Chapter 5 Doctor Fate

To my immense displeasure, the only thing even remotely exciting that occurred during my stay on Themyscira was the time when I challenged Artemis to a fist fight. Now, admittedly she ended up winning our match, but that was because she straight up outclassed me in every way except raw skill and viciousness, and I was told that stabbing people in the eyes and ears was frowned upon in "friendly" matches. It hadn't felt very friendly when she broke my ribs, but it was still the most fun I'd had on the island. And besides, the statuesque red head was actually pretty decent when she wasn't trying to kick the shit out of me. That being said, Wonder Woman was insufferably smug in that "we'll treat this as a learning experience" kind of way when we finally left the island without having uncovered a single diabolical plot. It was just unfair.

But in any case, Diana needed to get back to "Man's World," and yes they still insisted on calling it that despite my observation that doing so was inherently discriminatory and devalued the contributions of women in our society. So, here I was, back in the cave o' justice in Happy Harbor.

"Hey guys, guess who's back?" I called out as I stepped through the zeta tube. "Who's the blonde?"

"Oh God!" Wally whimpered, "and just when we thought you were gone for good!"

"I won't leave until you stop fucking everything up with your poor impulse control, Wallace," I warned as I casually side stepped Superboy and Aqua Lad as they brawled across the room.

"You must be the murderhobo I've heard so many horror stories about, then," the blonde girl remarked with a confident smirk. She was athletic and pretty, with vaguely Vietnamese features and well tanned skin. Tall too, with full lips and brown eyes. Her clearly dyed blonde hair was pulled back into a pony tail that was held in place with a green band. She was wearing a short brown jacket and a sensible v-necked shirt that was a little short, revealing a strip of skin between the bottom of the shirt and her well fitted jeans.

"Nah, I'm not homeless. I live here in the cave, I was never charged with anything, and all of my hypothetical misdeeds were committed against criminals on foreign soil. That makes me a patriot," I explained cheerfully. "Now, seriously, who are you?"

"Artemis," she finally introduced herself.

"Ryan, or Realis, I'm not sure if you gave me your real name or your hero name," I shrugged and shook her hand.

"Yes," Artemis answered.

"Ha. So, what's your schtick?"

"She's Green Arrow's niece!" Wally blurted out, sounding a little annoyed for some unknown reason.

"Uh-huh," I eyed her, doing some quick mental math. I'd already deduced the identities of some of the more obvious Justice League members, so I knew that Green Arrow was Oliver Queen, who was about twenty eight or so, and didn't have any brothers. Plus, going by the fact that Artemis looked to be about sixteen or seventeen based on her, ah, development, that meant she wasn't the result of a one night stand that Arrow had taken responsibility for, so...

"Yeah, listen, you're going to want to work on that cover story a bit," I advised her.

"Cover story? I don't..."

"Yes you do, and you need to come up with something that will pass more than a cursory inspection," I cut her off. "It's good practice."

"Practice for what?" Artermis asked belligerently as Wally blurted out,

"Wait, you lied to us?"

"It was probably Batman's idea, just like how he thinks that sunglasses will keep Robin's identity secret," I scoffed as I wandered over towards the kitchen. I was feeling kind of hungry.

As I returned with some leftover Chinese food in hand, Red Tornado descended from the ceiling on the swirling pillar of red wind for which he was named. I made a mental note ask him why it was red at some point, since that had been bugging me.

"Hey, Red Tornado, do you have a mission for us?" Wally asked excitedly as he zoomed up to our baby sitter.

"Mission assignments are the Batman's responsibility," Red Tornado replied in his usual synthesized monotone.

"Yeah, but the Batman is with the Robin, doing the crime fighting in Gotham. Come on, you've got to have something for us, please?" Wally begged.

"If we can help..." Aqualad also chipped in, subtly reinforcing the whole "responsibility" angle he was always so focused on. He took his duties seriously, bless his fishy heart. Red Tornado paused for a moment, and then walked over to the holographic keyboard linked to the main computer and brought up an image of an old but well preserved looking man with steely blue eyes and a crafty smile.

"This is Kent Nelson, a friend of mine from the original Justice Society, and the original Doctor Fate," Red Tornado announced. "He is one hundred and six years old, and I have not heard from him in two weeks."

"Dude doesn't look a day over ninety," Wally stage whispered to Artemis, who fought down a smirk.

"He was Earth's sorcerer supreme," Red Tornado continued, pretending as if he hadn't heard, "and caretaker to the Helmet of Fate. He may merely be on one of his walkabouts, but it is unwise to leave such a source of mystic power unguarded."

"Pff, right. Dude knows a little advanced science and Dumbledore's it up to impress the babes," I heard Wally quietly scoff.

"He's like one of the great sorcerer priests and priestesses of Mars! I would be honored to help find him," M'gann announced, sounding decidedly reverent. I made a mental note to ask about that. I may have been hardwired to kill things, but learning about another sentient species' customs and traditions sounded fascinating. Like, Martian sorcerer priests? Who could possibly pass up a chance to learn about that?

"Me too!" Wally blurted out, reversing his original stance so quickly that only a speedster could have pulled it off. "Soo honored I can barely stand it. Magic rocks." He threw up the horns while Artemis rolled her eyes in disgust behind him.

"Take this. It is the key to the Tower of Fate," Red Tornado handed a suitably mystical looking key to Aqualad while Wally continued to hit on M'gann.

******​

Predictably, Doctor Fate's Tower of Mysticism was magically hidden. However, when Aqualad slid the key into the empty air, a large stone tower that was reminiscent of an ancient Scottish Peel Tower, albeit one that sent a vicious spike of pain roiling through my skull. I gritted my teeth and blinked rapidly, trying to bring my vision back into focus as the rest of the team headed into the Tower, and I unsteadily hustled after them as Aqualad paused to grab the key from its place in the door.

"You have entered the Tower of Fate, but it does not recognize you. State your purpose and intent," a golden hologram of Kent Nelson declared robotically as the door vanished behind us.

"We're here to check up on Kent Nelson and the Helmet of Fate. Red Tornado sent us," Superboy declared as he stepped forward. The projection smiled slightly, and then the floor dropped out from underneath us, depositing us in a snowy, mountainous landscape. I, for one, was quite relieved, and promptly packed some ice onto my temples, which were somehow pounding even worse.

"It's snow!" M'gann helpfully stated the obvious.

"Hey, what's that?" Superboy asked, pointing towards a suspiciously nondescript cane that was floating about a foot off the ground a few yards away from us.

"Pssh, probably Nelson's 'magic wand'," Wally snorted as he and Artemis both moved to grab the cane.

"Do not!" Aqualad ordered loudly, causing the two of them to pause and turn towards him. "Grabbing unidentified mystic artifacts is unwise," he continued, stepping forwards and carefully examining the cane.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Wally scoffed, unable to stand this most recent slight on his beloved science. "The dude's got a cane in a minor anti-gravity projector, and all of sudden it's a mystic artifact. Honestly, 'magic' is just a bag of tricks to fool people who haven't figured out the scientific explanation yet." And with that, he went a head and grabbed the cane, which promptly glowed and rocketed into the sky with Wally still attached before winking out of existence.

"Okay, so, we all saw that coming, right?" Artemis dryly remarked, staring up at the place where Wally had disappeared.

"He... doesn't believe in magic?" M'gann asked, sounding a little hurt.

"Bet he does now," I joked. "But seriously, how are we going to get out of here?"

"I suppose we'll have to start walking," Aqualad sighed, looking around at the barren mountainous tundra around us.

"Oh good, maybe that'll warm me up," Artemis muttered as she started to shiver. "aren't you cold?" she asked me.

"Not particularly. I'm... rather resilient to adverse conditions, so, while hiking through freezing snow in jeans and a t-shirt isn't ideal, it's not as much of a problem for me as it is for you." I shrugged, earning me a glare from the girl. Aqualad, M'gann, and Superboy, naturally, were pretty much flat out immune to mere freezing temperatures, but the three of them were looking at Artemis with concern.

"I don't get Wally," I heard M'gann mutter to Aqualad from where they were walking a few steps ahead of the rest of the group. "Despite all we've seen, how can he be so close minded? It's like he needs to believe the impossible can't happen."

"Wally uses science as... well, a means of control in the face of what he cannot comprehend," Aqualad quietly explained. "To admit the existence of magic would be to relinquish that control. I have found that few beings like to lose control, even if it is only the illusion of it."

******​

"So... do any of you have a spare knife?" I eventually asked as we wandered about, hoping for a way out.

"No!" M'gann yelled, slapping her hand over Artemis' mouth as the blonde girl started to reply.

"I am sure you will be able to find a suitable means of offense, providing your fists do not suffice," Aqualad reassured me in a carefully neutral tone.

"Hey, a door," Superboy observed, pointing at... a set of stairs leading up to a nicely decorated Victorian style door that appeared to lead to absolutely nowhere.

Despite its looks, the door in fact led to a wooden landing that looked like it had been designed by M C Escher on an acid trip.

"Ooh, this is new," I remarked as I landed lightly on the balls of my feet, fighting past the waves of pain and nausea that were wracking my body. Never show weakness, they'll just exploit it. Beside me, Aqualad, Superboy, and Artemis landed like a couple of dead cats, face planting onto the polished wood with grunts of pain. Or at least Artemis and Aqualad grunted in pain. Superboy was more surprised than anything else, while M'gann just floated down.

"Friends of yours?" an elderly gentleman whom I immediately recognized as Mr. Nelson asked Wally. The two of them were standing next to a large bronze bell, and it appeared that Mr. Nelson had regained possession of his "totally not magic" cane. I spotted two figures standing... perpendicular relative to our position, looking up at us, and then dodged as one of them fired a lightning bolt. It seemed the real culprits of Mr. Nelson's disappearance had decided to make themselves known.

"Friends of yours?" Wally asked in reply, and then Mr. Nelson smacked his cane against the bell, which rang with a clear, deep tone that almost caused me to collapse as it hammered at my skull.

"Guh," I grunted as I staggered sideways, dodging another blast of electricity from some goatee'd man in a frilly blouse who was using a stereotypical black and white magician's wand. "Who's this motherfucker what keeps shooting lightning at us?" I snarled over the mental link M'gann immediately set up for us as Aqualad dodged a second too slow and got trapped in some kind of static cage. Superboy was already down, having taken the brunt of the man's first attacks.

"Abracadabra. Time traveler, uses technology to fake being magical," Artemis snapped out as she fired a bolt from the green handheld crossbow she had produced from... somewhere.

"M'gann, can you..." the link cut out and I heard M'gann cry out in pain.

"We're having evasive training if we make it out of this alive," I growled as I slid underneath another lightning bolt and Artemis fired another projectile.

"Stand still," Abracadabra growled at me, but it was too late. I was within arm's reach, and that meant he was fucked. I smashed my hand into his wrist, sending it flying wide and allowing Artemis to, in an impressive display of accuracy, shoot the man's "wand" out of his hand.

"Wait, please, not the..." I interrupted him by slamming my elbow into his nose, breaking it and snapping his head back with a loud crack before kneeing him in the groin. Abracadabra doubled over and started puking as he sank to his knees and whimpered. I was about to put him down for good when a roiling wave of what I had to assume was magic washed over me, and finally pushed me over the edge of my tolerance.

My head felt like it was splitting open and the spot at the base of my skull was a tiny nexus of mind shattering agony. To my credit, I didn't scream or anything. I just slumped to my knees and grabbed my head with a faint whimper. Artemis was on point, however, and managed to tag Abracadabra with some kind of crossbow bolt designed to knock him out before approaching me.

"Hey, uh... sorry, I forgot your name. Are you... why does it look like you have a railroad spike jammed into your skull?!" she screamed in panic as she spotted the spot.

"Don't know," I gasped, "hurts."

It somehow got even worse when Wally reappeared grasping a golden helmet, and Superboy ended up having to carry me out of the Tower.

Authors Note:

Hello, readers!

I wanted to ask would you be interested in a Prototype x Worm fanfic?

For those unfamiliar, Prototype is a gritty, open-world action game where you play as Alex Mercer, a man infected with a powerful virus that grants him superhuman abilities like shapeshifting, regeneration, and consuming others to gain their memories and skills. He's practically a one-man apocalypse.

On the other hand, Worm (also known as Parahumans, by Wildbow) is a dark and complex web serial set in a world filled with superpowered individuals called parahumans. It explores themes of morality, escalation, trauma, and survival, all through the eyes of its main character, Taylor Hebert, who gains the ability to control insects.

Now imagine Alex Mercer dropped into the chaotic, power-strained world of Worm. How would a being like him affect the balance between heroes, villains, and the terrifying Endbringers? Would he be a savior, a destroyer, or something far more complicated?

Let me know if you'd be interested in reading a crossover like that! Your feedback means a lot.

—Saber_Athena_9494