, her shield grew too heavy so she dropped it and just parried with the sword. However, each swing made the sword heavier and heavier, her movements less and less controlled.
A voice whispered in her mind, "You have both fought long and well, drop your weapon. Let the sweet embrace of death give you rest. You will finally be together without complication."
She yelled, pushing through the pain and ignoring the voice.
"Come on, you can't keep this up forever."
This time Diana responded. "The hordes are everlasting, so we must be as well!"
As she yelled it, she eviscerated a monster on the downswing and then spun and cut down the last one behind her on the upswing. The voice was silenced. She helped Bruce up and they recovered their weapons and cleaned them before heading home.
"You lied."
"It was the only way to convince you to stay down."
"We're a team, you cannot be lying to me while we're on the battlefield." Bruce said with some hostility.
"What was I supposed to do? Let you injure yourself further?! We've been over this, you're too stubborn."
"And you aren't?! It isn't that big a deal, I could have helped you finish them off without aggravating the injury."
"You can't kno- You know what? Never mind, I can't have this argument again, not right now. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and tomorrow I will be fighting alone."
Bruce grumbled to himself, but did not argue. She was right, they had had this conversation multiple times before and they had come to the same agreement every time. If one of them got hurt beyond superficial cuts and bruises, they would be benched. The other part of the deal was that whoever was injured would take over every chore they were capable of doing without aggravating the wound. This was designed to give the uninjured one enough rest to be able to fight on their own.
Upon arriving at the house they assessed the wound. It was not terrible and would probably only keep Bruce at home for two or three days. It would take at least a week to fully heal though. Diana dressed the wound with some ointments they had made from the plant life in the area, it was not ideal, but it would do. Once the wound was cleaned, she began to sew it up, Bruce clenched as she did this. Seeing his pain, she began to sing in Ancient Greek a song from long ago:
Βασιλεῦ οὐράνιε, Παράκλητε,
τὸ Πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας,
ὁ πανταχοῦ παρών, καὶ τὰ πάντα πληρῶν,
ὁ θησαυρὸς τῶν ἀγαθῶν, καὶ ζωῆς χορηγός,
ἐλθὲ καὶ σκήνωσον ἐν ἡμῖν,
καὶ καθάρισον ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης κηλῖδος,
καὶ σῶσον, Ἀγαθέ, τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν. ἀμήν.
The song only slightly decreased his pain, but it was worth it. She finished sewing before she finished singing, so she just continued the song as she wrapped the wound and after. To her surprise he did not move after she finished caring for his wound, but waited until the end of the song.
"What was that? It sounded like a lullaby." He looked at her.
"Just a prayer."
"Hmm. If I teach you a language I know, would you teach me Amazonian Greek?"
"It doesn't have to be transactional, Bruce, but yes. Why not? It's something to do. And by the way, we don't call it Amazonian Greek, we just call it Ἑλληνική, or Greek. If you must categorize it like you modern people always do, there are very few differences from Ionic Greek. You don't get much linguistic evolution when everyone lives forever and there are no younger generations to shake things up."
Bruce stood up. "Alright, I'll just call it Helleinikei then."
Diana chuckled. "It's pronounced: Ἑλληνική."
"Fine. Ἑλλeiνικei."
Diana shook her head. "Close enough for now. I'm going to bed. σὲ ἀγαπῶ, Bruce."
"What does that mean, Diana?"
"Guess."
Bruce thought for a moment and then smirked. "I love you too, Diana."
Diana smiled and then realized a teaching moment, both of her language and of her thinking and culture. "But which type of love, Bruce?"
Bruce cocked his head. "What do you mean?"
"There are at least," she counted on her fingers, "three different types of love in my culture that you could mean by that statement."
"Diana...you know what I mean."
"Humor me, Bruce, this is actually really important to understanding how I think." He did not say anything so she assumed she had permission to continue. "The first and most common would be φιλία (philia), it is usually described as brotherly love, but it can also mean friendly love or the love of some object you like. The second is ἔρως (eros), usually described as romantic love-"
"But wait, that isn't what you said to me, is it?"
Diana smiled. "No, it wasn't hold on. It can also mean sexual love. And finally, we have ἀγάπη (agape), which is considered the highest form of love. It is a sort of-um what's the word-unconditional, self-sacrificial love."
"Okay." Bruce held his chin as he thought. "So that's what you always meant."
"What are you talking about?"
"When we were at home, you would say all the time that I was the most caring person you knew. That was the word you had, but it was never what you meant, was it?"
"No, it wasn't." Diana beamed. "I always meant ἀγάπη. What we're doing here counts, you know."
"What?"
"We're sacrificing ourselves for the whole world." Diana was only just now drawing this connection herself.
"I suppose you're right."