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[Emissary] Chapter 8 - Execution
🕑 Added 2024-02-04 05:40:24 +0000 UTCAN: very graphic depictions of violence in this chapter.
Chapter 8 - Execution
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The camera switched back to Vandal Savage's face, who could barely contain his malicious smile.
"This asteroid is heading straight to the heart of New York City, to Manhattan."
"With our railgun in orbit, Kasnia has the ultimate high ground. I am now the dominant military power on Earth. And there are going to be some changes. First, [...]"
Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Flash watched paralysed with horror as the asteroid broke through the atmosphere and headed straight to New York.
They forgot even how to breathe when the camera showed from a distance how the meteorite impacted the ground.
⁂
The night seemed to turn into day. A blinding light erupted as an enormous fireball exploded from the meteorite’s impact on the ground, melting and incinerating everything in its path.
But that wasn’t even half of it. What followed was even worse. A thunderous sound boomed as a shockwave burst out. All skyscrapers and buildings within 4 kilometres were obliterated, razed to the ground.
Within 10 kilometres, it was as if an F5 tornado had passed through. The shockwave knocked down all trees, shattering all windows, and flipping cars and trucks upside down as if they were toys.
It was hell.
A several hundred-metre-wide, circular crater had appeared where the Empire State Building used to be. The most famous, wealthiest, and most densely populated district of New York City, Lower Manhattan, had been razed off the surface of the Earth.
The destruction wasn’t limited to Manhattan. The outer edges of Brooklyn and Queens districts were severely affected by the shockwave too and it went the same for the New Jersey cities on the western shore of the Hudson River as well. But the powerful wind blast was felt even in cities more than 15 miles away.
⁂
TV channels from all over the country rushed to New York City to cover the most devastating moment in the history of the United States. Dozens of helicopters and hundreds of drones were flying above Manhattan, filming the calamitous meteorite impact.
Early calculations estimate that the fireball alone reaped the lives of over one hundred thousand people, with the following shockwave raising the number of casualties to over 1 million.
Hundreds of buildings collapsed in Brooklyn, and tens of thousands of people were injured. The number of reported casualties is increasing by the minute.
Nearly one hour after the disaster struck, the temperature of the crater and its surroundings were still several hundred Celsius degrees hot, making it impossible for regular humans to approach. Not that there was any reason for anyone to rush there so early; no human being would have been able to survive such destruction. It was on a scale that not even the atomic bombs that the US had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could rival.
But while humans had no reason to come investigate the impact crater so early after the incident, two members of the Justice League of America could be seen scouring the ruined Manhattan from above, searching for something.
An expression of desperation could be seen on Superman's face as he used his X-ray vision while flying over the ruined city.
‘Please be alive, Kara. God, please, don’t take her away,’ Superman prayed in his mind.
His adoptive parents were devoted Christians and had raised him as such, but he had never been a practicing believer. He did believe that some form of God existed, but once his Kryptonian powers awakened and he found out about his true origins, religion kind of faded from his mind.
At that moment, however, he involuntarily started praying to the Christian God that his parents had taught him to believe in.
He wasn’t sure if he could have survived such a disaster himself, much less Power Girl, whose powers weren’t working properly. Chances were that she had been pulverised by the meteorite just like the rest of the people who had been erased from existence, but he couldn’t help hoping that maybe, she was still alive.
“John, have you found anything?”
On the other side of the crater, Green Lantern was holding a pair of binoculars as he flew over the city too, searching for survivors. It was a construct of his power ring that replicated Superman’s X-ray vision. He was helping Superman find Power Girl.
“Nothing came up so far.”
A few minutes later, as he flew above the Hudson River between Lower Manhattan and Jersey City, Superman noticed a body floating face-down in the water. If someone floated face-down, it was usually a sign that they were dead, but he hoped against the impossible and quickly flew down to take them out of the water.
“John! You won’t believe it! I just found Emissary!” Superman pressed his finger on his communication device and said.
“...He managed to survive that?!” Green Lantern said, his voice laced with disbelief.
“I don’t know how he survived, but he’s in critical condition. His heart is dead; only his brain is still functioning.’
He couldn’t detect the sound of his heartbeats, but he could tell with his superhuman vision that his brain was still active.
A new voice belonging to a young girl suddenly intruded on their radio conversation:
“Superman, I found Power Girl!”
“Supergirl?! What are you doing here?!” Superman almost shouted, not having expected his cousin to follow him to New York. After all, he hadn’t allowed her to join the Justice League yet, considering her to be too young.
“That can wait for later. Power Girl is alive, but just barely. She’s burnt badly all over. Her vitals are weak. She needs medical attention asap!” Supergirl answered.
⁂
One week passed since the catastrophic meteor impact, but it was still the main thing that everyone on the Globe was focused on.
The Justice League of America destroyed the International Space Station-turned-railgun, and Wonder Woman and Batman arrested Vandal Savage and brought him to the United States too.
Kasnia’s Minister of External Affairs had tried to play the card of Vandal Savage having political immunity due to him being the King of the State, but that feeble defence crumbled the moment that the Pentagon threatened a nuclear war. The Kasnian Minister of External Affairs was assassinated by Kasnia’s own secret service on the same day and Queen Audrey publicly washed her hands off Vandal Savage, cutting off any ties that he might have had with her and her country.
Although, officially, nine countries were in possession of nuclear weapons and several others were suspected of having some secretly as well, the USA was still the greatest military power in the world, by a large margin. No sane person would dare provoke the USA after such a disaster. If a small country like Kasnia had insisted on protecting Vandal Savage, the entire region would have been razed off the surface of Earth by the USA’s nuclear warheads.
Meanwhile, volunteers from all over the world flew over to the United States to help them in their darkest hour. Even one week after the meteorite impact, new bodies were still being dug out from under collapsed buildings.
⁂
His sight, hearing, sense of touch, smell, and balance were all impaired. The only thing he could feel was a coldness that seeped into his bones.
Looking vacantly at the encompassing darkness around him, rage started smouldering in his veins. He knew exactly where he was. How could he not? It was the place where he always went whenever he died. It was his personal limbo, a place that Death had designed specifically for his soul.
"There is no catch, Harry Potter. I will not ask for anything in return. Not this time. You have my word."
As Death’s words came to the forefront of his mind, he could no longer suppress his emotions and let out a scream. The air shook with the weight of his magic power, and an enormous vortex of fire erupted from his body, turning the world of darkness into a sea of flames.
Time seemed to have lost meaning as he lashed out at his surroundings, having lost himself to his rage.
“You knew this was going to happen!” he screamed. “You fucking knew it!”
The fact that Death didn’t even deign him with their presence enraged him even more. Death wasn’t omniscient; for example, Death didn’t know what Harry’s thoughts were. However, the river of time was hardly a mystery for them. In Death’s eyes, the past, the present, and the future all existed simultaneously and all were equally real. (1) Colloquially said, Death knew the future.
“It all makes sense now! Of course it does!”
Death didn’t give him a power-up for the sake of making his task in this world easier to accomplish. Death knew that Harry would be unable to live at the Watchtower anymore and that Wonder Woman would ask him to watch over New York. Death also knew that Vandal Savage was going to launch an asteroid at the Big Apple.
The more he thought about Death’s manipulations, the angrier he got. His instincts had warned him that something bad was going to happen, and he had taken adequate measures and cast all sorts of protective spells to defend himself against normal, rational risks and dangers. But Harry hadn’t thought, not even in his wildest dreams, that Death would go as far as to use a freaking meteorite to kill him.
At that moment, the words of the alternate version of Harry Potter that he had killed in the previous world rang in his mind:
"You'll end up just like me one day… just wait and see… you're just one of Death's many slaves… there is no happy ending for those like us… there is no escape… there is no hope…"
There was only so much that a human could endure. Hopelessness and despair overwhelmed him. For the first time since Bellatrix’s funeral in his third life, Harry cried. He cried bitterly, unable to stop for a long time.
⁂
Although one week had already passed since Superman found Harry Potter’s body floating down the Hudson River, he had yet to wake up. They had tried to hook him up to a life support machine, but anything electric that touched him was fried instantly.
Superman took him to the Fortress of Solitude in hopes of finding a solution, but it was to no avail.
In comparison, Power Girl had already awakened. Most of her injuries had been healed. If not for her ruined hair, one would not believe she had been suffering from third-degree burns until a few days ago or that she had had multiple broken bones.
She was in the middle of rehabilitation now, walking on a treadmill as she watched the live-streamed trial of Vandal Savage by the Supreme Court of Justice.
Unsurprisingly, the trial didn’t last long. Vandal Savage’s lawyer hadn’t even made an effort to defend him in court. The trial itself was merely a formality because everyone knew that Vandal Savage was going to be sentenced to death for his crimes. Kara knew that too, so it didn’t come as a surprise when, only two hours later, the Supreme Court sentenced Vandal to the death penalty.
“But how are they going to kill him? Clark told me about Vandal Savage; he is immortal. He can’t be killed.”
Power Girl swiftly turned towards the voice, startled.
“Supergirl!” she said in surprise. “I didn’t hear you arrive.”
“Your powers are still acting funny?” her younger counterpart asked.
“Yeah… I can only thank the heavens that it didn’t happen when that meteorite struck,” Power Girl replied.
An awkward silence was instilled between the two girls.
Supergirl was interested and eager to interact with Power Girl, but the older girl’s obvious state of discomfort whenever she was in her presence prevented her from doing so.
“Does Superman know you snuck out of the farm again?” asked Power Girl eventually.
Supergirl crossed her arms to her chest and huffed in annoyance.
“By Rao, he’s impossible sometimes! I love Ma and Pa, but I’m sick of living the boonies!”
Until not long ago, Supergirl had lived in a society that looked futuristic even compared to the standards of Earth’s largest cities, not to mention a small and remote town in Kansas.
“And there’s nothing to do either! How long do you think that it takes me to feed the chicken or water the corn?”
She was young and full of energy. She wanted to travel. She wanted to explore the new planet she was on. She wanted to go shopping, make friends, go to parties, and have fun with other teens her age. She didn’t want to spend the best years of her life on a farm.
Power Girl involuntarily started giggling at the younger girl’s outburst.
“Trust me, I know. I was in your shoes too, so I understand you perfectly. I couldn’t wait to get away from that place.”
When silence was about to be instilled among them again, Power Girl said:
“I heard you’re the one who found me. Thank you for saving my life, Kara.”
Supergirl showed a large, genuine smile. “I couldn’t let my other me die now, could I?”
Power Girl let out a sigh. “We’re not the same person. I don’t even know who I really am, but I know we’re different.”
“Oh, come on! Look at us! We’re both Kryptonians, and we look almost identical!”
“I’d say there is a huge difference between the two of us,” Power Girl said with an insinuating tone in her voice.
Supergirl flushed and covered her chest with her hands as she glared at Power Girl, who was now smirking at her.
“Hey! I’m only 16! Mark my words, when I’m as old as you, my boobs will get just as big as yours! No, even bigger!”
Her words only made Power Girl laugh harder. But despite her embarrassment, Supergirl found herself enjoying the situation. She had always wanted to get closer to Power Girl, but the older blonde avoided interacting with her so much that she even went as far as to leave the United States and join the Justice League of Europe.
When Power Girl’s laughter subsided, Supergirl changed the subject.
“What about that guy? Emissary was his hero name, right? Is he any better?”
At her question, Power Girl turned her attention to a monitor showing a pod containing Harry Potter’s body. He appeared to be submerged in a green liquid, with only a mask covering his face and nose, preventing him from drowning.
“Things aren’t looking good,” Power Girl answered. “His heart isn’t beating. For all intents and purposes, he is clinically dead. Only his brain is still alive. He’s not a regular human, so I don’t know if normal medical knowledge applies to his body, but it can’t be good for him to go for so long without breathing. I heard most humans die after an hour once their hearts stop beating, but he’s been like that for a week.”
“I wonder how he survived. Batman said Emissary booked a hotel that night, right where the meteorite struck,” Supergirl said. "He was probably hit directly by the meteorite."
“Why does Batman even know about that? Was he monitoring him?” Power Girl said, visibly annoyed.
“Beats me,” Supergirl said, shrugging. “Power Girl! He’s gone!” she suddenly yelled.
“What?”
“Look at the screen! He disappeared from the pod!”
⁂
Several days after Vandal Savage’s public trial and his sentencing to the death penalty, the government of the United States claimed that the genocidal criminal had been executed via the electric chair.
However, the few who were in the know about Vandal Savage’s metahuman ability didn’t buy it. The Justice League didn’t believe it either, and their doubts were confirmed when the government sent Amanda Waller, a highly ranked member of the secret services, to request something of them.
“I won’t become a murderer!” Superman said curtly, cutting the woman off before she even finished her proposition.
“You have to understand this, Superman: Vandal Savage isn’t a human. This is a monster wearing human skin. Over one million people died this time. Do you understand what this number means? ONE MILLION PEOPLE!” Amanda Waller raised her voice, shouting towards the end. “He has been given a trial and sentenced to death! He deserves death! He needs to die!”
“So it’s not murder because it’s sanctioned by the government?” Batman, scoffing.
“Do not speak to me in that tone, boy,” she sneered at him.
“I understand the situation, and I would have helped-” Green Lantern began to say, prompting Superman and Flash to cry out “John!”. They couldn’t believe he would say something like that.
“-but unfortunately, I cannot help you in this matter,” John Stewart continued. “I’m a member of the Green Lantern Corps. We are not allowed by the Book of Oa to kill, no matter the reason.”
“Have you truly exhausted all methods?” Wonder Woman asked.
“Trust me, we did,” Amanda Waller said. “Electric chair, hanging, beheading, poisoning, euthanasia, heart stabs, gunshots, cremation... We’ve even hired a sorceress to try killing him with magic, but nothing has worked. He comes back to life every time."
Flash felt sick in his stomach as Amanda Waller listed the ways in which the government had tried to have Vandal Savage executed. Superman became pale in the face too at her words.
“If you’ve already tried all that, I don’t know what I could do to help," said Wonder Woman. “But I think I could at least use my Lasso of Truth on him to make him reveal the secret of his immortality.”
“You can’t be serious, Diana!” Superman raised his voice.
“Before I am a hero, I am an Amazon, Superman. And my mother taught me that some people are beyond redemption. Sometimes, killing is the only method to stop the evil,” Wonder Woman retorted, not backing away.
“Say that we imprison him. How long until he somehow escapes?” Amanda Waller asked, supporting Wonder Woman’s words. “He's been alive since before World War II. Rumour goes that he's been alive even during Genghis Khan's era. We have no way of knowing what kind of connections he has formed with other people over the years. We don’t know what kind of plans he had prepared for the future. Do you need to wait until he kills another million before you’re going to wake up to reality and realise what must be done?”
"I don't know how much good it'll do, but I’m willing to use my mace on him. If his immortality is of a magical nature, I’ll splatter his brains,” Hawkgirl said, and her mace crackled with electricity.
“What about you, Martian?” Amanda Waller asked.
Having witnessed the extinction of his race and participated in a brutal war, Martian Manhunter was no stranger to killing. Although he was a pacifist and preferred not to use lethal force, he wasn’t blind enough not to see the necessity of it in some situations.
“If that is what the government decided, I will support you with everything I can.”
Seeing how many members of the Justice League expressed their willingness to assist the government in executing Vandal Savage, Batman narrowed his eyes deep in thought.
⁂
“I told you, I cannot be killed,” Vandal Savage said, his face impassive, smug even.
Hawkgirl had used her Nth metal mace to bash his skull in and Martian Manhunter had tried wiping out his mind and even destroying him from the inside out with his shapeshifting ability, but nothing worked.
Although she knew that Savage couldn’t lie under the Lasso of Truth’s coercion, it was the third time that Wonder Woman used her Lasso on him in the past two days.
“I tried to end my own life numerous times. I’ve even jumped into a volcano once. Nothing works. But, as decades turned into centuries and centuries turned into millennia, I came to accept the truth. I accepted my destiny: I live to rule.”
Amanda Waller muttered a curse under her breath when she saw that not even the Justice League could find a way to kill Vandal Savage.
All of a sudden, the lights flickered.
“Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter! I think we have intruders!” she yelled and also pressed a red button, triggering the alarm.
She knew better than to dismiss the momentary flicker of the lights as a coincidence because they were in a top-secret underground facility with state-of-the-art defences and technology. It was impossible for the power to fluctuate like that unless someone messed with it.
As the ear-deafening alarm blared, dozens of special operatives grabbed their high-tech laser weapons and took cover behind corners and various obstacles, waiting for the intruders to show themselves.
However, in the next moment, a buzzing sound was heard as all electronic devices short-circuited and all lights exploded, plunging the entire underground facility into complete darkness.
The special operatives tried turning on their flashlights, but they were dead too; nothing worked. It was as if someone had fired a large-scale EMP bomb.
A gust of wind blew past Amanda Waller, terrifying her so much that she lost feeling in her legs and collapsed on the floor powerlessly. A moment later, the reinforced window separating the interrogation room from the monitor room was smashed into countless pieces.
The three members of the Justice League flinched at the noise and quickly braced themselves against whatever was going to attack them, but the only thing they felt was a gust of wind.
A few seconds later, despite the complete darkness, Wonder Woman realised that Vandal Savage had disappeared. She could no longer hear the sound of his breathing.
“Vandal Savage has escaped!” she shouted when she checked the chair to which the criminal had been strapped until then and felt that it was empty.
⁂
Vandal Savage felt as if an invisible hook had grabbed him by the navel and started spinning him uncontrollably through the air. Just as a feeling of nausea washed over him, that sensation stopped. Opening his eyes, he realised that he was in a completely different place now. He was in the middle of a desert.
“Teleportation? How surprising! This is an exceedingly rare ability,” he said impressed as he got up from the ground and dusted his clothes.
“Thank you for saving me from the hands of the government. May I know the name of my benefactor?” Vandal Savage asked as he studied the appearance of the person who saved him.
It was a Caucasian male of average height but rather well-built. If there was something peculiar about his appearance, it was his unusually messy black hair and his strangely bright green eyes. No, the brightness of his eyes went beyond the realm of strange, they looked eerie.
In response to his words, the man raised his hand and pointed a gnarly stick at him.
“Crucio!”
Pain. Unimaginable pain. Nothing in his 25,000-year-long life had prepared Vandal Savage for that. It was beyond anything he had ever experienced.
The immortal collapsed on the ground, screaming, his body contorting from agony.
Harry’s breathing was heavy as he glared venomously at Vandal Savage. After teleporting out of the medical pod from the Fortress of Solitude, it didn’t take him long to find out who had been behind the entire incident, the one who killed him.
“Crucio!”
He had been so close! It was supposed to be his last lifetime!
He had been careful and calculated with his movements and plans. He had even joined the Justice League and gained powerful friends. Things were going smoothly. It looked like he might actually be able to get out of Death’s slave contract this time.
“Crucio!”
Foaming at the mouth and twitching uncontrollably, Vandal Savage had lost consciousness by now.
But Harry wasn’t done. He wasn’t satisfied. Dark Magic and the Cruciatus Curse in particular were supposed to create addiction in the user due to the feeling of satisfaction it brought, but he wasn’t getting any relief from torturing Savage.
He closed his eyes for a moment and took deep breaths, trying to get a hold of himself. It was unlike him to lose control like that.
But no matter how hard he tried to clear his mind, not even his mastery of the mind arts could douse the wrath smouldering in his heart.
His eyes seemed to burn as he poured all his hatred into one last spell:
“Avada Kedavra!”
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: even as a teenager, Harry Potter showed violent and cruel tendencies in the canon. He cast the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix at the Ministry of Magic and he also cast the Cruciatus on the Death Eater who spit on McGonagall. He's done similar things in "Back? Not Really" as well. What he did to Vandal Savage now isn't all that much considering his circumstances.
(1) This is the “eternalism” theory, a philosophy of time. You can look it up on google if you’re curious. It’s an interesting concept.
Comments
Jack Blaze
I'm curious how Death is gonna spin this whenever the two talk again - even if the entity was being genuine in saying it's not intentionally trying to extend the contract...this was a touch too large of a convenient happenstance for the being not to have had a hand somehow in Harry just so happening to not only be there, but be front and center of the impact surface
Ohhhbehavebaby
Amazing
Grumpy Wolf
But the second just started lol
Supporter
I can’t wait for the third novel in this series. 😀
