Snippets, Omakes and Short Stories

[AntonioCC]

Gotham Monarch Hotel​

Charles Xavier was lying in his bed trying to sleep, but dream eluded him. He had never liked Gotham City, the aura of darkness and despair around the city was almost palpable sometimes, but this time around it was... different. As if there was a little light fighting against the darkness.

'Very poetic, Charles. But it doesn't help you to sleep any.' he snarked to himself, as he grabbed the wheelchair back handle, brought it to the bed and sat on it, wheeling himself to the desk in the room to use his laptop to work.

Or at least that was what he tried to, but he had received an anonymous e-mail to his personal account that very few people had. The email told him that a common friend was trying to find frozen goods from outside, and that the email was going to try to dissuade this common friend from doing this. Mostly because those frozen goods weren't there, only old leftovers. A strange message with random capitalization... one moment. If one discounted the words that should be capital letters, the capital letters out of place spelled janhwatson or Jan H Watson...

"Irene and her Holmesian aliases." Xavier groaned as he decoded it.

From there, it was easier. The common friend was Erik or Magneto, as he called himself now. The frozen goods from outside... something alien crashed in the Arctic? And probably it was only an old plane crash, instead, if he was reading this right.

But, that meant that Erik was going to go back to whatever his primary plan was. And he was no closer to knowing about it than before. Though, he had his suspicions that his brother Cain had a role to play on them…

Wayne Manor​

"So, it is pretty obvious that Dala and Nicholas haven't fled Gotham." Buffy said, when Bruce told her the news that Gordon had told him earlier, "And they have recruited Blackout for some reason."

"What interest do they may have in Gotham? As you said, this city holds very little interest for…"

"Not exactly, Gotham has little supernatural activity, but…" she facepalmed as she realized what had been in front of her all this time, "Of course, I have been slightly creeped out since I stepped into here, and my slaydar tends to be somewhat bad in pinging supernatural stuff. There is some bad mojo in Gotham that actively repels supernatural stuff."

"So you think that they are looking into that 'bad mojo'?" Bruce asked.

"Wouldn't be the first time. How far back does the history of low supernatural activity in Gotham go?"

"As far back as the founding of the city, if I remember correctly. Let me check, anyway." he said, starting to key in the Bat-computer.

 

[AntonioCC]

"Interesting…" Buffy said when she read what appeared on the screen.

"Indeed. I would have to make some correlations, but there are some midwestern legends that talk of a similar messianic figure. The fight against a demon of darkness and its sealing is new, though." Bruce said, "I think that there is some additional material in the Kyle collection, including a book of stories collected by one of my… well, our ancestors from the Kyle family, back in the XVIIIth century. It's one of the things I was planning to show Julie tonight, actually."

"That was the manuscript that was damaged in a fire, right? Can you wait until Dawn gives it a look? She is pretty good at researching books for stuff like that." Buffy said, "Actually, what material do you have from the tribes? Just in case there is some kind of curse."

"I remember a few figurines representing Native Americans as their animal totem…"

"You mentioned a bat-headed warrior, now that I remember, any relation?"

"Not that I know of, I was always more into the European knights than into Native American stuff. You see, both our great-grandfather and our great-uncle were great collectors of Native-American antiques." Bruce said,thinking back to happier times when his parents lived, "And I have no problem with Dawn looking it over the collection, and you too. Just because Gotham now is a low magic area doesn't mean it was the same in the past."

He then used the intercom,

"Alfred, can you open the hall of the Kyle collection?" Bruce said "We need to examine some artifacts in it, and warn Dawn to wait for us at the door of the hall."

"Of course, Master Bruce." Alfred answered, "If I may ask, why the sudden interest?"

"Some sudden connection with Native American legends." Bruce said, "In particular, we want to examine the manuscript from Old Jeremiah Kyle."


A few minutes later they met Dawn at the door of the hall that contained the remains of the Kyle collection, which was in the Eastern, semi-abandoned wing of Wayne manor.

"What was so important?"

"We think the DuBois are after something that is sealed under Gotham. There are fragmentary legends of some kind of powerful demon being sealed under the city."

"Of course it had to be something like that." Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

"You should be used to it by now. The Powers that Be have never been remotely subtle." Buffy said with a wry smile, as they entered the room.

It was like entering a closed exposition room of some museum, with shelves covered by tarps, and display cabinets gathering dust. Alfred gave surgical gloves to everybody and cleaned the dust from one such display cabinet, revealing an old book, with some fire damage.

"XVIIIth Century?" Dawn said.

"Good eye, Dawn. This is the last volume of the diary of Jeremiah Kyle, one of my ancestors. He supposedly gathered some of the legends of the native american tribes that lived in the area that would become Gotham in this volume."

"Why isn't this in a museum? Or in a University?"

"Beats me. My grandfather should have been able to sell it to Gotham U, but it's strange that he kept it, while a lot of other pieces were sold." Bruce said, as he opened the cabinet.

Dawn took it with care and started to pass the pages carefully.

"Hmmm… It seems that in his later years Jeremiah Kyle did somewhat repent of his life of crime, trying to use his fortune to help the poor and doing charity work. He protected several members of tribes, and collected their stories in this diary." She passed another page, and read silently."I need to transcribe this, Giles needs to know."