CHAPTER 30: COMPETITION
The London checkpoint felt different at night.
Gas lamps threw pools of yellow light across the Prometheus Society's basement—my concealed anchor point, hidden behind the respectable facade of a gentlemen's club. Three months of temporal income had paid the membership fees and bribed the right people. The location was secure, its temporal signature masked by the club's own historical significance.
Snart waited in the corner, his period-appropriate clothing somehow making him look more dangerous rather than less. He'd adapted to Victorian London with unsettling ease—the rigid class structures and criminal underworld spoke to skills he'd honed across a dozen different eras.
"Boss." He nodded as I emerged from temporal transit. "Appreciate the face-to-face."
"Your message said it was urgent."
"Urgent is one word for it." He pulled a folded paper from his coat—handwritten notes, the kind that couldn't be intercepted electronically. "I've been tracking anomaly patterns across the 1890s and early 1900s. Someone else is moving through the same territories."
I took the notes. Snart's handwriting was precise, almost mechanical—dates, locations, observed activity.
"How coordinated?"
"Very." He moved to stand beside me, pointing at specific entries. "Four incursions in the past month. Different eras, but the same operational signature. Professional insertion, minimal timeline disruption, targeted extraction of specific items or individuals."
The Legion. My meta-knowledge filled in the gaps Snart couldn't see. Thawne, Darhk, Merlyn—three villains united by the Spear of Destiny, hunting fragments scattered across history.
"Did you identify any of the operators?"
"One." Snart's expression tightened. "Damien Darhk. Alive, healthy, and working with at least two other time travelers."
Darhk. The magical psychopath who'd murdered Sara's sister in the original timeline. Who'd nearly destroyed Star City with a nuclear apocalypse. Who was supposed to be dead.
"You're certain?"
"I saw him." Snart's voice carried an edge I hadn't heard before. "1917 France, near the Somme. He was collecting something from a German officer—looked like a manuscript, heavily protected. I kept my distance, but the face was unmistakable."
The Spear of Destiny fragments. Darhk was hunting them, which meant the Legion was already active. Already building toward the same temporal dominance I was pursuing.
"Did he see you?"
"No. I'm good at my job." The edge softened slightly. "But whoever he's working with—they're organized. Resources, planning, multiple simultaneous operations. This isn't amateur hour."
I spread the notes across a table, letting my enhanced processing sort the data into patterns. Locations. Timelines. Operational signatures.
[ANALYSIS: ENEMY OPERATIONAL PATTERN]
[— INCURSION FREQUENCY: ACCELERATING]
[— TARGET SELECTION: MYSTICAL ARTIFACTS, HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS, KEY INDIVIDUALS]
[— OPERATIONAL SECURITY: HIGH]
[— ESTIMATED PERSONNEL: 3-5 PRIMARY OPERATORS, UNKNOWN SUPPORT]
"They're hunting something specific," I said. "Not general conquest—targeted acquisition."
"The Spear of Destiny." Snart's voice was flat. "That's what the rumors say. Pieces of it scattered across time, each one hidden after the original artifact was broken."
He's figured it out on his own. I shouldn't have been surprised—Snart was brilliant when he bothered to apply himself.
"What do you know about the Spear?"
"Enough. Christian myth, supposed to have been used to pierce Christ's side during the crucifixion. Legends say whoever holds it can reshape reality itself." He met my eyes. "If that's what they're after, they're not building an empire. They're planning to rewrite existence."
And if they succeed, my empire ceases to exist. Along with everything else.
The strategic implications cascaded through my enhanced processing. The Legion wasn't just competition—they were an existential threat. If Thawne assembled the Spear and used it, nothing I'd built would matter. Nothing anyone built would matter.
"New orders," I said. "Priority shift."
Snart straightened slightly. "I'm listening."
"Continue monitoring their operations, but add a new objective: identify every location they've visited. Every artifact they've collected. Every individual they've recruited or eliminated."
"You want a complete picture of their campaign."
"I want to know what they're building so I can figure out how to compete with it." I paused, considering. "Or break it."
Snart's expression shifted—something between approval and concern. "That's a different kind of game, boss. Surveillance is one thing. Counter-operations against people who can reshape reality is another."
"I know."
"Do you?" He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Darhk alone is dangerous enough. Whoever he's working with—probably Thawne, maybe Merlyn—they're in a different weight class. Our little organization isn't ready for direct confrontation."
He's right. The acknowledgment stung, but I couldn't ignore the math. One territory generating trickle resources. One agent conducting reconnaissance. A handful of checkpoints providing safety net. Against a team of timeline-experienced villains hunting an artifact that could rewrite reality?
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
"Then we don't confront directly," I said. "We compete for resources. Every territory they might want, we claim first. Every era they're targeting, we establish presence. We don't fight the Legion—we outgrow them."
Snart considered this. "Aggressive expansion. Higher risk, higher reward."
"Higher necessity." I pulled up my interface, displaying the target assessment I'd been developing. "The 1940s JSA era. That's my next annexation target. Super-science, metahuman data, military infrastructure—resources the Legion will want access to. If I can claim it before they establish presence, I cut off one avenue of their growth."
"And if they're already there?"
"Then we find out how serious they are about defending territory."
The words hung in the basement's musty air. I was proposing something between cold war and active competition—not direct conflict, but not peaceful coexistence either. A race for temporal resources against enemies who had centuries of experience and artifacts that defied physics.
Stupid, part of me whispered. Suicidal. You should hide. Consolidate. Wait for the Legends to handle the Legion like they did in the show.
But that was passive thinking. Victim thinking. The kind of strategy that let other people determine my fate while I watched from the sidelines.
I'd died once already. I wasn't interested in waiting for it to happen again.
"I'll need better intelligence," I said. "Real-time updates on their movements. Early warning if they're targeting anything near my operations."
"That's surveillance expansion. More time, more risk, more resources."
"Can you do it?"
Snart was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice carried something I hadn't heard before—genuine engagement, not just professional compliance.
"You know what I used to be, boss. A thief. A criminal. Good at my job, but small-time in the grand scheme of things." He met my eyes. "What you're asking me to do—running counter-intelligence against a team of reality-warping supervillains—that's a different level of game."
"And?"
"And I've been dead once. Respawned thanks to your contract. Given a second chance at... whatever this is." A ghost of his old smirk crossed his face. "Might as well make it count."
I extended my hand. He took it—a handshake that meant something different than the contract signing. Partnership, maybe. Or the acknowledgment that we were both committed to something larger than individual survival.
"Get me everything you can on the Legion. Their personnel, their targets, their methods. I'll handle the resource buildup on my end."
"Understood." He released my hand. "One more thing. They're not the only players in this timeline."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I've picked up traces of other temporal actors. Not Legion, not Legends, not Time Masters remnants. Something else. Organized, disciplined, operating out of the future."
The Time Bureau. My meta-knowledge supplied the identification instantly. The organization that would replace the Time Masters, built by Rip Hunter himself during his absence from the Waverider.
"Do you have specifics?"
"Not yet. But whoever they are, they're watching. Monitoring temporal incursions without intervening." Snart's expression was thoughtful. "Might be allies. Might be another faction to compete with. Either way, we're not operating in empty space."
Multiple competitors. The Legion hunting artifacts. The proto-Bureau monitoring everything. And me, trying to build an empire from scratch.
The strategic landscape was more complicated than I'd anticipated. But complication meant opportunity—factions to play against each other, gaps to exploit, alliances to forge or break as circumstances demanded.
"Keep monitoring all of them," I said. "The Legion is priority, but don't ignore the others."
"Yes, boss."
I prepared for transit back to the Waverider, my mind already running scenarios. The 1940s annexation would require careful timing—wait for an anomaly the Legends would address, position myself for absorption and claim, pray the Legion wasn't targeting the same era.
[INCOMING NOTIFICATION — WAVERIDER COMMUNICATION SYSTEM]
[SOURCE: GIDEON]
[PRIORITY: STANDARD]
[MESSAGE: TEMPORAL ABERRATION DETECTED — 1942, NAZI-OCCUPIED EUROPE — JSA INVOLVEMENT CONFIRMED]
My interface pulsed with the alert. 1942. JSA era. The exact target I'd been waiting for.
Perfect timing. Almost too perfect.
"Something important?" Snart asked, noting my expression.
"The Waverider just detected an aberration in 1942. Nazi Europe, Justice Society involvement."
"Your priority target."
"My priority target." I checked my resource levels one final time.
[CURRENT RESOURCES:]
[— TEMPORAL CREDITS: 165 ⧖]
[— CHRONO-ESSENCE: 98 ✧]
[— ANNEXATION COST: 200 ⧖ + 50 ✧]
Still short on credits. I'd need to absorb during the mission, build up reserves before the annexation attempt. Tight margins, but manageable.
"I need to go," I said. "The Legion intelligence is priority one. Everything else is secondary until we understand what we're dealing with."
"Understood." Snart nodded once—professional, focused. "Good hunting, boss."
I activated transit, letting the London checkpoint fade into temporal static. The Waverider waited on the other side, along with a mission that could change everything.
Nazi Europe. The Justice Society of America.
And somewhere in that era, the resources I needed to build an empire.
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