Chapter 108: Chapter 108 : A little harmless fun
Author note : Find me (Search Cathbel) on Patréon to read ahead and discover some of my other stories. Or use this link by replace the * by e : https://www.patre*n.com/user?u=66371596
Enjoy !
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Ned was standing in a dark cave, a few dozen feet away from the spaceship. Although the sight of something like this was usually awe-inspiring, it was the cave Ned was truly interested in. The Bat-cave. Or at least, something Batman used and with enough advanced technology as to be worth a couple of billions. Ned doubted he'd bring them to the cave under his house… And indeed, they were nowhere near Gotham.
« A bat living in a cave… You just had to go with the theme, huh ? » Ned commented to the dark knight brooding on the side.
When Wonder Woman showed them all her famous invisible jet and despite the fact that he wanted to turn into a crazy fan whooping for joy, he noted that, if they wanted to fight against the Guardians and their army, its weapons would need a few upgrades. Rage-fueled weapons were usually the best against will-powered ones. The rings of the emotional electromagnetic spectrum acted kind of like Pokemon types in that regard. Hope boosted Will which was beaten by Rage… etc, etc.
Ned didn't know everything, nor did he care at the moment. He waited for Batman's retort… which ended up being a simple grunt. Such a typical reaction, Ned thought. But if he thinks I'm gonna let up with just this…
« Say… What's the real estate market price for caves these days ? Is it your main cave of residence or a secondary one ? » The tech spirit started hounding the Dark Knight with questions.
Superman who had been standing not far from them was barely suppressing his smile. Ned reminded him of his friend Barry Allen a bit. That said, Barry was a little morose sometimes, probably because his mother was killed and his father imprisoned because of it. Still, when he wasn't ruminating over the past, Barry was a load of fun ! The two of them had met in their secret identity for a police symposium in Metropolis. Barry had given a lecture on the new techniques used in forensic science.
As a reporter, Clark had asked to be sent there to cover the event. The two hit it off over hors d'oeuvres after his conference. Well… Truth be told, Clark didn't eat all that much, compared to Barry. The man was a black hole when it came to food !
Needless to say, neither Barry nor Clark were aware of the other's 'extracurricular' activities. While 'Superman' had met 'The Flash' a few times, he never used his X-ray vision in order to discover the man's identity. And although it would be rather either for the both of them to recognize the other, because one's disguise was a pair of glasses and a bad hair cut and the other's voice was the same, they didn't put two and two together.
Not that Ned cared about this. He didn't even know about the fact that Superman was thinking of his friend Barry Allen. At the moment, he was too preoccupied with teasing a brooding billionaire. In a corner of his mind, he wondered if Wayne's caretaker, Alfred Pennyworth was anything like he was portrayed in some of the animated series and comics : a mostly serious man, but that would tease and prod his 'master Wayne' from time to time in order to get him out of his brooding ways.
Ever since he started to act like a superhero, and especially since the Brainiac episode, Ned had realized one of his fantasy : meet and team-up with his favorite heroes. Clark was every bit the character portrayed in the comics. Upright and nice, but stern when it came to certain things. Overall, the boy scout he was nicknamed after.
Ned had mostly avoided the trope of acting like the fan girl in front of him the first time. Granted, the situation didn't really allow it, what with all the fighting and the killing and the alien-robots invading. And after, during the reconstruction and rescue operations, they didn't meet that often. The few times they did, Ned was too tired to really think or act that way.
With Circe, his meeting with Wonder Woman and Supergirl… It was pretty much the same thing. With all the magic in the air, the idea of fighting someone on the level of a god and the civilians turned beastmen that he couldn't exactly just kill, it saved him from embarrassing himself. It also probably saved him from a number of broken bones : he wasn't able to undress the amazon or kryptonian with his gaze and earn himself a beating. Ned believed himself strong enough mentally, that it wouldn't have happened anyway…
After that, in the House of Mysteries, both the embarrassment of his 'defeat' and the fact that Constantine had stolen his armor, were on the forefront of his mind.
The former squib was kind of glad that he always met his heroes in situations like this. It accustomed him to spend time with them. All so that, instead of being the one in the position of being made fun of, he could do it instead to the others ! Okay, maybe not for this reason… At least, not just for this. Still, it was pretty fun to try and get a rile out of THE Batman. Although… it seemed for some obscure reason, the Dark Knight of Gotham wasn't a fan of Ned.
« Stop playing the idiot. Get to work ! » The Batman uttered in a cold tone, without even looking at him.
Ned sighed. It was true… He was the one, along with Constantine and Steel that needed to work on the ship's weapon systems. While Batman had a knack for technology, his knowledge was mostly on computer systems and forensic science. He wasn't called the 'Detective' for nothing, after all. He might use a lot of gadgets and high tech vehicles, he wasn't the one to actually make them. His company did, or someone in it did. Probably Lucius Fox. Now, this is a useful Lucius ! Not a waste of oxygen like another Ned knew of…
Ned joined the duo of magic user and engineer, idly thinking that it was kind of a weird sight… But also a welcome one that he hoped to see again in the future. Maybe on a grander scale. John Henry Irons worked on the cannons and was currently in the midst of an argument with the caustic Englishman over the intricacies of magic and how nonsensical it sounded to the African-American.
Had Ned never been born in a Wizarding family, and still pursued his goals in another way, he might have agreed with the man. However, he understood all too well that magic was mostly chaos-apparent. On the surface, it looked like nothing made sense. But when you looked deeper and actually tried to learn how magic worked, then you realized that magic was governed by its own set of laws.
Despite the fact that magic was indeed the master code for laws of the universe, you couldn't do everything you wanted with it. It was a little like Ned's tech spirit… They were essentially code. He could re-write, add a few lines of codes here and there… But the tech spirit would push back : load a back-up of his code, overwrite your access and lock you out. The laws of the universe were like that, but with a developer and admins overseeing it all in the form of the Presence and the Endless. At least, that's how Ned saw it…
Wizard kind and homo magi were basically low level admins or moderators of this program : they were allowed more leeway than most, but they were still limited.
« Mr Irons, Mr Constantine. How are things going ? » Ned interrupted their argument.
Ned would start by putting money where his mouth by doing what he always said he'd do : build a bridge between No-majs and magic users, starting with those two !
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