#13: Keys To The Kingdom, Pt. 1 (Walsh / Flinchum)

Themyscira

The new heroine crept nervously through the trees, cocoa-colored eyes trying to pick out every little detail that might help her. The air was warm against her skin, a soft breeze tugging lightly at the stray black hairs on her brow. Manitou Dawn felt strange in her new costume, the way the brown leathers clung to her body, wrapped around each small curve, hiding her and revealing her all at once. Bare feet carefully picked their way through the underbrush, with nary a whisper of noise to betray her position. She hugged the trees, knowing full well the bird of prey that circled above, keen gaze just waiting to pick her out and dive.

Aside from the way the clothing made her feel, the very island she was on felt odd to her. In the last couple of weeks, she’d grown accustomed to new sensations at the corners of her awareness, spirits of the land and sky circling about. Some as ancient as the Earth itself; others newer, transplanted and intrusive in some cases, but having made their homes and become part of the North American vista. But the way things felt here, on this island, was utterly different, and it left Manitou Dawn confounded between feelings of sorority and belonging on the one side, and estrangement and remoteness on the other. She continued to try and balance herself on this island that seemed meant for people like her, letting her awareness creep back out into the woods that surrounded her.

“You’ve become distracted again,” Princess Diana announced as she sprang up from hiding in the wild brush, arms lunging to wrap the novice up in her powerful grip. “That’s a bad habit you must break.”

But as Wonder Woman’s fingers began to contact Manitou Dawn, her target had actually felt a whisper in her ear. A dryad had whispered a warning to Dawn as she’d reached out with her awareness, to try again to balance her, and the shaman nodded once and swung a quick chop of her tomahawk.

Diana was shocked at the sight of the blade aiming for such a special tree. “No!” the Amazon princess called out as she tried to stop Dawn, but the blade twisted at the very last moment and instead of the tree, it merely parted the veil between the dryad’s home and where Dawn stood at that moment. Dawn gave a short hop across a space that didn’t fully exist for everyone else, and Diana felt the bark of the tree scrape against her smooth skin, knocking her to the side.

“Mercival Minerva,” Wonder Woman muttered as she picked herself up off the ground and dusted off her arms. She rested a hand on the tree, and spoke to it. “You are well, Aresthusa?”

Some of the bark shifted and took on the appearance of a young woman, chuckling mischievously. “Of course, Princess. Your friend is making such an effort to get to know us. I thought it only proper I return a little attention.”

Diana shook her head and grinned. “At my expense, of course.”

“I might have hurt the bird-girl if I’d done it to her,” the dryad answered with a wink and a smirk. “I do know how you enjoy a good sacrifice on your part.” The face slipped back into the tree, the bark returning to its normal appearance.

Diana glanced around, trying to find some sign of Dawn, walking a slow, ever-widening circle from Arethusa’s tree as she searched. She then heard a whooping noise from the distance and charged after it, breaking the tree-line and stepping onto a sandy shore in time to see Dawn desperately fending off a flurry of attacks from Hawkgirl. The winged warrior was circling about and sweeping down with her spear, and Dawn slashed protectively with her own weapon, fending off each strike in turn. Wonder Woman watched as experience and maneuverability slowly gained a greater and greater edge until a telling blow caught the side of Dawn’s head and sent her spinning to her hands and knees.

“That’s enough for today, Kendra,” Diana said as she joined the other two women, helping Dawn to her feet. “That was quite impressive, Dawn.”

“Really? It doesn’t feel all that impressive,” the leather-clad woman muttered as she rubbed her head.

“I gotta agree with Wonder Woman,” Kendra said as she landed on the other side of the American Indian. “You’ve improved a lot, holding me off as long as you did with just that hatchet.”

“Better still, you made contact and gained the assistance of the spirit world here,” Diana added with a voice filled with pride. “Not an easy task, considering all the obstacles you face.”

Dawn smiled gratefully at the compliments as the three women began to cross the beach and head back for the Amazons’ community. She glanced at the two women she had spent the last few days training with. The regal Diana, Wonder Woman to Patriarchs’ world and ruler of the Amazons’ world, currently clad in purple and gold-trimmed tunic, tall and strong and radiating authority. Hawkgirl, Kendra Saunders, a little shorter than Dawn but much more athletic and muscular, currently clad in yellow spandex shorts and top, who reminded Dawn very much of the bird of prey she took her name from. Dawn eyed Kendra’s flat, hard belly enviously and self-consciously ran a hand over her own.

The two women had worked with Dawn hard, helping her to learn how to fight, how to survive the combats that the League faced often. Diana introduced her to people that helped her to focus her thoughts inward, to find the new centers of balance and magic that were opening up each day with the sacred trust she’d had bestowed on her. She only thought she knew meditating: these new techniques, this new concentration, taxed her as much as the combats.

“Dawn?” Kendra said again, waving a hand before the warm brown eyes. Dawn started and looked over at Hawkgirl. “Diana’s right, you have got to stop drifting off like that.” She chuckled and elbowed the shaman gently. “What’s got you so spacey?”

“Everything?” Dawn answered with a question. “This is all such a huge step. I never ever imagined talking to a super-hero. It was a big deal giving you all consultation when you first found me.” She hefted the tomahawk in her hands, still marveling at the balance and feel of the weapon. “This is almost too much.”

“Almost, but not quite,” Diana countered. “You’ve done remarkably well, and you’ll continue to do so. Once you’ve mastered your abilities, and become comfortable with your new allies...”

“And friends,” Kendra interrupted the Amazon as she gave Dawn a soothing wink.

“...and friends,” Diana agreed with a nod and a smirk. She was not used to being interrupted by anyone that didn’t wear a bat on his chest, and she found she was pleased to see Kendra also growing into the role Diana was grooming her for. “Once you’ve become comfortable, I think you’ll provide the League with a crucial element that it’s been missing.”

“Oh? You guys have Superman and Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern and you two, and Flash and...well...I mean, you guys have a lot of everything. What do you think it’s missing?” Dawn asked, her brain racing over the League’s roster, past and present, trying to guess.

“Yeah, I’m curious about that too.” Kendra looked past Dawn now and toward the Amazon, very curious about the answer.

“Physical power is very useful, and the League is blessed with an abundance,” Diana started to explain. “Some would say an over-abundance.” The three women chuckled, as Diana continued. “And we have some of the best minds available, all combined with some of the best hearts humanity could hope for. But a larger perspective, a vision that takes into account a larger balance, counsel derived from faith and harmony...I think the League could use its own shaman. Starro, Kanjar Ro, Overmaster...I think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg. A very, very dangerous iceberg.” Diana looked over at the two women, who were listening intently. “We have to see beyond beating up what the world likes to call super-villains, and I think that’s where your trusteeship of harmony and balance is going to come in.”

Dawn stopped and thought over the words, mulling over each one in turn. “No pressure though, right?” She slipped the weapon into the sheath on her belt.

“Yeah, no pressure,” Kendra teased her with another gentle elbow. “After dropping that on her, I think she’s due for some of that really great wine you Amazons have, Diana.”

Diana gave a small laugh and once more led her companions back home. “And perhaps the saunas.”

The two visitors glanced at each other and smiled as they repeated, “Saunas!”

Baltimore, Maryland

The van idled out in front of the ornate red-brick colonial building, perched like a vulture as the couple inside went over the details of their plan one last time. Satisfied that they had things memorized as they had been warned, the woman moved up to the side door.

She tossed her long orange-red hair back over her slim shoulders and let her glittering green eyes gaze up at the hulking man. Her porcelain skin reflected the flickering corona surrounding his skull as she smiled up at him. She took one of his huge hands in her own smaller hand and kissed the fingertips.

“I love you, pumpkin,” she said with a girlish giggle.

“I love you, honey bunny.” The man gave a gravelly laugh as he watched his woman turn and head out of the van and into the building. He reached down and clicked the button on his watch, letting the timer function start.

The woman practically skipped up the stairs, excitement coursing through her body, hidden under a long jacket. She glanced at the sign as she passed into the main entrance of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum. She didn’t spare a moment to look around. She and her man would be paying a significant percentage of the take for the plans they’d just been going over, and she wasn’t about to stray in the slightest. She knew the floor plan, she knew where to move to, and she did.

“Pardon me, miss,” a security guard said as he stepped up next to the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Visitors to the museum aren’t allowed in that section. No exhibits down that way.

The woman turned to the guard and gave a wicked smile. “I know, dear. But what I want is still right there,” she assured him as she glanced at her watch.

The guard reached down for his walkie-talkie, preparing for back-up, but hesitated a moment when she let her coat slip from the pretty slim shoulders. The creamy white bodysuit underneath hugged the lithe body, her limbs lined in golden striping, and a large penny-looking symbol on her chest.

That’s when the front doors opened and the Atomic Skull stepped into the lobby. His fleshless head ablaze with coruscating energy, his body looming monstrously in the doorway, gray and black leather jacket and jeans hugging the muscular body. “Penny, dear!” he called out as streams of reddish lightning arced from his skull and crashed into the love of his life.

“Penny?” the guard whimpered as he watched the bolts of energy slash into the slender woman, and race over her body, up and down and up again, growing longer, wider, more urgent and agitated.

“Penny Dreadful. Nice to meet you,” the woman said as the amped up electrical energy escaped in an explosive release. In an unrelenting wave it washed out over the guard, across guests and staff, through the security booth and circuit breakers. Sparks poured out from lighting and computers and wires as people fell over, jerking and then going unconscious as the building shut down completely.

“Ten minutes, honey bunny,” she said to Atomic Skull as she blew him a kiss. “I’ll meet you at the pickup.” She turned and dashed down the hall to snatch up artifacts that could be safely fenced, and to loot the cash boxes.

The Skull caught the kiss with his mouth and grinned (or would have, if he had flesh) before marching off down the hall for his own goals.

At the loading dock sat a different vehicle, a sleek SUV, and Penny arrived only minutes after her sweetheart did, grinning and pushing a large cart full of treasures. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked as she shoved the entire cart into the side of the vehicle and then plopped into the driver’s seat.

In the back, Atomic Skull crouched and grabbed the heavy cart, storing it safely as the SUV suddenly roared to life and pulled away from the rear of the museum. “Uh huh. Not a problem, right where it was supposed to be. Now we’ll make him pay, Zelda honey.”

Skull held out his hand and Penny Dreadful spared a glance at the twelve-inch-tall, poseable collector’s figure of Doctor Electron. She gave a heavy sigh, but offered a glittering smile to her man. She had gotten over trying to convince him that she wasn’t the heroine of Curse of the Atomic Skull. She’d never even heard of the old movie serial before meeting Joe Martin. She never got powers from the fictional Dr. Electron. But Martin, her dear Atomic Skull, was convinced of both, and she adored him for the way he wanted to protect her from the evil, evil man. She also adored the way his mental lightning gave her more power than she’d ever had before. And so she gave him that glittering smile, and offered up a wonderfully insincere evil laugh, and said, “You bet, pumpkin.”

Baltimore, Maryland

The Batman stepped out from the abandoned SUV and shook his head in frustration. The stiff wind snapped at the scalloped edges of his cape as he walked across the wide grassy field to join up with his companion.

Ralph Dibny stood in the center of the field, his head stretched out dozens of yards from his body, the slender thread of neck directing it up high into the air after having coursed throughout the tree-bound field.

“Can you believe this?” Ralph asked the Dark Knight Detective. “I mean, c’mon! Atomic Skull? Penny Dreadful? When did they go out and buy a brain to pull of a caper like this?”

“I think you’re on the right track, Elongated Man,” Batman said as he stopped next to his fellow Leaguer and took a last look around. “I assume you found nothing other than the helicopter runners?”

“Right. Got plaster casts of them all set to be shipped off, for all the good it will do us,” Ralph replied, his lips folding over in a comical frown. “What do you mean by you think I got it right?”

“I think these two bought a brain. Or more precisely, they have a third party plotting the theft.” Batman turned and started to lead Ralph back to his Bat-wing.

“That makes sense. But who? This whole job was a work of art.”

“For a crime, yes. This was plotted with great precision. Great care. Something neither the Skull nor Dreadful are noted for.” Batman clambered into the sleek aircraft as Ralph stretched and slithered on in after him. “This isn’t the first time, either.”

“They’ve done this before? I haven’t heard of it.” Ralph looked puzzled.

“Not these two.” Batman activated the ignition sequence, and soon, the Bat-wing was hurtling through the darkening skies. “A couple of weeks back. Got lost in the press of dealing with Overmaster and the Thanagarians. Javelin and Trident pulled off a caper much different in goal, but equally precise. With very few clues for the police. I just found a report on it while catching up.”

“Those four all in cahoots?” Ralph asked. “Nah. That makes no sense.”

“Agreed. They might be a group, but more likely, it’s some other person, behind both crimes, working through these others.”

Ralph sank back into his seat and let his nose twitch and his mind wander. All he’d wanted to do earlier this afternoon was see Sue. A night out with Batman wasn’t even close to his intended plans. He stretched his head up next to his fellow detective, and gave a broad smirk. “So it’s researching time, I guess. Your cave or mine?”