[Emissary] Chapter 9 - Contingency Measures (Patreon)

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Chapter 9 - Contingency Measures

Killing Vandal Savage hadn’t done much to quell his anger. His emotions were so turbulent that his magic was lashing out at the world around him.

He could tell a battle was lost when he saw one so Harry decided to take the easy way out. He aimed the Elder Wand at his own face before saying:

“Stupefy.”

He knocked himself unconscious. It was vintage, classic Harry Potter. It was a habit that he had picked up during the decades he had spent on the battlefield in his first lifetime.

⁂

A long night of forced sleep did wonders to quell his fury. Still, he felt like it was not enough, so he decided to distract himself from his thoughts with work. It was only a temporary solution, but it would have to do for the moment.

Before that, he needed to buy himself a change of clothes because everything he owned had been destroyed when the meteorite erased Manhattan off the surface of the earth. Clothes conjured with magic didn’t last that long, and he risked becoming naked if Hawkgirl’s mace were to come into contact with them. It was better to have proper clothes.

Bearing that thought in mind, he Disapparated. His destination? Omaha, Nebraska's most populous city,.

‘I wonder, would an armour made of Nth metal be able to block the Killing Curse?’ Harry thought idly as he walked into a Target store.

He looked around for a few minutes, but the store was rather large and packed with customers. Not in the mood to waste 15 minutes or more looking for stuff, he asked the closest person next to him.

“Excuse me, madam, could you tell me where the clothing aisle is?”

“Oh, dear, of course. Follow me,” the old lady said warmly and smiled.

“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Just show me the general direction, and I’ll find it.”

“It’s no biggie. It’s not every day that I get to walk with a strapping young man by my side.”

Harry chuckled at the jolly old grandma.

“Thank you. In exchange, let me carry your basket.”

“What a polite young man!" she smiled. “There aren’t many like you these days. My grandson could learn a thing or two from you.”

“How old is he?” he asked.

“He’ll be 16 in a few days. You know how teenagers are. Yesterday-”

The old lady’s words were cut off as several gunshots suddenly rang in the shop and people started screaming in panic.

To his surprise, she didn’t appear to be terrified, but she did pull on his hand and urged him to crouch and hide behind the shelves.

“Don’t worry, madam. I got this,” he said and gave her a reassuring smile before taking out his wand.

The old lady’s smile stiffened when the polite and nice young man suddenly turned invisible, disappearing from her eyes.

⁂

“Nobody moves!” a man armed with a glock screamed as he fired three bullets at the ceiling.

He was wearing a dark blue hoodie, and a surgical mask covered the lower part of his face, but, judging by his voice, he appeared to be a teenager.

Next to him, two other boys in brown and white hoodies rushed to the registers and violently pushed away the cashiers by kicking and punching them before quickly taking out all the money.

However, at that moment, the teenager wearing the dark blue hoodie unexpectedly aimed his gun at one of his friends' legs and pulled the trigger.

Several people screamed, but it was nothing compared to the howls of agony that the robber let out as he collapsed to the floor, holding onto his thigh.

“Tyrone! What the fuck, man?!" the brown-hoodie robber swore. He couldn’t believe their friend would turn against them in the middle of a heist like that.

He quickly threw himself to the right, trying to dodge when the armed teenager aimed his gun at him next but it was to no avail. The blue-hoodie teen seemed to have become a master marksman out of nowhere because, even with the brown-hoodie teen jumping away, his bullet nailed him in the thigh perfectly.

While the two teenagers were wailing on the ground in pain, the blue-hoodie teen switched the gun from his right hand to the left and then aimed at his own right palm before pulling the trigger. Creepier than everything that had happened until then, the boy didn’t even let out a whine or a yell of pain when he shot a hole through his palm.

The police and the ambulance arrived at the scene not long after that, but Harry didn’t stick around to give any explanations. Once he was done changing into a new set of clothes, still under an invisibility spell, he left a few bills on the cash register and Disapparated.

⁂

“I wonder where Emissary is now,” John Stewart asked as he lifted a large piece of collapsed concrete with his power ring.

“Who is that?” asked another Green Lantern. Tall, brown-haired, and well-built, Hal Jordan was John Stewart’s senior and his complete opposite in terms of personality.

“We got a new member about two weeks ago. A magician.”

“A magician? Like Zatanna?” Hal asked, momentarily pausing in his actions as his mind went to the attractive sorceress and her eye-catching stage girl hero suit. “Is he any good?”

“Any good? He’s incredible.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Hal remarked.

“It’s well-deserved. If he had been here, all this mess would’ve been cleared in a matter of seconds,” John said.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. His magic is something special. All he [...]”

Hal tuned out the rest of whatever his colleague was saying when a young woman wearing a white leotard suit and a red cape flew past them carrying an immense bundle of ruined steel beams on her back.

“You’re never going to change, are you?” John said with a sigh, making Hal realise that he had been ogling.

“Give me a break, man. I’ve been stuck in Sector 796 for three months already. Have you seen those people? They all look like squids over there! I haven’t seen a sexy lady in ages! And she is definitely a sight for sore eyes.”

Seeing as Hawkgirl was within earshot, John didn’t comment on Power Girl's sexiness. Instead, he said:

“It’s best you give up. Superman would never let a womaniser like you anywhere close to her.”

“Hey! I resent that! Womaniser sounds so wrong! It makes one think that I’m a douchebag, which I am not! Call me a passionate admirer of the fairer sex!”

“You two over there! Less talking and more working!” someone shouted at them from a good distance away. It was Captain Atom.

“Who died and put you in charge, huh?” Hal yelled back in annoyance.

“You came back to Earth not even two hours ago, man, don’t start a fight now..." John said exasperated.

“Ugh, I just can’t stand that guy!” said Hal as he controlled his ring to conjure a construct of green light that looked like the cup of an enormous excavator.

“I think he’s a great guy. The Justice League of Europe is doing well under his leadership.”

“Colour me surprised. Former military and stickler to the rules, just like you. You might as well call each other brothers,” Hall said, sniffing in annoyance.

Elongated Man happened to pass by and stretched his neck all the way up to their altitude to pipe in:

“He’s just mad that Cap didn’t let him flirt with our PG when he came to Europe.”

“Shut up and get back to your work!” Hal hollered after Elongated Man's retreating form as he snickered like a hyena.

“Ralph hit a home run with that, didn’t he?” Flash also quipped in before rushing away, continuing to clear all the debris he could lift with his physical strength.

“What’s this, what’s with you all? Did you decide beforehand to bully me the moment I arrived?” Hal said in annoyance when the rest of the members of the Justice League in the vicinity and even the regular construction workers nearby started laughing too.

⁂

On the other side of Manhattan, Superman, Wonder Woman, Red Rocket, Power Girl, Animal Man, and many others were working on clearing out the wreckage too.

Superman was slightly distracted as he kept an eye on his pseudo-cousin.

“Powergirl, don’t overdo it!” he said when he saw her flying over with an enormous bundle of steel beams. They had to be weighing over a hundred tonnes by the looks of it.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” she yelled over her shoulder as she flew away.

“You shouldn’t be working this hard. You never know when your powers might fail you again.”

Superman let out a long, drawn-out sigh as he watched her fly away.

“Am I the only one who thinks she should sit out? Am I overreacting?” he asked Animal Man, who was using an ant’s strength to lift an enormous broken tree trunk above his head.

“I agree with you… but you know how PG she is. When has she ever done as she was told? The more you insist on her doing something, the more she’ll want to go against what you say.”

“You should give her some space, Superman,” Wonder Woman said from the side as she used her Lasso of Truth to carry away a 16-wheel truck. “She’s a grown-up woman; she can take care of herself.”

As Power Girl returned to get another piece of wreckage out, she asked:

“Hey, it just occurred to me, but aren’t we basically working for nothing? What’s the point of all this when Emissary can just come and cast a spell to make it all as good as new?”

“But what if he doesn’t come back? J’onn can’t find him anywhere, and he doesn’t have an address, a phone, or anything else either. We don’t even know if he’s still alive anymore.”

“No, he’s definitely alive,” Power Girl said. “Supergirl and I saw him teleporting away. He must’ve thought that someone kidnapped him or something, or he wouldn’t have disappeared like that.”

“Be that as it may, we don’t know when he’ll return. It could be days, weeks, months—God knows how long. We can’t just sit on our hands and do nothing until then.”

Just as Superman said those words, a tornado of fire was lit in the skies above New York.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Animal Man exclaimed.

“Speak of the devil!” Power Girl laughed. “I told you he was alive!”

It was the same method that Harry Potter had used a month ago to make the Justice League of Europe come to him in London.

⁂

Beige chino pants, white trainers, and a blue sweatshirt… that outfit was a far cry from the intimidating black battle robes that Emissary used to wear before. However, three things hadn’t changed at his appearance: the strange magic wand in his hand, the skull-like mask covering his face, and his messy black hair were still the same.

“Dude! You’re alive!” Flash was the first to arrive at his location and threw an arm over his shoulders.

“That I am. But it was a close one. It’s good to be back,” Harry said, pleasantly surprised at the speedster’s warm reception.

Power Girl was the next to arrive, and, to his great surprise, she actually gave him a short hug.

“You gave us quite the scare, you know?”

And she wasn’t the only one. A few moments later, Superman and Green Lantern came to shake his hand and pat him on the back, he got a second hug from Wonder Woman, and a friendly punch in the shoulder that numbed his entire arm from Hawkgirl.

Until then, nobody among the members of the Justice League had died, so everyone was greatly relieved that he was not going to be the first to pass away.

Once the greetings were all done away with, Harry said:

“We’ll talk more about what happened to me later on. For now, I’d like to cast my spell on the city.”

“Can you really fix all this?” Elongated Man asked.

He had watched videos of Emissary magically repairing property damage before, but the amount of destruction this time was simply on a different scale.

“It won’t be easy, but it should be doable. But there are three things we have to take care of before that,” Harry said. “First, are there any survivors buried underneath the rubble?”

Superman shook his head as he said:

“Green Lantern, Supergirl, and I have scoured the city with our X ray vision for several days. We’ve saved everyone who survived the impact. Besides, it’s been a week since then.”

He didn’t continue, but it was clear to Harry what he meant. Even if someone survived the meteorite impact, if they weren’t found a week after the incident, they certainly died of suffocation, thirst, or starvation.

“I see,” Harry said slowly.

“What’s the second thing?” asked Flash.

“Everyone needs to evacuate from the destroyed city. My spell won’t work on humans, but while all ruins fly back into their former place, they could easily kill a regular person if they were to stand in the way.”

“Hm, that’s going to take an hour or two,” Captain Atom said. “There are dozens of heroes and thousands of regular construction workers working with us to rebuild the city now.”

Metahumans and regular people from all over the world flew over to New York after the catastrophic meteorite impact to help with whatever they could. A week after the tragic incident, the renovating work was in full swing.

“No problem; I can wait. The third thing will probably be even more time-consuming. All the materials that were taken away from this place need to be brought back because once I cast my magic, everything that was taken away will fly back to this place, regardless of how many people or buildings are in the way.”

⁂

It didn’t take long for the construction crews to evacuate the demolished sections of the city, but the matter of bringing back all the rubble and debris that had been carried away wasn’t something that could be achieved in an hour or two.

“How is this even remotely fair?!” Hal complained loudly as he flew after John, who was heading towards the main garbage dump where the debris carried away from the city had been stored.

Due to the nature of their abilities, the Green Lanterns were perfect for scooping up a large amount of that debris with their power rings and bringing it back to Manhattan. In comparison, the rest of the heroes couldn’t help with much. It was mostly a job for regular people to do.

Therefore, what was supposed to be a day of assiduous work unexpectedly turned into a social gathering for the members of the Justice League of America and Europe combined.

It painted a rather amusing image to see so many grown-up men and women dressed in all sorts of flashy Hero costumes having a barbecue on the Manhattan beach.

‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d be tempted to think it’s a Muggle Halloween party,’ Harry thought in slight amusement.

He had conjured chairs, tables, and even large umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. There was no music or dancing, but some people still didn’t feel comfortable relaxing at that moment.

“Is it really okay for us to be having a party now?” Superman asked with an uncomfortable look on his face.

Not even two weeks passed since the catastrophic meteorite impact, and the city was still in ruins. So many people died, and even more were left severely injured. Sitting together with his friends on the beach and flipping sausages on the grill just felt…wrong.

“You’ve all worked so hard until now to rescue all the survivors,” Sue, Elongated Man’s wife, said with a smile and handed him a can of coke. “Especially you, Superman. For the past week, you’ve been here nearly 24/7. There is nothing wrong with taking a break to recharge your batteries.”

“Can you imagine if the mass media caught wind of this? I can picture the headlines perfectly in my mind: Not even two weeks after the death of a million, the Justice League is throwing a party among the ruins of New York City,” Superman said, still unconvinced.

“Emissary’s spells prevent anyone from seeing what’s going on here,” Flash said to mollify his worries. “Right?” he turned to Harry to ask for confirmation.

“Right. Whether it’s people or video cameras, nobody can see what’s going on inside the perimeter of Runes that I drew. For all they know, the beach is still deserted and filled with wreckage,” Harry said.

“Wouldn’t hurt for you to get some rest and relax too, big guy,” Red Rocket also said.

“Don’t be like that, Superman. Look, even Captain Atom is having a rest,” Power Girl said and pointed towards the steel-like hero who was chatting with Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter.

In truth, Captain Atom didn’t need to drink, eat, or sleep. He was as immortal as they come. However, he wasn’t opposed to spending some time outside of work once in a while to interact with his friends… with normal people. It reminded him that, despite having become a creature of radiation, he was still human in heart and mind.

Eventually, Superman gave in to peer pressure and joined the rest of his friends too.

It was not a rambunctious kind of party, but, after more than a week of arduous work and rescuing the survivors trapped underneath buildings, that little barbecue of theirs turned out to be the very thing they needed.

Gathered around several grills in groups of three or four, the heroes had a great time chatting and catching up with each other as they prepared their food.

Unexpectedly, four hours after the start of their small "party", the two Green Lanterns came to join them too.

Both John and Hal were sweaty, breathing heavily, and looking exhausted, but their eyes were burning with excitement. Hal Jordan in particular made a beeline towards a grill, all the while chanting:

“Pork chops! Sausages! Chicken thighs! Ribs!”

The rest burst into laughter at his behaviour. Hal may have had his flaws, but one thing was undeniable: wherever he went, he became the centre of attention, and the goofy persona he sometimes showed to his friends never failed to make them laugh.

⁂

While the Justice League of America and the Justice League of Europe were having a nice barbecue, Batman was all alone in the Watchtower, sitting in front of his supercomputer.

Although several days had passed since the Justice League’s meeting with Amanda Waller, Batman couldn’t stop thinking about it.

‘Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and even Martain Manhunter had so readily agreed to help the government with Vandal Savage’s execution…”

He was well aware of the fact that Vandal Savage deserved to die after the atrocity that he had just committed. However, he wasn’t supposed to die at the Justice League’s hands. That wasn’t what they fought for. The Justice League was supposed to be a symbol of hope and safety for the people of Earth, not a punitive force.

“Before I am a hero, I am an Amazon, Superman. And my mother taught me that some people are beyond redemption. Sometimes, killing is the only method to stop the evil.”

His eyebrows furrowed behind his mask as he recalled Wonder Woman’s words.

‘A few days ago, they agreed to help the government execute Savage. But what if there will come a day when she decides that the only way to stop someone is by killing them?’ he thought. ‘If the Justice League were to go rogue, what would happen to the world? Who would even be able to stop them?’

Superman was a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut with seemingly infinite strength. Wonder Woman wasn’t that far below him but much more skilled and with no apparent weaknesses.

Green Lantern was in possession of the most powerful and versatile weapon in the universe, a Power Ring.

Flash was the fastest man alive.

Martian Manhunter’s powers made him look almost like a demigod to regular people.

Hawkgirl, with her violent tendencies, could be a danger to all too if she were to go rogue because Batman had yet to see anything that her Nth Metal mace had not been able to crush to bits.

Then there was Captain Atom, a walking, living nuclear weapon.

‘Last, but not least, Emissary.’

His eyes narrowed as he thought about the newest member of the Justice League.

‘He survived getting hit flush by a meteorite that razed Manhattan off the surface of the Earth… is he, perhaps, immortal?’

Although several weeks had passed since Harry Potter joined the Justice League, Batman still didn’t trust him. Not one bit. He simply couldn’t.

‘Vandal Savage disappeared yesterday from the government’s maximum security secret facility, despite the fact that Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl were there too. Furthermore, the power was cut and all the security cameras were fried as if they were hit by an EMP.’

No matter how he looked at it, that deed had ‘Emissary’ written all over it.

‘He can turn invisible, teleport at will, and destroy any electronics by touching them or with a pulse of his magic.’

Harry Potter was his number-one suspect. All the evidence and his own gut as a detective pointed to that too.

‘But the question is, to what end? Why did he kidnap him? Was it for revenge? Did he want to kill him with his own hands? Does he have a spell capable of killing an immortal like Vandal Savage?’

The more he thought about it, the higher Harry Potter’s level of danger rose in his mind.

‘Immortality, teleportation, invisibility, flight, transformation spells, EMP, elemental attacks, conjuration, and, possibly, a spell capable of killing even immortals… is there anything he cannot do?’

By now, he was already putting him on the same level of threat as Captain Atom, Superman, and Wonder Woman. At the very least, the Man of Steel wouldn’t be impossible to subdue if he had a piece of kryptonite on hand, but Batman was momentarily drawing a blank when he thought about how to deal with the likes of Emissary, Captain Atom, and Wonder Woman, who seemed not to have any apparent weaknesses.

Merely thinking about it was not enough. He started typing quickly on his keyboard, creating profiles for every member of the Justice League and listing their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.

‘I hope I’ll never have to use this…However, better be safe than sorry.’

Batman had not forgotten about the incident with Superman when Darkseid controlled his mind and made him attack the Earth. He knew better than to dismiss the possibility, as small as it may have been, that the Justice League might turn evil one day.

‘If it could happen with Superman, it could happen with anyone.’

If the most good-natured person that he had ever met in his life could become a ruthless destroyer like Superman did under Darkseid’s brainwashing, Batman had no doubt whatsoever that anyone else could be corrupted too.

Just like that, a few hours passed as Batman worked hard at compiling data about his fellow members of the Justice League and making plans on how to neutralise them if worse came to worst.

A while later, his cellphone’s ringtone broke the silence of the monitor room.

“Yes, Alfred, what is it?” Batman asked as he pressed on his earbud to answer the call.

“Master Bruce. You might want to turn on the Metropolis News Channel. It appears that Lex Luthor suddenly barged into a Metropolis police station wearing a power suit and demanded to speak to Superman.”

“How is this possible? Wasn’t he imprisoned at Stryker’s Island?”

“That’s the strangest thing. They checked up on his cell, and Lex Luthor was still locked behind bars. It appears that there are two Lex Luthors. The police are at a loss for what to do with him.’

“Superman and the rest of the Justice League are in a place isolated from the outside world now, so he can't get there. I’ll go to Metropolis and have a look myself,” Batman said as he saved the files he had been working on and downloaded them on a card. Once he deleted all traces of them from the computer, he stood up and went to the Watchtower’s hangar.

‘Speaking of, just what is going through their mind? How could they isolate their party like that from the outside world? We’re lucky that the criminals have been laying low ever since the meteorite catastrophe, or else this would be a recipe for disaster,’ he thought.

Considering how swiftly the government arrested Vandal Savage and sentenced him to the death penalty, metahuman and regular human criminals alike were all lying low now, afraid of retribution. They didn’t want to push their luck. Therefore, despite the fact that so many metahumans focused on rescuing people in New York and left their cities behind, the number of crimes dropped drastically instead of rising with their absence.

‘Sigh… first things first. Who is this second Lex Luthor?'