planetaryguide: (Mystery Archaeology)
[personal profile] planetaryguide
 Abdullah wasn't certain that The Fictional Man had ever truly been defeated. There was something about the way he folded at the end, the fear in his voice. He faced some sort of punishment for his defeat. But from whom?

He had traveled from  Kahndaq with Jay Garrick because his Gods and his king had demanded it, and has found himself lost, somewhere in America, immersed in magic. This isn't what I do, he thinks. My purpose is to stop and kill terrorists, not ... whatever this was

He considered his companions ... Jay Garrick was, apparently, a lightning fast superhero from World War II, returned after a long absence in search of the Helm of Nabu, which the Goddess Bastet also charged him with finding. To this end they enlisted the stage magician Zachary Zatara, whose role as a performer masked the fact that he was in fact truly a mage. Zatara was young, about his own age, and he was arrogant, but he knew his work ... he lead the three of them to John Constantine, who had somehow come into possession of the Helm.

Constantine was tainted by darkness. Seeing that was one of Abdullah's gifts. He wasn't completely corrupt. There was a spark of goodness left in him, enough to help them in their hour of need, but he exacted a price. There was always a price with people like him. 

The Fictional Man had been also tracking the Helm, and had nearly killed Constantine earlier. Wanting him removed as a threat seemed a reasonable request, but now that they were there, Abdullah found there was something about him that didn't sit right. He stepped back from the bound villain and adjusted his vision. When he wanted to, he could see connections to The Bleed. It was part of his gift to be able to travel through dimensions. Most people simply radiated energy from this world. Some had tangential connections to other worlds. He wasn't sure what it meant ... Garrick and Zatara were connected to one world, Constantine to another. There had been talk of the multiverse having been ... rebooted ... maybe it had something to do with that. Maybe it was just a signature from their previous travels. 

Whatever it was, The Fictional Man didn't have it. No connection to other worlds. No connection to this world. 

"He's not from anywhere," he said aloud. "He has no connections to Bleedspace at all. It's like he doesn't exist."

Abdullah's head was filled with questions.

Who was this man? Who was manipulating him? And where was the new Dr. Fate?

nabuhelm: (Doc Fate)
[personal profile] nabuhelm

There is one thing you need to know. Someone is always watching. Before gods, there was the Monitor-Mind and this, the Helmet of Nabu, sometimes speaks in dry whispers of Novu, the Proto Monitor. when the Monitor Race died, things from outside came to occupy the vacuum they left behind. But the multiverse was not defenseless, and across time and space it set what can only be called antibodies, forces powerful enough to insulate the multiple Earths from the forces that would ravage them. 

On my Earth, they call me Doc Fate. I'm the leader of the Society of Superheroes, and my Earth's current  Champion of Nabu. My world staved off an invasion from a parallel Earth, lead by that world's Vandal Savage. We lost a lot ... came perilously close to two worlds' worth of genocide ... but ultimately we prevailed. Since then, the SOS has made it our business to observe the multiple Earths, guarding against more such existential threats. It was in the course of our observances that we discovered your world. That's when I learned of Anubis, and his efforts to dismantle your Earth's defenses. and your Earth has many ... more than most ... You have superhumans. You have a Champion of Nabu, although he has not been found, yet. You have a Champion of Shazam. You have Green Lanterns. You have Elementals, and a Superman. And you have Children of the Century. 

The last is the rarest across the multiverse, set to preserve something unknown and precious. My own Earth does not have them, although my counterpart on your world, Doc Brass, was one. In his '40s, he and others stopped an incursion from an alternate universe, much as my associates and I did here.  Moreover, the fight was against an alternate Justice League, with counterparts of Superman and Green Lantern leading the attack.  Brass was the only survivor of the fight, discovered trapped in a mountain lair by the Planetary Foundation, just before the turn of the century. 

Doc Brass was murdered by a man from a Fictional Universe, a stone-cold killer from a dimension created by human mad scientists, in order steal his research on indigenous planetary defense systems for the Injustice Society, the cat's paws of Anubis, reporting to a shadowy leader even I can't identify. Elijah Snow, the last remaining Child of the 20th century, then moved quickly to secure the children of the 21st, certain they were being targeted for murder or worse. He traveled with his companions Jakita Wagner and the Drummer to Kahndaq to locate one, Ghost of the Desert, but he also found Black Adam, the current Champion of Shazam and your Earth's original Flash, Jay Garrick.  These heroes were whisked away to another universe, where the Goddess Bastet warned them of Anubis' threat, and charged them to defend the world by  gathering and protecting the Children of the 21st Century, finding the new Dr. Fate and reforming the Justice Society. 

And so they split up. Elijah snow and Freddy Freeman traveled to Singapore to rescue Jenny Quantum, who was targeted by a possessed Great Ten. They were joined by Superman, The Martian Manhunter and Lex Luthor, and were victorious, despite not learning the name of who was controlling the Chinese heroes, and  learning that one of their number, Thundermind, had been abducted.

Jakita Wagner and Black Adam also succeeded in securing their target in California, The Gateway Between the Living and the Dead,  but at great cost, as Black Adam fell to the Injustice Society giving Wagner a chance to escape with their charge.  Lastly, Garrick and Ghost sought aid from Zachary Zatara and  John Constantine  to seek the missing Fate, but their efforts brought them into conflict with the murderous Fictional Man. It was during their fight that interdimensional interference interrupted my observance, and I have struggled to regain the connection. It is unclear if the SOS will be able to aid this Earth at all if necessary. It's defense may be left to its own champions. 

The last remaining Century Children appear to have been located in Mexico and Africa, and the heroes must race to them to protect them from the injustice Society. Likewise, the new Fate must be located. And then Bastet's final instruction echoes through my head: Reform the Justice Society ... But who comprise that team? Who will train the next generation of heroes?

An Age of Heroes is upon your Earth, and that is glorious ... but those only come when the dangers are greatest. And right now, the darkness is beginning to fall ....
  


 


greatest_zatara: (showtime)
[personal profile] greatest_zatara
If you asked Zachary Zatara to ever choose between style and substance, he'd tell you you were a fool for thinking there was a difference. Nothing without style has any substance, he'd be happy to inform them. That attitude was reflected in his magic as well. Never cook up a spell with three components if you can squeeze in seven, that sort of thing. Between his house and Constantine's, he'd managed to concoct a suitable recipe for deception. Old metal, older than most countries, had enough provenance to serve as the basis for a fake Helm (and really the museums that had displaced them had had generations to find the weapons they used for material, and if they hadn't found them by now, they obviously hadn't cared enough). The various distortions of time and connection to one of the creation energies made Mister Garrick's blood another useful component, although Zachary's (however sass-laden) deference to his elders made him more cautious than usual in drawing the portion he needed, and he'd bid the old man get a snack and some juice afterwards.

The rest of it really came down to cosmetics and tailoring, areas in which Zachary excelled through no other virtue than study and repetition. Abdullah made a near flawless double by the time Zachary was done with him. Constantine's regularly scheduled disregard for his own health, and other bad decisions, would account for any nicks and dents here and there. Mundane skill covered everything the naked eye could perceive, and with the actual Helm and Constantine nearby, he could (with more effort than he liked to admit, truth be told) redirect any scrying or similar magical detections onto the decoy.

"So..." Zach circled the stand-in, "--where are we setting this hook?"
needsnewbusinesscards: (Default)
[personal profile] needsnewbusinesscards
John was having a much needed cigarette break in between moving magical and mystical artifacts from his old friend Jasper's Mill House that he had been staying in during his adventures to the House of Mystery that had become the headquarters of the Justice League Dark, he didn't see the point in having two residences when the House of Mystery was a lot more mobile and less confusing to navigate since he knew the magics that lingered within more than those that had been placed by someone else. It wasn't an easy job as just putting things in a box and hoping that they didn't break in transit, there were some items that just couldn't be packed with others unless the exorcist wanted very bad things to happen and then there was the unpacking too.

Constantine sighed with a puff of light grey almost white smoke issuing from between his slightly parted lips as he tried to figure out whether he should just ward one storage room from the backlash of whatever was going to happen, or to actually sit down and  sort through the small mountain of boxes so that things didn't explode or even call forth someone like the demon Trigon by accident.

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