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The Silhouette and The Forge
Chapter 72
I didn’t waste any time immediately rushing and leaping right at Captain Atom with a hit of Jet, making everything around me slow down with that familiar sensation. My fist was cocked back, a bit of chakra enhancement, then a variety of strength potions, and the cherry on top-- I crushed the vial of Re’em blood I had stored in my body, letting the power flood into me.
Captain Atom tried to raise his arms and blast me when I got close enough, but he didn’t realize just how fast I was. The blast went wide, impacting a tree, scorching it, then shattering it to splinters, with the rest falling not long after that.
My turn.
My fist slammed into the side of his head, knocking his head off to the side and making his face scrunch up in pain. Like Superman, I doubted it was often he found someone capable of harming him. Thank goodness my body was slime now, otherwise, I would have shaken my hand and winced, considering it was like I punched a steel wall. I could dent and damage it, but it would hurt me just as much. Now I don’t have to worry about that.
Leaning out of the way of a punch that had a glow around it as I felt the heat coming off of it. A flip back and a duck avoided another powerful and fast blow that made what I was doing look easy before slipping under his guard and getting a couple of grunts out of the man when a series of punches impacted his ribs.
He went for a grab, trying to hug me, only for me to slip under him with flexibility no living thing should have unless you were a slug or octopus. A series of backflips avoided the energy blasts before flipping into the air, and a couple of hand seals later, my hand aimed at him launched several blue glowing senbon needles that crackled and hummed as they flew through the air.
Captain Atom, not taking any chances, cupped his hands together and fired a bigger blast that wiped out the lightning needles. He quickly noticed I wasn’t where I was and looked around before the ground under him rumbled before a surge of electricity shot up and wrapped around the man.
Instead of quickly shocking him and it being over, the electricity clung to him, wrapping around him like living energy ropes, and the man grunted, struggling to break out of it as he fell out of the air and squirmed on the ground. His grunts turned into cries of pain, with me rising out of the ground like a newly risen undead here to torment the living.
Brushing off some dirt from my shoulder, I looked down at Captain Atom, feeling… dissatisfied and disappointed. I expected the guy to be far better than this. Sure, we are in a city, and he couldn’t go all out with soldiers around us. Yet, he was so easily incapacitated it was giving me whiplash.
Maybe I was overestimating him because of my memories from Justice League Unlimited and hacking the government to have an idea of what his powers were. I had gone through a few simulations with the information available about the guy. The guy had surprisingly little footage of his exploits as both a hero and a man who still serves the military and is considered a military asset.
The simulations were disappointing. I had figured it was because we had a lack of data to work off of… nope! The guy is apparently a pushover. He screamed as the lightning chakra worked its way through whatever he had for nerves. It probably didn’t help that he hadn’t expected me to be as fast or as strong as I was.
My foot lightly kicked his head. “C’mon now, just relax and the pain will stop. It’s called Lightning Net Jutsu. It surrounds your body with a constant net of electricity, any form of struggling or fighting would cause it to be drawn to your nerves.”
I didn’t think I needed to say more than that since the rest for anyone with working brain cells and an understanding of human or any living thing's anatomy would be rather obvious. Although, in his case, I doubt he has the luxury to think about that as his cries of pain got stronger as he slowly raised himself off the ground, the net working in overtime with the snaps of the lightning jutsu sounding like high-powered firecrackers going off.
“Like… Hell!” He snarled, his face a grimace of pain and, above all else, grim determination. “I am surrendering.” He bit out after his face contorted from a particularly nasty snap from the electric tendrils washing over him near his head.
He picked up steam as he got up off the ground and tried to lunge for me. I lazily stepped to the side and held my foot out, and he tripped over it, tumbling to the ground in a heap.
“Sooo… you’ve lost? Kind of disappointing, can’t lie. Was expecting a lot more out of you, Jarhead.” I said, tapping the back of his head with the tip of my foot, examining him and feeling more let down.
"Boy, when I,” His head shot up when my foot touched a sensitive part of it. “Get out of this. I am going to give your sorry spy ass a whooping you’ll never forget.”
I backed off when the electricity started to fade away, his metallic-looking body getting back up as I was questioning what just happened. “What’s the matter? Got nothing smart to say?”
Captain Atom growled before lightning chakra formed around his body. He almost blitzed me were it not for a quick rush of Ultra Jet letting me keep pace with him. “What the hell?!” I said in surprise and joy that he wasn’t a complete disappointment.
He sliced a trio of trees in quick succession as he charged after me with his arm as the lightning surged out around it like a knife’s edge. A counterpunch after seeing what he could do had my arm jiggle and spaz out when the electricity moved along it. It didn’t stop the force behind the stronger blow, sending Captain Atom into the ground, digging a trench.
Not even a fraction of a second later, he was up and tossing bolts of lightning like ye old Zeus. The bolts exploded like bombs cracking the air with thunder. Each of them was avoided and dodged by me, putting in some effort, finally.
“It’s about damn time you started bringing out the good stuff, old man. Thought you had already run out of gas.”
Even with my voice distorted, Captain Atom could sense the joy in it. His face scrunched up before he stopped and held two javelins of lightning chakra in his hands. “You're a strange one. Most villains I have dealt with would be questioning how I managed this. To be honest, it’s something I didn’t fully know I could do until now.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. It goes to show the simulations, as accurate as they were, didn’t mean they weren’t the greatest thing either. This proved that. Already got a hint of that when Wonder Woman awakened her divinity, or I should say, more of her divine blood. I don’t know if she is a fully realized deity yet, but since I could sense and detect it from her, and it was slightly different from her two uncles but not far off from them either, I’d say she wasn’t far off from that if she wasn’t already. No idea what that said about me and my own nature after whatever one of the power-ups granted me.
The simulation could accurately predict and give a good representation of what someone could do at that current time and what it knew about them. So if they have the capability to greatly increase their power output, the simulation likely wouldn’t know about it when they themselves likely don’t know. And if they did, I don’t think it could accurately gauge how much stronger they would be since the simulations with Superman were all the same for Maximum Parasyte.
Such as Wonder Woman being as capable as she was before my androids helped her power up, they knew exactly what they were up against. So if a hero like her got a power-up that the simulator couldn’t predict or even know about, it told me that it wasn’t infallible. It could be wrong, but it wasn’t its fault.
How could you predict someone becoming a god? Or how much stronger Superman would get if he started absorbing more solar energy or stopped holding back when that alone proved difficult for the thing to properly gauge.
“See… a lot of people call me strange. I prefer the term eccentric. Who doesn’t love a good schoolyard fight?" I shrugged before leaning out of the way of a telegraphed punch that cracked the air and sent a gust of wind cracking the trunk of a distant tree.
He was getting faster. Enough so that I couldn’t avoid the follow-up strike that hit my forearm in an instinctive attempt at blocking my body when I didn’t have a need to. No more vital organs as a weakness.
The punch laced with electricity coursed through my body, making it spasm, and if it wasn’t for me constantly training to maintain this form and shape even when I slept or was not actively thinking about it, I would have reverted back to a blob of slime.
No matter what I was subjected to, I wouldn’t let this be what revealed my new form and that I was Daniel Cunningham. One moment I was blocking the strike, the next I was sent flying through multiple trees, turning them to sawdust more than splinters, and dug a trench through the ground.
Captain Atom was already right where I came to a stop in the dirt. He looked at the upturned earth yet saw no trace of me. He flew up into the air, having learned his lesson from my mole-person impersonation.
“Your peekaboo trick won’t work a second time. So you either come out, or I start zapping the ground with the same energy you used on me.” He said evenly, done playing games.
Give him that, he was a man on a mission and wasn’t having any of the quips the cape scene is known for. But what did have my interest is how he now has access to chakra. Or something eerily similar to the point that I and my sensors can’t distinguish it.
So as far as I am concerned, it was chakra. I gave Captain Atom access to chakra! I shouldn’t be excited about it, but I was. At least the good guys can’t say I didn’t give them anything nice.
“Oh come on, Jarhead, it will work as many times as it needs to!” I said faux cheerfully.
It annoyed Captain Atom more than I expected it to. “For a former spy, you sure don’t know much about the military, but then again I guess that makes sense for a desk jockey to not realize 'Jarhead' is reserved for the Marines.” He said before his hands spread out and tongues of lightning erupted like the heads of a hydra.
The lightning dug into and churned the grass, dirt, and rocks like a farmer would plow his land. The lightning bathed the area around us, limbs from the trees caught fire with the bark and trunks blackening from the sheer intensity of the voltage forced into the ground before toppling them over.
Squirrels, some birds, and even the insects and moles beneath the ground had their bodies revealed, blackened and charred before being crushed and lost amidst the area's devastation courtesy of Captain Atom.
“Man, you must really hate animals.” I said, making Cap snap his head towards me as I sat on a fallen tree branch.
He rushed and tried to punch me only to go right through what he thought was my body with the illusion dispersing. “Animal rights activists must not like you either, especially if they witnessed all of nature's cute and cuddly." Another fist went through another illusion as he went on a spree trying to find the real me. “Little critters getting zapped by you won’t look good on the news.”
The illusion playfully wagged its finger at him before it took a beam of concentrated lighting chakra that shot off and blew up in the distance. “Show yourself you coward! You started all of this, now come out so I can finish it.”
He floated there, the crackle of electricity across his body waiting on me. The rustle of movement had him turn around so fast that it was like he had almost teleported. A hand thrust out, the beam hit a branch flying towards him, turning it into splinters and then ashes.
My form swung through the area with chakra threads before I spun into sight with a snap of the wrist. Several threads tossed highly pressurized droplets of water no bigger than nine-millimeter bullets towards him.
The droplets went flying where they hit the ground, what was left of any trees, and the captain's lightning blasts mixed with green energy. Several of the water drops were popped, sending water cascading in their small radius. A few managed to get by courtesy to how small and numerous they were. The few that got through popped with loud, piercing bangs, sending up sparks along his metal exterior, not just from the chakra that clung to his body.
He winced before firing another blast with my water clone swinging around, throwing out more water drops. After this back and forth lasted a few more seconds, he had enough and sent a wave of chakra lightning rushing towards it, turning the clone back into a puddle of water.
“What?!” He said in shock, looking around, turning in time to see me line up a shot with my Caster Gun. Aiming and pulling the trigger before Captain Atom could say a thing, launching a bullet that immediately faded away upon contact with the air.
But it was anything but a blank. The air churned and roiled like the ocean during a great and terrible storm. It turned, getting faster and more violent, a wave pushing and breaking through anything in its path, as even the ground wasn’t spared, with deep gouges and trenches carved into it from the razor edges of the wind. The great visible mass of air rushed towards Captain Atom, whose eyes widened before he just shook his head and gave me a cocky smirk, thinking I had nothing left up my sleeve.
That smirk was replaced with a frown and an intense look of concentration when his lightning blast cupped in both hands made contact, trying to destroy my attack or disperse it. Instead, the lightning parted before the massive ball of condensed, razor-sharp wind, like the Red Sea parted for Moses. It pushed through the attack like it wasn’t even there, and Captain Atom's eyes widened before he glanced over his shoulder, seeing the soldiers in cover behind him.
They were far enough from us, but not enough for them to be spared from the aero bullet. Captain Atom planted himself right in the way of the oncoming tide of beyond hurricane force winds but kept contained in its giant mass. His arms were pointed forward firing various blasts of energy that didn’t completely dissipate like his lightning chakra but didn’t exactly slow the attack either.
Realizing what was about to happen, Captain Atom spoke into the earpiece, telling those behind him to run. His arms spread wide like he was greeting an old friend with a bear hug, and he soon embraced the aero bullets’ creation.
As soon as it met his body, the winds sparked and scraped against what was indeed metal he had for skin. His body may as well have been nothing but sparks, the wind battering and pushing back, his feet digging trenches into the ground. Feeling like I had gotten my fill for the day, some chakra threads latched onto the distant soldiers and threw them further away out of what was about to become a reenactment of what it must have been like to be bathed in napalm back in Vietnam.
The next shell was loaded and ready to fire. The trigger was pulled while Captain Atom was halfway through the park, managing to slow the aero shell down by absorbing the energy from it, though it was far slower than when he sucked up the lightning chakra. Maybe because part of it was enhanced by chakra and the rest was magic?
Regardless of why he couldn’t suck it all up, the trigger was pulled and the fire shell launched from the gun as it barked in my hand. The shell began to ignite the instant it left the gun before impacting what was left of the still massive aero bullet construct.
Captain Atom's eyes widened, not expecting me to follow up with another attack. Probably expected me to gloat or showboat while he kept that thing away from anyone and tried to absorb it. The instant the fire touched what was left of it with the wind chakra that remained, it went up like a spark hitting gasoline.
The wind ignited before growing in size, and then when nearly all of it was encompassed in flames with Captain Atom obscured from sight, it blew up. The ground cratered, fire, wind, and kinetic energy ripped and tore it apart. What trees were left on the ground or standing were turned to splinters, then those splinters to ash. The rest of the park, with the concrete walls for the place, was broken apart from the force of the explosion.
Even the windows of the closer buildings were broken, shattering to pieces with plenty of car alarms going off for good measure. I tunneled through the ground below, far enough away from the blast that the rock and dirt above took the brunt of it. Not enough, as some dirt rained gently on me from the quakes rocking the ground before it settled.
Let it never be said Earth Style ninjutsu was worthless. They may not be flashy besides stuff the old midget could do, but they definitely had plenty of utility and other uses. The authorities above, especially the military, were running around like chickens with their heads cut off at night.
They were searching, helicopters above, and plenty of military vehicles were transporting troops into the city. On I went for several miles before crawling my way out of the ground, opening up for me like an old friend. Wiping off the dirt from my form before realizing I could just adjust my body. A quick physical shift and the dirt was eaten up by a mild acid, with my form changing into a nature hiker on the outskirts of the city.
Despite the initial annoyance at becoming a slime, it was practically the best thing that ever happened to me thus far. The numerous powers and abilities were amazing to have, and that gave me plenty of options if I ever get in over my head. Acid, nigh immune to physical damage, besides blunt methods, which didn’t hurt, just scattered my body and made it annoying to reform again. Then things like changing my internals to have access to any known chemical or concoction from my drugs to potions so long as I understand its composition and what went into making it.
Basically understanding it in its entirety let me make as much as I wanted to. Then like now, shapeshifting. I was a ghost to the people around me, none of them even aware of who I really was, and if they were, I could just for a brief moment get their eyes off of me and change shape into someone or something else. Even a random object like a trash can can just blend in with a wall, and they walk right by.
It was why I wasn’t concerned about Captain Atom or the military capturing me or at least trying to. "Sir, it's best to be careful, the city is not safe.” A firm hand grabbed my shoulder as I turned to see one of my hunters wearing a bright orange vest as he helped direct people to safety, impersonating a man recently passed out from accidentally taking his sleeping pills with his morning medication.
A shame, it happens to everyone eventually. I nodded towards Agent Club before he escorted me away from the street and removed his ensemble before we and the other hunters, after the signal was sent, all moved towards the various points to leave the city. Not, of course, before I got a glimpse at Captain Atom.
He looked far worse for wear before this all started. He wasn’t too badly damaged, but I could see him in the distance flying around like he was looking for someone. He was moving fast, way beyond what the helicopters were moving at. The captain had several lacerations across his body. None of them were too deep, his body had that weird distortion in parts, like metal getting warped by too much heat.
So it had hurt him, but not enough to do too much damage. Good. I didn’t want to hurt him badly, just enough to make him feel it and to ensure he was preoccupied to stop me from leaving. I didn’t want to chance him electrocuting me when I was under the ground. It would still hurt me, and I have no idea how much power he can dish out since the amount of lightning chakra he used before I got my new body and other power ups I would have been gassed even using the first attack before I started training.
Now… I could probably do half of what he did without a magicka potion to recharge the spiritual side of things, and my slime body is practically an inexhaustible source of physical energy. An argument could be made that I should have used more genjutsu beyond the simple illusions, but that might not go over well if he realizes he is under an illusion and if he could absorb the lightning net to give him access to lightning natured chakra, which I don’t think he fully comprehends the entirety of what he absorbed and only sees it as electricity, then it would give him access to genjutsu.
How he would use it and manifest it had me sorely tempted to try and get him to absorb it because science! But I sided with being cautious instead of giving the giant metal gorilla the means to commit MKUltra on people with government sanctioning via genjutsu.
We soon used one of many corridors back to Gotham, and everyone went their separate ways without most of the public fully knowing what happened. Only that the government had a bunch of soldiers and Captain Atom loose in a park with the public being kept in the dark. So people clearly were speculating on what happened like they did with what any hero's secret identity was.
A few hit the nail on the head, guessing correctly it had to do with me, but they were drowned out by many other voices that gave anything and everything but the correct answer.
A few even got a good laugh out of me. Stepping into the room, I had set up before getting in front of the projector that showed the various members of the Light. “Captain Atom and the military were kept busy. Did they get what we were after?”
Ra’s smiled alongside Vandal. “The Lights agents were successful in acquiring the files and data from classified documents from the once heavily guarded bases.” Ra’s Al Ghul declared, looking proud of the fact.
I don’t think it was because his agents managed to break into a military base that had a lot of its forces mobilized to try and capture me or try to spot me leaving the city and state. The US military had set up checkpoints across several States in an attempt to capture me. How they managed to keep this quiet from the public was beyond me before it all went down between me and Captain Atom.
I was aware of what they were doing courtesy of their information networks being compromised, and I had long since been in their computer systems. After all, how else was I going to plant false information and breadcrumbs to my ties to the government?
Like the data they took was some older designs and models I had in mind for machines of various purposes that were hidden away with markers in the data that made them seem like they were from the Cold War era. We had some examples to use the data markers to make them more legitimate than what they already were just to be more thorough.
The data was placed onto some old computers that should have been scrapped but weren’t because some old-school scientists, despite having outdated hardware by today’s standards, still managed to make their computers better than almost anything in current time. The military itself seemed incapable of recreating what they did.
The Light got what they wanted, and the Justice League got another hero with an upgrade. Now, to just leave some information anonymously, Captain Atom can start improving upon the gift he was given. I hadn’t expected him to do what he did and gain access to it, but you won’t hear me complain about it.
That or the newfound weight that just dropped into my soul as I staggered for a moment before the knowledge in my head made me cackle like a mad man. Magicka from the Elder Scrolls was something I didn’t realize I had wanted… this just got a lot more fun!
I idly wonder how Jade is doing. Haven’t heard much out of her beyond when she told me they got Artemis back. Ra’s doesn’t seem bothered by it when it was brought up that Batman, with his sidekick, had infiltrated his island and taken one of his assassins, readily pointing out who Artemis was.
Speaking of the girl, she might be the reason I haven’t heard much… oh well! Jade and Bruce should have it handled.
…
“Argh! C’Mon Artemis, eat your food!” Jade growled out, grappling with her little sister in her makeshift room that was little more than a prison by this point.
“Why? So you can poison or drug me!” Artemis yelled back, struggling to pry her sister's grip off of her while kicking her in the side.
“Just open your mouth!” Jade countered back, having gone through this song and dance too many times now. One would think Artemis would be happy to be back from her time amongst the League of Shadows, instead, she didn’t trust almost anybody now.
“I am not a toddler!” She yelled back, giving Jade a particularly vicious elbow to the ribs.
Jade, not one to let something like that slide, sister or not, placed her knuckles on top of Artemis's head. “You are literally in a cage.”
She wasn’t going to do it unless Artemis decided otherwise. Jade just hoped for once she wouldn’t continue and just backed down. It had been like this since she woke up in Wayne Manor and tried to escape from them. Bruce had to take desperate measures, which for once Jade agreed with.
She was currently being held in a cell in the Batcave. Cell… didn’t do it justice. It was more of a five-star hotel room with plenty for her to enjoy. It's just that she was acting like an animal about to get neutered, and because Jade had to drug her to get her out of there, she wasn’t eating right either.
“I prefer the term detained under protest.” She growled out, turning her head away from the food in Jade's hand. They had learned to not give her silverware since she would just pick the lock or use it as weapons. Forks hurt when you're stabbed with them. Who knew?
Jade let all her pent-up frustration out on Artemis' head. Artemis had an inkling of what Jade intended, she just didn’t care and thought she could take it. Everyone thinks they can take it until your older sibling rolls up with a noogie from hell.
“Ah! G-get off of me!” Artemis cried out, struggling even harder like a feral animal in Jade's grip as her knuckles rubbed on her sister's head.
“Say you're sorry and eat your damn food, and I will!” Jade gave her the conditions for her surrender. If only Artemis wasn’t related to her and didn't have that famous family stubborn streak that made them so tenacious.
Even with her iron-hard knuckles giving Artemis the equivalent of rug burn on the top of her scalp, she gritted her teeth and fought that much harder before kicking and smacking the tray of bread into Jade's face and hair.
Jade blinked in disbelief that Artemis would do that. “That’s it! You’re getting it now!” She hollered, doubling down on the greatest and most painful noogie anyone has ever given another person.
With the stubbornness of someone who had absolutely decided this was their hill to die on, Artemis accepted it readily.
“Do your worst, but I am NOT eating that.” Artemis snapped, struggling to get Jade's fist off the top of her head, twisting like an angry feral animal as Jade tried to pin her arms, having given up on the noogie.
“It’s soup!” Jade shot back, dodging a wild headbutt that most people would have a broken nose from. Thankfully Daniel’s and Bruce’s training saw to it that it didn’t work on Jade. “You like soup!”
“I liked soup before I got betrayed by you and then drugged!”
“It was for your own good, I am not letting you get trained by a bunch of assassins.” Artemis was getting angrier and kicked the side of the cell for emphasis. Jade groaned, her patience hanging on by a thread.
“The things I do for my family.” She muttered to herself only to have Artemis' next words infuriate her.
“You have no family.” She said coldly.
“And I’m regretting it already!” Jade now wrestled Artemis using far more strength than she had before, now overpowering Artemis to her surprise courtesy of her cruel remark. Jade tried again, spoon in hand, one knee braced against the cage bars as she attempted to wrestle Artemis into submission.
“Open. Your. Mouth.” She growled, holding the spoon ready to thread the needle.
“Open your mouth or I’m telling Batman you cried earlier.” She warned her, Jade's smile taking on a vicious edge.
Artemis' eyes widened. “I didn’t cry--”
The moment of outrage gave Jade the opening she needed as she lunged. Artemis, realizing her mistake, clamped her mouth shut like a steel trap. Adding insult to injury, Artemis turned her head up and away, the spoon hitting her cheek and spilling its payload everywhere. The two of them froze, followed by a slow, horrifying drip of broth off of Artemis’s face.
Artemis smiled smugly. “… You missed.” Despite her tone being flat as a piece of cardboard, she was relishing in her supposed ‘victory’.
Something Jade took no issue with popping that bubble. “You moved," Jade snapped back.
“I did not move!”
“You moved aggressively!” Jade threw her hands up, about to throttle her little sister.
“I defended myself.” Artemis harrumphed, arms crossed and glaring daggers at Jade.
“You dodged SOUP!” Jade could no longer hide the exasperation in her voice. This had gone on too long, every time she had to fight her and make her eat the food. Not a single bit of food was drugged!
She turned her head to the side, pouting. “… It looked suspicious.” She said bitterly.
“It’s chicken noodle soup! How does chicken noodle soup look suspicious?!” Jade had her hands raised up to her face and clenched and unclenched them as a vein pulsed on her neck.
“That’s what you want me to think.” Artemis jabbed a finger, poking Jade in the chest.
“First of all, don’t poke the bear, Mouse. Second of all and more importantly, you’ve been brainwashed.” Jade stated flatly.
"No, I’m not! You're the one that’s brainwashed.” Artemis countered back with the age-old tactic all children know. Unfortunately for Jade, it worked more than it should have.
“I’m not the one living inside of a cage!” She jabbed Artemis back with a finger.
“I’m not the one wearing cat ears at night!” Artemis countered back.
Jade instinctively reached up for her head and then remembered she was not in the suit, and her eye twitched at the snicker at her misfortune that Artemis had just caused. “They are tactical.” Jade said matter of factly.
“… They have little points.” Artemis had no issue raining on Jade's parade, not even letting her have a single thing to say she was right in the argument.
Jade grabbed Artemis into a headlock. “They’re aerodynamic!”
Before Artemis could respond or get out of Jade's grip, the cave elevator dinged and both girls froze. The two slowly turned their heads, seeing none other than Alfred Pennyworth standing at the entrance, perfectly composed as always.
He took in the scene before him. Soup was on the floor, on the walls, and on Artemis, with Jade in the cell with her and Artemis halfway up the bars like a cornered raccoon trying to escape the headlock Jade had her in.
A long pause followed with the two girls staring at the older man. “… Miss Jade," Alfred said calmly. He didn’t need to say his question out loud. Jade had been around Alfred long enough to know the unheard question.
Jade immediately and without shame pointed at Artemis. “She started it.”
Artemis’s eyes widened before her head snapped towards Jade, who had finally released her. “I DID not!”
“I see.” Alfred replied, stepping forward with the quiet authority of a man who had seen far worse and had been mildly inconvenienced by all of it. Considering Bruce’s proclivities and what he had dragged back to the manor in the past, some spilled soup and an unruly child that refused to eat were far from the worst he had to deal with.
He entered the cell, unconcerned that Artemis may try to hurt him, and picked up the bowl and the fallen spoon. “Miss Artemis,” He said, tone polite but firm. “You need to eat.”
"No," Artemis said instantly with zero hesitation. After all the betrayals she suffered, she doesn’t trust anything from Jade.
Alfred nodded sagely. “Very well.” He turned to Jade. “Hold her.” Jade blinked at what he just said.
“Wait, what?”
“Hold her.” Something in Alfred’s tone immediately made her comply.
For once Artemis proved far easier than she had before this to subdue and restrain. “Okay, wow, that was easy-- whoa!” Jade barely had time to react before Alfred moved with surprising speed. In one smooth motion he pinched one of Artemis’s cheeks with such a firm grip that Artemis’s mouth popped open from shock and pain.
The spoon was in and out before she or Jade even knew it. The two girls froze as Alfred calmly withdrew the spoon. “… There we are.”
A moment passed before Artemis swallowed the few remains of the delicious soup that she would forever deny was delicious… and she hated herself because she wanted more of it.
“… I hate all of you.” She said quietly. Being trained by a group of assassins and an old man working as a butler is what manages to get the best of her every time he steps in to do anything involving Artemis.
Jade stared for a long moment before she broke the silence. “That worked?!” She exclaimed and demanded Alfred’s secrets.
Alfred gave her a small knowing smile. “Miss Jade, I raised Master Bruce.” It was such a simple statement, yet he said it with no small amount of pride, like he climbed Mount Everest, got gold medals in the Olympics, and fought Superman and won.
Yet the more both girls thought about it, the more they realized how much of an accomplishment that actually is, coming from Alfred and who he had to deal with growing up under his care. Enough that all the above thought of achievements all paled in comparison.
Jade could only blink at that as she voiced her biggest question on her mind. “… You fed Batman like that?”
Alfred had a warm smile and zero hesitation to admit to it. “On multiple occasions.” He said it fondly, like a parent would admit doing something with their child years back when they were now adults.
Then from somewhere in the shadows deeper into the caves a voice spoke up loud enough for all three to hear them. “I can hear you.”
The two girls froze while Alfred was still moving about completely unbothered that he might have annoyed Bruce. Both girls realized Alfred wasn’t full of it and that he did indeed make Bruce eat like that, if not worse.
Alfred, completely unbothered by who he was inside of a cave with that he just nonchalantly embarrassed, prepared another spoonful. “Now then, shall we continue or must I employ further… persuasion?”
Artemis stared at the spoon, then Alfred, then at Jade, who was already backing away with a smile filled with schadenfreude at what Artemis was about to go through.
“Some big sister you turned out to be.” She sniped right at Jade's heart.
Jade had a hurt look before it was quickly wiped away. “I’m not getting involved in that,” Jade said immediately. “You saw what he did to you… and considering how you have been acting, think of it as an attitude adjustment.”
Alfred raised an eyebrow slightly as his hand holding the bowl looked ready to set it down and employ his tried and true method of getting unruly children to behave.
Artemis let out a sigh, knowing she had no chance of winning this battle, let alone a war against Alfred. He made any thought she had of fighting him dry up and realized it wasn’t a good idea.
“… Fine.” She grumbled, opening her mouth.
Alfred nodded approvingly like it was her wisest decision. It was. “Excellent choice. Especially when I spent time preparing this soup, good food should never go to waste, and despite the airs you put on, I know you're hungry and you find it delicious.”
Jade folded her arms, watching from a distance how Alfred was getting her to eat finally after she and Bruce had tried for some time. “… I softened her up.”
Alfred paid no mind to Jade while Artemis, soup in her mouth, looked past the man and glared at her before swallowing. “You threw soup at me.”
Jade glared back with a cocky smirk. “I threw soup at you tactically.”
Before either of them could continue, which Artemis very much wanted to, from the shadows Batman’s voice stopped both of them in their tracks. “Jade, training in ten minutes.”
Jade deflated at the command, shaking her head and walking away with Artemis smiling at her smugly, a smile that faded away with the unimpressed look Alfred gave her. He continued feeding her until all the soup and food was gone, and he stood utterly victorious as he always had when it came to the family.
Lure out the government and Captain Atom+50
Embarrass the United States government once again +50
Give Captain Atom access to chakra +100
Get the better of Captain Atom and the United States military +100
Perks gained:
Spellmaker (Morroblivion) (600CP)
You are talented at creating new spells from trial and error. They tend to be relatively efficient in terms of magicka expenditure and can incorporate various effects. Creating new effects is time consuming but possible.
