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As Edward arrived next to Elias, the man was visibly oozing out fear, and he had completely lost his normally calm and confident complexion.
Levitating him to his feet through telekinesis, Edward approached the nearby cameras, inwardly thanking New-Yorkers for filming everything, and found there was an actual news channel filming him, and they seemed to be on direct.
So Edward approached this cameraman, whose camera was fixed on him anyway, and said, "Five months ago, I warned the world about the governments abusing their powers, and look at what happened today. While I was fighting against a threat to the entire world, this man, whom you elected as your leader, fired a nuclear bomb at me, almost killing me, and saving the alien."
Obviously, anyone listening was shocked as this was a grave accusation, and could potentially change the world's dynamics for the years to come.
Edward let go of Elias, who disgracefully fell to the ground face first, and continued, "While I could make my own justice and kill him here and now, I will not. All humans are equal, and so this man shall be trialled like any other man or woman. Expect proof of what he did to soon appear."
And Edward decided to stop there as he walked back to the group of heroes, and after saying his farewells teleported back home.
There, he had to reassure Donna quite a bit before he finally set out to finish his business.
Opening another portal, Edward appeared in front of a large mansion, right outside of Gotham. Ringing the door, Edward's outfit turned into a suit, and before long the door was opened by an older man.
The butler smiled and greeted, " It is nice to see you again, Mr Bell. I didn't know if I would see you again."
Edward smiled and nodded, "It's good to see you again, Alfred. I'm here to see Bruce."
"If you would follow me, Master Bruce is already receiving a guest, but I'm sure they both would be glad to see you." Alfred said, and led the way.
Following the butler, Edward arrived in a large room, where he saw Bruce sitting in an expensive looking couch, a drink in his hand. Facing the billionaire, was actually another one, the famous Tony Stark.
Both men looked at Edward in surprise, and got up. They sent a look at each other, and Edward smiled, "Sorry to interrupt your secret meeting, I can come back later."
Bruce smiled and replied, "Stop this nonsense, you're always welcomed here. I'm sure Tony has nothing against including you in our conversation."
Edward and Bruce looked at Tony, who shrugged and replied, "He probably received the same invitation anyway."
Edward raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Invitation?"
Tony nodded, and explained, "From SHIELD. The Avengers Initiative. Batty here and myself were visited by a man called Fury to invite us the join this Avengers Initiative. It's basically a team of Super Heroes."
Edward threw a surprised glance at Bruce, who rolled his eyes, "Long story short, he hacked into my computer and learned of my identity."
Edward guessed that this was really a shortened version, as he didn't believe Bruce Wayne, the ever so cautious Batman, to actually have his other identity simply stored in his computer, opened to be read to any hacker.
Tony seemed proud of what he did as he added, "Took me a week to find it."
Edward smiled as Bruce sent an annoyed glare at Tony, and said, "To answer your question, yes, I have received the same proposal. But it isn't what I am here for. Since you were in a secret meeting, I believe neither of you know what happened today?"
Both looked surprised, so Alfred cleared his throat and said, "I would check my phone, Master Bruce."
Both men took out their phones, and after a moment both of their faces turned ugly. Bruce sent a cold look at Alfred and asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"
Alfred, unbothered by the threatening glare of his master, replied, "You were in the middle of a meeting with Mr Stark, and even with the fastest jet you wouldn't have gotten the time to reach the fight. And unlike Mr Bell here, radiation does affect you, Sir."
Bruce frowned, while Tony looked at Edward and asked, "You really took two nuclear bombs point blank? And what's that thing with the President?"
Edward sighed, "That's why I came here to find Bruce. Through magic, I have found that the second nuclear bomb fired at me was fired by Johnson, but that isn't enough evidence to impeach and imprison him. So I was here to ask Bruce to hack into the Pentagon and the White House and make public what he did. There has to be traces left."
Bruce thought about it for a moment, before nodding, "They definitely didn't have the time to erase every trace of their actions already, they probably didn't expect you to survive, much less know they were the ones responsible so fast. I'll do it."
Tony quipped in, "Let me help too, hacking the government is my fourth favourite thing to do."
Edward smiled, "Thanks to you both. I won't bother you any longer then, I have a few other things to do. Farewell, Gentlemen."
Both snorted at his words, and Edward opened a portal. Alfred, who had already opened the door and was ready to lead him out, cursed something under his breath about teleporters, and Edward left.
He didn't appear home just yet though, instead he appeared in an office. Sitting in front of it, was Fury.
When the man saw Edward, he did not look surprised in the slightest, and said, "Take a sit."
Edward didn't bother doing so though, and said, "You don't seem to be involved in that nuclear attack… good. Friends of mine will be searching for the proof of what the President did, I would advise you not to try and erase them."
Fury scoffed, "Why would I? That madman fired a nuclear weapon 50 kilometers away from the White House. Even though it was a little far from down town, it would still have killed tens of thousands of people. No way I'm protecting him, boss' orders or not. Hell, I wouldn't have minded if you killed him in the White House."
Edward raised an eyebrow at that, and said, "I hope for you your office isn't bugged."
Fury snorted, but didn't reply. Seeing this, Edward nodded, and left, finally returning home.
Today was quite the exhausting day, tanking two point blank nuclear explosions definitely wasn't a great experience. Still, Edward was happy he had managed to progress his Spear Concept to the peak.
If not for this fight, Edward could have trained for months to barely achieve the same result, and even then he maybe wouldn't have made any progress.
Understanding Concepts was understanding the very essence of it, it was understanding the core concepts of it. For the spear, one didn't just need to swing their spear thousands of times everyday and hope for a breakthrough.
The reason he had such a big advancement this time was because he understood the essence of spearmanship, Perseverance. It meant never abandoning, never letting go of one's spear until victory.
If he really wanted to, Edward could have escaped from the fight, Starro was much slower than him, so Edward could have easily created a portal and disappeared. However, he didn't, he continued fighting despite the odds being against him, and that's what allowed him to understand more about the Spear Concept.
It also reinforced Edward's belief that he was more suited to the spear than the sword. His understanding of the Sword Concept was still quite shallow as he hadn't seriously used one ever since the Ebony Blade broke against Sauron, so he didn't yet know it's essence, but it definitely wasn't perseverance.
But perseverance really was a good description of Edward, it was how he always behaved himself, spear in hand or not, so he would always find understanding the spear easier than the sword, or other concepts for that matters.
Now that he was back home, Edward decided to relax a little as he spent the next few days at home, lazying around the gardens, the TV and the internet in general.
That allowed Edward to keep track of everything that happened in the world in the past few days, and boy was he not disappointed.
Tony and Bruce made a wonderful job, putting up on the internet enough evidence to secure President Johnson's identity as the launcher of that second nuke.
Moreover, Fury seemed to have added a layer as even more information quickly surfaced, some of it had to do with the bomb, and others was more mundane for a politician.
The result was a condemnation of the President by the whole country, or rather the entire world as Elias had not only almost killed Edward, he had almost bombed many more people, as well as endangered the whole world as without the Justice League, the group who defeated Starro, the starfish could have been a serious risk with it's mind control ability.
As for the name, Justice League, it was widely accepted as a name after an article was released by a man named David Graves.
Edward felt it was quite funny that while Fury was doing his best to form a team of super heroes, one had already formed without his involvement, and even funnier, most of the members were on his list.
When he asked him though, Fury assured Edward that he was still determined to make the Avengers a reality, more so than ever actually, and Edward had to say, he somewhat agreed.
The Justice League was made of heroes, and was very powerful, enough to deal with most threats that could appear on Earth, especially Superman, whom Edward had no confidence in taking down. All together, Edward knew that at his power levels, defeating them would take more than raw power.
While this was good to deal with threats, it could also be quite the danger. This wasn't a matter of trust either, one of his best friends and his girlfriend were on the team, and the rest of the team mostly admired him, so he obviously mostly trusted them.
But if they were to somehow be controlled, then the calamity they could unleash upon the Earth could be catastrophic, to say the least.
So making the Avengers was a rather smart move, and a necessary one. Despite thinking so, Edward still had no intention on joining the team, he still wanted to form his own faction. He didn't want to form a team, he wanted to form a safe haven for the entire population of Supers, while keeping the world and it's people safe.
Speaking of which, the world always was at risk, and Stephen didn't hesitate reminding Edward as he portaled into his Japanese garden, not as a Master of the Mystical Arts anymore, but as the Sorcerer Supreme.
And the first thing he did with his position, was to prepare for war.