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ebconsortium · 7 days ago

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I think maybe posting these in the middle of the night is hurting my engagement.

AZRAEL #5 TEXT ADAPTATION

Azrael #5

Fallen Angel: 5

The Abduction

Three figures rapidly descended down through what seemed to be a black and empty void, rapidly falling downwards into the narrow depths. The shapes of red, gold, black, blue, purple, and yellow fell through the air like solid weights, the howls of the massive altered liger above them growing fainter and fainter. Finally they plunged far enough downwards that no sound was heard at all. Except the sounds of their bodies falling and their limbs flailing about in the air. Tumbling, sliding, plunging into an abyss of ice. Then, the air around them began to change.

Becoming warm.

Becoming very warm.

Becoming humid and filled with a foul stench that churned their stomachs every which way and caused their eyes to stream acrid tears, and finally becoming overwhelming as the three slid to a halt in a rush of ice shards and powder snow.

The darkness of the subterranean area in their immediate vicinity was only broken by the light of the candle inside a wrought iron lantern hanging from a tall wooden pole by an iron linked chain, illuminating a wooden dock constructed from planks sourced from the cedars of Lebanon that jutted out into a boiling river of chemical-laced water that bubbled all over and spawned clouds of steam that drifted about the entire icy expanse. Several cedar boats were docked by the platform, carrying large boxes filled with cargo and supplies from the newest shipment of goods and food to the Ice Cathedral complex from various sources and clients in the outside world. Unloading the boxes and crates was a stout and stocky man measuring about four feet and ten inches tall, with thick and fuzzy dark orange hair on his head and body with no bangs and large untrimmed eyebrows, and eyes that were naturally red in both their sclera, irises, and pupils. The man was clothed in a beige medieval tunic that stopped above the knees and had no sleeves, and several of his lower teeth stuck out in a rather unpleasant and uneven underbite. That particular creature came from the dwarfling race, a subspecies of humans artificially bred by the Order Of Saint Dumas with greater proportional strength and used by the order for handling of physical tasks and everyday work. He was currently unloading a crate filled with fruit and was utterly unbothered by the faint thuds behind him. Fortunately for the three who had fallen down into the area, Azrael’s body was resistant enough to the force of a fall that he received no pain from the impact, and the other two were cushioned by the soft layers of snow and by Azrael reaching up to catch them and let them down. Brian Bryan clutched his stomach with both arms before stumbling to his feet and adjusting to the environment, looking around and leaning against a wall of ice. “That toxic stench, I didn’t realise the natural world could produce things that could be so utterly putrid!” He coughed and wheezed a tad bit and finished his thought. “If I had consumed my immense dinner just a few hours earlier, it would probably be all over my shoes at this present moment.”

Azrael sat up in the powder snow and his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness surrounding him. “Where are we now?” Remaining in the snow where she had fallen a bit longer was Sister Lilhy, brushing the snow from off of her long and loose purple hooded robe and both of her long dark yellow and dark orange scalene, equilateral, and isosceles triangle-patterned scarf-like shoulder vestments and turning over to answer the angel’s inquiry. “The very same underground stream which I had informed you of earlier. It is regularly warmed and kept in a liquid state by the consistent flow of nearby volcanic activity occurring beneath the Earth’s mantle.” Sitting up and propping herself on one arm, her eyes took a bit longer to adjust, but they eventually managed to adapt after collecting herself for a moment. “We shall take one of the boats down this river. The water extends for nearly twenty miles to a cavern on the far side below the cathedral complex. From there it is a simple matter of crossing the border on foot or via land vehicle.” By the time she had finished speaking and all three had gotten up, the dwarfling by the dock had heard their voices and grabbed a thick and heavy wooden club that he had stored next to the wooden pole on the dock and turned around to face them, brandishing his club, folding his arms, and wearing an utterly sour expression, his completely-red eyes open and his face scrunched up in contempt. “Come no closer. No boats for the likes of you lot.” Brian was the first to respond to that particular statement, muttering aloud: “Hmmph, no doubt this little man right here must be the equivalent of the local Department Of Motor Vehicles representative.” The Dwarfling was not amused and tapped his foot on the dock as well as tapping his club on his left arm. Sister Lilhy stepped up next to Brian and spoke up, pointing one finger at him and admonishing his insolence. “Do you not recognise your own peers? You do not recognise Sister Lilhy of the Order Of Saint Dumas?” The tone of the little man’s vocal delivery, like other Dwarflings, was grinding and coarse, resembling a gnome or a troll. “Only High Brother Rollo decides who can make use of boats. Now disperse, lot.” Looking utterly unimpressed, Sister Lilhy moved slightly to the left, her robe swishing a little and the space she had been occupying being stepped into by a certain angel. Lilhy’s midnight blue eyes pierced through the limited light and her tone bore an enhanced air of assurance. “You have one chance. Step aside. For your sake.” Unfettered by the statement of attempted intimidation, the Dwarfling grabbed his club with both hands and attempted to swing it right at them, “You were warned, lot!” Azrael had no trouble catching the strike directed at him and returning fire with a blow to the stomach that contorted the creature’s face and mouth like he had just sucked on a non-modified lime. The angel in red then picked the hairy little man up by the collar line of his tan robe with his left arm, ripped the club from his hands with his right, broke it in twain against the cedar dock, and chucked both halves into the scalding river. He then approached the edge of the jetty, winded back his left arm, and chucked the unfortunate aggressor into the boiling stream with lovely follow-through.

Perverse joy flooded Azrael’s body as he saw the Dwarfling flailing about in his attempts to escape the temperature of the water. “AAANGH!! HOT!! SEARS!! BURNS!!” His smile spread from ear to ear, and only began to fade when the Dwarfling managed to get out of the churning and boiling waters of the reeking river. The sight of the spots and patches of burned and scalded skin were a joy to a bringer of death and a sower of disharmony and discord. “YOU BURN! Rollo burn the flesh off your bodies! Make you lot scream! MAKE YOU LOT PLEAD AND BEG FOR MERCY IN VAIN!” The most hilarious part was the fact that the Dwarfling was shaking one of his four-fingered fists at them from the other end of the riverbank when he said that, and searing water dripping down his clothes as he ran off into one of the shadowy side tunnels. Brian passively waved goodbye to the stocky fleeing servant as a simple courtesy. “Have a good morning, good and kind sir!” He then walked on over to Azrael and looked towards him. “Don’t you think that was a little brutal? Just somewhat unnecessary to mutilate a lifeform the way you did? You would probably not care, but I have the notion that your other self likely would.” The avenging Angel looked over to Brian and made a simple response to his query. “It is not of any concern to me whether or not my methods are considered humane. I am not one to favour restraint and subtlety.” A small pause followed, and Brian stepped onto an available boat, responding: “It’s just a thought.” Lilhy also stepped onto the same boat, checking the boxes onboard for possible available supplies and moving to the front of the boat to start up the engine. “That creature was right, Rollo will certainly be a great deal more irate with us. You have a target on your back as well, seeing as you are someone Jean-Paul cares for, I hope you understand that.” Loading a few boxes of tools and food off the boat to lighten the weight, Brian commented: “Shouldn’t Rollo’s acolytes be pursuing us?” “They are. We should be hearing them right now.” Azrael unsheathed his Ulfberht steel longsword and ignited the flame via the hidden trigger, turning to face the acolyte squad as they tumbled down into the river area from the blackness above, followed by the great female feline beast. He smashed the second boat in the river dock with a quick fiery strike, and then slowly backed towards the boat with his companions on it. Taking the bait, the liger creature barreled straight for Azrael, leaping his way with its maw open and tongue slick with saliva in anticipation of the desired killings and feast that lay just within reach. Azrael leaped back and landed on the boat, and Lilhy —who had caught onto what Azrael intended to do— put the boat’s engine into maximum throttle and ducked after veering the boat in the direction of the way out. The beast was unable to stop its momentum due to its massive size and one-track mind, and fell straight into the foul-stenched boiling river. Unable to find a foothold against the smooth shelves of slick permanent ice, the liger-like creature was left to screech and flail as her flesh was burned and the beast boiled alive in the stream. Once more Azrael smiled, before standing up and protecting the boat and its occupants from the hail of incoming machine gunfire just by being there. Despite all the bullets hitting him square in the back, Azrael felt nothing thanks to the bullet-resistant fabric in his costume and his own mental conditioning, just one of the aspects of the system, and one of many that Azrael’s other self did not understand.

Eventually the boat sped out of reach of the armed acolytes’ firearms, and Azrael helped the other two up once he was sure they were safe in the moment. He kept his flaming sword on to provide additional light, and the space around the river slowly began to close in on them the more they travelled, the ceiling gradually growing lower, the river growing narrower, and the walls of ice around them boxing them in, as they entered into a tunnel which was even darker than the rest of the icy expanse, the only light coming from the flaming steel blade. Lilhy continued to steer the boat with surprising adroit finesse for someone who had never been in a water vehicle before, or any kind of vehicle at all in her entire lifetime. The movements of the waters were thankfully somewhat smooth, save of course for the bubbles forming from the constant rolling boil of the waves, and the propeller at the back of the cedar boat leaving small trails of disruption within the flow of the stream as it continued to make its way down the tunnel. The silence was only interrupted when Brian spoke up to ease the tension.

“Are we out of range?”

“Yes.”

“Is anyone wounded?”

“No.”

“But we are nonetheless far from safe. Rollo will not give us up as easily as you may think.”

Back in one of the Ice Cathedral’s outer buildings, a 1500s-era library built in a tudor style with the wooden frames visible on the outside walls that jutted out from several high towers and overlooked the snowy expanse of the Swiss area surrounding the order’s primary sanctuary, a roof of fine slate planks providing sufficient shade during daytimes, currently covered with a blanket of snow like all the other roofs, containing within large numbers of volumes of ancient literature that numbered in the hundreds of thousands from all different nations and time periods, plenty of which were thought to be permanently lost to the civilised world, Brother Rollo had finished dialing a wall-mounted rotary phone and was awaiting a response. One of the acolytes who had remained in the main complex had accompanied him up, standing guard next to a doorpost. “Brother Rollo, can we not catch them with the hovercraft? Surely they could not outrun a machine?” Rollo turned back towards the guarding acolyte and told him “Rather unfortunately for us, the hovercraft has been blown into pieces. Nevertheless, they shall not escape. We have still not tried out the explosive weapons against Azrael, and another detachment of holy acolytes is still at the mouth of the cave below. I shall simply alert them, and the angel, the addict, and the SKANK will be greeted by a swift and merciless death.” On the other end of the phone, a senior brother picked up the receiver and informed him that “Unfortunately, we cannot reach them in time. The distance between the cavern and the river’s mouth has no entry points and Azrael has destroyed the only other boat in that area.” Rollo angrily slammed the phone back into its holder to hang up, and could do nothing but pace about in the library as he was without any method to stop the escapees. “What would Dumas have me do? What would anyone have me do?” Stepping over to a red-tinted window, he rested his hands on the windowsill and his body shook with bitterness before eventually settling down and gazing out the window into the drifts of white and jagged hills and pillars of blue over the frigid expanse stretching as far as human eyes could make out, framed against the dark mix of colours gracing the night sky.

Meanwhile, back on the boat traveling at a smooth pace through the river, a state of relative calm existed for the three traveling on it. The water lapped in gentle waves as the stream slowly expanded, growing wider and a faint light coming into sight at the end of a gradual turn while Lilhy slowly and calmly turned the steering wheel, the force of motion gently blowing her shoulder vestments around. Brian crouched down against a stack of the remaining boxes, still shivering and groaning aloud. “You are in pain.” Brian looked up to respond to Lilhy’s remark, wincing in more pain and clutching his chest. “I suppose that my innerworkings are in the process of detoxification. It has been an extended amount of time since I have not consumed a proper drink and that has not been true for well over a decade. To paraphrase a childhood idol of mine, ‘I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a burger today.’ Provided that said burger is drenched in a nice whiskey or cognac.” Jean-Paul took his mask off and adjusted his blonde bangs underneath his hood, rubbing his eyes as they finished adjusting to the darkness. He meekly spoke up: “I failed in the task that you gave me. I failed to kill Rollo.” The woman in purple heard him and retorted: “Yes. Yes you did fail. Perhaps I should be compelled to reconsider if I should keep my end of our bargain and lead you to your destination. Or do you still wish to learn the secrets of the system for yourself?” “I must learn it. I need to control my power and my other half.” Was the boy’s response. Brian managed to get up on his feet and look Jean’s way. “And your rage, my bespectacled friend?” “And my rage, yes.” Once Brian had finished speaking, Sister Lilhy made her reply. “I suppose that I will have to help you regardless of your failure. I haven’t the option to do anything else in my situation. I could not possibly return to the Ice Cathedral, for the penance that High Brother Rollo would demand would be immensely harsh. Thus, I shall join you, I will follow you until the most excellent and holy Saint Dumas causes Rollo’s inevitable downfall.”

Jean’s hair blew about in the minor wind. “When will that day come?”

Lilhy shut her eyes for an instant, and opened them again, both eyes reflecting the light and shining like a double blue inferno. “It will be soon, otherwise the order will flounder, for Rollo is a black mark on its well-being, an open bleeding wound on its collective health.”

The boat began to come to a stop near a hidden ice shelf obscured by the shadows, Lilhy slowly and gracefully lowering the speed and steering left to fit in the alcove of the walls of glistening ice. “We’ve come to a stop already?” “It could not be more obvious that a veritable platoon of acolytes is ready and waiting for us. Azrael is powerful, but he’s not unconquerable against a sufficiently-large armed force.” Shutting off the motor engine and holding onto Jean-Paul’s hand as she stepped out of the boat and onto the snow-blanketed ice, Lilhy celebrated further. “Unfortunately for them, yet very fortunate for us, there exists quite a few exits here that I doubt the acolyte squadrons know of. Rollo has always been far too arrogant and full of himself to bother to learn anything of use. Never has he read through the many ancient archives like I have. Brother Jean-Paul, if you could bring those packages out of the boat?” Brian was lifted out onto the snow by Jean-Paul, who then got both of the wooden plank chests out of the cedar boat and put them down gently, Lilhy kneeling down and opening them up with an iridium key, revealing high-quality civilian clothing, shoulder bags, briefcases, millions of dollars in crisp banknotes, maps, and keys to several types of land vehicles. Brian coughed and wheezed into his arm a few times and stepped over to get a look. “Hidden exits, secret passageways, underground escape tunnels, and clothing changes ready and neatly folded up. What could all of this possibly be for?” Fiddling with her robe a tad bit and taking out the knee-length beige peacoat on top and handing it over to Jean as well as a set of beige trousers that went down to his ankles and a pair of black chelsea boots. “From the moment of its formation, the order has had many enemies. Dumas knew this, and thus he always espoused plans upon plans and within plans and preparations. We have always needed to be alert to absquatulate and persist if necessary. The Sacred Order Of Saint Dumas has safe havens all over the globe, places of refuge exist for the sake of preservation. Dignity is less important than survival.” Brian took off his snow-soaked winter coat and replaced it with a seafoam green trenchcoat that stopped halfway down his thighs with a belt that he tied snugly and a grey fedora with a black band. Jean shrugged off his golden round shoulder pads, which hit the snow with a muffled thud, threw off the oversized technological four-fingered gauntlets with the light tan-coloured built-in pouches, and slipped out of his red bodysuit, putting on the pants, boots, and coat over them, in addition to throwing off his hood, two cape-like back vestments and front scarf-like banners that hung down to the bottom of his ribcage. After Brian handed him his glasses back, he put them back on and his vision refocused after it had previously gone back to being impaired upon Azrael returning control to him. Carefully he folded his Azrael apparel and stored it all in a dark green shoulder bag with an adjustable black leather strap, pulling it over his left shoulder and waiting for the others to finish readying themselves.

“Suitable clothing, updated currency, maps, keys.., Everything that we need to assist us on our way to the location of our goal.” Sister Lilhy was the last one to change clothing, looking almost paralysed as she held a dark grey duffle coat in her hands, feeling the smooth duffle cloth outside and soft white wool fabric on the inside. She had never worn something that wasn’t her usual robes and vestments that varied in colour depending on the seasons and events. And she had always hidden her head and her face underneath a large hood, separating herself from all others and showing no details of her appearance, a face cloaked in shadows and hidden for almost all of her lifetime. Her thoughts returned to reality, and was reminded of the fact that she needed to don appropriate apparel for the harsh winter climate outside, and thus, dignity was less important than survival. Her hands gripped onto the edges of her purple hood, and with a breath to steady herself, she pulled her hood back in front of the others.

What was revealed was a face that had never been touched by the light of the sun for more than mere moments through windows, thus causing it to be unbelievably pale, more than the tone of even porcelain or fair rose. Hair of a very dark brown cascaded down her head, maintained without much care and only having occasionally been cut, in the name of avoiding earthly vanity. The natural shape of her head and face were indeed beautiful, but looked sickly from so much isolation and a meager diet. A few long bangs drooped down over her face, which she paid no mind to. Her nose was sharp and thin, both of her midnight blue eyes seemed to go right through those she looked at, and her mouth was decently small, with pale and dry lips that clearly were never cared for, just like the rest of her skin. Another, deeper breath followed, and she emptied her hidden pockets of everything stored within them before shedding her long and loose purple robe and attached shoulder vestments, which crumpled up in a heap around her as she stood up. Lilhy then put on a pair of white dress pants and a brown leather belt, a wheat-coloured long-sleeved button up shirt, and over that the dark grey duffle coat, admiring for a small few seconds how soft it felt. She still felt somewhat exposed, and so she grabbed a large black headkerchief with golden embroidery resembling various types of vines and natural plantlife, tying it neatly and securely, before filling her cost’s pockets with her keys and various other key items such as handwritten notes, folded pages of books, and a special, personal item, a four-inch wooden three-barred Russian cross worn on a rope she had braided herself out of black cords, something that was hers and that she had made for herself, and an item very precious to her.

Sister Lilhy then stepped over to Jean-Paul Valley, and a moment of silence came over them, neither having anything to say in the moment. “I haven’t ever revealed my visage or removed my typical clothing in front of others. Not even peers. This… This is a first.” Jean’s response was small but genuine. “I can’t even imagine… What that must feel like…” He motioned for Brian to follow them up the hidden exit, and they started up the carved stairway. “Might I inquire where we are headed?” Brian asked inbetwixt moments of coughing. “To a place where The System is planted and taught. A place called Mobari, nestled within the vast deserts of the nation of Algeria, in North Africa. Though, I do have to confess, I myself have no idea on how to travel there. Do you, Brother Jean-Paul?”

The end of the icy tunnel came into sight, exposing the white star-studded black skies of night adorned with beautiful grey low clouds, a flurry of fresh snow being blown about by a mild breeze. Once Brian caught up to them, Jean-Paul pushed his circular wire-framed glasses up and brushed away a few stray bangs with one hand. “I personally don’t either, but I know someone who does, a fellow by the name of Oracle. She can help us. And, er, if it’s not too much trouble, please just call me Jean-Paul. Or, uh, just Jean would work too. If you don’t mind.” The three acquaintances stepped out of the opening, taking in the fresh air and finding themselves on a ridge overlooking a paved public road. A shocked Lilhy nervously stepped forward, completely and utterly captivated by the expanse of the physical world in front, above, and all around her, a space that she finally experienced for herself, in person, in living colour. “Oh… My…!” The other two turned toward her, and Jean-Paul softly asked: “What is it? Is something wrong?” The woman took several more steps in the snow, gazing out towards the mountains of white and the winter grass on the ground, the stars in the distant beyond twinkling in the dark skies, and the beautiful moon shining down upon it all, upon the real, present world.

“I-I never realised… Truly realised… Just how large, how big this world is!”

Brian Bryan, an aged addicted man who thought he had seen everything, smiled a tired smile, one with warmth and compassion. He tipped his fedora and looked up into the sky, feeling the calm winter stillness for himself.

“Sister Lilhy, you’ve taken your first steps in the modern world, in the natural world. It can overwhelm anyone, captivate anyone who perceives its beauty for the first time.”

Lilhy returned his kindness with a small smile of her own, her hair gently blowing as another breeze graced the area.

Up in a clock tower that rose like a shark’s fin and nestled comfortably within Gotham City’s industrial unholy beauty, decorated with architecture of the twentieth century’s pre-depression era, a seasoned lady of thirty years sat comfortably in a leather upholstered task chair at her network of many connected computers, monitors, and connection software. All things considered, this space was quite cozy, especially in the wintertime conditions of the early year, allowing its inhabitant to sit in the darkness of her sanctuary as much as she desired, raking in new information and connecting anyone and anything to her heart’s content. This was the workplace of one Barbara Gordon junior, a brave and wise figure who in her youth had fought on the front lines of the never-ending war on crime in the costume of the Batgirl, having been inspired by the example of Gotham’s true Batman all those years ago, as well as the example of her own father, Gotham’s commissioner of police, James Gordon senior, a bright spot in the inky rivers of corruption that surrounded the good people on all sides thanks to the iniquities of the powerful and the many seductive lures of the criminal enterprise. Unfortunately for her, the length of her career as an active combatant in the proverbial trenches was cut short by the bullet of a crazed lunatic. The memory sickened her every time it came up, the traumatic vignettes of the Joker, the clown prince of crime himself, and the bullet that he shot straight through her spine. Far from a fatal wound it had been, but she needed to adapt to the physical and mental damage she had received on that nightmarish night. Nonetheless, Barbara persisted, taking the identity of Orcale, becoming a person who had access to knowledge of nearly every piece of information in every area of every subject, learning forms of combat from a sitting down position in the days when she had been confined to a wheelchair, operating as an invaluable operative to heroes and heroines of all stripes and stock, aiding the cause of the noble.

A landline telephone rang, which she instantly picked up, trusting in outside calls since her lines were heavily safeguarded from tapping. Barbara absentmindedly twirled a lock of her long and curled scarlet red hair while the encrypted international signal established a connection to a cellphone signal in a continent an ocean away. On the other end, Jean-Paul stood there and waited patiently for a connection. Having heard the sound of a ringing phone, Lilhy walked over somewhat curious. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is that?” “Well, it’s a special kind of cellphone that I can use to connect to a particular communications satellite. I can call Oracle with it by using a certain computer code.” A crackle came over the line and he turned his attention back to the phone, putting it on the loudspeaker setting, which he preferred, holding it and starting the call.

“Are you Oracle?” “Indeed I am. I take it that this isn’t a friendly pleasure call, you want what I can provide. You seek information. Fortunately, I have plenty to spare for your use.” “I need to get into Algeria from Switzerland, more specifically the area of Mobari. Unfortunately, my two… companions… and I don’t have the necessary visas and certifications. Not to mention that I’m travelling with a homeless man who dropped off the United States government’s radar over a decade ago and a woman who was never given any identification papers or even registered as ever having been born. She might as well not exist. I won’t be able to travel there by conventional passage, could you possibly charter a private flight to a secluded airfield in Algeria from Zurich Airport?” “No questions asked, unmarked cash payment?” “Yes, please, as well as a modest hotel room for three in the nearest town.” Oracle quickly went onto the registry for the Zurich airport and chartered a private flight and a paid civilian pilot, to depart when ordered to, and secured a room for them in the secluded Iris Town. “It’s ready whenever you are. Tell them Wayne sent you, and that will be all you need. To whom should I charge the expenses?” “Take it from the account registered to the Wayne family in the Swiss National Bank.” “Which branch? Zurich or Bern?” “The Bern branch. It’s not much but it should help cover my tracks.” Taking her square glasses off and gently rubbing her eyes, Oracle asked: “Will that be all?” Thinking to himself for a second, Jean-Paul responded: “You’re probably going to tell him about this call, right? Well, if you are, then you might as well tell him now, save me the trouble of needing to trust in him any more than I need to. He knows what I’m up to.” “I’ll inform him. Between you and me, I understand, well and truly understand, why he isn’t to be trusted too much. Have a nice trip.” She hung up the landline and put in a call to the Batcave, where both Waynes were at work collecting evidence of a violent robbery that Robin had hypothesised was committed by Vengeance.

Batman stood hunched over a rock shelf making notes concerning the fingerprints left on a discarded napkin, having to take his cowl off and bare the face of Bruce Wayne to view the microscope. “This time I think your hunch might be correct, Robin. Just a few more samples and Commissioner Gordon will be a very happy man with this particular case.” Damian Wayne was closer to the Batcomputer, a gargantuan mass of large monitors and computing software, and so moved to take the facetime call himself, knowing the cave’s layout like second nature despite the perpetual darkness, politely removing his mask before Barbara’s face came onto the left main screen.

“You know who this is.” “Robin speaking. What’s the news, Oracle?” “I just got off the phone with your father’s former successor in Switzerland. If Bruce could be bothered to come to the phone himself and deal with the rest of his peers, that’d be greeeaaat.” Damian sighed in part with frustration and in part with sympathy, and called for Bruce to come to the Batcomputer, which he begrudgingly did. “Hello, Barbara, you have information?” “I always do. You don’t like to admit it, but you don’t know everything. Frankly I would celebrate the day someone proves your outlook wrong if it ever happened.” “Get to the point.” “Your angel is going from Switzerland to Mobari, and I thought you especially would be interested.” “Is that all, then?” “I’m afraid so.” Oracle then abruptly ended the call.

Back in Europe, Jean-Paul, Brian, and Lilhy had finished traversing the road and ended up at a familiar wooden shed, where Jean had hidden a briefcase containing additional money and a spare set of glasses. He picked it up and followed Lilhy into the adjoining garage, which contained an almost brand-new stark white 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid with special augmentation for the Swiss mountain snow and winter conditions. Thankfully, Lilhy had fetched the keys for the car and its storage trunk from one of the boxes in the boat, and soon the bag and briefcase were safely stored and the vehicle was ready to go. After opening the garage door with a kick, Jean opened the left front door of the car. “Lilhy, if it doesn’t bother you, could I possibly drive?” “No, Jean-Paul, it doesn’t bother me. I haven’t piloted a vehicle like this before, and besides, this seems like a western model anyway.” Brian and Lilhy buckled themselves in, Lilhy taking the right front seat and Brian having the backseat to himself, sitting in the left window seat. Jean-Paul gently eased the car out of the open garage, and once sure that no one was physically following them, promptly sped at least ten miles over the speed limit on the road straight towards Zurich.

Meanwhile, at the Batcave, in a chair a few feet away from the Batcomputer, Robin spun around, his interest vaguely sparked. “Mobari… That sounds vaguely familiar to me, but why?” Batman stepped closer to where his son was, and rifled through a stack of papers on a table to keep his hands busy. “It’s near an area controlled by Ra’s Al Ghul.” “You mean my grandfather.” “The most dangerous man in the world. The one man that I truly fear.” Robin stood up and looked at the stack of papers, mildly interested in the random news and solicitations. “Heh, BATMAN is afraid of someone. Sounds corny every time you mention him.” “Robin, you of all people should know just how dangerous he has proven to be time and time again. He wants to rule the world. I know it sounds corny, but it’s the gospel truth. The part that I fear is that he might well and truly do it someday, a day when not even I could stop his maniacal scheming. Jean-Paul is tough, but I’m not sure how he would measure up to someone of that magnitude.”

Close to everything that Batman had said was correct. However, there was an aspect to recent events surrounding Ra’s Al Ghul that not even the high and mighty Batman knew of. The most dangerous man in the world, the demon’s head, the man whom Bruce Wayne feared, the legendary Ra’s Al Ghul, had been dead for several months. Despite his knowledge and use of the mythical Lazarus pits, which could bring the departed and the ill back to the land of the living, the one who ended his life also knew of such secrets, and made sure to kill him in such a way to ensure no trace of him would ever remain to resurrect in such a manner. It had truly been him who perished, despite uses of body doubles, peak physical conditioning, and immense skill in combat, he had still fallen to a monster of a human being who not only matched him in every aspect, but had risen above the limits of human performance to finally snuff out the flame of the life of the demon for good. In his place stepped his one and only child, a daughter who never thought the day would come when the demon’s holdings passed down to her for the taking. Talia Al Ghul had always envisioned a future where the world was in her father’s hands, his role was not one that she initially wanted for herself. Nevertheless, her own pride dictated that no one was better suited for the work of bringing the world down and into the right hands than her, and she had always commanded just as much respect, and always managed to find a way to come out on top of most conflicts. Once, she had harboured genuine affection for none other than Bruce Wayne, but he had spurned her multiple times due to his own notions of good and evil, as well as his own “frivolous heroics” compelling him to always serve himself over her. One day, the bat would learn that a scorned heart was not something to trifle with, but in the present, Talia was content to operate in the “here” and “now”, and patience would serve her well.

An interesting development in the demon’s affairs arose when a report came in from a spy at Waynetech, having intercepted a coded call and managing to determine the fact that an ally of Batman was planning to arrive in her territory for an unknown purpose. Recalling a previous conversation with her father, Talia remembered that Switzerland was host to the Order Of Saint Dumas, an organization that had troubled him greatly in his centuries of life. Ra’s had told her that it was even older than he was, and that he had once shared an adventure with the real Dumas, an insane and bloodthirsty fanatic. Of course, some would have described him as such, too. Dumas had not learned the secrets of eternal life, as Ra’s, Talia, and a select few others knew of, but he survived in the form of the order he founded, a group as insane as he was. For three hundred years her father had attempted to place spies in the group, out of foresight that an inevitable conflict of interest would occur, but had failed every time due to their immense secrecy and mistrust of the outside world. Talia paced around the stone tiled floors of her palatial desert residence, with rooms profusely decorated with artifacts from a great many nations and almost as many time periods, including a golden statue Dumas himself that looked out over the primary dining room, purchased from a merchant who had unearthed the treasure from accidentally having been lost to time, contemplating the potential good fortune of someone close to the bat dropping into her lap so easily and so soon. Stepping out onto a balcony overlooking hills of innumerable grains of hot sand and leaning over the intricate carved granite railing, feeling the cooling night breeze wash over the barren land, she decided that it was the time to try it again. “This time will be different, much different. I can practically feel it.”

The private plane chartered from Groupe Robinson landed in the Mobari airfield seven hours later, touching down in the early afternoon, with Oracle having also prepared a car for them as an additional courtesy, which Jean-Paul stuffed the bags into and drove towards the closest town to a set of coordinates Oracle had sent to his telephone. As the black 1967 Ford Mustang GT500 sped off onto the winding desert road, the pilot of their Groupe Robinson plane calmly walked over to the landline phone at the airfield’s check-in station, and he dialed a special phone number to report to his true employer. “Inform The Immortal that the three persons of interest are headed straight for Iris Town. Two men and one woman, exact matches of the given description, likely requiring a full-scale seizure. Expect them to be there in one hour or so. Hazun saeid.”

In that amount of time Jean-Paul drove the vehicle to the town of Iris, a community that despite being small in size and isolated in geographical placement, was nonetheless bursting with life, the population and visitors going about their business under the artificial shade of their buildings and the many meticulously-maintained olive and fig trees. The hustle and bustle of the crowds teeming with colour and energy, for indeed, they were people, ordinary people, people with lives and experiences and hearts and minds and bodies and souls of their own. Some were conducting business in the open-air produce markets, some were simply dozing off in the heat, young ones were at play in more private and open sections, and others were enjoying the simple pleasures of spending time with loved ones or cooking a meal or making bright and detailed clothing. Oftentimes Jean-Paul felt as if his body and identity would never truly be his own, that he was never fully one of the human race, that his soul would always need to share one body with the angel inside him, looming dormant and lying in wait to be turned loose and permitted to slaughter. But of course, this venture had the potential to change his entire outlook, his entire life. Perhaps whatever he discovered about his past, his origin, he could come to a reconciliation with Azrael, and even a small one would be a victory. Parking the car a short distance away from town, he slung the green bag over his left shoulder and picked up both briefcases himself. Brian eased himself out of the Ford and stuck to Jean-Paul’s side like disappearing purple glue. Brushing a few beads of sweat from her forehead, Sister Lilhy also exited the Mustang and started walking with the other two towards the entrance to town. “You know, you really should consider dressing more appropriately for the climate, Lilhy.” Uttered Brian after seeing her visibly struggle in the heat. “Lilhy? Did you hear me?” But the former doctor’s advice was of little use, for it did not register in her consciousness, as she was busy being completely taken aback by the influx of colours and sensory aspects of one dusty little town. “So… Many… People…” Each slow step was followed by a brief pause to appreciate the all-new wonder of this new world. “I had known from my reading that there are eight billion human beings, but seeing so many living people right before my own eyes… it’s such a different wonder.”

All three of them managed to weave through the crowds as best as they could, but the sensory overload was taking a bit of a toll on Lilhy’s perception. “Everyone’s crowded together, so much poking and elbows… The noise, the scents, the freedom, the chaos… There’s just so much to take in.” Brian, who had taken off his trenchcoat on the flight over, made a small comment to Jean while they kept Lilhy in direct line of sight. “What a poor child. For someone like her who has lived her entire life in isolation, the sudden influx of the secular outside world must be overwhelming.” Also in the crowd were three particular folks with their eyes on the group in that sector, one of them a gal from near the area, clothed in an orange button-up shirt that had loose sleeves, with loose curly black-coloured hair and sculpted like a professional bodybuilder, one slightly shorter, also well-built, clean-shaven and sporting a button-down sand red golf polo with a white collar and trimming, and with a wavy shoulder-length black mullet of hair loosely brushed to his left side, and a third man with slicked back dark hair, wearing a very light grey business suit and dark orange tie. The one in the red polo noticed the three strangers in the crowd and pointed them out. “Oy, there they are.” The one in the orange shirt confirmed “That is indeed them, alright.”, and the man in the grey suit stopped and veered the three pursuers to a shaded area beneath a clothing shop roof. “They’re going into that café. No better time to fetch them for the demon than right this minute. Aisha, Rocky, stick with me. That blonde one may prove to be an annoyance.” “Sure thing, Adam.” “Yeah, whatever, fine with me.” Back in the bustling crowd, Brian remarked: “Hey, Jean-Paul, we should get out of this crowd. We could probably get Lilhy a spot of tea in that café.” He directed Jean-Paul and Lilhy into a location dubbed Café Helens, and the three sat down to place an order. “We can get to our hotel after this, and then in the morning tomorrow, Lilhy can take us to our destination.” “You do know the way from here, right Lilhy?” “I most assuredly do, I have read extensive texts on this particular institute.” Unfortunately, before they could order any drinks, the three agents who had been tailing them found where they were seated.

The man named Adam in the suit approached them, and firmly told them: “You three will need to come with us.” Brian took off his hat and set it down on the table. “What are you, the Algerian tourist committee or something? A local three-person version of the welcome wagon?” Rocky, the smirking prick in red, gripped Lilhy’s chin and smugly declared “Doll-face here will come with me! Won’t ya, Doll-face?” This inflamed her with righteous anger and she dug into his forearm with her right hand. “You touch me, scum?!” Jean-Paul’s expression turned to a sorrowful frown, and he whispered to Brian “This does not bode well…” Brian said back “You would be correct…” And Aisha, the one in the orange button-up, remarked: “Aw, to hell with this. Let’s grab them now.” “Her I’ll grab anytime!” Remarked Rocky. Taking advantage of the moment, Jean-Paul flipped the table over, soliciting an “OWF!” From the suited man as it hit him straight in the chest. His next attempted attack was to kick Rocky, but his attack was caught and Rocky flipped him right onto his back. Lilhy backed away, only to find Brian having paid some chump change for a cup of tea and a bottle of jack whiskey. She quickly downed the tea with a few gulps, and while Brian was chugging whiskey, she exasperatedly tugged at his flower shirt. “Can’t you help him?” With another CHUG, he responded “I am not a violent man!” CHUG. An annoyed sigh left her mouth, and she said through gritted teeth: “No, you are not. You are a pathetic man.” CHUG. Aisha then picked Jean up by his ankle, twirled his body around, and sent him right through the wall with a single powerful throw. Adam pulled out a MG34 machine gun and pointed it right at Brian. “Enough of this! Take them to the van.” CHUG. “I will go NOWHERE with you!” “You know something, Doll-face? You’re dead wrong!” A malicious slap sprung from Rocky’s hand straight to Lilhy’s face, sending her back several inches and reeling in pain. Brian and Lilhy were forced out of the café at gunpoint and got into a modified dark green van with the kind of glass used by several intelligence agencies for their particular vehicles. No one cound see inside, and the outside was armoured with sloped iron plating that could take an explosive beating three ways to Sunday and five ways from Thursday.

Fortunately for Jean-Paul, he had stayed perfectly still underneath the hill of rubble that Aisha had ever so kindly buried him beneath when she chucked him through the building’s outer wall, and so he had managed to go unnoticed for several precious seconds. Those seconds were enough to slip away into an alleyway between several other shops, and enough to hear a van’s engine start just eighteen feet away. It happened then, that he felt a particular coldness welling up from the depths within him, filling him, obliterating Jean-Paul Valley’s personality from the inside out. And once again his body was not his to control, he had slipped away entirely to make way for the other, the angel within. He was Azrael. He quickly made his way back to the café and opened the green shoulder bag, unzipping it and taking out the Ulfberht steel longsword secured within its embossed leather sheath, picking it up by its leather strap and long diamond-laden gold hilt. He might need his weapon. Setting the sword aside, he emptied out the contents of the bag onto the floor of ceramic Cairo tiles, and cast aside his coat which had previously been tied at his waist. He would need his vestments. Bodysuit, belt, armour for the top half of the chest, split cape, clasp, black full-face mask with the red symbol of three pairs of angel wings fused together vertically and triangular white eyes, huge four-fingered gloves that fit his middle and ring fingers in the double-sized middle finger, and finally the hood. Azrael picked up his blade and rose to his feet, to the shock of the stunned people around him who had witnessed all of the events. He had heard the attackers mention a van. Looking around for all of two seconds, he spied the exact one, picked up both briefcases, and darted straight for the vehicle. Inside the van, Aisha crawled inside and locked the doors, and Adam began to drive away from town. “I’m sorry, I could not find the blonde.” “Most unfortunate. The Immortal will not be pleased.” Brian’s terrified voice nervously asked “You’re not going to hurt us, are you…?” Adam’s voice responded matter-of-factly. “Yes, we most definitely are going to hurt you.” Before the van could head out of town, Azrael’s foot speed managed to catch up to the motion of a moving car, and he leapt onto the roof of the van, clinging onto one of the top bars with one foot. For the length of the ride he stated quiet for once, save for his cape and shoulder-mounted ribbons blowing in the wind, ignoring the pain of the heat as the van veered onto a hidden sand-coloured road camouflaged among the desert dunes. By the time that evening rolled around, a stone fortress came into view, a residence and headquarters built in a blend of several styles and forms of international influences mixed with Arab Islamic architecture, with several outer walls of quarried stones and fired bricks, with each successive layer hosting more buildings and rooms, and the inner ring containing clusters of castle towers topped with Persian and Byzantine domes, the tallest towers on the outside layers, each one adorned with many coloured tiles arranged in a wide variety of patterns from the very top to the very bottom. The van began to slow down as it went past several iron gates and stopped in a sprawling central courtyard, a roofless vestibule for welcoming visitors, or for executing troublemakers to make an example.

Azrael stood atop the roof of the van with the setting yellow sun and the mixed sky of blues and purples and oranges at his back for a good twenty seconds, not only as an intimidation tactic against the guards that were closing in on him, but also just because he wanted to see what it would feel like to bask in the effortless swagger granted by appearing in such an imposing manner in front of the opposition. Once they were in range, the system enabled him to understand what they said to him in Arabic, and to communicate it right back at them. Pointed guns were of no concern to him, considering his bulletproof suit and the fact that his weaponry could cut through human bodies like prosciutto wrappings filled with Jell-o, so he let them come and make their threats.

[[“Do not move!”]]

[[“Raise your hands!”]]

[[“Bind him!”]]

The angel easily rebuffed one guard’s attempt to handcuff him with an annoyed slap, leapt straight in the face of pistol fire, which bounced right off of his mask and clasp, to tackle another guard to the sandy ground, striking down hard with a double chopping motion to the shoulders, and turned his attention to two more of them. One guard ate a knuckle strike, and another received a swift kick to the midsection, knocking both men down, and the others wised up and elected to not waste their bullets or their bones.

[[“Disperse. I am not here for you.”]]

From out of the van stepped Adam, whose gunfire proved just as futile, and a frankly disappointed Azrael walked on over to him, and crushed the machine gun’s barrel in his fist. Following a brief moment of tension, an angelic elbow landed itself straight into the suited man’s back, dropping him instantly.

“Release both your captives.”

Before he could receive a response, he heard the sound of clapping from behind him. Turning around, he beheld the owner of the fortress, a woman measuring five feet ten inches tall and sporting an above-average muscled build, of mixed Chinese and Arab heritage, long and straightened black hair that reached down to the middle of her back, and clothed in a long dress of admiral blue with prominent blood red spots, the main ones running down the centers of the front and back, as well as golden embroidery along the edges and matching separate sleeves disconnected from the main dress, small slivers of arm skin bared in between golden buttons, and a particular statement being sent to the visitors, a lack of shoes. It was Talia.

“Quite an excellent display of prowess in the martial arts. I cannot help but applaud you. You display skills far above those seen in the average man, in fact, power of your level is something that I have seen in only three other men in my entire extended lifetime.”

Despite the mob of guards and operatives of Talia’s organization, the League Of Assassins, that had massed at the spectacle, including the demon’s personal servant, the devoted and world-level fighter Ubu, a manservant with no hair at all save for his eyebrows, and the latest in a line of men in service who pledged allegiance to the head of the league out of genuine loyalty, none were stupid or hotheaded enough to attempt to attack the obviously dangerous newcomer in red and gold and black, least of all their leader. Taking several more steps and surveying the potential threat by his mannerisms and tone, she continued.

“Come, you and your friends are welcome to my hospitality. Once you three have dined and rested, I only request that you do me the honour of listening to a particular offer that I would like to extend to you. I, for one, think that you shall find it most attractive.”

IN TIMES TO COME

A Servant Puts An Angel To The Test

The Hospitality Of A Cruel Mistress Is Accepted

Someone Ailing Is Born Anew

And Sister Lilhy Discovers Something For Herself.

#brian bryan #dennis o'neil #barry kitson #i don’t really have any hashtags #jean-paul valley #sister lilhy #azrael #azrael dc #jean paul valley #jpv #seriously these things take forever #my first major change to the lore

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ebconsortium · 8 days ago