[Emissary] Chapter 35 - Black Adam (I)

The mattress shifted slightly as Harry slipped out of the bed. The Silencing Charm he had cast ensured that no noise would betray his movements, but there was nothing he could do about the shaking of the mattress itself. Just as he placed his feet on the floor, a sudden tug on the back of his t-shirt pulled him back into the bed.

“Don’t go,” Kara murmured in a drowsy voice, wrapping her arms and legs around him, holding him in place.

He chuckled softly, turning in her embrace so that he was facing her. Her cute, sleepy face made him smile fondly.

“You’re adorable,” he murmured, brushing a few strands of golden hair from her cheek.

From the outside, Kara and Astrid appeared to be no different from regular humans, but living with them for half a year now, Harry had seen the truth about them.

Kryptonians didn’t truly need sleep. Under the effects of a yellow sun’s radiation, they didn’t have the same biological needs that regular people did. Sleep, food, water, and oxygen were not necessary for them to survive as long as they had yellow radiation. They didn’t even need to use the toilet due to how good their bodies were at processing everything they consumed and transforming it into energy.

Yet despite that, they could still indulge in those simple human experiences if they wished—and Kara absolutely loved the feeling of falling asleep in her lover’s arms and waking up with him in bed.

Momentarily, Harry couldn’t find it in himself to pull away from her embrace. Instead, he lay on his back, and she was quick to drape herself over him, resting her head on his chest and throwing a leg over his waist.

She purred in delight as he kissed her on the forehead and started running his hand gently over the soft skin of her thigh. She wished that moments like this could last forever. But as much as they both would have liked to spend the entire day in bed, they couldn’t. Ten minutes later, Harry had to leave the comfort of her embrace and get up.

“Can’t you take a day off? I’ve missed you!” Kara said.

“Those trees won’t grow by themselves.”

“Yes, they will.”

“In five years, maybe. But we need to get them now.”

“Harry~”

Sensing that her pleas weren’t enough, she adopted a different strategy. Sitting up, the thin blanket fell off, revealing her bare shoulders, only stopping at the swell of her breasts.

Noticing his eyes dropping downwards, she smirked and teasingly pulled the edge of the blanket, lowering it just enough to give him a furtive glimpse of the voluptuous curves hiding underneath.

“Control yourself, woman. You almost killed me last night!” he pretended to be exasperated.

She started laughing as she stood up and flew straight into his arms, once again wrapping her arms around his neck and her long legs around his waist.

Even with his high degree of self-control, it was a tough battle for him to resist her when she was wearing nothing but a flimsy, black, high-waisted thong.

“Ow!” she uncharacteristically yelped when he smacked her ass lightly. It wasn’t his physical strength that caused that reaction but the Stinging Hex he applied to her butt that made her flinch.

“I really have to go, Kara. Any moment now and Astrid will barge in.”

She let out a long-drawn sigh.

“Fiiiine,” she said in an annoyed voice as she unwrapped her legs and stood on her own two feet.

No longer trying to seduce him, she cupped his face with her hands and pressed her lips to his.

“Take care out there, alright?” she said, caressing his cheek with her thumb.

“Of course.”

She smiled when he took her hand in his and kissed the back of her palm.

‘Rao, I love this man.’

It was these small gestures of affection that made her heart flutter, leaving her feeling like a lovestruck teenager all over again.

He pecked her on the lips one more time and left the bedroom.

⁂

It was very early in the morning when he woke up, well before 6 am. Nevertheless, by the time he left his bedroom, little Harry and Astrid were already awake and dressed up in matching safari outfits.

“Well, aren’t you excited about the trip?” Harry said jokingly.

The two children were in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

When he used to live with the Dursleys, the young boy hated being forced to wake up earlier than everyone and prepare breakfast for them, but now he was doing it of his own volition.

“Morning, Dad!” Astrid and Harry greeted him happily at the same time.

He kissed young Harry on the crown of his head and Astrid on the cheek before sitting at the table and watching them work together.

At first, he had worried that Astrid wouldn’t like living with little Harry, considering how jealous she could be sometimes, but the reality proved to be very different. Although she was much younger, Astrid treated young Harry as though he were her little brother. They were inseparable.

Now, the girl was cutting sausages and mixing the eggs while the boy was cooking the omelette in the pan. Harry could have done all that himself, of course, but if the children wanted to do it, he was happy to leave them to their devices.

Half an hour later, the three of them were ready to go. Harry had donned his Emissary robes and white skull mask while Astrid and young Harry both held onto their Nimbus 2000 broomsticks and wore charmed safari hats that magically changed their facial features.

“Ready?” Harry asked one more time.

“Yes.”

Receiving their confirmation, he activated the portkey, and they were all whisked away.

The moment the portkey travel ended, Harry and his two children found themselves in central Africa, in the Chad Republic.

Though it was a little past 6 am in New York, it was noon in Chad. For Astrid, the abrupt change in temperature was not a big deal, but for Harry and the young boy, going from early spring in New York to a torrid heat in central Africa made them start sweating within minutes.

“Remember, Astrid, no flying on your own, okay? You mustn’t take your hat off either.”

If she looked different and flew on a broom, like a witch, people wouldn’t suspect she was a Kryptonian.

A few minutes later, feeling as though he had nagged the children enough, the three of them flew towards the field that was being cultivated in the distance.

His arrival sparked a chorus of shouts and greetings, hundreds of people shouting his name, “Emissary”, or other names in Arabic or French. About half of them were Muslim and half were Christians, but, at that moment, regardless of their religion, the Chadians were looking at him and shouting his name as though he were a prophet sent by their God to Earth.

He had never encouraged the others to venerate him or his deeds, but he felt it would be too tiring to get into arguments over the names they called him. In the end, he was just doing what he could to help Kara and the unfortunate people of the world.

‘Desertification isn’t the only thing here. . . Chad has many more problems to worry about,’ Harry thought as he looked at the flatlands below.

As far as he could see, there were no hills or mountains and barely any vegetation. From his girlfriend's research, he knew that the country faced nationwide floods almost every year.

‘One thing at a time,’ he thought as he flew around, inspecting the completion of the field.

For now, he was focused on the Green Wall. Once this massive project came to an end, maybe he could help with other matters. Until then, he had his hands full.

Not long after Emissary arrived, the workers finished planting the area where he was going to cast his time magic. After all, they had been working for many hours, from early morning.

It was not the first time the people had witnessed the miracle of trees and grass sprouting out of the ground and growing to adulthood in a matter of seconds, but it was no less awe-inspiring.

It had to be said that although they lived in severe poverty, it wasn’t as though Chadians were ignorant of the myths of witches and flying on brooms; some of the wealthier people did have access to the internet. Furthermore, there was nothing angelic about the terrifying wraiths that swarmed around Emissary and obscured him from view every time he called upon the power of Death.

However, many of them still looked up to him as though he were a messenger from God because of the miracles he was performing every day. It was not only the sight of growing forests in the desert but also the multiplication of food and drinks. On top of it all, Emissary had never asked for any rewards for his deeds. He had never demanded anything from them. He had not asked for them to worship him, nor had he tried to preach to them anything. He was fully focused on his work.

While Emissary flew high into the air to call upon Death’s power, young Harry and Astrid landed in front of the large group of workers and set up a charmed table.

Knowing that there was more than enough food for everyone, the people didn’t push and fight each other. They made orderly lines as they came two by two and took as much as they needed from the plates that Astrid and little Harry set up on the table. A Gemini Charm had been cast on them to multiply the food and the energy drinks they had prepared.

In the beginning, some of them would swarm the table and take entire bags of food, but after finding out that the food would rot or disappear after a few hours, they understood that they could not hoard it and only took as much as they could eat.

As for Harry, he was not worried that any harm would come to his children. With Astrid there, nobody would be able to hurt the young boy. Furthermore, each of their clothes was enchanted with Shielding Charms and Rune Magic.

Several months ago, long before he had started participating in the plantation of the Green Wall of Africa, Harry had also created enchanted jewellery and other accessories not just for the children but for Powergirl too. In the wake of Project Cadmus’ assassination attempts on the Justice League, he was too paranoid to leave his family unprotected. In addition, he had not forgotten the warning that Death had given him six months ago, during Superman’s funeral.

“The reason I came to see you now is to give you a warning. A heavy storm is coming. Prepare yourself. Don't blame it on me this time if you or the ones around were to lose your lives.”

Knowing that another dangerous event loomed over their heads, he did not hold back. Shielding Charms, Teleportation Runes to whisk them away from danger, Bubblehead Charms to supply them with air and several other spells had been cast on every single thing they wore.

⁂

Exhausted after casting the large-scale [Arc of Time] spell, Harry erected a magical tent and went inside to rest. Now, he would have to wait a couple of hours until the workers finished planting the next section. It was good for him too; it allowed him enough time to rest and recuperate.

While Astrid and Harry were outside, flying and playing, Harry sat on a sofa in the tent, turned on the TV, and opened a can of beer.

Nearly two hundred people could be seen protesting in front of the city hall, somewhere in Alabama, in the United States, holding placards with the word “Emissary” crossed by a red x and with “666” or “Antichrist” written below it.

“These bloody lunatics.”

Here he was, in the middle of Africa, exhausting himself to make the world a better place, and those nutjobs were calling him the Antichrist.

He sighed and changed the channel.

The things that were being streamed there weren’t any better. It was a footage from an armed conflict happening in the Middle East.

The scene of burning cars, demolished buildings, and a mother crying as she held her injured son in her arms was streamed on TV when Astrid and young Harry happened to enter his tent.

“Done playing?” he asked when he noticed their arrival.

“Yeah. Honestly, there isn’t much to do here,” said Astrid as she took off her hat.

He smiled and ruffled her soft blonde hair. The little girl grinned at his gesture and climbed on his lap.

“You okay, buddy?” Harry asked his younger self.

Unlike Astrid, who did not have even a drop of sweat on her forehead, the boy’s fringe was matted with sweat.

“I’m okay,” young Harry said as he grabbed a can of cola from the fridge. “But those people outside. . . how can they work so hard in this weather?”

Some of the field workers weren’t that much older than him, barely 17 or 18.

“People have the strength to adapt. Growing up in a difficult environment makes people tougher and more resilient. You know a thing or two about that too, don’t you?”

As the boy also sat on the sofa next to him, Harry was about to change the channel, but Astrid stopped him.

“No, please, I want to see.”

‘If I tell her not to watch it, even if I change the channel now, she’ll definitely want to look it up later,’ he thought.

That was how people, and especially children, were. It was in people’s nature that the more they were told not to do something, the more they were tempted to do it.

Therefore, he changed his approach. Misdirection.

“Come to think of it, we haven’t visited Chad’s national park, have we?” he asked. “How about we go see the lions and elephants?”

⁂

They flew for nearly two hours before they finally arrived at the national park. Astrid and young Harry had seen animals in the wild quite a few times thanks to Harry bringing them with him to the Green Wall, but they were still enthusiastic about seeing the herds of elephants, the giraffes and other wild beasts. They were even lucky to witness a pack of lions chasing an African buffalo – normally, lions liked to hunt at night or in the evening when it was cooler outside.

“Don’t intervene,” Harry warned them when the two children looked distraught at the buffalo’s desperate cries. “This is the way of nature. It’s the cycle of life. If you save the buffalo, then the lions will starve and die.”

“Then maybe they should die!” Astrid said empathically.

Harry took the children away, not letting them see the end of the hunt and the buffalo’s death.

“Do you think things would be better if the lions died?” Harry asked.

“Of course,” the boy replied in her stead. “The buffalo aren’t hurting anyone.”

“That’s right! The buffalo are good!” Astrid piped in too.

Harry chuckled a bit.

“Every animal has a role to play in the ecosystem. Think about it: what would happen if the buffalo had no predators?”

When they didn’t reply right away, he continued, “They would reproduce, and their numbers would increase enormously.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” asked young Harry.

“In the short term, no. But in the long term? With the buffalos' numbers growing unchecked, they would consume all the grass and the trees around them. With no predators to scare them away, they would have no reason to change their place either, so vegetation would have no time to regenerate. It would not happen in a year or two, but, in time, this place would become a desert.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Astrid said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“All the creatures in this world play a role in the ecosystem. You can ask your mother when we get home, and she will tell you the same. There are many documentaries about it.”

⁂

Later that evening, the family of four were together in Kara’s luxurious apartment in New York. Having just finished watching a documentary on the predators’ role in keeping the balance of the ecosystem, Astrid was bombarding her mother with all sorts of questions.

But the boy went to Harry and asked him something that threw him for a loop.

“Do people also have something like the animals’ cycle of nature?”

“What do you mean?” 

Young Harry fiddled with his fingers, seemingly hesitating.

“I’m thinking about those people in the desert today. They were working so hard. And they were so happy just to get some free food... and then I look at us and how good we have it. And... and I wonder if this is right. And then, there is also that war we saw on the news today... Do we have to watch how they struggle? Like we saw the buffalo getting eaten by lions? Is it okay for us to have everything and for others to have nothing?”

Harry ran a hand through his messy hair, taking a few seconds to think of an answer.

“Things. . . how should I say this. . . things aren’t that simple.”

“We have magic; we could do so much! We could make the world a much better place! We could stop the wars. And the poverty, and-” the boy began.

“Things aren’t that simple, Harry,” he reiterated. ”Your mother and I are doing our best. We both try to help in the way we can; I’m helping with my magic, and Kara is helping with her company and with her Justice League work. But we are not gods. For all my magic, I could never stop all the poverty by myself. Magic is not omnipotent. And I have a life too. I can’t spend 24/7 tending to others. . . I want to be with my family too. I want to be with you, with Astrid, and with Kara. As much as I like to help other people, you three are far more important to me.”

The boy looked down, seemingly not fully satisfied with the answer he received.

“I understand that. . . but what about the wars? Can’t you or the Justice League stop them like you stop the villains? With your power, it would be super easy.”

Harry let out a soft sigh. It appeared that trying to distract the children from the things that they had seen on TV earlier in the day didn’t work as he had intended.

“Things really aren’t that simple. People like me or like your mum – we aren’t allowed to intervene in these kinds of conflicts.”

“But why?? I don’t understand!”

“Because people are afraid of us, especially the governments. You remember the history lesson about World War II and the atomic bombs, right? Some metahumans are capable of even greater feats of destruction. The governments of the world see us as no different from walking, sentient nuclear weapons.”

He didn’t know how much the young boy was going to understand, but he tried his best to explain it to him.

“Metahumans intervening in a war happening in a foreign country would be like launching an atomic bomb at them. The United Nations doesn’t allow that. No country on Earth does. For all our power, we are still not above the law. If we do break the law, we will turn the whole world against us. And then what? Another conflict will start.”

⁂

That night, after the children went to sleep, Kara and Harry sat together and browsed the internet, keeping up with the latest news. Harry himself wasn’t particularly interested, but he liked her company all the same.

Kara telling him that morning that she missed him was not merely her acting spoilt. As of late, they had not spent as much time together as they used to. She was incredibly busy with her CEO duties and her Powergirl work in the Justice League.

“Are you going to the award ceremony next week?” Kara asked jokingly when she saw a particular article talking about the most likely candidates to win that month. “You should be the favourite to win after restoring New York last year and after your work in Central Africa this year.”

The government was holding an event to award the “Best Hero of the Month”. It was something that they had come up with after the creation of ARGUS.

His chest shook with laughter.

“We both know this award is just a formality for them to pat themselves on the back. They’ll never give me any awards.”

She giggled too, knowing full well that he was speaking the truth. The members of the Justice League had never won that award or even an honourable mention the previous 4 times it was held. Only members of ARGUS had ever been awarded for their work.

“Let them have their awards. In the end, it’s not like they don’t deserve it at all. They did make a change, didn’t they?” Harry said uncaringly.

Kara rolled her eyes.

At her reaction, he shrugged his shoulders. “Statistics don’t lie. ARGUS did make a change. The violent crime rate has gone down by 30% since they became active, and organised crime is all but non-existent. And we’re talking about the USA here.”

“Oh, please,” she said, scoffing. “Organised crime disappeared only on paper. In reality, it never went away. It’s simply overlooked now because the heads of the mob are working for ARGUS and for the CIA. As for the violent crime rate going down? Well, that’s true, but it’s not because of ARGUS but because the government finally started doing their damn job. Villains can’t break out of jail anymore if they’re getting executed.”

One of the most infamous and unhinged criminals in the world met his end in the electric chair four months ago. The Joker had been executed. And he was not the only one. Ten other unhinged criminals met their end.

“It took only Vandal Savage killing a million people with an asteroid for the government to wake up,” Power Girl said in distaste.

“We can’t do anything about the past. But we can at least appreciate that things have changed for the better in the present.”

“Hey, are you on their side or mine?”

He chuckled as he wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her closer to him.

“On your side. Always," he whispered, kissing her temple.

⁂

At that time, on the other side of the planet, unbeknownst to Harry, the things that he had watched on TV earlier in the day took a turn for the worse.

The war happening in Gaza was a subject of controversy for many people in the Western world. Many Heroes hated what was happening over there and wanted to intervene, but their hands were tied.

Just as Harry had explained to his younger self that day, metahumans – especially the powerful ones such as the Flash, Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and so on – were seen by the governments of the world as no different from weapons of mass destruction.

The United Nations had strictly forbidden the Justice League to intervene in matters such as protests, civil wars, or armed conflicts. The heroes’ job was to combat criminals and alien threats and help in case of natural disasters, not to dictate matters of a geopolitical nature.

With that being said, not all metahumans obeyed the law. Not all cared about the United Nations’ will. One such individual was the infamous ruler of Kahndaq, Black Adam.

Founded cca 620 CE in the Sinai Peninsula, Kahndaq used to be known in modern times for Asim Muhunnad’s dictatorship. . . until Black Adam overthrew him. Empowered by the Egyptian Gods, nobody could stand in his way. It took one day for Black Adam to kill the dictator and massacre his army before placing himself as the ruler of the country.

Seeing as he was born in Kahndaq, the UN could not easily find a reason to contest his rule. More importantly, the conventional military would be largely useless against someone like him. Therefore, as long as Black Adam stayed within the borders of his country, the United Nations were content with leaving him to his own devices.

However, not long after Black Adam took control of Kahndaq, a war erupted in Palestine. The war raged for weeks, with thousands of casualties happening on each side and the United Nations doing nothing to stop it.

That is until Black Adam took action.

It was at the crack of dawn in the Middle East when a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.

From the beginning until the end, he never suffered even the slightest scratch. Bullets, RPGs, rocket missiles, and even airstrikes proved to be useless. He was like a juggernaut. He was an unstoppable force.

That morning, the leaders and the governments of both sides of the war were killed brutally.

That afternoon, all the military were massacred.

That evening, the war came to an end.

He did not care for who was right and who was wrong. He did not listen to anyone’s reasoning or attempts to negotiate. Anyone who stood in his way died a violent death.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of politicians lost their lives at his hands on that day.

In a matter of hours, one man brought two countries to their knees.

In less than a day, Israel and Palestine ceased to exist. They were annexed to Kahndaq.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: Kahndaq is located right next to Palestine/Israel, in the Sinai Peninsula, and Black Adam is the ruler of Kahndaq and a genocidal maniac – in the comics, Black Adam had genocided about 2 million people (men, women, elderly, and children) in Bialya, a fictional country neighbouring Iran.

So no need to dig for a deeper meaning; I am not interested in real-life matters. The canon setting and the real life setting just happened to fit perfectly for my story.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. As you can already guess, things are about to get violent real soon. Until next time!

PS: This is Black Adam in DC, not the bald dude from the live-action movie.