CURRENT DATE CORRELATION: 1920 AD
LOCATION: NEW YORK SECTOR / SOUTH BROTHER ISLAND
STRATEGIC PROFILE: REGIONAL ANOMALY TRIAGE
The arrival of Princess Diana had violently disturbed the pristine quiet beneath South Brother Island.
Down in the reinforced amphitheater two miles below the East River, the air reeked of scorched iron, shredded stone, and the ozone tang of shattered machinery. Diana stood dead center in the pit, chest heaving slightly, her golden bracers gleaming under the harsh white lights. Around her boots lay the twisted, smoking carcasses of six automated kinetic sparring dummies, their limbs ripped clean from their bronze-alloy housings.
Up on the observation balcony, David stood motionless with his hands folded behind his back, his internal HUD tracking the telemetry streaming across his retinas.
Beside him, lounging against the railing with lazy, aristocratic disdain, was Selene. She wore a sweeping gown of dark violet silk, her porcelain fingers cradling a delicate porcelain cup of spiced tea, entirely unimpressed by the carnage.
"Her divine spark is immaculate, but her discipline remains strictly classical," David said, his digitized voice dropping into a flat, clinical cadence. "Against Ares' front-line melee assets, she will dominate. Against an entrenched artillery battery or a coordinated gas deployment, her current operational geometry introduces an unacceptable casualty risk."
Selene took a slow, languid sip of her tea, letting out an amused, velvet hum in the back of her throat.
"You look at a demigoddess and see bad arithmetic, my silent god," Selene murmured, turning her dark, heavy-lidded eyes toward him with a wicked glimmer of amusement. "The girl has spent thousands of years playing with wooden swords and honoring the rules of temple combat. She expects men to look her in the eye before they strike. She hasn't learned that the modern world is foul, deceitful, and prefers to poison you from three miles away through the fog. Hand her over to Mark to teach her how filthy trench rats kill, and let your machines shoot real lead at her. She will bleed, she will grow furious, and then she will learn."
Selene set the teacup down on the console rail, stepping over to the master terminal with a slow, swaying grace that carried thousands of years of royal courts in its stride. She tapped the display with one crimson nail, pulling up the transatlantic surveillance weave.
Two distinct anomalies flared on the map.
The first was across the ocean, boiling like an open wound over the pulverized mud of post-war Flanders. It was a thick, suffocating aura of brimstone, fury, and scorched earth.
"The mortal war ended, but the stench of it has woken a very old, very foul dog," Selene said, her voice dropping into a low, purring curiosity. "My contacts in London speak of a scholar named Jason Blood. He served as an ambulance surgeon during the war, wading through severed limbs and mustard gas, listening to thousands of boys scream into the mud. The sheer malice of it gorged the beast chained inside his ribs."
"A demonic variable operating without containment," David noted, his optics zooming in on the volatile energy spike. "The thermal and sulfur output is unstable."
"Not just any beast, David. Etrigan," Selene smiled, a cruel, beautiful curve of her lips. "Merlin bound that rhyming horror to Blood's immortal soul when Camelot burned, and now the creature is clawing its way up the poor man's throat. The scholar is hiding in an estate outside Oxford, drowning himself in brandy and scribbling salt-circles on his floorboards, praying the hellfire won't spill out and incinerate half the county."
"An erratic entity of that scale introduces systemic volatility to the European sector," David calculated. "The containment must be stabilized."
"Then send me to leash it," Selene purred softly, stepping into his space, her chin lifting with supreme, unbothered arrogance.
Beside her shoulder, floating on an invisible tether of her telekinetic will, the skin-bound Darkhold pulsed with a faint, subdued violet heartbeat. The silver nanite threads David had woven into its spine kept the madness sealed, leaving the raw, terrifying authority of the Chthonic tome resting entirely in her hands. To the world, the grimoire was a cursed relic that had spawned the wretched, sunlight-rotted breed of blood-drinkers in ancient Atlantis; to Selene, an External born long before those pathetic parasites, it was simply an old peer's ledger.
"Merlin was clever, but he stole his binding arts from the oldest shadows," Selene whispered, her eyes flashing with dark sorcery. "To that miserable, shivering scholar, the demon is an eternal damnation. To this book, Etrigan's true name is a collar already carved. The demon cannot burn me, and Jason Blood will gladly crawl to his knees and surrender every dusty tome he owns if I grant him one night of silent, dreamless sleep."
David turned his gaze toward the second anomaly pulsing on the holographic globe.
Barely a hundred miles down the American coastline, the dark, sprawling silhouette of Gotham City sat humming like a cracked tuning fork. The sub-relays he had buried deep within the continental bedrock were recording a heavy, suffocating vibration radiating directly from the city's foundations.
"The American corridor carries its own rot," David said, his digitized voice steady as he pulled up the structural data. "In 1635, a deserter unearthed a cosmic relic beneath the salt marsh, an ancient Seed aligned with raw retribution. Two centuries later, Cyrus Pinkney and Solomon Wayne wrapped the entire city in a Gothic containment shell of iron spires and flying buttresses to physically stifle the entity's runaway feedback loop."
He brought up the economic telemetry of Gotham's Old Money cartels.
"The cage is cracking," David continued, the cold blue light of the terminal washing over his chiseled features. "The mortal crime cartels and corrupt institutions are feeding the paranoia. The Seed's frequency is bleeding through the stone, drawing every fractured, violent mind along the coast straight to the epicenter. It is creating an exponential loop of madness that will compromise the entire sector."
David looked back down at Selene, the rigid, clinical line of his posture softening by a subtle, deliberate degree.
"Take the transatlantic transport to Oxford," David said, his voice dropping into a level, quiet tone of shared authority. "Muzzle Etrigan, secure Blood's cooperation, and take custody of his ancient archives. I will take a vanguard to Gotham. The Seed beneath that marsh is an ancient cosmic component, not a playground for human delusion. If I cannot tune its frequency into the global network, the city will devour itself before the decade closes."
Selene chuckled, a rich, melodic sound that held both ancient pride and intimate familiarity. She stepped close enough that the soft velvet of her bodice brushed against the front of his tailored vest, her pale fingers coming to rest flat over his heart.
"Try not to tear the little mortals' toys to pieces before I arrive, David," she teased softly, her gaze holding his. "I rather adore the gloomy, stone-carved nests they build when they are terrified. Once I have our scholar packed away, I will come find you in the fog."
"Do not linger in England," David replied, his fingers lightly brushing her wrist in a quiet, unforced touch before she stepped away.
Selene favored him with a slow, devastating smirk, turning on her heel with the stabilized Darkhold floating beside her.
The board was divided. Selene had an ancient demon to collar in England, David had a city of stone and judgment to dissect, and the deeper shadows of the fused world were finally meeting the masters of the dark.