Chapter 385: When Darkness Rises, a Ritual to Call Thunder
Batman had not only stolen the Pym Particles from Pym Technologies Tower, injected pheromones into the giant ants, and planted a virus inside the Ultron robots.
He had also taken one of the Ultron units with him. He had spent time dissecting and analyzing it from the inside out, then modified it, fitted it with an Arkham suit shell, and left it in New York as a temporary stand-in.
He didn't need the modified robot to fight crime. He needed it to be seen at crime scenes wearing the bat-suit. After two and a half months of accumulated presence in this city, the silhouette alone was enough to stop ordinary criminals in their tracks. The sight of the cape and cowl had become its own deterrent.
The robot carried no weapons. Batman had even removed several of its internal hydraulic rods and electric drive components to eliminate any chance, however remote, of it losing control and injuring someone. If a situation arose that the mere appearance of a costumed figure couldn't resolve, Batman would contact Tony Stark directly, or put out a call to Daredevil, Luke Cage, or Jessica Jones.
He hadn't told the four scientists on North Brother Island that he was leaving.
"Robin. You should try to sleep." T'Challa was watching Venom Robin, who had been pressed up against the Batwing's porthole for the better part of an hour, staring out at the ocean of clouds below.
Robin turned his head and held up one finger.
"Shh."
T'Challa looked past him at Batman, who sat focused and unmoving at the controls.
"Does he need to sleep?"
"Probably," Batman said without turning.
T'Challa let the silence settle for a moment, then voiced the question he had been holding back since takeoff.
"Batman. You know what we're walking into. Why did you bring Robin?"
Batman didn't answer. He didn't turn his head. He held the silence for a full ten seconds or more before he spoke, his voice low and level.
"Has Khonshu been speaking to you?"
T'Challa's brow furrowed.
"Khonshu? I haven't told anyone about this operation. This concerns Wakanda, I wouldn't --"
"He's been asking me questions the whole trip," Robin cut in, still facing the porthole.
Batman's voice dropped lower. "What has He been asking?"
T'Challa registered that Batman had used a particular form of the pronoun -- not the casual form. The form reserved for beings above the human order.
"He keeps asking why we're going to Wakanda," Robin said, relaying the words with the flat accuracy of a translator. "And saying He already warned us not to go." He paused, listening to something no one else in the cabin could hear, then his voice went sharp with irritation. "You know what, I'm sick of this -- come out and tell him yourself, you aggravating old man!"
T'Challa's eyebrows drew together. He looked at Robin, then at Batman, then turned and scanned the rear of the cabin. Nothing there except a strange crab-shaped mechanical frame bolted to the bulkhead.
"There's a fourth person on this aircraft?"
Robin abandoned his post at the window and stomped over to Batman's side. His voice carried a note of genuine grievance underneath the irritation.
"Khonshu has been going on and on the entire flight. We shouldn't go to Wakanda, we shouldn't go to Wakanda."
"I'll deal with Him directly," Batman said, and rose from the pilot's seat. He glanced toward T'Challa. "Take the controls."
T'Challa nodded and began to stand. Batman's hand came down and held him in place.
T'Challa was still puzzling through that when a voice filled the cabin -- an old man's voice, unhurried, carrying the faint round tones of a London accent.
"Controls assumed."
T'Challa went still. "Artificial intelligence?"
Wakanda's technological development was advanced well beyond the outside world, but artificial intelligence was an area they had never prioritized. It hadn't even crossed his mind that the Batwing might be carrying one.
"Not quite yet," Batman said. "A more sophisticated computer for now. Nothing more."
The Alfred AI required enormous processing power, and more importantly enormous cooling and power systems to drive it. The chip fabrication pipeline wasn't complete. For the moment, what sat behind that London-accented voice was exactly what Batman described -- a very advanced computer, nothing more.
T'Challa had no time to examine that thought any further.
The moon outside blazed. The change was immediate and visible -- a sudden intensification that flooded the porthole glass with white, followed by something that didn't belong to any natural phenomenon Batman knew: the light didn't scatter. It gathered. Moonbeams came together in tight visible columns, streaming through the hull as if the hull were not there, pooling at the center of the cabin like clear water running into a basin.
T'Challa's Vibranium claws snapped out. He dropped into a fighting stance without hesitation.
Batman didn't stop him. His own posture shifted.
The pooled light continued to coalesce, pulling itself upward and taking form -- first a crescent-shaped staff, gleaming cold in the dark. Then skeletal hands rose from the light and gripped it. Then a figure resolved itself fully: a tall presence in a pure white suit, its head a large falcon's skull, hollow eye sockets lit from within by two steady cold flames.
Moon God Khonshu stood in the center of the cabin.
Batman stepped between him and Venom Robin in the same motion. His body was the barrier. He faced Khonshu directly.
"Say what you came to say, Khonshu."
"I bring a message from the Ancient One." Khonshu's voice was thin and resonant, the voice of something very old. "Don't go to Wakanda."
"Reason."
"There is a conspiracy waiting for you there. Its reach goes beyond what you're accounting for."
T'Challa looked sideways at Robin. This child had been holding a conversation with that thing the entire flight? And Batman had brought Robin precisely because of the warning -- that strange prophecy Batman had been circling around since the letter arrived?
"Be more specific," Batman said.
Batman kept his weight centered. His concern was this: Khonshu, if refused, might use the moonlight to force Robin into the Moon Knight state inside this confined space -- and then he'd be dealing with a fight in an aircraft at altitude, with T'Challa watching.
"I cannot." Khonshu was steady. "If I reveal the full scope of this conspiracy, I become a target."
The Batwing lurched sideways through a band of turbulence. Batman didn't move. Not so much as a shift in his footing.
"You're afraid of him," Batman said.
Khonshu looked at him in silence for several seconds. The cold flames in the skull's sockets did not change.
"Your mind is made up?"
"My mind is made up."
"Very well."
Khonshu said nothing else. He stepped forward, not toward Batman, but to the side -- angling toward Venom Robin. Batman's foot moved. He was still blocking.
Khonshu shook his head. His form dissolved and reconstituted in a single instant, reappearing at Batman's back. Before Batman could pivot, the crescent staff rose -- and the tip of the crescent was aimed directly at Venom Robin, who had not yet registered what was happening.
Khonshu spoke quietly to Robin.
"When darkness rises -- use the method I just taught you."
Then he turned and addressed Batman.
"Don't be alarmed. It's only a ritual to call thunder."
A pause.
"The Ancient One asked for this."
He came apart into moonlight. One moment the cabin was full of his presence, cold and white and immense, and the next there was nothing. The glow through the porthole subsided to its ordinary level. Outside, the moon was simply the moon again.