This is a Batman Arkham Fanfiction only.
Other Franchises will be included.
As it happens the two friends were once again trying to figure out what the hell are they going to eat, seeing that the menu actually changed and expanded quite a lot since their last mission, Hector had this weird thought that for some strange reason, every time they return from another merged reality mission, it seems that the menu in the mess hall changes, and new items from the last universe they went to get added.
It was almost like every time they went on one of these missions they gained either knowledge or skills, so somehow the person who was making and updating the menu gained knowledge of how to prepare food from all these merged realities they had gone to for each of their missions, and no they are only the ones that Hiro and Hector went to, food from the other places their colleagues go to are simply not present, and the people they work with are quite vocal about it. This made him wonder if this was done because his wife constantly appears in most of these missions as Nico Robin, he is happy about that since he knows that he would have nobody who actually cared about him if this wasn't the case.
It was not without having to mention but Hiro always seems to want to get as many of the women in the merged reality they entered to fall in love with him, and gets more than a little pissed that they sometimes pay more attention to Hector than they do to him. So if it wasn't because his wife does as she does and gets all the members of his harem to appear when called, Hector would have to simply sit and watch Hiro have all that fun with all those beautiful ladies from the reality they found themselves in, and him being utterly and completely alone.
Hiro had nothing to worry about, he had a set menu that he always had regardless of how many new items were added to it, and Hector always tried to expand his culinary horizon as his wife often told him, to try new things and broaden his horizons. "So Hector that thing you are eating looks like someone threw chili sauce on an octopus and deep-fried the damn thing before it knew what the hell happened."
Hector told him that it was not the case at all, it was an actual vegetarian dish since it had no meat at all, and the entire thing was made using potatoes and tomatoes, and they added the sauce as a garnish and seasoning once the dish was done cooking, it was baked not fried actually. Hiro quickly commented that it still looked horrible and made him think of a person being cruel to an animal, Hector told him that it may look strange but it was actually delicious. He loved the taste and the way the ingredients mixed together, and to make matters worse the way it was cooked and the ingredients used, this dish actually provided for his daily protein need.
Hiro asked him if he had enough time to do all this, when before they had to quite literally finish their meal as quickly as possible if he knew something bad was coming their way. Hector told him that indeed he knew that they would end up going to a place he would not like since his wife actually prepared something for him so having her cook something was essentially her trying to butter him up for something, and usually it had to do with something he didn't like at all.
"So you really think that the next merged reality we are going to is absolute crap, mind telling me why the hell do you always accept to go even if you don't want to go," Hector told him that his wife would not send him unless it was something that she felt it was something that needed to be taken care of, and to help her, he would endure it, he hates it, but he would go to that place if only to make sure she was happy. Hiro called him whipped beyond all reason, and for once Hector did not deny it and told Hiro that he was indeed whipped and quite proud of it. He said that as long as the wife was happy it would be a happy home, and he was not going to mess that up.
As Hector said this they heard someone call for him and Hiro to go to the office to hear about their new mission, it was going to be a place he hated but he simply accepted his fate, no matter how cruel it was. To Hector when this happens the entire pathway leading to the office felt like the long corridor that would lead him to the electric chair. As soon as he stepped into the office and she saw the look on her husband's face she could tell he was already aware it would be one of these horrible missions he hated so much.
The fact is if she could she would send Hiro alone to deal with that mission, but the one time that she did send him alone ended up causing such a colossal catastrophe that from that moment on, she decided to assign him a partner to prevent that from ever happening, the fact that this ended up causing her to meet her future husband was one of the reasons why she ended up thinking of this time in her life fondly. "There is no way to say this, we have a problem with those two evil versions of yourselves, they are at it again, and what they messed up was a part of DC that most consider sacred. They messed with the Batman continuity."
Hector was so shocked he almost sat down on a chair and fell to the ground, no matter how bad things were he believed there were several concepts that they would never mess with, and messing with the DC Batman continuity was one of them. "They fused every version of the Arkham series into one universe, so they fused a reality containing a reality based on each game, comic book, cartoon, movie, and noble based on the DC Gotham Arkham Series. So in a sense, it is a merged reality, but in a sense, since it is only merged with different versions of itself, it is not, and this is causing us all sorts of problems."
As much as he hated to admit it, if the Batman Arkham Series ended up destroyed it would cause all sorts of problems not only to them professionally but also personally, he could think of several deities who absolutely loved that series to such a degree they could be called fans of it, and if that disappeared they would be so furious that their rampage could cause the very fabric of reality to come undone.
She swiftly came to him and asked him if he was not aware that both of them could listen to his thoughts as easily as he could. Why would he think that Hiro would try to do those things to him and that he always ensured that even in those worlds he would have ladies who also loved him. Hiro went as far as to try and set up harems for him every time they entered the dimension.
Hector told her that maybe that was the case but in most of the cases he remembers that he had to spend time with women from other realities, and many came from harems that were formed from harems that actually would happen with the person they became during a particular mission, things went even more insane when Hiro used his ability to sometimes make enemies change genders and used that skill to make them fall in love with him, which at first was more than a little freaky.
"In one mission he turned Aries, yes that Aries into a woman and made her fall madly in love with me, from that moment on she had been a part of every single harem this guy supposedly set up with me, he did that to Hephaestus, and so many, Sakura Haruno often shows up, and it goes without saying, Nico Robin. But he always attempts to get as many women as possible from every single merged reality we end up going to. So you can't blame me for thinking that he wants to keep them all to himself."
Hiro objected that was not the case at all, he was his friend, and honestly, he didn't think that he had grown to distrust him like this, even though they had done so many missions together. He told him that if he actually let him pursue some of the women in the realm they are going maybe his opinion of this would change, much to his wife's chagrin Hiro actually accepted, that it is true having a person or several from that world would help make his standing and situation within that reality a lot more stable. So he accepted him doing that.
The goddess interjected and said she would accept no woman who was not strong if they were not skilled, powerful, or wise, she would not accept him adding women to their harem that did not measure up to her standards, there is no place for dead weights in the harem, and this was a sentiment all the members of the harem both agreed and enforced. Hector looked at her and told her that for an Egyptian Goddess, she was also quite the Amazon, to which she blushed and thanked her husband for the sweet compliment with a kiss.
"Ahem, maybe can we get back to the topic of the mission, we are going to enter this merged reality and it will be in the Batman Arkham series, one I am sure I know, Hector not as well as I do, so a little explanation of this mission would be more beneficial for him than me. So goddess can we please get back to the actual reason for this meeting?" She pouted and said that alright she would tell them the particulars of this mission, even if this was no different from any of the other realities where they entered dealing with either Batman or the Justice League.
"Fine, you both shall go and take the place of members of that world, Hiro will be Bruce Wayne, and Hector here sorry to say you will be Alfred Pennyworth. Because of the age difference, Hector will go first this will be done to ensure most of the changes happen even before Hiro enters, thus ensuring the success of your mission to that merged reality. This however means that my husband will have formed a harem there and more than likely had a few children with them even before Bruce Wayne begins his training to become Batman. So in reality most of the initial work will be done by Hector, and yes most of it will be under his alias the Eagle as Alfred was a member of British Intelligence or MI6 before he became employed by the Wayne family. He will meet quite a few beautiful women so he will have quite the harem by the time even Bruce Wayne is born. So no need to worry that your friend who will have to pretend to be a playboy will get all the women in that reality so you can relax."
Hector only had one complaint he hated the very notion of having to be a butler again, that one mission where they had to pretend to be butlers was simply horrible and he was not in any hurry to experience that sort of hell ever again. His wife acted coy and asked what in the world could he possibly mean, after all, she had a lovely time there, but then again she was not the one who needed to serve and attend to all those lovely young ladies who were there so that he developed his skills as a butler. Hector quickly remarked no she was not, but it didn't make matters easy that his wife had to be such a demanding instructor. She smiled and said that the demands on a butler were nothing to sneeze at, and therefore thanks to him going through that mission, he should have no problem at all being Alfred Pennyworth, now would he?
This did not make Hector any happier but at the very least he could do this for his wife, he had to, securing her happiness means that his entire home and life would be as happy as she is. He accepted the role assigned to him even if it means that he would have to be a butler again, but he made one simple comment that made Hiro worried, and that is if he as Bruce Wayne ever screws up he would get a severe lecture from him and would make him pay for it. Hector's tone showed none of his usual friendliness and promised severe pain.
Hiro looked at the goddess and asked that every character from every DC version be added to this story, meaning he wanted every character to be present within this new merged reality, Hector immediately accused him of just wanting to have more women whom he could try to seduce which earned him a glare from him and said that he wants more people so they could help them take care of the situation around the world, not just Gotham and the added characters would eventually add new members to the future Justice League. She told them she would be happy to add as many characters as possible even if it means including every version of the Justice League that has ever existed.
Hiro was not even done yet, he realized that many people who normally existed within that universe would be long dead by the time their actual mission began, so he asked the goddess if she could make sure all the people who could be of help would be alive or revive them so they could be there to help them in their mission. She was not happy to hear Hiro make so many requests but she knew this would be for the best so she agreed to his requests.
Knowing that they would meet people from across all DC versions made Hector worry, if some of those came from the dark side of that universe, their counterparts made the ones in the normal universe seem tame by comparison, so he knew he would not be able to lounge around as much as he hoped, and chances are his fear that Hiro did this with ulterior motives was still in his mind. As the time finally came and they began to disappear he found himself in what looked to be military barracks, it seems this life would begin when he was still a young adult and had been conscripted into the royal navy.
He did not slack off and spent every second becoming stronger, smarter, and better than those around him earning him recognition and commendations from his superiors, he quickly rose in rank and eventually was sent to officer training school, as he kept training harder and harder he, however, failed to notice that several ladies around him began to take notice of him, at first he was not much to look at, but Alfred was always busy, and even when he was he would help anyone in need of help and did so without asking or expecting any reward. He used his skills to help a mother who had lost sight of her child, he helped an old lady carry her groceries which were too heavy for her and he stopped a group of kids from picking fights or bullying those they consider weaker.
He could no longer live in the enlisted barracks so his superiors assigned him a one-bedroom apartment, he had access to all the facilities on the base mess hall, gym, library, and even the base store, his living condition was meager if not humble, he had little to no decorations and his furniture was if anything stuff he bought from second-hand shops. He wondered if this would be his life from now till the day he finally retired alone and miserable. That is when he felt a sudden run through his body, his nerves felt like they were on fire, and as he endured it he fell asleep still in his uniform on the floor, the next morning he woke up having the memories and information he had been missing since coming into this reality.
He suddenly remembered everything and he knew of his powers and skills, his knowledge of what would later happen made him more and more determined to become strong, otherwise, he would never survive the hell that would one day come, he also began to read books about things that most of the other new officers had no idea why he was doing, he studied like he was possessed and every technical or skill book he could get his hands on was read several times. The captain that he served under had a major problem, he needed to go to a meeting, and his car would not start, none of the other officers the same rank as Alfred knew what to do, but without wasting a second Alfred looked at what was wrong with the car, and using his skills and knowledge he fixed it, as the captain was quite happy that he would be able to get to the meeting on time.
The captain was so worried and preoccupied with what he needed to do in that meeting that he jumped into the car and took off without even saying a single word of gratitude to Alfred, some of the people who saw this were not happy at all, this made him want to stop them from protesting, and told the others that he did not need or expect any show of gratitude, nobody asked him for his help. One of the men who graduated with him from officers school told him that is not important, when someone does a person a favor they should at the very least thank them for it. Alfred thanked him for being upset on his behalf but told Jim that if they protested the superiors could classify this as disrespecting a superior officer, so he would instead be grateful that those who were angry did so because they cared about him and what happened.
It was when their world was in the middle of the Second World War, this time allowed Alfred many opportunities to shine and become someone people pay attention to, as a naval officer he was always by the book and was moral and strict as they come, as a tactician he was brutal to his enemies, his strategies left no chance for surrender or escape, if Alfred Pennyworth was on a ship and they faced the enemy, the enemy would soon realize they were going to go down to a watery grave, and Alfred had no problem in sending them there.
The way the concentration camps were made, and the systematic planning of the genocide of an entire set of people upset him to the point that any chance Germany had for mercy went out the window. He would sink ships in such brutal ways that some of the crew made them joke that they felt more like pirates than actual military. Alfred was not going to put up with this on his watch, "Alright you dirty stinking scallywags, we ain't here to make friends with these land-loving fools, we are here to send them to Davy Jones' Locker, so let us cleanse our sea of this scum, or so help him I shall keelhaul you. Is that clear!" The entire crew yelled that it was crystal clear as they all shouted to the top of their lungs, "Aye, Aye, Captain!"
This had the not-so-funny reaction that it irked the actual ship captain who would later admonish Alfred for doing something that rilled his crew up like this, "Pennyworth there is no need to heed their delusions or play into their tomfoolery. Why would you even do something like this, what possible benefit could this do for us?" Alfred looked at the Captain and said it motivated the crew and improved morale, two things they need when they are facing German U-boats. Alfred having memories from what would seem to be the future, used that knowledge to actually do something Germany hated him immensely for, he improved depth charges to the point that they only needed one to sink a single U-boat, this thing could practically detect them and detonate, and what is worse it would attach to the U-boat in such a way that there was no way to dislodge it, one battle Alfred proved the efficiency of these new depth charges by sinking five U-boats that had been spying on them, each using a single depth charge.
The next thing he did was take the rifles that they were using and actually improved them by making actual working M16 rifles instead. This was such an improvement that the Allies became able to clear out more and more enemies, the rifle was fast, held more ammo, and the range it could hit a target was nothing to sneeze at. The next improvement came in the form of body armor, he used all his knowledge to create body armor that would have been only available decades later, the people in charge of making these improvements and the scientists who streamlined them into actual use were speechless on how much this one brit could do for the war effort.
Sadly the only thing he could not tell them openly was how to enrich uranium to become weapon-grade or how to build the atomic bomb, as sad as it sounds certain events still need to happen, but thanks to his improvements in equipment the number of soldiers that died became less and less, and the enemies were absolutely noticing the difference. After that escapade on that ship, Alfred was sent to the front line and maybe help in actual combat with his supposed tactical genius, something that some of his superiors were not happy to admit.
He was placed in charge of a unit on the front lines, it was not especially nice when the unit was not that well-behaved but slowly and surely he managed to get them to see the reason behind his choices, he was not one of these people who gave orders without a reason, expecting the soldiers to follow the order blindly, and yes he wanted to have major victories for their unit, but to him getting everyone back home was always the first priority, something that Marie understood as she often was there to help him during the heavy fighting on french soil.
Through many battles and many near-death experiences, the unit got closer and came to rely on each other, much to their shock there were several ladies dressed in particularly strange uniforms, Alfred knew what they were wearing and who they were thanks to his memories, and he knew these women were not to be messed with, these were experienced Amazon warriors, and if some frigging moron decided to cope a feel with one of them, each and every one of them could beat that idiot to pieces. He made sure his unit understood that they might be pretty, but those pretty birds had feathers that would put them six feet under if they were not careful or kept their distance.
That is when one of the Amazon heard him and told their leader, the one in charge of the group went up to Alfred as he was using something to check out the area where they would be headed off next, he was using a retractable compact spyglass to check from higher heights as he was standing on the limb of one of the large trees in the area. Thinking people would not bother to simply look up and find him there. Much to Alfred's shock someone actually did and it was this particular Amazon who jumped up and landed to stand right next to him.
"Some of my Amazon siblings have told me that you told your men something particularly interesting, something about giving us plenty of space and not getting too close to us, I came to find out what exactly you mean by that." Alfred did not bother stopping his scouting and told her, that if any of his men decided to take liberties they were not granted, messing with any of her fellow amazons would have been bad, if not lethal to the idiot, so to prevent any of his unit dying he simply warned them. He knows better than to mess with a group of Amazons, even though mostly he expected to see only women and not men since by all myths men were supposed to be working on things to help others prepare for battle.
"That is true in the past they were sent to work in the iron mines and to work the forge that produced most if not all of our armor and weapons, but that had changed since my generation, and currently my daughter who leads the Amazons has allowed men who wish to prove themselves to also join in the fighting. What I find strange is that you an outsider know so much of our ways and customs." Alfred finally finished scouting the area and he collapsed the spyglass and put it back into his belt pouch, he looked at her and told her that Amazon myths have been written since the time of ancient Greece, so all he needed to do was read those and take everything with a healthy amount of skepticism and doubt and he could understand what her people were supposed to be like.
As he said this he greeted her with as much respect and dignity as he could and treated her as he would treat a lady at the very least, "I am Alfred Pennyworth, and who might you be my lady?" She was surprised and mentioned that she found it rather touching to be talking to such a gentleman, she looked at him and smiled as she decided to introduce herself. "we are currently in this war as a test to see if my daughter Hippolyta is ready to assume the position of Queen of the Amazons, I am the current queen myself I am called Queen Alcippe but you can just call me Alcippe. You are quite correct in thinking that if any of my Amazons are insulted they will make that person pay."