[Emissary] Chapter 37 - Black Adam (III)

An arc of lightning flickered through the air, and Green Lantern grunted as his shield was shattered into countless specks of light.

Before Ragman could even react, he found himself launched into the wall to the side, slamming into it violently.

“Good morning, Mr President. I’ve come to talk to you.”

Black hair, a very tall and muscular physique, sharp ears, a strong jaw, and wearing a black skin-tight suit with a large yellow lightning motif on his chest. He was none other than Black Adam.

Despite his words, Black Adam didn’t give the president a chance to speak because he caught him by the neck and started choking him.

Holding the president hostage by the neck, Black Adam turned to the rest of the heroes and said in a menacing voice:

“Nobody moves, or he dies.”

Despite his warning, dozens of policemen and special forces operatives immediately took out their weapons and shouted as they aimed them at Black Adam. The heroes, both those from the Justice League and those from Argus, all jumped up to their feet, while some women and children among the spectators started screaming in panic.

But Black Adam was not the only uninvited guest. Nearly 40 people among the spectators suddenly took out their daggers and grabbed the closest person to them, putting their blades at their necks, taking them hostage.

Furthermore, several other imposing figures dropped on the stage, right next to Black Adam.

A very tall and muscular man with shoulder-length white hair and, next to him, two identical, white-haired men who looked like his children. They were none other than Ares, the God of War, and Deimos and Phobos, his sons.

A rather tall and very beautiful woman with long, dark red hair wearing an outfit rather similar to that of Wonder Woman, but with a black cloak added to it. She was Circe, a powerful, legendary witch.

A muscular man wearing black armour and a helmet resembling a sea creature that covered most of his face except for the mouth and wielding a silver trident: he was Ocean Master, Aquaman’s brother.

And, lastly, a slender woman covered in light brown fur and possessing a cat’s claws, fangs, ears, nose, and tail. She was Cheetah, one of Wonder Woman’s most bitter enemies.

“It must be so nice holding an award ceremony here, in the capital of the United States,” Black Adam spoke while holding the president by the throat. “Patting yourselves on the back for what great heroes you are. Praising yourselves for the crime rate shooting down another per cent. . . While you are sending assassins, in secret, to kill me and my family.”

Wonder Woman stepped out of her seat slowly, with her hands raised, to show that she did not have any intentions to attack.

“I don’t know what happened, but you don’t have to do this, Black Adam,” she said, trying to calm him down. “There has to be another way –”

“Of course you don’t know,” Black Adam cut her off. “The Justice League doesn’t know anything. It does not know about the wars raging all across the Earth. It does not know about the injustice happening right under their very nose.”

“Then tell us. Put Mr President down, and we can talk about it. We can discuss it together,” Wonder Woman tried to reason with him. “You are the leader of a country, too. Don’t do something that you will regret. Think of the consequences, not just for yourself but for the people of your country as well.”

“You want me to talk?” Black Adam asked, his voice quivering with fury as he turned to face her fully. Lightning flickered in his eyes as he shouted. “Will talking bring my dead wife back to life? Will talking resurrect her? Are you capable of doing something like that, Wonder Woman?”

With his growing anger, the police and the special force operatives present at the scene grew anxious and started screaming at Black Adam:

“Put Mister President down right away!” 

“Put him down or we’ll shoot!”

But, in front of Black Adam, they were like dogs barking at the wrong tree. There could be a tank gun aimed at him, and he would not care, to say nothing of their handguns and rifles.

The beautiful sorceress, however, had had enough of their shouting, and she raised her hands at them lazily.

Under everyone’s disbelieving eyes, the policemen and the special force operatives were all transformed into pigs, their weapons falling to the floor with a loud clatter of metal.

“I see that 2000 years spent in Tartarus were still not enough to change your hobbies,” Ares spoke with a grin.

“What can I say, my lord? Old habits die hard.”

The heroes stood as though they were petrified, not knowing what to do. If it had been only the president’s life at stake, they might have been able to come up with a solution, but it was not just one life at risk: 40 other innocent people were being held hostage at knife and gunpoint.

Power Girl clenched her fists, her mind going into overdrive as he tried to come up with a solution.

‘Could I disarm those 40 criminals without harming the hostages before they could react?’

‘Am I fast enough?’

She had never moved as fast as that, not even when she had to save Flash from the bomb that Project Cadmus’s members had strapped to his wrist.

‘And then, there’s the president too.’

Even if she was fast enough to disarm all those criminals, the president was being held hostage by Black Adam, whom many believed to be the most powerful metahuman in the world.

“Now that the rabble is out of the way, let us continue,” Black Adam said. “You are probably wondering why I’m doing this. It’s all very simple-”

At that moment, a voice rang in Power Girl’s mind.

“Power Girl, this is Raven. Don’t react. Don’t talk. I can’t hold this telepathic link for long. Zatanna will cast a spell to make everyone drop their weapons. Flash and Shazam will incapacitate the criminals. You will use your heat vision on Black Adam’s hand and tackle him out of the way. Green Lantern will catch and rescue the president with his power ring. I will try to hold Circe at bay until Zatanna comes to help me. Starfire, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Woman will charge at Ares and his sons. Tilt your head to the left if you’re on board with the plan.”

Power Girl let out a breath of relief. Usually, especially over the course of the last half a year, since Superman fell into a coma, Power Girl was treated as the ‘muscle’ of the Justice League. She was the cavalry. Whenever things got too hard to handle, she was the one whom they called to save the day, just like it happened a few hours ago, too, with the natural disaster at the Vajon Dam in Italy.

It was comforting to see that the other members of the Justice League could also pull their weight when it mattered. She couldn’t have solved this situation all by herself.

After she tilted her head to the left as she was asked, Raven’s voice rang in her head again, and from the looks of it, it seemed like she was telepathically connected to all the heroes that she had chosen to break this deadlock:

“Everyone, Power Girl is on board with the plan. I will count to 5. When I say go, we all burst into action with no hesitation.”

“1. 2. 3. 4. 5. GO!”

Black Adam was in the middle of his monologue when Zatanna suddenly shouted:

"Enoyreve pord ruoy snopaew!"

It sounded like gibberish, but it was actually her way of casting spells by speaking backwards. What the incantation meant was “Everyone drop your weapons”.

Zatanna had yet to even finish her sentence when Kara’s eyes became red, and two crimson beams of light burst forth, shooting straight towards Black Adam’s wrist.

Black Adam cried out in pain, involuntarily opening his hand and dropping the president. He had yet to recover from his surprise when a shockwave destabilised everyone in the ruined building as Power Girl lunged at him, nearly breaking the sound barrier.

Simultaneously, Green Lantern caught the president with a construct of green light and pulled him away while the rest of the heroes from both ARGUS and the Justice League took action, but Kara didn’t register any of that.

A shockwave exploded, windows shattered, the walls cracked, and the partially destroyed ceiling collapsed as Power Girl slammed into Black Adam, tackled him through the wall, outside of the building, and crashed with him into a fountain.

Black Adam attempted to push her off himself, but the Kryptonian’s strength was monstrous, even beyond his, despite that he derived his physical strength from the Egyptian God, Amun.

“Shazam!” he shouted.

The sky instantly darkened, and a bolt of magic lightning came down from the clouds, striking Kara in the back.

A sound like glass breaking was heard as one of the protective enchantments that Harry had cast on her clothes (the one on her cloak in particular) was shattered. Nevertheless, it had achieved its purpose, protecting her from a lightning spell that could have otherwise injured her severely.

“Shaz-” he tried to call down the lightning a second time, but a fist smashed into his mouth.

The power behind her strike was such that a massive crater was formed under Black Adam’s head.

Power Girl immediately raised her fist to punch him again, but he had not lived for over 3000 years for nothing. His knowledge and understanding of martial arts were second to none. When she struck a second time, he tilted his head, dodging her punch, and then he used her momentum against her and made her lose her balance, thus rolling her off him.

She spun around quickly, but he was already up on his feet, and a bolt of lightning shot forth from his hands, smashing into her chest.

Despite the Rune Magic inscribed into her hero suit, Power Girl cried out in pain as a portion of his divine lightning bypassed Harry’s protective spells.

The lightning spell sent her skidding across the plaza, her high-heeled boots carving a trench into the pavement as she did her best to stop.

“Don’t get in my way, Power Girl. The last time I fought Superman, I beat him to an inch of his life, and he’s more powerful than you. You don’t stand a chance at stopping me and my allies.”

Power Girl flicked her short hair out of her face, not impressed.

"My cousin always holds back so he doesn’t accidentally turn low-lives like you into red mist. That’s the only reason you ever got a win over him. But I’m not Superman. I don’t have his patience. And I don’t have his restraint. Not after you and your crime buddies took hostages and threatened to kill the president.”

“I gave you a chance to live, but you turned it down. Don’t blame me for what happens next,” Black Adam growled, lightning crackling around his closed fists again.

The time for talking ended. Black Adam and Power Girl became nothing but a blur to the human eye as they charged at each other.

They collided mid-air, punching each other hard enough to rattle the surrounding buildings. Every single one of their hits created shockwaves that raised clouds of dust and shattered the windows of nearby cars.

A vicious uppercut from Black Adam sent Power Girl crashing through a statue, obliterating it, but she caught herself fast, and her eyes turned crimson as her heat vision shot out. Black Adam screamed in pain as he was blasted out and slammed into a building, leaving a human-shaped dent in its wall.

‘I have to take this fight away from the civilians,’ Power Girl thought as she grabbed Black Adam by the neck and threw him violently to the largest patch of green she could see nearby.

He crashed into a long rectangular pond, splashing a great amount of water all over the place. It was the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The people visiting the memorial screamed in panic and started running away when Black Adam crashed into the water, and they saw Power Girl descending from the sky like a rocket, stomping him on the head with both heels.

“Shazam!” he screamed, and, a split second later, a massive bolt of lightning struck Power Girl in the head.

And with that, the last of the protective spells that Harry had cast on her clothes was destroyed.

Paralysed by the magical lightning, Power Girl was unable to react in time, and he grabbed her by the leg and threw her away with all his strength, launching her straight into the Washington Monument.

The colossal obelisk was unable to withstand the impact, and, other than the hole her body left in its outer wall, the entire column started tilting precariously, seemingly only seconds away from collapsing and reaping the lives of the two dozen tourists inside.

Left with no choice, Kara momentarily let Black Adam off the hook and rushed out, flying to stabilise the tilting Washington Monument before it reached the point of no return, before it could collapse completely.

“Evacuate asap!” she yelled.

However, thanks to her X-ray vision, she could see that the elevator inside the obelisk had gotten stuck with 20 people inside it.

“Damn it!” she cursed. 

As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.

Realising that Power Girl was desperate to save the people who were trapped inside the Washington Monument, a malevolent grin twisted Black Adam’s face.

“I don’t know how you have withstood all my lightning spells so far, but I can tell that whatever it was, it has ended. The last lightning strike had affected you greatly. Your neck is charred, and your nose is bleeding. On top of that, you are also trying to protect those ants.”

“You are finished, Power Girl,” Black Adam said, and raised his hands.

The air grew heavy with static, and the black clouds above began to swirl, slowly turning into a massive, rotating storm. Even without a trace of magic in her body, Kara could feel it in her bones that something big was about to hit.

Before he could say the magic word and call down the lightning, Power Girl made a decision: she smashed her way through the obelisk’s wall and flew at the people who were stuck inside the elevator. She tore off the railing and the cables holding the elevator and blew up the other wall too before flying out with the elevator in her hands.

Afraid that the murderous criminal would call down the lightning while she was carrying those people, Kara only flew a few dozen metres before putting them down. She quickly broke apart the elevator, making space for the trapped people to come out, before rushing back towards Black Adam.

“Shazam!” he shouted.

The whirlpool of black clouds lit up, and a massive pillar of lightning shot down.

A large portion of her red cloak turned into dust, and so did the back of her leotard, too. Power Girl screamed in agony as her skin burnt and her flesh melted as the magical lightning burrowed into her bones.

She crashed into the ground like a cannonball, leaving a deep crater. She did not get up.

But Black Adam wasn’t done. The massive Washington Monument, which was about to collapse, a huge obelisk over 150 metres tall and weighing nearly 100,000 tons, was suddenly lifted into the air from its foundations.

He laughed like a maniac as he aimed the obelisk’s tip down and threw the enormous monument like a javelin at the collapsed Power Girl.

A massive cloud of dust rose in the air, and a deafening noise rang out as the gigantic building crashed down, getting destroyed beyond recognition.

Not content with waiting around for the dust to settle, Black Adam clapped his palms with great strength, generating a powerful wind pressure that swept all the dust away and revealed the large pile of debris that was left in the aftermath.

“I told you that this is how it was going to end. I gave you a chance to back off, to walk away with your life. The path to salvation was wide open, but you refused to take it. The gates of hell were closed, but you insisted on barging in. You only have yourself to blame.”

Saying those final words, Black Adam turned around, intent on heading back to the venue where the award ceremony was being held, where his allies and the rest of the heroes were likely still locked in battle.

But then, a massive ray of crimson light shot up in the sky, and the large pile of rubble exploded. 

“Were you about to hold my fucking obituary?” Power Girl said as she flew out of the rubble. 

Black Adam had been blessed with the Courage of Mehen, the Egyptian snake god, but as he watched the bloodied and battered Kryptonian come out of the rubble, her eyes glowing crimson, he felt chills travel down his spine.

He wanted to ask how in the world she had survived that, but just as he opened his mouth, a terrible pain erupted from his jaw.

For a moment, the world turned white. A noise of extremely powerful winds muted all other sounds, and his surroundings stopped making sense, transforming into a jumbled mess of lights.

He looked around himself, disoriented, unable to understand what was going on. Everything in his vicinity was completely different; moreover, his eyes and nose were leaking blood, and his entire face hurt as though it were on fire.

“Whas ih hoi-”

Hearing himself, Black Adam finally took notice of his state: he couldn’t speak. His jaw was shattered into pieces and bleeding profusely, his tongue was mangled, and most of his teeth were missing.

He let out a groan of agony as the intensity of pain hit him in full.

At that moment, the Wisdom of Zehuti, the Egyptian God of Wisdom and Knowledge, also kicked in and made him understand what had just happened: his surroundings were different because he was no longer in Washington DC. 

Currently, Black Adam was in Montreal, Canada.

The Kryptonian woman’s brutal punch had sent him flying for nearly 1000 kilometres, almost killing him in the process. The fact that his head had not exploded in a red mist or that his body had not caught on fire for flying at a speed of 2000 km/s was nothing short of divine intervention from his patron gods.

But he wasn’t given another moment of respite because the ferocious woman suddenly appeared on the horizon, stirring extremely powerful winds in her wake.

“Hajhah!” Black Adam instinctively cried out, trying to call down the magic lightning, but with his broken jaw and mangled tongue, he couldn’t pronounce the word "Shazam" properly.

His life flashed in front of his eyes as the bloodlusted Kryptonian woman lunged at him, intent on tearing his head off.

With the last shred of rationality he possessed, Black Adam gathered his magic and fired a blast of lightning from his hands. It wasn’t as powerful as the lightning summoned by calling the name ‘Shazam’, but it was the only thing he could do in his current state.

Power Girl didn’t even attempt to dodge, committing herself to tanking his spell head-on in order not to give him the opportunity to escape.

As the blast of lightning hit her squarely in the stomach, however, both Black Adam’s and Power Girl’s eyes widened in shock.

Another invisible barrier popped out, momentarily stopping the lightning attack, before the space twisted, and Power Girl’s body was whisked away.

What had just happened was the result of the final protective spell that Harry had cast on Kara’s clothes (and those of little Harry and Astrid as well).

It was something that he had started working on during his visit to Themyscira half a year ago, when Astrid was learning how to control her powers. It had taken him weeks of Arithmancy calculations before he came up with the perfect formula.

It was an enchantment that would rescue Power Girl and Portkey her away to safety in case of mortal peril. Unlike the first version of the spell, the one that had saved her during Cadmus’ assassination attempt, the current spell was designed to take account of her Kryptonian physiology and her superhuman stamina and durability, only activating after reaching a particular threshold.

Having withstood the brutal attack when Black Adam threw the building weighing nearly 100,000 tonnes at her, the spell was already extremely close to hitting the activation threshold. Black Adam's final lightning blast, right before she was going to destroy him, had been the last push needed to trigger the spell.

Power Girl glanced at her surroundings in disbelief.

⁂

Harry Potter had finished his conversation with Albus Dumbledore in the headmaster’s office quite some time ago, and now he had just slain the Basilisk deep beneath the castle, in the Chamber of Secrets. With both his children enrolled at Hogwarts, he was not going to let them face the same life-threatening dangers he once had. Little Astrid might have been very powerful, but even she could have died to a creature like the Basilisk.

He stored the enormous serpent’s still-warm corpse into his charmed briefcase, then cast his flying spell and rose from the chamber floor, heading back toward the castle above.

‘The Basilisk is dead. Quirrell, too, thanks to the tip I gave Dumbledore ahead of time. So... what’s next on the list? Should I go wipe out the Acromantula colony?’ he wondered. 

He paused for a moment in the wide pipe leading up to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, thinking about it. Maybe it wasn’t necessary. Astrid was more than capable of handling them. With her heat vision, her Kryptonian speed and strength, and as long as she wasn’t caught off guard, the Acromantulas didn’t pose a real threat.

‘Besides, I lost count of how many times I nagged them about the dangers of the Wizarding World and the Forbidden Forest in particular. They wouldn’t go there alone. . . right?’

As his mind went back to his own time as a student nearly five centuries ago, Harry was suddenly not as confident that his two children would stay out of trouble as he hoped. If Astrid and little Harry were even half as mischievous as he had once been, then it was only a matter of time before they found themselves in a dangerous situation.

‘Maybe I should go thin down the spiders’ numbers after all.’

He had just arrived in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom and sealed the entrance to Chamber of Secrets when a Caterwauling Charm that only he could hear started blaring in his ears. Power Girl’s last protective spell had been triggered. Something had gone very wrong.

Regardless of the fact that he risked exposing the existence of alternate dimensions to Dumbledore by using his Rune Magic to disappear from the castle, Harry was too worried about Kara’s well-being to wait even a second longer. He teleported back to his bunker in southern France right away.

⁂

“Kara! What happened to you?” Harry asked, greatly alarmed when he took in her appearance.

Adrenaline still coursing through her veins, instead of answering his question, she shouted:

“Goddamn it, Harry, I had him! Why did you have to teleport me away??”

“Send me back!”

“Send me back right away!”

“Whoa, take it easy! Tell me what’s going on first.” He tried to placate her, but incensed from the battle as she was, Power Girl suddenly kicked a nearby chair, making it explode into wooden splinters, and shouted:

“I said, send me back, goddammit! Send me back before he escapes!”

The young woman looked like she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“I’m not letting you go anywhere in your current state,” Harry said calmly.

“I don’t have time for games now! Teleport me back, or I swear I’ll punch my way out of this bunker myself!”

Harry built this bunker after Vandal Savage had killed him by firing a meteorite at New York City. At the height of his paranoia, he had dug 2 kilometres underground and created a magic bunker that would survive any cataclysm short of the very planet exploding. Wars, nukes, meteorites, volcano eruptions, earthquakes - nothing could destroy this place. It was the safest and best-guarded place on Earth.

However, Kryptonians also defied all common sense. He wouldn’t put it past Power Girl to somehow brute-force her way through all the charms, wards, and Runic Magic he had cast on the bunker.

“You’re severely injured. Even if World War 3 was about to start outside, I’m still not letting you out of here in your current state,” Harry said in a calm but firm voice.

Her nostrils flared with her anger, and she clenched her teeth, looking as though she was on the verge of exploding.

“Let me go, Harry. I won’t ask a second time,” Kara said dangerously.

“I won’t,” Harry said, and the Elder Wand slipped into his hand.

For some reason, his calm tone only served to make her even angrier.

“You’re going to use your magic on me?”

“If I have to stun you to let me treat your wounds, yes, I will.”

“I’m a Kryptonian, for fuck’s sake! I don’t need your healing! I don’t need your stupid spells! If it wasn’t for your stupid enchantments, I would’ve had him!”

Despite how much effort he had put into creating and casting those enchantments on every piece of jewellery and clothing that she owned, Harry didn’t take her words to heart. He had lived for a very long time. He knew that people often said things they didn’t necessarily mean when they were angry.

Above all, Power Girl’s current mental state was clearly not normal. She had never shouted at him like that before. She had never shown that frenzied, almost berserk look in her eyes.

Therefore, instead of arguing, he conjured a tall oval mirror so that she would see her reflection.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and half of her face and her neck were blackened from the magical lightning strikes she had endured. Her hero costume was in tatters, barely covering her modesty anymore, and revealing the purple and bloodied bruises and scratches covering her entire body.

Worst of all, the wound on her back was horrifying. Her skin and flesh had been melted away, down to the very bone.

But she completely ignored the mirror that he had conjured for her, only continuing to glare at him in anger.

‘She’s in shock.’

Understanding she was impossible to reason with at that moment, Harry aimed his wand at her. Kara instinctively reacted in an attempt to dodge, but the spell that he had cast was a nonverbal Body-Binding Charm. It was instantaneous, and it had no visual effect either. Kara didn’t even know when or what hit her before she collapsed on the ground, paralysed.

Her eyes lit up with a crimson glow, seemingly about to fire her heat vision towards the wall of the room, but a Stunning Spell hit her next, and she knew no more. She fell unconscious.