Although the prologue not strictly necessary to the enjoyment of the story, it is helpful and will give you some insight and information that will be sought after by our heroes later on. If you choose to skip it, you can catch up on what is happening as Nightwing or Batman figure it out . . . . But if you choose to read this, don't worry too much about the names as only two or three of the characters continue on. I promise, this story will be worth the effort!

*Just a reminder: I do not own DC or its characters. I am not receiving any financial gain for this story, just entertaining myself and a few others for free. Although reviews, faves, and follows are always welcome. ;D *

Warning: Language, Some Violence . . .

58 BCE -

"Is it over?" Nola asked, pulling her brown cloak around her more closely. It still smelled of Sulphur and smoke but she didn't care. She felt lucky to be alive; they all did. There weren't many of them left . . . Priests and priestesses, druids all. "Please, say it is over."

"It will be. There is but one task that still remains," the voice of Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of death, warfare, and rebirth, rumbled and echoed around the valley still, despite her weakened state.

Of the eight Celtic and local gods who had united their powers in battle on behalf of the earth, only Morrigan endured. It was to their shock and horror that the druid priests discovered that their gods were not immortal after all, that they were just as capable of dying as their feeble human worshippers.

And if their world had been saved, their religion had not. Oh, they would soldier on, but how effective would it be when Seven of their gods and goddesses were dead, and what other gods there were had fled this land for another realm altogether. Druidism would soon be as dead as Cernunnos, Lugh, and Mandred; as dead as Airmid, Belatucadros, Anu, and Cerridwen were now. Morrigan, the last of their pantheon, planned to desert her followers soon for another place in which she could lick her wounds and contemplate her newfound mortality.

Loegaire buckled another leather strap over the lid of the iron box and tugged it tight.

"What you do is a waste, Irishman," Myrdden, one of their Welsh kind, told him from where he lounged against one of the many broken stones. It had once been part of a ring of standing stones that marked a sacred place of worship. "If that lock fails, there is nothing a few leather straps can do to hold her there."

The Scots priestess, Fiona, shivered from where she huddled against the only tree within a mile at his words. The wind blew her blonde hair across her face but she was too exhausted to gather it; she left it to tangle in the breeze. It was the Summer Solstice and yet it was as cold as the grave. Phelan, another of Irish blood, thrust his filthy sword into the earth and pulled his own green robe on. Whether it be from the cold he hid or to cover his torn clothes and battered body, no one knew but then, neither did they care. All were beaten today for all that they were the victors. Such a victory as this surely felt hollow to those left standing.

"It is not to hold her, Myrdden," Phelan said. "It is a warning to any who foolishly think to release her."

Cailean laughed. It sounded harsh, as if the Scot had been strangled recently. It was entirely possible that he had been, such was the war that had been waged over many long weeks. "You would think that the lock itself would be deterrent enough," he said gruffly.

"Who could open a lock without the key?" the lovely Maeve asked. Her hands shook slightly as she nervously braided her long, mahogany hair. The skirt of her fine purple gown had been shredded and long bloody scratches could be seen marking the pale skin of her legs.

"Twasn't meant to have a key," Cynwrig reminded them. He and Belenos were Celtic druids who claimed no land as their own but traveled throughout the Isles and even to the continent beyond the Channel.

Kimball, another of the four Angles present, looked to the other priest. "Why bother with a lock at all?" he asked. "It will never be opened."

Dark of hair and eye, Rhiannon was the youngest of the survivors, sharing the title of Angle druid priestess with Nola. They, along with Kimball and Sloane, were all that remained of the thousand English druid warriors that had come to join the battle. She twisted at the bit of parchment in her hands. Those hands that had once been soft and white were now filthy with ragged nails. One nail was missing altogether, she noted absently, and wondered briefly where it might have been lost.

"We will tell the story and spread the legend far and wide so that all will fear this cursed place for the rest of time immemorial," the young priestess vowed.

"No," Morrigan commanded. Many of the leaves on the nearby Rowan tree withered at the sound of her voice. "No one must hear of this. No legend must exist that might lure the curious. There will be those who will covet the power, believing they might find a way to control it, her. As you who survive know all too well, they will not be able to do so," the goddess warned. "Instead, you will go far and wide to those who live and warn them to forget what has happened here," Morrigan decreed.

Belenos scoffed, forgetting himself. "And who would be able to forget this?" He threw up his arms to encompass the carnage around them.

The land was riddled with thousands of charred and bleeding bodies of their fellow druids. They lay amongst those soldiers of that creature, an undead army, that had finally returned to a state of just plain dead with her defeat. The blood of those once living had mixed with the dirt to make a mud that stained boots and tunics alike a dark red color. Indeed, the destruction ran many miles in every direction, but nothing like the great chasm that had ripped through their lands. Whole villages washed away in the flood that followed. The landscape was no longer recognizable and very few things still lived inside this dead zone: a lone rowan tree, one goddess, and the sixteen of them . . .

Morrigan's eyes flashed. "If they cannot forget, then vow them to silence. Cut out their tongues if need be, but for the sake of your world this battle must never be spoken of again."

With what little power she could yet command, the goddess lifted the enormous stone altar, cracked and bloodied, that lay in the center of the sacred circle and set it aside. Dermot, Gaenor, Iagan, and Uthyr took up tools and began digging. If they lack a digging tool, they used their swords and daggers. Belenos, Cynwrig, Kimball, and Loegaire rolled heavy boulders and smaller stones out of the way.

Myrdden, Phelan, Cailean, and Sloane replaced the weary as the four priestesses chanted and wove powerful wards over the circle itself. Blood was drawn from enchanted blades and dribbled in streams of red around the sacred ground. The sun was dipping low in the sky when Morrigan told them to cease. The hole was deeper than any would bother to bury a man. Hopefully, it was deep enough that the land itself would forget what it harbored within its soil as the iron box was lowered into the depths of the earth.

Morrigan held out her hand and took the parchment. "This will be all the deterrent the unwise will receive. If any should forego its warning, your world will be laid waste as was those worlds that felt her wrath before us."

Uthyr glanced to the north, toward the place where she had come through. "And what of the portal, my lady? What if another should find its way through?"

Morrigan turned away as if his words were nothing. "None will follow," she said dismissively. "None were left to follow."

"Is that what Mab told to you?" Gaenor asked, speaking of the Fae queen who had abandoned the earth at the first hint of her coming.

"It is Truth," Morrigan said as she held the parchment in the direction of the rising moon. "She is the End of Everything . . . The Raven Empress. She brings death wherever she goes."

"Is that why you alone survived?" Nola asked. "Because you also are a goddess of death and war?"

"And of rebirth," Sloane added.

Rhiannon gazed upon the dead that surrounded them for miles in all directions. "We could use a little rebirth right about now," she murmured to no one in particular.

Dermot shook his head. "And yet you leave us," he accused the goddess.

She did not know why she alone still stood. Morrigan looked over the sixteen, warriors all. "You will not be alone for long," she promised. "One greater will come to replace what you have lost in time."

"One capable of defeating her?" Iagan asked, indicating the altar, now back in its place.

"If you could so convince Him," Morrigan muttered cryptically, "perhaps . . . but that is only if she escapes her prison. I fear for this world then for her mercy is not known."

With a wave of her hand, the Rowen tree bloomed anew. As they had said, she was the goddess of rebirth as well as of war and death. Seedlings sprouted around the outside of the sacred circle: Rowen trees, to guard this place. The sixteen warrior-priests and priestesses gathered around her, beaten and bloodied, wearied to their very bones, but not broken.

This is good, she thought, for while the rest of them would sink into forgetfulness, one of them would be condemned to remember and guard against the day when the Raven Empress would break free of her prison. That one would return gather the warriors of this world together once more to take up the fight for their very existence.

It was not for her to grant immortality, not when her own was in jeopardy. Morrigan would, instead, open the gate to the Tuatha De' Denann, for time worked differently there. There, the guardian would remain, waiting and ever vigilant; returning only to defend the prison or that cursed day that the raven witch escaped the box . . . There to remain then until time itself ceased to exist.

3 Days Ago -

Melanie Williams was excited. The legend was unheard of and, although she was tempted to write it off as a joke on the part of a locals as a way to entertain the archaeology students that were interviewing them, this one had a bit of truth to it. She had gone out to where the drunk had indicated and it was just as he said. The ring of ancient, sprawling Rowen trees guarding a broken circle, the inside of which was barren of all living things, at its center a damaged druid altar that she suspected had been stained dark from ancient sacrifices . . .

No one else had been willing to give credence to his claims. They said his family had been crazy forever, claiming they had a secret knowledge of a war that happened over two millennia ago. At any other time, Melanie might not have bothered with the old fairy tale but for two things: she had seen the circle for herself, going out yesterday, searching for this place despite warnings that this area had been cursed for ages; and the mass grave discovered at a dig just a handful of miles from here that seemed to corroborate the man's wild allegations.

No one else believed him but, somehow, Melanie did.

She was there in this obscure part of Wales with a number of other students from Gotham University that were picked to accompany their professor on an archaeological dig nearby on Roman ruins found in the area eight months ago. They had only arrived six weeks ago to assist with the project. As exciting as that was, if this story had even a shred of evidence to back it, it could be bigger than all the Roman digs combined. After all, that the Romans had been to the British Isles was a well-known fact. This dig was just one piece of many that merely substantiated what everyone already knew. But an unknown war that happened long before the Romans were ever presence here . . .

Would Professor Whitmore listen to her, though? She couldn't go to him without proof. Melanie was the youngest on the trip, only a second-year student. The only reason she was given permission to come along was because a third-year student had gotten caught cheating on an exam and been expelled. Everyone else was her senior by at least two years.

It might as well be twenty years, she grumbled silently to herself.

She couldn't do this by herself, however. That was why she searched out graduate student, Greg Middleston, to help her. He had been interested when she had first come to him with this wild story. Now that she found the location, she had no trouble talking him into accompanying her to the place that afternoon.

Melanie brightened when she saw Greg standing at the Rowen trees. He had a shovel with him. Her eyes widened as she realized that he was going one better.

"Greg," she called as she hurried over. "You found the place okay?" Despite being here the day prior, Melanie had nearly missed it on her return.

"It was a little rough-going there for a while. Got lost for a bit but . . . Man! This is fantastic, Melanie," Greg grinned at her. "It's just like you described it."

"What's with the shovel," she asked. "If this is to be a legitimate dig, we have to report it. There will be paperwork, licenses, and permissions to go through first."

"Do you really think there will be something here," he teased her gently. "An iron box that holds a mysterious token of good luck that's supposed to be older than the Roman settlement on the other side of the village?"

Melanie frowned. "He didn't really say it was good luck exactly . . ."

Greg laughed. "Melanie, come on! The guy's a drunk. He and his family have been telling this story for years. Not even the local vicar believes him."

"Then why did you come?" she asked, glancing at the shovel pointedly. "Why did you bring a shovel with you if you didn't believe it?"

Greg squinted over the scene in front of them. The barren circle of broken stones that looked like no human had ever touched it in centuries, the ancient Rowens that hid this place from curious eyes. Even with GPS coordinates from Melanie to guide him, he had trouble finding it. It was like you weren't supposed to notice it. Despite what he told Melanie, he felt sure that there was something of value in this place. Whether it was some rumored magical token that promised power or riches or success, or just some kind of ancient relic, it was worth something to somebody, somewhere.

And Greg had debts. He had loans. He would be graduating in the spring and there wasn't exactly a waiting list of jobs for newborn archaeologists. But he knew a guy . . . Greg had met him four years when he had been chosen to attend a dig in Egypt during summer, a guy who knew how to find things and better yet, knew how to sell them.

He picked up his shovel and walked into the ring, a chill washing over him. Greg decided that it was adrenaline, excitement over the find they were going to make. Melanie followed him out slowly, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. Cold or nervous, he figured. He turned around upon reaching the altar. There was evidence that hinted that the druids made human sacrifices here under the full moon. He didn't know for certain if that were true, the ancient people didn't leave a written record, but there were numerous written accounts by others that they did.

Of course, Greg's expertise was Egyptian artifacts and the civilizations of the Middle East, not druids and ancient Celtic lore or even Roman settlements. He was simply here because it looked good on his resume.

"Where did he say it was buried?" Greg asked.

"U-Under the alter," Melanie said quietly. "Greg, this is wrong."

"It's only wrong if we find something," he assured her. "We're not going to find anything."

"Then why . . .?"

"I'm doing you a favor," he said. "If you were to go back and tell Whitmore about this place, he's not going to believe you and you're going to look ridiculous."

Melanie's eyes widened, worried.

"But what would be worse, would be if Whitmore did believe you and started the paperwork to get permission to authorize a dig here and then, after a couple of years and thousands of dollars, they find nothing . . ." Greg seemed to slump. "You don't want that mark on your record. Trust me, Melanie, that would be the end for you, even before you truly began."

There was movement through the trees and someone hallooed.

"Anyone here? Hello?"

"Over here," Greg called out.

As another man entered the circle, Greg smiled. "Glad you could make it? Have any trouble?"

This was the fellow he had met in Egypt four years ago. They had been working together on projects ever since, even if Skip himself wasn't approved; Greg would always work with him on the side. Another year of this, and Greg would not only be able to pay off his debts but would have a little nest egg to tide him over in hard times. In fact, if there were any truth at all to Melanie's claim, he could be set for life.

"Locating it? A bit or I'd have been here sooner," the other man answered in the accent of a local. He was tall and broad through the shoulders and had tanned skin that stopped at his elbows, indicating he worked outside a lot. "So, this is the place. Huh? Never knew this place existed and I've lived in the next county all my life. Who's the girl? She the one you told me about?"

Melanie stepped backward as the stranger's hard gaze swiveled towards her. "Who is that? Greg, you weren't supposed to tell anyone!"

The man took his floppy hat off and ran a hand through his dishwater blond hair. "Well, now, I'm not exactly just anyone," he grinned. "My name's Skip. I've worked on sites like this most of me life."

"You're an archaeologist?" Melanie asked skeptically.

"You could say that," Skip answered her cheerfully. "I am more of a procurer of a sort. I have clients that have interests in items of profound historical significance."

Melanie frowned. "You mean, like museums?"

"Museums, collectors, amateur historians, purveyors of antiquities," Skip said as he picked up a bag of tools and ambled over to them. He swung the bag onto the altar, making the other two wince at the clang and clatter.

"Take it easy, Skip," Greg said. "This place didn't survive centuries only to have you destroy it in the first five minutes of your arrival."

The man laughed. "This bugger is solid marble, chum. I doubt there's much I could do to hurt it." He turned in a circle and whistled. "Even if I did, who'd notice? This place has already been demolished," he said, noting the large crack in the center of the alter

"Grab a shovel and help. We have to be back at the Roman dig in the morning," Greg told him.

"You sure there is something here worth all this effort?" Skip asked, eyeing the ring critically.

"According to Melanie, there is," Greg told him as he picked up the shovel. "But we won't know for sure until we dig." He looked up at her. "Did he say if it was actually under the altar or next to it?"

Melanie blinked. "Um, he said under the altar, 'down further than a man would normally dig'." That last bit had been a quote. She looked at the slab of solid stone doubtfully. "We'd need a crane to move that thing. It has to weigh a couple of tons, at least."

Skip tilted his head as he considered it. After a moment, he nodded. "Right. Not going to be a problem."

"How do you figure that?" Melanie asked, uncertainly. She didn't know this other guy from Adam.

"The altar is what . . . Seven and a half, eight feet in length?" Greg smiled. "Whatever is under it would likely be in the center, so we'll just dig a hole next to it and when we get to the proper depth, we'll dig inward, under the slab."

"What if the sides collapse under the weight," Melanie argued.

"We'll prop it if we have to," Greg said. "It will hold, trust me."

"I did trust you," Melanie snapped, staring at the two men. "Now, I'm not so sure."

"Seems strange that I've traveled the world in search of treasure and here I am, digging for it in me own back yard." Skip commented even as he sank his shovel into the ground and stepped on it. "So, what's the word, mate? What are we after?"

"A token of some sort," Greg said as he joined in with purpose. They were on a time crunch as it was. "Supposed to bring power and success to the one who wields it."

Melanie stepped back to avoid being hit by dirt. "That's not what he said," she corrected.

"Close enough," Greg shrugged. "Why else would there be a war waged for it? Why else would it be buried in an iron box?"

Skip's eyebrows rose even as he tossed another spade full of dirt to the side. "War? What war? I've lived here all my life and never heard tell of a war in these parts. Southeast of here, yeah, and up north, sure, but not 'round here. This here is just a bit of nothing. Anything and everything of import happened at least a hundred miles away."

"There is that Roman settlement we're here to excavate," Melanie reminded them.

Skip scoffed. "Roman settlements are a dime a dozen in the British Isles. My uncle up north tripped over one just last week."

Melanie moved around the altar and leaned against it, watching the two men dig. They were already hip-deep and getting deeper. "This war was supposed to have happened a couple of thousand years ago, or something like that, before the Romans came to Briton."

"Wait! Have you been talking to Cadwallader?" Skip stopped digging and glared at Greg. "I thought you said there'd be something here of value. Cadwallader is just some crazy drunk. He and his father and grandfather have all been talking about this secret history that no one else bloody knows about. Families that have lived here for as long as people inhabited the Isle and no one remembers any of this except for their family."

Melanie scowled, coming to her subject's defense. "He said that they were all told to forget about it. That the priests were all telling them to never talk about it or spread the story to their children or children's children. He says his ancestor chose to rebel against the priests' authority. A great war occurred here and they were determined to remember it by passing the story down to the eldest living child in order to continue the memory."

"After two bloody thousand years? How much of what was passed down had been altered? The story he tells, if there were even a shred of truth behind it, couldn't possibly be accurate after so long of time being passed down by word of mouth alone. They didn't keep written records back then, you know!"

"Well, he was right about this place. No one else seemed to know about it, no one else could ever find it, and yet here we are," Melanie argued. "So, that much appears to be accurate."

"He could have stumbled onto it at any point and made up his story," Greg stopped digging now.

Melanie rolled her eyes. "This place has been here for centuries, quite possibly for the two thousand years he claims, and yet no one else has ever just stumbled upon it before. How likely is that?"

Skip paused and thought about that. "It was hard to locate. I think I walked around here for more than an hour before I heard your voices and found it." He looked around at the enclosed area suspiciously.

Melanie shrugged. "I only found it again because I have been here before but, even then, I nearly got lost."

Greg laughed. "What? You two talk as if you think it's been enchanted! Are you saying this place has a spell on it to confound any who might try to find it?"

Skip looked a little nervous, a total reversal of his previous temperament. "You haven't been in this business as long as I have without running into a few unexplainable things."

Greg shook his head. "You know, I was thinking that mass grave they located between here and the ruins could have come from this war that drunk guy was talking about rather than being plague victims like they initially thought."

"Do they still think that?" Melanie became thoughtful. "Russ said that they found some old weaponry this morning that looks to predate the Roman settlement. Did they get the results to the carbon dating back yet?"

"I don't know. Maybe by now they did," Greg said, putting his shovel back into the dirt. "Anyway, I thought that the weapons and a large mass of dead bodies coupled with the rumors of an ancient war was reason enough to check this place out."

Silence reigned for a while, the only sounds were that of the wind and that of digging. Melanie went to get some water from the car and got lost again on her way back. The idea that there was a spell over the land to prevent trespassers flitted through her mind again. She wasn't superstitious but there was a strange atmosphere around the place.

Eventually, Melanie made it through the Rowan circle and found the guys were deeper than she would have bothered to go. She tossed them each some water.

"You were gone a long time," Greg commented.

"I got lost," she muttered.

Skip glanced pointedly at Greg at this announcement but the younger man waved the look away.

"How are you going to get out of there," she asked curiously. They had to be more than twelve feet below the surface.

"We dug out handholds. Hey, you said it was buried deeper than one would normally go, right?" Greg asked. "What do you think? Should we go deeper or is this good enough?"

"Hell, no," Skip groused. "This is good enough," he said, wiping his brow with his dirty arm. He left a streak of mud across his forehead. He jammed his spade into the soil between his feet and drank his water in one, long draw. "A man wouldn't bother digging down past six feet, the depth of a common grave."

"So, then we start tunneling under the alter here," Greg tossed his own emptied bottle up and then marked the wall of soil at eight feet.

"Be careful," Melanie warned. "That altar could still fall on you."

"We'll keep it small to start with," Greg told them as he began digging again, this time beneath the altar itself. "We can always enlarge it should we need to."

Skip tossed the dirt Greg pulled free out of the hole and soon they fell into a rhythm. It wasn't long before the blade of the shovel hit something hard. Greg stabbed the earth again and a muffled clang sounded out. The two men shared a grin and then both of them started tearing the soil away from around the obvious metal object, hooting with triumph.

Melanie peered into the hole. "You found something?"

"We found something alright," Greg crowed. "And I'll be damned if it ain't a metal box of some kind."

It was heavy and solid, and it took both men to drag it from where it had been nestled for many long years from the looks of it. A thousand or two? Who knew? Who cared? Greg and Skip tied a rope around it and then Skip climbed out of the hole. He grabbed the rope with Melanie and they both pulled as Greg pushed and eventually the three of them managed to wrestle the box out of the hole.

Greg scrambled out, his weariness forgotten in the excitement. "Are we going to open it? Let's see what's inside!"

It was smaller than they had expected. It was heavy but not unmanageable for one man to handle should he have to. The iron box had three leather straps around it, inconceivably still in great shape.

Melanie frowned. "If this box had been buried for two thousand years, this leather should have rotted away long ago. It could hardly be more than fifty years old from the looks of it."

Greg shook his head. "Whatever! The box is obviously older than that. You can tell by the primitive construction."

"Old but it's sturdy and what's more," Skip added, "it's locked up tight." He looked at the girl. "I don't suppose Cadwallader said anything about a key?"

She shook her head. "Did you find anything else with it? Maybe the key is there."

Skip snorted. "Why bother to lock the box if you're just going to bury the key with it?"

But Greg was hopping back down into the hole. "I think there might have been something else. Maybe it will have a clue to where the key is stashed."

He climbed out a couple of minutes later with a filthy parchment scroll wrapped in rotted cloth in his hand.

"I found this. No key but it might tell us where it is," he panted.

"That scroll is parchment, isn't it?" Melanie asked. "It hardly looks more than a few decades itself."

"Yeah, unfortunately, way too good of shape to be the age the drunk was claiming," Greg agreed and then added with a laugh, "Unless you think it might be enchanted as well?"

"Open it up," Skip ordered, ignoring the snide remark.

They were interrupted by the call of a bird. Loud, it startled them and the three turned and gasped at the size of the raven now sitting in the branches of a Rowan tree. It turned its head and looked at them out of one eye and then out of the other.

"Whoa! Look at the size of that thing," Greg yelped.

"Is it dangerous?" Melanie scooted a little closer to her fellow student.

Skip scoffed. "Nah, the thing's a scavenger. It isn't interested in the living," he smirked at her. "It's only interested in the dead."

"It's creepy," Melanie complained.

"Oh aye, it is that," Skip agreed. "All the more reason to get this box somewhere where we can pry it open. I know a guy in the next town over. Close to the airport."

The two men picked the box up between them and prepared to carry it to the car. They were tired and, although one could have managed, working together was quicker. They hadn't made it out of the circle when a voice sounded out behind them.

"Ei roi yn ôl ac yn ôl i ffwrdd." ["Put it back and back away."]

Melanie turned as the men looked and blinked . . . and blinked again. The woman was tall and willowy but in no way frail by any means. She wore a deep brown cloak. Although the hood was up they could see her face easily. She was lovely with long, dark hair and eyes so dark they appeared to be black. She pushed back the folds of her cloak to expose silver chainmail over a green gown made of some coarse material and, most importantly, a sword . . . a very authentic-looking sword.

Pwy ydych chi?" Skip asked. "Mae eich acen rhyfedd. O ba le yr ydych yn cenllysg?" ["Who are you? Your accent is strange. From whence do you hail?"]

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Rydych yn deall fi, onid ydych?" she asked as her left hand clutched an amulet that she wore. Her right hand continued to hover noticeably above the hilt of her sword. ["You understand me, do you not?]

"Aye"

"Yna fy acen yw o unrhyw bwys. Byddwch yn gwneud fel eich wahoddasid," she snapped at him. ["Then my accent is of no importance. You will do as you are bidden."]

"What's she saying?" Melanie asked. "Who is she?"

"She's telling us to return the box and leave," Skip translated. "She didn't give a name."

Melanie licked her suddenly dry lips. "Maybe we should do as she says. How do we know she doesn't own this land? That box could be hers."

The woman frowned as the two conversed. Her grip on her amulet tightened. "You will return the box to its place and leave. Do not return!"

Greg's eyebrows shot up. "You speak English?"

"Nay," she denied. "I speak whatever is your language. This is not Anglish."

Skip snorted. "Ye just did, right now. English."

The frown grew fierce and there was no mistaking the look of confusion that crossed her face fleetingly.

"Interesting but, alas, it makes no difference when the message is the same," she waved the discussion away. "Return the box to its place and go!"

"Or what?" Skip challenged. He ignored Melanie's shock.

In a blink of an eye, the woman's sword left the scabbard and was pointing it their direction. "Or else . . ." she left the warning hanging.

Melanie took a step back. "I think maybe we should do as she asks."

"Bloody hell," Skip cursed. "I didn't spend hours digging this up just to put it back because some trollope from a Renaissance festival starts waving her sword about. I've got a sword of me own, don't ye know?"

Greg shook his head. "I asked around. The national park service owns this piece of land."

"You got this?" Skip asked, letting go of the box.

"Yeah," he nodded, shifting to handle the heavy metal box on his own.

Melanie's eyes widened. "W-What are you doing? Just . . . put it back like she asked. Please?"

Skip turned toward the newcomer. "Lady, don't you know that you don't bring a knife to a gun fight?"

"G-Gun?" Melanie stammered. Who the hell had Greg gotten involved with? She slapped her hands over her ears and made for the car parked too damned far from here.

Skip pointed his piece at her. It should have been enough to scare her away but she merely looked at him quizzically. Greg was already moving off with the box. If this chick was willing to do damage for it, it had to contain something of value.

"Take the box to the airport," he said over his shoulder, "and stash it with the shipment heading to Gotham City. I've got contacts there who can pick it up and move it for us."

The other man took off, huffing under the weight of the bulky treasure but when the woman moved to intercept him, Skip stepped into her way.

"Ah, ah, ah," he warned her, waving the gun in a manner sure to get her attention.

Unfortunately, it did exactly that. In a move too fast to follow, the woman flung out her other hand and a dagger embedded itself in Skip's right shoulder, severing several important things including the median nerve. The gun dropped from his hand as he yelled. Skip pulled the dagger out and pointed it at the stranger.

"I will kill you," he roared, flinging the knife at her.

The woman dodged it handily and continued advancing; her sword whistled through the air as she spun it about her with startling ease and expertise. Skip's heart started pounding as he realized that she was the real deal. She apparently didn't bluff and the glint in her hard eyes told him he would find more compassion at the hands of some of his less-savory business acquaintances than with her.

Dropping to his knees, Skip reached blindly for his weapon with his left hand. Blood was pouring down his shirt front and down his useless right arm, more than he thought there should be. Black spots winked in and out of his vision but there was no mistaking when the woman stopped in front of him. With no gun and his vision tunneling . . . She must have found a artery, he thought numbly, Skip looked up at her from his knees. He would be dead within minutes.

"Who are you?" he asked, belatedly clamping a hand over his wound. "Who?"

She glared down at him mercilessly. "I am the druid priestess, Rhiannon. You dare to disturb the box and risk humanity for your petty greed. Pray you that I am able to return her to her resting place with her prison undamaged."

Skip blinked in confusion, his body swaying. "Prison? . . . W-What prison? Who is this . . . she you speak of? he asked, panting. Why was it so hard to breathe all of a sudden?

Rhiannon snarled and raised her sword in preparation of the final blow. "She is the Raven Empress, the Goddess of Death, of Destruction and of Blood. She is, foolish mortal," the priestess swung her sword in a powerful arc, "the End of Everything."

Yesterday –

Dr. Edgar Sheridan adjusted his glasses on his nose. The day had been one disaster after another. The second shipment from the Wales excavation site had arrived hours ago, but he was only just now able to stop to check it in properly. God forbid should anything have been broken during shipment. Gotham State University was doing this project in conjunction with its sister school in Great Britain and would receive exactly half of the findings to catalogue, study, and display for its part in the excavation.

He used a crowbar to pry up the heavy wooden lid and heave it aside. He yanked out some of the packing material and picked up his clipboard containing the shipping manifest. There were several vases and other pieces of pottery that were declared intact upon the sealing of the container. There were . . . He paused.

"Oh dear," Sheridan lamented, picking up a large shard of broken pottery.

Their first casualty, he thought sadly. Who was the ham-handed worker who had bungled this shipment? How could this have happened?

As he dug further into the depth of the container, the older man's hands bumped into something hard and . . . cold? metal? The packing material around it was totally inappropriate for securing something so heavy and unforgiving as whatever this was. No wonder the vase had been damaged. He hoped that no other pieces of pottery had suffered the same results of what amounted to gross negligence upon those responsible for packing the artifacts.

To prevent further damage from shifting, Sheridan laid down his manifest and reached in with both hands to pull out the odd box. His fingers wrapped around leather straps and used them for handles to haul the box out from its hiding place. It was, indeed, heavy and he couldn't help wondering how no one noticed the weight difference between what the manifest claimed and what was reality. He set the box down on the table gently, despite its heft and bulk. It didn't take an expert to realize the box was an artifact in and of itself.

Turning on a magnifying, lighted mirror, Sheridan pulled it close. From what he could tell at first glance, the box was made of iron, although the leather was obviously a recent addition. It had icons and symbols etched into its sides . . . He turned it around. All sides, he corrected. The entire box was covered in, what was for him, was innumerable, unknown hieroglyphics. Sheridan was familiar with Egyptian picture writings but this . . . this was something different than anything he had encountered throughout his career.

No, wait! Squinting, Sheridan peered closer. This image of a bird looked familiar. Not Egyptian, obviously, but he had seen this before somewhere.

Frowning, Sheridan turned back to the container. Surely, they sent some kind of explanation for this relic. It was quite ancient and he roughly placed it in the Iron Age. So unusual, its uniqueness made it quite a valuable find. He wondered if it came from the Roman dig, but couldn't imagine how it must have gotten there. The site, itself, had been dated to around 245 CE but the iron box's construction, while quite advance for all intents and purposes, appeared to be from some other period.

His hand brushed a piece of cloth. Something was wrapped up in a rag of some sort. He tugged out the parchment next with something akin to disgust. It hadn't been prepared for travel at all, he noted, determined to find the culprits and make certain they lost their jobs for their mishandling of cultural treasures of intrinsic historical value. Tugging on a pair of gloves, Sheridan laid the parchment onto the table and spread it out.

More of the strange hieroglyphics. It matched those on the box exactly, appearing to be created from the same time period but it seemed impossible. The parchment was in excellent shape for being something so old. It had to be written at a later time.

Uh oh, part of it had been damaged . . . intentionally so, Sheridan thought angrily.

"Who would treat you this way?" he complained to the items.

It took an hour but Sheridan had a partial clue to the box and its parchment companion origins. The symbol he had recognized had been a druid sign of the raven. It meant death. Druids were renown for never leaving behind a written account but for all of that, there had been enough pictures carved into some of the famous stones of various standing stone circles to recognize the shape and determine that the box and the scroll had once belonged to a group of druids . . . a high probability lying with the priest class.

"Well, as fascinating as you have been," Sheridan spoke softly, "you would be much happier, I think, in Bludhaven. I know of an excellent professor of linguistics who has more than a passing interest in Celtic lore and druidism."

Sheridan pulled out a smaller box and began preparing it for transport. With care, he settled the box and parchment into its new container.

"Dr. Christian Everhardt," Sheridan whispered as he filled out the shipping label. "Professor of Linguistics and Ancient Studies at the Bludhaven Museum of Natural History."

3 hours Ago –

"Where is it?" Gary pressed the knife into the professor's skin. A single drop of blood coated the blade and slithered down its cold surface. "I've been through too much and traveled too far to fail now."

Sheridan's glasses were askew and blood ran down his face from a cut on his forehead. His voice quivered as he answered.

"I-I s-sent it to Bludhaven . . . to Dr. E-Everhardt there," he stammered. "Christian Everhardt."

May his friend forgive him for this one day . . .

Sheridan recognized the graduate student but was careful to not use his name. The man had obviously seen better days if his ragged appearance was anything to go by. Bruises and a fresh scar ran across Gary's face from the corner of his left eye to his chin.

If the man was so far gone as to beat him senseless and deal in stolen antiquities, he might continue to press on the knife until he slit the old man's throat in order to protect his identity from the authorities. If Sheridan hoped to get through this alive, he must pretend to be stupid.

He wondered if Whitmore knew he had a viper in his midst? Well, he would soon enough, Sheridan thought, if I survive this night.

Gary Middleston sheathed the knife and then struck the old man across the temple. Sheridan didn't feel his body hit the floor but he knew before he landed that he would live another day . . . But would Everhardt? Blackness slid around him without providing the answer.

REACTIONS? This is an odd chapter in that the only familiar characters you know are the cities of Gotham and Bludhaven and, as such, I really, truly want a bit of feedback from you. Please, review . . .

I realize that there was a whole lot of OCs going on. And although this story will have more than the average amount of OCs, they are, with the exception of the goddess and the priestess, fleeting but necessary. I promise to make every one of them interesting during their brief stints. I don't believe in cardboard cutouts pretending to be real people. Now, one of the characters you seek shall be found starting in Chapter 1 . . .

Oh, and btw, all the gods and goddess mentioned are taken from Celtic myth with the exception of The End of Everything, who is my own construct. She was created because I couldn't find a god that suited my purposes (and trust me, I looked). Morrigan was the closest but even she wouldn't do. Also, just to clarify, the Celtic symbol of death is NOT a raven. But I needed for it to be, so in this AU, it does. (In the real world, the image for death is 3 connecting swirls which, despite its simplicity, doesn't lend itself well to the written word.)

In recent years, the terms BC and AD has been replaced with the terms CE (Common Era) and BCE ( Before the Common Era). BCE can be referred to "before the time of Christ" up until the start of the 1st century.

Give me a heads up if you like the artwork. That is an original piece done in colored pencils, ink, and watercolor by yours truly - Moi!