Chapter 401: Runic Script and Norse Mythology
"Three days ago, the four researchers from the Baxter Building announced they were taking a spacecraft into orbit to conduct a study on cosmic radiation."
"During the mission, they were hit by high-energy charged particles from the Van Allen radiation belt, triggered by a solar storm."
"The spacecraft caught fire and broke apart on re-entry. By every reasonable calculation, all four of them should have died. Instead, they fell into the ocean and survived."
In a bar in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Tony Stark sat across from Batman -- who had come as Peter Parker, out of the suit and in civilian clothes. Tony talked. Peter listened.
"Tony. Are you reading from a press release?"
Tony Stark nodded.
"Yes."
Then he leaned forward, elbows on the table, and dropped his voice.
"Everything I just said is what the news is reporting. What actually happened is that they survived because the radiation transformed them. All four of them. They came back with abilities."
Batman's focus sharpened immediately.
"Abilities."
"Superhuman ones." Tony kept his voice low. "You know Reed -- even if you reduced that man to just a brain in a jar, he would still be a strategic national asset of the first order. Now add superpowers to that equation."
Batman took a sip of his ginger ale and set the glass down.
"Keep going."
"They haven't gone public yet, but in certain circles -- the kind ordinary people don't move in -- they've already been given a name." Tony paused. "The Fantastic Four."
"You haven't gone to see them?"
Batman had only just returned to New York. If Tony hadn't mentioned the name, the extent of his current intelligence would have been four scientists who flew into space, had their craft destroyed, and somehow came back alive. He had recognized that something significant must have happened in between -- that was the only reason he had reached out to Tony.
Tony had been sitting stiffly across the table. He picked up his drink, circled around to Batman's side, and dropped into the seat next to him.
"No. And I mean that literally -- no one can get to them right now. Those four people are currently more carefully guarded than giant pandas. I'm not exaggerating."
"I noticed the Daily Bugle mentioned a Navy SEAL security detail has locked down the entire Baxter Building," Batman said.
Tony glanced at his wrist. Both wrists, Batman noted, now had metal bracers fitted to them.
"Officially, the justification is protecting the data from their space mission. In practice, it's about keeping certain powerful people away from them."
Tony set his glass down.
"If I'm remembering correctly, those four are the first human beings in recorded history to develop genuine superpowers through an external event. The Hulk's mutation is genetic -- that's a different category."
Batman nodded without interrupting.
"General Ross is the kind of idiot who stays fixated on the Hulk," Tony said, getting that in while he had the chance. "But the people with real influence -- they got wind of it somehow. And what they've apparently convinced themselves of is that if they can obtain a cellular sample, hair, or any biological material from any one of the three -- excluding Ben Grimm -- and have it spliced into their own genetic code, they and their descendants can inherit the same abilities."
Batman finished his ginger ale.
"Why is Grimm excluded? And Tony -- you're in those circles. You know what all four of their powers are."
Tony laughed quietly.
"Of course I know. It's not exactly a secret in certain company."
"Tell me."
"Reed can stretch and reshape his body -- full elasticity, any length. Johnny can generate and manipulate fire. Susan can turn invisible." Tony's expression shifted into something caught between amusement and discomfort. "Ben turned into a pile of living rock. Which is why he's been removed from consideration."
"Centuries ago, Americans believed grinding Egyptian mummies into powder could cure disease and extend life." Batman shook his head slowly. "Apparently the methodology hasn't changed much."
Tony was entirely in agreement, and grateful he was not part of that particular strain of thinking.
"I've had contact with some of these people. A few of the women, mostly."
Batman's expression shifted slightly.
"I'll assume that wasn't purely social."
"Half of it was," Tony said, and let the smile drop. "The other half was because something felt wrong. They told me the reason they believe all of this -- why they're convinced it will work -- is because of dreams."
Batman went still.
"Keep going. I'm listening."
"At first I thought it was coincidence. Then I started noticing a pattern. Nearly every person who buys into this story has had some version of the same type of dream -- a suggestion planted while they slept. Someone is targeting them, Peter. Someone is trying to use these people to get to the Fantastic Four."
"It may not be limited to dreams," Batman said. "Illusions built on that same mechanism, or direct telepathic suggestion, are also possible." He paused. "In Wakanda, I encountered--"
There was nothing in his Wakanda experience worth protecting from Tony. He ran through the Enchantress quickly -- what she had done, what she had been after, how the encounter had ended -- and left out only the details of his arrangement with T'Challa.
Tony stared at him for a moment.
"Hell," he said.
"I think there's a strong probability this connects to the Enchantress. And she may not even be the primary actor -- she could be taking direction from something operating above her."
"I always wrote all of this off as mythology," Tony said. "Stories. But you actually ran into her." He shook his head. "I have a feeling something very large is being prepared. Something we haven't seen yet."
"We both need to be ready for it when it arrives," Batman said. "Before I left for Wakanda, I asked whether you'd encountered a man in black carrying a circular shield. Do you remember?"
Tony nodded. That had only been a few days ago, and Batman had asked specifically -- not something he was going to forget.
"I still think there's a connection between that figure and whatever is being planned. I don't have enough to confirm it yet."
Tony nodded slowly.
They sat with that for a moment, and then parted ways.
Batman returned to the City Hall Batcave.
Without Robin beside him, his first task was a check on the four gamma creatures sleeping in the second level of the cave. They were undisturbed. He came back up to the first level.
He sat down at the desk, took out a pen and paper, and began carefully reproducing from memory every line and symbol he had observed on the handle of Skurge's greataxe -- the faint engravings that converged toward the blade-junction. When the outline was complete, he turned to the internet and began cross-referencing.
That work carried him through the rest of the night. When he had gone as far as the Batcave's resources would take him, he slipped out into the dark and made his way to the New York Public Library -- the largest municipal public library in the country. He moved through it quietly and without leaving a trace, pulling everything he could find on the subject.
By the time the sky began to lighten and the first gray suggestion of morning touched the city, he had what he needed. He returned to the City Hall Batcave and sat with it.
"Runic script," he said quietly to himself, reviewing his notes. "In this world it carries a more widely recognized name -- runes."
"In Germanic mythology, this writing system was said to have been obtained by Odin, the All-Father, after he hung himself from the world tree for nine days and nine nights, seeking higher wisdom and the secrets of the universe."
"One branch of Germanic mythology evolved over time into what became the Norse mythological tradition."
"And the script on that axe -- the markings that converge at the blade-junction -- spell a single word in the form of Norse runes. The word for axe."
Batman's gaze was level and deliberate as he worked through the full roster of figures from the Norse mythological tradition, listing them on paper one by one.
The name Amora -- the Enchantress -- did not appear in any of them. That was expected. What mattered was not finding her name in a library. What mattered was recognizing what he was now looking at.
He had already encountered one fully operational mythological system in this world -- Egyptian. The moon god Khonshu was real, present, and capable of direct intervention.
Now a second one had surfaced.
The Norse tradition was not a story. It was a framework describing entities and forces that existed in the same world he was operating in. And if Amora had come to Wakanda searching for totems, and if the axe in Robin's possession carried Norse runic script older than any Runic writing Batman had prior knowledge of, then the two mythological systems were already intersecting -- and the intersection point was somewhere close to him.
Batman stared at the list of names on the paper in front of him.
He was not finished gathering information. But the shape of what was coming had just become clearer.
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