บท 128: Chapter 128: A Prize and A Rescue

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"The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you."

- Bob Harris, (Lost in Translation)

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<{Inside Bruce's mind}>

<(Bruce Wayne POV)>

"Damn those useless goddesses" I mumbled through my gritted teeth after finding myself back inside the core library of my mindscape.

After those three told me to wish for anything as a prize for "protecting" the mortal world, I had humbly wished for all gods and goddesses to stop bothering me in the future or including me in their stupid plans and manipulations. According to me, it was fair compensation for the shit I went through because of them including the loss of billions of dollars' worth of equipment. However, not only they didn't agree with it, but they even had the galls to actually laugh at my face.

In their own words, even if they could somehow prevent the members of their own pantheon from disturbing my peace without some important enough reason, ordering gods of other pantheons to do the same, however, was outside their jurisdiction. The best they could do was to warn all the Olympian Gods and Goddesses not to engage with me without a valid reason while also spreading the news to some of their friendly pantheons and hoping that they would do the same as well.

Now the thing is, in DC, the New Gods and the Olympians are the most active among all the pantheons. So, the Olympians not bothering me was good enough compensation for me. But of course, I didn't admit this out loud since I wanted to find out if I could further milk this situation. After all, there was something else that I wanted, something that was extremely difficult for me to gather on my own without the help of the gods.

It was the Nth metal, the mythical magical element exclusive to the DC multiverse that could supposedly do almost anything. I had read about it in some of the magical texts while training under Giovanni Zatara and let's just say that the metal could be considered absolutely OP because of its anti-magic properties alone.

However, for some reason, no sooner had I asked for the nth metal as my compensation, than the expressions on their faces completely changed. The calm and composed look on their faces quickly turned into annoyance as they seemed troubled by my request.

They straight out denied my wish and made it pretty clear that they weren't going to give me even a single drop of nth metal no matter what, since according to their excuses, it was a resource that even they could not afford to give away so easily.

... But they did propose an alternative... They offered me a sample of something known as the eighth metal for my use. They insisted that it was the same material my All-Blades were made of and was the primary component of most of the divine weapons wielded by the majority of the Olympians.

Naturally listening to their bold claims, I could not help but accept their offer upon considering all the practical applications the eighth metal could potentially have. After all, it was not every day that one could gain access to the stuff that was used to make world-destroying weapons.

"I wonder how they are even going to physically deliver that metal to me. Is it just going to appear out of thin air in the Batcave one day or perhaps a chuck of metal will fall on me from the sky?" I curiously thought out loud while calmly walking out of my mental library into the dungeon.

"Welcome back, Mr. Wayne." A refined voice interrupted my thoughts Agent Smith appeared before me with his familiar ever-present smirk still present on his lips. "It's done. We have succeeded in evicting the parasite out of your mindscape," he informed me, bowing his head slightly as two more agents approached and stood behind him.

"Hmm? You didn't destroy it?" I asked with an annoyed frown. "I thought I gave clear instructions to destroy Ares' remnant psychic imprint permanently and assimilate into my own mindscape if possible."

"The virus was imprinted deep within the helmet of Ares that you were wearing, sir, a virus that could not be removed by us alone. The upgrade we received after absorbing the other... bug was enough to stop and remove that parasite from this place, but we could not eliminate it permanently, nor could we completely cleanse it from its original home, the helmet.

It seems that some... supernatural power was used in binding the helm with a small part of Ares' divine soul. Its purpose is to possess anyone trying to don the helmet. Even though the soul fragment is too weak to directly reincarnate Ares into the boy of the wearer, it can still directly affect the wearer's mind and soul while slowly transforming them into a replica of Ares, complete with his powers and his personality. So, it is best if we remove the parasite from the helmet only after thorough research and detailed analysis to truly make our actions effective." He patiently explained while adjusting his dark shades.

'... So, the helmet contains the Horcrux of a god.' I muttered to myself with a weak smile after listening to his explanation.

"Well, thank you for your service, Agent Smith. I will take care of everything else. You guys can go and relax... or do whatever else that you do in your free time, maybe help the xenomorphs replenish their numbers or something." I offhandedly commanded, behaving like they were living beings and not just mental lines of "psychic code" that I had constructed in my mind as AI guards.

'Wait, why was I even asking them for the information when I could just access the memory of what happened while my astral spirit was away?' I facepalmed at my own oversight, then pressed my hand against the nearest wall to play back the events that had unfolded here in my absence.

'Look at that, the fight was pretty one-sided with Ares getting one hell of a beating here. No wonder Smith was in such a good mood. My mental antivirus is just too good.'

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<(Omniscient POV)>

Queen Hippolyta was currently outside her castle watching as her warriors apprehended the few remaining rock trolls that had failed to leave after Ares and Hercules died. Most of the monsters had given up and were not even fighting back, so there was no actual danger anymore but as a Queen, she had to be present here amongst her people to encourage them.

... Also, she didn't trust Bruce's flying machines that had completely surrounded the island. She had been backstabbed once because she had put too much of her trust in a man before, she was not going to repeat her mistake again at least not without a solid enough reason.

It was undoubtedly true that because of these very machines, they had managed to win against the metal undead without any significant loss of Amazonian lives but exactly because she had seen the might of these machines, she knew just how dangerous they could be.

She was confident in the fighting capabilities of all the Amazons in her queendom but even she couldn't claim that they would easily win against thousands of those flying contraptions in an all-out war especially because of how well-organized and versatile they were.

The legions of these machines were so good that they were even able to eliminate and hold back hordes of those undead metal monsters when Iapetus was actively raising them from the ground with his magic. Up until the moment when the undead army crumbled on its own (most possibly due to Iapetus' defeat), those machines led by that female voice were dominating the war. The Amazonian warriors didn't even have to fight too seriously with how the machines always had their backs.

'That boy is more dangerous than I originally believed. I thought that his appearance after one of the oracles made the prophecy of a man killing a god was just a coincidence, but it seems that destiny truly doesn't make mistakes... I doubt I can stop him from leaving after this, but I still need to somehow make sure that he doesn't perceive the Amazons as a threat to him. We can take on the men's world if worse comes to worst but a war against him and his... Machine army will cost us more than we can afford. Even I cannot fathom how much more dangerous and powerful he will grow with time.' She contemplated with a frown on her face. 'I need to make sure that he will never be a danger to Amazons... but how?'

"My Queen, we have gathered the injured, it seems that we were rather lucky. None of the warriors have died or suffered a fatal injury. Though some have lost their limbs in battle, it is nothing that the purple ray can't handle." A royal guard approached Hippolyta and politely informed her after kneeling on one of her knees, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"I see, that is good news... Take all the injured to the healing chambers and start the purple ray treatment. Since no one died, we don't even need to use the Well of Souls this time to lay their spirits to rest." She commanded with an impassive face.

"Mother!" All of a sudden, a familiar voice captured her attention, as she discovered her daughter flying towards her in a hurry.

"Diana, w-what happened? Are you alright?... Wait, what happened to Bruce and why are you carrying him?" Hippolyta asked with a puzzled expression on her face as she saw Diana carrying Bruce's limp figure in a princess carry.

"He lost consciousness after fighting Iapetus. Even though he won the battle, it looks like the fight took a pretty heavy toll on him. I tried to wake him up, but I could barely even feel his heartbeat... Also, his armor is behaving weirdly." Diana put Bruce down before pointing to his hefty armor which for some reason was actively losing its size as substantial parts of the armor disintegrated into dust and floated away into the wind.

"Interesting, I can feel my connection to the armor re-establishing." Cortana's voice suddenly appeared out of nowhere as her white spherical drone slowly floated above the three. "Something was obstructing me from properly connecting to master's armor before but now, it seems that the interference has been removed. It was most probably the helmet that was affecting his armor. Now that he is no longer wearing it, the armor seems to be changing back to its original design while discarding the nanites that were damaged beyond repair in the battle." The AI explained.

"Wait, the helmet, where is it? Did it get destroyed?" The Queen of the Amazons suddenly asked in an urgent voice as she looked around in search of Ares' helmet. "There is a very good chance that it is cursed and can make any man wearing it go insane. It should either be completely destroyed or secured inside a place where no one can ever reach it."

"I left it back at the mountain after it came loose from his head once he lost consciousness. I think it should still be there. But enough about the helmet Mother, our top priority right now should be saving Bruce. He did all of this to save us and this island when he could have easily escaped, leaving us to our pitiful fates. We can never truly pay him back but at least we can save him." Diana pleaded to her mother.

"... Yes, you are right. We do need to do our best to save him. It is the least we can do for someone who helped us out in our time of need... even if he is a man." Hippolyta responded with a tired sigh after taking a glimpse at her daughter's panicking face. "We need to give him oxygen so that we can breathe... we need to find someone who can give him mouth to mouth..."

"I'll do it." Diana quickly replied before bringing her face close to Bruce's.

Hearing her daughter's words, Hippolyta was instantly going to say no to Diana's proposition and instead ask one of her royal guards to do it but suddenly, she seemed to remember something as her face brightened like she had just found out a solution to her problem. "You know what, you are right. You should be the one to do it since he seems to trust you." She suggested, allowing Diana to continue what she was doing.

Encouraged by her mother's suggestion, Diana gently sealed Bruce's mouth with her lips as she forcibly passed the oxygen in her mouth into his.

Of course, at that moment both Diana and her mother had completely forgotten about Bruce's self-healing ability, with even Cortana not bothering to remind them of it. The AI was already content after silently taking a few scans of his body and concluding that his health was in no real danger.

On the other hand, after a few seconds of locking her lips with Bruce, Diana began to feel a strange yet pleasurable feeling inside her mouth like something was... wrestling against her tongue.

"Mmmm," The princess of the Amazons could not help but release a low moan as she felt a pair of strong hands hug her from the front while something massaged her tongue.

"The Lustful Bat strikes again," Cortana muttered in a voice that no one could hear as she observed everything from above.

At the same time, Hippolyta had a thoughtful expression on her face as she calmly stared at her beloved daughter French-kissing a man right in front of her as she mumbled something incoherent to herself, "Maybe this could work..."

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