Chapter Text
La ricerca delle vongole
Okay, Tim wasn’t going to lie. He was perhaps getting a little obsessed at this point.
They’d arrived in Sicily barely two hours ago, and already Tim was digging into his phone for leads, flipping through digital notes, cross-referencing online forums and newspaper articles, and scoping out personal vlogs of local influencers. In between, he walked with the group as they made their way up a winding narrow street that opened into a quaint cobblestone market. Beams of midday sunlight illuminated the centuries-old stone buildings, highlighting rows of decorated archways and rustic shutters. It was beautiful, serene, exactly the kind of place that people dreamed of visiting for a vacation. Yet he couldn’t shake the faint spring of tension and faint excitement building in his chest, the feeling that they were chasing a ghost - or perhaps something far more tangible and infinitely more challenging.
He, Dick, Conner, and M’gann had come here together, each stepping away from other obligations in order to try and peel back more layers of this “Vongola” enigma. Gotham had proven a dead end after the last remaining members of the Inzerillo either fled the city or simply disappeared, and every other associated faction of mobsters refused to cooperate out of fear of retaliation. The Outsiders’ own fiasco at the docks with those monstrous fly-faced machines had only added to the mystery: advanced weaponry, unknown energy signatures yet to be discovered and identified, an implied global operational capacity. Barbara’s search suggested roots in Italy, specifically Sicily, and not just because of typical mob stereotypes - there was apparently some real historical data linking the name “Vongola” to an archaic Sicilian crime family rumored to have vanished centuries ago.
Tim paused by an open-air stall selling fresh produce, letting the warm Sicilian sun wash over him. A swirl of conversation drifted by in rapid-fire Italian. He recognized enough to catch repeated references to local harvests, tourist prices, and jokes about the upcoming festival.
He had always been the sort of person to welcome a puzzle. He liked to think of every new lead as an unfilled blank in a grand cosmic crossword - a place where facts and data could snap together into an elegant, unstoppable solution. He often forwent sleep just to eke out even the smallest amount of progress in any of the cases that landed in his lap and if anything, the more complicated the situation, the more it stoked that quiet spark of obsession he usually kept buried behind calm eyes and a composed demeanor.
Dick lingered behind him, one hand shielding his eyes as he squinted at a battered sign across the plaza. The faded letters hinted at some historical society, though it looked as if nobody had bothered maintaining it in years. “You know, sometimes, it would be nice to just skip all the recon and detective stuff. We’re in Sicily and we basically can’t even enjoy it. Such a bummer.”
Conner, discreetly scanning the crowd around them, let out a small laugh. “That would be nice, but news along the grapevine hints that the old families in Sicily aren’t exactly known for their transparency. Bit of an ironic inverse association. The bigger the group the harder they are to find. If the Vongola really were as huge as people say, we definitely shouldn’t be expecting some neon arrows pointing to their past or current doorstep.”
“Hey. We’re allowed to dream.” Tim responded back, with a fond roll of his eyes. He motioned for the group to keep moving past the warm bustle of vendors and tourists. M’gann fell into step to his right, apparently delighted by every new sight - the bright produce stands, rows of souvenir magnets shaped like cacti in colorful sombreros, no one could explain the connection to Sicily, but there they were. She’d taken on a local human guise: short, springy brown curls, a cheery smile, and casual jeans and a blouse. Tim appreciated how effortlessly she blended in - they had all learned the hard way that showing off superpowers overseas tended to complicate things. It was the reason they had to leave Gar back at home. The green skin was just too recognizable. Still, the four of them together were bound to stand out at least a little.
Tim scrolled through his phone notes again as they walked. “So, from what we gathered back home,” he said in a voice low enough to avoid drawing attention, “the Vongola apparently kept a fairly rigid hierarchy involving special rings - seven or eight, depending on who’s telling the story. These rings supposedly harbored...well, something beyond ordinary technology.”
He tilted the device so everyone could glance at the information shifting across the screen. “I’ve also run across repeated mentions of someone called ‘Vongola Primo’ - the founder, supposedly from four centuries ago, but nothing else regarding any recent generations. Still, we can’t pin down whether the family truly persisted into modern times or if some new group co-opted the name.”
Dick whistled softly, crossing his arms over his chest. “If they really date back that far and only now popped up on the radar, we could be dealing with an entire parallel criminal culture if they have persisted until now. Think about it - centuries to refine their methods, amass their weird powers, and upgrade their tech. It’s like an entirely new League of Shadows.”
“Gross,” Conner added, features shifting into a small frown. “And from what we saw in those raids they held, like at the docks, they’re packing some serious heat. So why reveal themselves now?”
Tim typed away at a few notes. “From all appearances, they’re not just revealing themselves - they’re actively moving. Clearing out rivals, shutting down operations. They took Intergang’s entire distribution network apart overnight, plus rumors suggest they’ve done similarly in places like Star City or even Tokyo and Hong Kong against other smaller organizations. People either surrender or...well, you saw how things went in Gotham.”
Dick, scanning a nearby stall full of peppers and onions, let out a sigh. “And of course, that shakes up the delicate balance for all of us. Especially if we let them stay under the radar.”
Tim tucked his phone away, taking a moment to admire the vibrant square. A church bell chimed in the distance, and the mingled aromas of citrus and herbs drifted through the market. Only a few steps from them, a vendor cheerfully waved a bunch of grape tomatoes, calling out for customers. If not for their heightened awareness, it would all feel like a simple vacation.
“We’re late to the party, clearly,” he admitted. But there was a faint smile on his lips. “But when are party-crashers ever on time eh? And at least we’ve picked up the trail. Gotham, Metropolis, here. There has to be a common thread. We just have to be ready for things to get ugly when we find it.”
“You’re telling me. Couldn't even leave a dent on Fly-face. And the last time I spoke to Clark,” Conner began, voice dropping lower, “he gave me a rundown of what also simultaneously went down at Intergang’s Metropolis HQ. The official League brief is still in the works, but when I met him in person, he leveled with me about just how bad it really got.”
Dick frowned. “Really?”
“Yeah. According to Clark,” Conner continued. “A single masked intruder effectively kept him, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl tied up in close combat. Meanwhile, those same fly-faced Vongola war machines ran basically the exact same kind of precision strike on Intergang’s stronghold as they did at the docks.”
M’gann seemed to still, her gaze shifting between Conner and Tim with sudden gravity. Clearly, this was the first time she was hearing this as well. Dick turned sharply from where he’d been scanning the market signs, his entire posture going rigid at the mention of a masked operative facing down multiple high-tier heroes, likely recalling, just like Tim himself, their own recent encounter with a masked Vongola agent.
Dick’s gaze shifted over to Conner. “Carter and Shayera aren’t amateurs, and teaming with Clark should make them unstoppable. This intruder fought all three?”
Conner nodded. “Yeah. And it was some fight apparently.”
Clark heard the explosions before he saw them - thick pillars of smoke coiling into Metropolis’s otherwise clear evening sky. He flew in low and fast alongside Carter and Shayera, scanning the ground with narrowed eyes. Even amidst the noisy cityscape - horns, sirens, the everyday hum of metropolis life - he could pick out the staccato cracks of energy weapons firing. Something big was happening below.
He spotted the building just as they rounded a neighboring block. By all public records, it was an abandoned office tower slated for demolition, tucked away behind a row of aging warehouses on the south side of Metropolis. But the League had uncovered whispers that it was actually an Intergang stronghold - a covert hub hosting weapons, contraband, and personnel.
An entire side of the building looked almost ripped open, like a monstrous hand had torn away the reinforced concrete panels. Something was inside, systematically dismantling it from within. Debris littered the surrounding streets, twisted rebar jutted from giant openings left in the walls, and alarms wailed in ragged static bursts. He touched down on a scorched patch of pavement near the main entrance. The heat radiating from twisted steel and ruptured pipes prickled along his skin.
Carter landed to his left, wings of gleaming metal flaring wide. The flickering glow of nearby fires danced across the Nth metal feathers, and the reflection in Carter’s eyes denoted a warrior’s focus. Shayera arrived a heartbeat later, using the downdraft of her own wings to hover just above the rubble. The tension between all three was palpable, each of them instinctively tensing for a fight that was soon to be upon them.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Carter spoke out, voice low. A handful of half-destroyed vehicles burned in front of the structure, and battered men and women in ragged suits limped or crawled across the rubble-strewn yard. Clark’s enhanced hearing picked up the panicked shouts of those still inside, pinned down and desperate.
He followed Carter’s gaze and took in the sight of the perpetrators: tall, humanoid war machines pounding their way through the demolished front foyer. Each one was easily a story tall, blocky and rotund, but deceptively quick. Coloured energy pulsed around their segmented arms; Clark thought he saw built-in cannons glowing beneath the plates.
“These must be the same machines the League and the Outsiders have reported in,” he said, recalling a similar incident had been simultaneously reported just by the Metropolis docks. “Most locations are still in combat so we have minimal information on their capabilities but if Intergang is their target, they’re likely packing similar if not greater firepower to take them on.”
Shayera drifted forward, her expression grim. “We might not care much for Intergang, but we still can’t allow wanton slaughter - criminals or not.” She glowered at the nearest war machine, which was currently tearing a wide hole in the western wall, revealing a collapsed corridor beyond. Her mace crackled with stored energy. “We have to contain these machines.”
Carter hefted his mace up, tightening his grip. “Agreed. We move in, try to get their attention off any survivors. Then we bring these things down.”
Clark nodded once. “I’ll do my best to keep them busy. You two handle crowd control if possible, see if anyone is pinned down. Once we’ve got the civilians secure, we regroup to finish off the - ”
A faint sound - like a compressed rush of air.
Before he could even turn to look, something slammed into him from behind. The force of the blow hurled him off his feet, sending him crashing through a dislodged chunk of steel mesh fencing. Metal screeched; sparks flew. Clark slid several dozen feet before rolling to a stop near a collapsed guard booth.
His ears rang, as he scrambled upright, ignoring the jolt of disorientation that threatened to swamp his senses. Carter shouted something towards him, but it was lost beneath the sound of a powerful weapon discharging. Clark forced his focus onto the spot from which the attack had come, eyes narrowing against the dust that suddenly filled the surrounding space.
A figure stepped into view, striding over the broken asphalt with a casual sort of poise. The man’s clothing was bizarrely formal for such a battlefield - a neat black suit trimmed with thin lines of mauve that caught the light of nearby flame. A porcelain mask covered his face, sculpted into a permanent, predatory grin, the glossy white of its surface similarly reflecting the fire and blaring lights around them – turning that fixed, leering smile into something truly sinister.
Clark’s first instinct was that this might be some new metahuman mercenary on Intergang’s payroll. But one look at the war machines continuing their rampage - the positioning of their attacker, himself, the Hawks - and at the masked man’s unhurried stance, told him otherwise. This attacker was aligned with the robots, not with Intergang.
Carter let loose a warning swing, bringing his mace down in a powerful overhead strike at the masked figure. Open and testing. The intruder shifted his gaze up, a tonfa snapping out from behind the suit’s jacket in a blur of movement. The weapon intercepted Carter’s blow with a gleam of purple, driving the attack from its intended trajectory before the figure shifted back and loosed a kick right into Carter’s side.
Clark watched as the blow landed, the speed of the movement and the momentum that followed it and could not compute in his mind the sight of Carter being blown back by an impact seemingly several times stronger than what the attack itself indicated. The sound of grinding stone and falling rubble rising from the space as Carter was practically blasted through yards upon yards of scattered debris.
Shayera wasted no time, diving in from a higher angle. Her wings kicking up swirling embers and scattered ash as she angled a broad strike of her own against their assailant. But again, the masked attacker shifted stance, turning his body so that his own swing and Shayera’s oncoming blow collided near-simultaneously, locking both in a contest of strength.
In that moment, Carter recovered, blowing past more of the loose debris to dash in from the flank, determination burning in his eyes. He landed a swing at the masked man’s shoulder - one with enough force to crumble concrete. The assailant took the hit along the edge of a second tonfa, sparks flying as the two weapons met. The force of impact knocked the man a half-step sideways, scuffing the asphalt beneath. A soft hiss escaped through the painted grin on his porcelain mask.
Clark’s gaze shifted between them all: the war machines continued to push forward in the background, uprooting giant chunks of reinforced foundation from Intergang’s base. Flashes of scarlet and yellow energies illuminated the dark and jagged corners of the crumbling facility, while secondary explosions rattled loose panels from the walls and ceilings. He knew they were racing against the clock. They had to make this quick.
Shayera broke the clash and engaged again. This time, she used a feint - mace dipping low, then snapping high in a savage uppercut. The masked man slid one foot back, parried the upward strike with his left tonfa, then drove his right forward. His blow skated across Shayera’s pauldron but it still carried enough power to push into her wing. She let out a cry but didn’t give an inch.
Carter slammed in from the other side. The masked man - tonfas spinning - barely managing to intercept. He locked both weapons into an ‘X’ before himself to halt the Nth metal mace as the mighty blow landed. Carter’s wings beat against the air as he poured his strength into the clash, bearing down against their opponent until the very asphalt cracked beneath his feet. Then the attacker’s legs tensed, and with a violent twist of the hips, he freed his tonfas and slid out from under Carter’s push, diving into a quick roll to avoid a follow swipe from Shayera as he moved to establish some distance between them. The moment his boots touched solid ground, a quiet chuckle seemed to leave him - just barely audible beneath the echo of collapsing metal in the distance.
“Good,” the man muttered, his voice low and unnervingly pleased. “So not entirely docile after all.”
The man rolled his shoulders, as if testing them for damage, and Clark took that moment to press in at super speed, hoping to use the opening to his advantage. He landed a straightforward punch aimed at the masked man’s side - calculated to subdue without lethal force. But the attacker, much faster than anticipated, shifted back, swinging the tonfa in an arc beneath Clark’s arm. The blow whistled toward Clark’s face and he only just barely managed to twist himself away as the strike skated off his cheek instead of striking head on.
Blowing past the intruder, he spoke. “Carter, Shayera - I’ll cover you!”
Carter swept in with a low arc, mace humming with built-up energy. Shayera dove again from above, a perfectly timed pincer - two swinging arcs of crackling electricity rushing to meet their target as one. Clark squared his stance, ready to step in if the man tried to slip free or an opening presented itself.
Tonfas flashed in a barrage of short, quick strikes as their enemy charged to meet Hawkman. Carter matched them blow for blow, Nth metal clashing, with a rain of sparks, against what was clearly more than just ordinary steel. Clark could see the masked man’s posture shifting - where before he had seemed to move smoothly but dispassionately, now there was a taut energy present in every motion, a barely contained fervor steadily building as the fight dragged on.
Shayera capitalized. She found a gap, slamming her mace down in a punishing overhead swing. The intruder jerked one tonfa overhead, catching the blow with a grunt. The force buckled his knees. For a moment, it seemed as though they had him pinned at last - Carter pressing in from the front, Shayera bearing down from above.
The man hissed. “Respectable.”
Clark saw an opening. He shot forward, landing a solid punch that clipped the intruder’s side. The man was blown back immediately, flying a good five or six yards before they were able to brace and reorient, tonfas digging into the ground. A low noise - maybe a growl, maybe laughter - seemed to escape him as he slid across the concrete, dragging a long gray trail across the pavement. For a brief second, the figure shook out his arms.
“Herbivores,” he said, voice nearly lost under the shriek of twisting metal as another portion of the building collapsed. “With bite. And here I thought this was going to be a dull assignment.”
Clark braced himself, scanning for Carter and Shayera. They were both catching their breath, battered but far from unbowed. He nodded their way, and they nodded back - silent agreement to strike again in unison. They did not have the time for this. They had to move on to stop the war machines from ravaging the entire stronghold.
The masked man exhaled slowly. “Allow me to pay you back in kind.” His tone was calm, the two tonfas rising up, the faint shifting of amethyst haze suddenly so much thicker around the man’s form, heavy and opaque, like a twisting living thing. “Prepare yourselves. For now, I will bite you all to death.”
And without preamble, he charged.
His steps didn’t seem any faster at first glance, but the speed in which he cleared the space between them was nothing short of supersonic. Acting quickly, Carter swung out, but the masked man slipped past the blow almost lazily. A second later, Shayera swooped in, bringing her mace swinging from around from the flank - yet instead of dodging, the blow was simply allowed to connect.
Clark watched, stunned, as the spiked end crashed into the shoulder of the black suit with a hollow thud. What should have sent even a heftier foe like Grodd or Devastation flying instead barely seemed to rock their attacker at all. Sparks danced across the dense purple energies emanating from his body, and with a swift flap of her wings Shayera shifted herself back, eyes wide.
“H-How - ?” she managed, voice cracking, but the man didn’t let her finish. Before Carter or Clark could intervene, the masked man shifted in place, throwing out a powerful steel tipped jab right into Shayera’s torso. Upon impact she was blown away, the sheer force of the attack driving her fully into a nearby truck with a shriek of shearing metal and cracking stone.
“Shayera!” Carter called, surging forward, wings flaring behind him as he unleashed a fully charged swing of flickering Nth metal. Once again, the intruder chose not to evade. Carter’s mace hammered against the flat of their chest - and slid near uselessly off its surface, as though colliding with an immovable wall. The same mauve energies shimmered along the intruder’s frame, centering on the point of impact before coalescing along his forearms. There was no grace or elegance in his technique this time, only brutal force as he reared back and delivered a single, devastating strike to Carter’s jaw.
A resonant crack tore through the smoky air. Carter’s wings seized, and he dropped like a stone. The blow carried him straight to the ground with a meaty thud, sending up a plume of dust. Motionless, Hawkman lay in the rubble, unconscious but thankfully not dead.
Clark grit his teeth, feeling his own shock race through his system.
One hit.
Carter was hardy even by superhuman standards - yet a single strIke was all it had taken to put him down. Adrenaline surged through Clark’s veins. “That’s enough!” he snapped, launching himself forward at breakneck speed.
The masked fighter turned to face him. He lifted one tonfa in readied acknowledgment just as Clark closed the gap and slammed a fist into the man’s midsection. He felt the suit crumple beneath his knuckles, heard a jarring impact reverberate through them both, as the masked man was sent skidding back, but still standing.
A low, amused sound escaped behind the porcelain grin. “Finally some decent force.”
Clark shot upward into a quick hover, fists clenched. The war machines in the background had finished collapsing most of the building and were now withdrawing - he could hear the roar of their engines growing fainter. They were minutes from escaping entirely, and there would be no time to chase them if this man was still intent on fighting.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Shayera struggling to stand, battered but conscious. Carter, however, wasn’t moving, his wings slack. Steeling himself, Clark dropped back down. In the distance, an explosion rocked what must have been the central armory, shrapnel whistling through the air. The masked man seemed to pause for just a heartbeat, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. Then he turned his mask’s predatory grin toward Clark.
“Again,” he said in a low, clipped tone.
Clark’s gaze hardened. “If you insist.”
And he surged forward, faster than the blink of an eye. Before the other man could even react, Clark had loosed a series of rapid, punishing blows immediately against his person. His fists became like a blur of motion - a relentless unending assault that hammered at the masked man’s seemingly impenetrable defense. Each blow landed with easily enough force to topple a small building, and only grew stronger from there as the grinning masked man, finally, for a split second appeared as though he was reaching his breaking point. His body shuddered with each landed blow and Clark could hear the sound of bones shifting, cracking with every hit.
Yet the mysterious amethyst haze seemed to only grow more potent, more concentrated with each landed blow, and as Clark felt just on the cusp of landing what should have been a finish blow, the impact of the hit seemed to just stifle out… and die.
Each following hit thereafter was the same, making contact but then entirely absorbed, or counteracted, met with an ever increasing uncanny resilience, leaving only the faint echoes of contact made. As the barrage continued without the masked man truly faltering, Clark knew he had to change course here.
He readied himself and then lunged, aiming to end the conflict with a single move. If attacking alone wouldn’t solve this dilemma, then at a minimum he could get them away or try to pin them down to give the others a chance. If he managed to get a hold of him properly, that would be it. Super strength or not, under Earth’s yellow sun, there were few out there that could outmatch a Kryptonian in a clash of pure might. He closed the gap in a blink, reaching out -
At the same time, the masked man rushed to meet him. Throwing an arm forward, he angled himself downwards toward Clark. A heartbeat later, the porcelain grin tilted up to meet Clark’s gaze - and the man drove a tonfa squarely into Clark’s unguarded chest with an almost casual grace.
Clark watched him as he did so, feeling the expected impact land with a muted jolt. His mind instinctively told him, That’s nothing I can’t handle. He’d endured far worse in the past at the hands of Darkseid, Zod and Doomsday. He’d taken full ion cannons, impacts from orbit, even nuclear detonations. A single blow from a metal tonfa, even while backed with super strength, shouldn’t make much of a difference, especially when he had seen it coming.
He braced to absorb the impact, ready to exploit the contact to seize the attacker’s arm and pin them in place. But in that single, catastrophic instant, Clark realized he’d miscalculated. Something about the masked man’s technique - some specialized application of force - some mystical might brought upon by the trails of thick lavender clouds clinging to his form that seemed to cut straight through his kryptonian invulnerability. Or somehow, impossibly, deceptively hit hard enough to actually strike against his kryptonian hide as if it were basically human.
Clark heard a sickening crack, and a white-hot pain exploded across his rib cage.
His breath seized. Every nerve flared, a raw, searing heat surged from his chest out to his extremities. It was as if all the air had been forced from his lungs, leaving him stunned and kneeling. The masked man drew back, the porcelain grin indifferent to Clark’s agony.
The ribs were broken. He could feel the bones shift in a way they never had before, grinding against one another. A disorienting, nauseating wave of pain told him this was a real and dangerous injury. He could barely even speak - his voice reduced to a choked gasp.
The man stepped away, weapons lowering to his side. Smoke and dust swirled around them, and for the first time, Clark realized the war machines were gone. The mechanical hum of their propulsion engines having faded into nothing. Carter staggered toward Clark, having regained consciousness sometime during their final bout, while Shayera circled from on high, seemingly preparing to mount one last desperate attack. But the masked fighter merely swept themselves back, battered and beaten and bruised all over, but far from broken - a swirling mass of black inky void manifesting at their back, the sound of rattling chains emanating from the dark.
And without another word, they vanished.
Carter, panting, clutched his mace and scanned the area, but it was useless. The masked attacker had escaped, the war machines had completed their grim task, and Intergang’s stronghold lay in flaming ruin all around them.
“…They’ve taken to calling the guy ‘Carnivore’ because of how he spoke,” Conner finished, letting the recollection of Clark’s story settle over them. Tim, M’gann, and Dick all stood in a small cluster around him, the bustle of vendors and tourists forming a bright, chattering backdrop. Yet beneath the cheery Mediterranean atmosphere, each of them had grown tense and quiet as the story came to a close.
“And they broke his ribs?” Tim recapped, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s… crazy.”
“No kidding,” Dick said. “Clark told you this personally?”
Conner nodded, folding his arms across chest. “Told me in confidence. He’s still reeling a bit from how things played out. Less about the loss, more about the loss of life totaled after our people could get in there. And that was the end of Intergang’s entire Metropolis network, with almost no survivors. Though once again, without any particular focus on leadership or any other relevant indicator between targets.”
“Which matches the pattern from Tokyo, Star City…,” M’gann mused softly, her gaze flicking over the colorful stalls. “If only we could glean what determines who’s a target and who isn't.”
Tim quietly scrolled through his phone, pulling up their compiled notes. “Just another thing to add to our list of unknowns. Still, the only tangible lead we’ve got points here - to a centuries-old and assumed defunct historical variant of our current Clams.”
He glanced across the crowded market, taking in the neat rows of produce, straw-woven baskets of olives and oranges, stands selling bright ceramics. Brightly dressed locals mingled with tourists snapping photos, the lively chatter forming an oddly idyllic setting for the four of them. They’d dressed down as well to better match the local atmosphere and maintain their overarching tourist personas - Dick in a casual jacket, Tim in cargo pants and a hoodie, M’gann in a light blouse and jeans, Conner in a plain white T-shirt that did nothing to mitigate the number of people ogling him without shame.
Tim lifted his gaze. “So we should be systematic as we search, to keep from missing anything,” he said, keeping his voice low so only they could hear. “We know local records might yield something about the ‘Vongola’ name and Barbara flagged the municipal archives a few blocks away. We should also consider that any organized crime in the area might also have heard a thing or two - especially if the Vongola really have committed to some big resurgence. But approaching them directly seems risky.”
“Yeah,” Conner said. “They don’t exactly have a reason to be chatty with outsiders, and if they’re scared of the Vongola, like they were in Gotham, decent chance asking around will just cause em’ to clam up. No pun intended.”
Dick smiled as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Then we stake out the city in small steps. Check the scattered archives around the area first, libraries, newspapers, any historical references. Then maybe after that we see what the local underground knows. Gently. Anything else on the docket, Tim?”
Tim was about to answer when M’gann’s eyes seemed to shift towards something behind him. He followed her line of sight. Two figures were weaving their way through the market crowd - one tall and blond, the other younger, shorter, with curly dark hair tinted faintly green. The taller wore a pair of tinted sunglasses and a carefree grin, while the shorter had a hoodie with comical bull-horn decals on top of their hood. They both looked about college-age or younger.
The pair threaded through the throng of shoppers, brushing past a vendor hawking tomatoes before making a subtle beeline toward the four heroes. Tim tensed. They’d had a few run-ins with local hustlers earlier, but something about these two felt… off. He shifted so that his phone was tucked away, and as the strangers drew near, he even caught them catching him moving to hide his phone.
“Ciao, signori - Americans, yes?” the blond youth greeted with a bright, disarming tone. “You seem a bit lost. Need help finding something? Good restaurants? Tours?”
Tim and Dick exchanged a look. Hustlers? Scamming tourists.
Or something more?
“A tour does sound pretty decent.” Tim said, trying for a breezy, taken tone. “We hear Sicily’s full of secrets. Not looking for any basic tourist stuff though. We’re here looking for,” And Tim paused for effect, shifting before taking on a conspiratorial tone. “The Mafia.”
The blond grin widened, and he flipped his sunglasses up to sit on top of his head. “The mafia, huh? Well, I guess you’re in the right place I suppose. My name’s Bas-Bassin, by the way.” He motioned to his companion, who was half-listening, half-scratching at the bull horns on his hood. “This is Lambert. We help out foreigners from time to time - point them in the right direction. For a fee, of course.”
Dick feigned a lighthearted chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, we get it. We've been through this song and dance before. If you’ve got information about the, uh - ” He dropped his voice and leaned in with a playful smirk. “ - Mafia. Then sure. We’ll pay a finder’s fee for something worthwhile.”
Bassin - tall, lean, and with that wily smile - mirrored Dick’s conspiratorial posture. “Oho, so you are serious. Most tourists only flirt with the idea generally.” He cast a quick glance at his shorter companion. “Well if you’re really dead set on unearthing some old mob secrets, then maybe we can be of service.”
“There’s talk of an old stronghold.” Lambert jumped in them, with an accent heavier than Bassin’s but his english - no less good. Tim filed those particular facts away for later. “Tucked away from the main roads and high up near the edge of the mountains - linked to some influential crime famiglia from centuries back. Some folks say it was once the seat of a powerful Family, one that vanished or fell apart centuries ago. Others say it’s haunted by the spirits of those who took an oath they never renounced.”
Dick made a show of glancing at Tim, as though seeking approval. Tim let out a humm, pretending to weigh the advice. “That definitely sounds interesting.”
M’gann put on her best wide-eyed tourist look. “And - how would we get there?”
Lambert cleared his throat and extended an arm, palms up clearly waiting. Tim watched Dick roll his eyes and dig out a couple euros from his pockets. He watched as Dick placed the bills in the teenager’s palm and Lambert lifted a small notepad from his hoodie pocket.
“There’s a route, not easy. You’d need an off-road vehicle or a decent rental that can handle bumpy terrain.” He scribbled a rough map, then offered the paper to Tim. “Follow the orchard roads outside the city limits, turn at a half-broken stone arch with an old saint’s statue. Eventually, you’ll see a gravel path leading up into the hills. At the top, you’ll find the ruin - just a crumbling estate now.”
“No need to worry about trespassing either.” Bassin crossed his arms behind his head. “It’s usually empty - nobody goes there.”
Dick glanced at the sketched directions and then back to Bassin and Lambert. “Sounds decent enough. And you’re sure it’s connected to the mafia?”
Lambert grinned. “We can’t be sure of anything - It’s just what the old rumours happen to say.”
Tim nodded back. “Fair enough. We’ll let you know how it goes.”
Bassin pocketed the money from Lambert with a rakish grin, stepping back. “Have fun.”
They spent the rest of the day combing through the local archives, pulling any old ledger or registry that so much as hinted at the Vongola name. It was long, arduous and tedious work, but near closing time, Tim came upon a battered 19th-century record referencing a “Famiglia della Conchiglia” or the “Family of the Shell”, located just a few miles away near the Southeastern mountains. The note was no smoking gun, but it did add weight to Bassin and Lambert’s lead.
By nightfall, the group had reconvened at a modest hotel on the outskirts of town to review the day’s findings. Tim and M’gann pored over scanned copies of old documents, while Dick and Conner checked in with Barbara. There had been nothing definitive thus far, but they had enough context clues to suspect the orchard location might actually have been part of or perhaps even was the original Famiglia della Conchiglia estate.
“That lines up Lambert’s directions,” Tim noted. “Probably not a coincidence.”
Dick let out a breath, leaning back in his chair. “We leave early tomorrow, do some quick aerial recon, to see if it’s safe. If it’s clear, we investigate. If it’s a trap, we spring it and see what happens.”
Morning light found them in a rented SUV, the sky bright, golden rays awash over vast rolling fields in every direction. M’gann took the wheel so Tim could navigate. Conner and Dick sat in the back, occasionally peering out the windows to take in the scenery and keep an eye out for any would-be tails.
They left the highways behind decently quickly, driving past farmland and small stone villages along theway. Eventually, they spotted the broken arch from Lambert’s directions - crumbling masonry sporting the remains of a saint’s bust. Beyond it, a narrow gravel lane wound upward through an overgrown orchard, leading to the ruins of a large estate perched at the crest of a hill backed by rising mountains.
A rusted gate spanned the driveway leading in, its chain thick and joined together with a lock so rusted it was basically just a single piece of jagged metal. There was no sign of any recent activity.
Dick unbuckled and hopped out, moving towards the gate. “No caretaker or guard in sight.” He tugged on the chain. “And I’m not even gonna consider trying to pick this.” He said with a face.
Without a word, Conner stepped up. His eyes shifting left and then right to ensure they were alone, before, with a gentle but firm pull, he snapped the chain free from the old gate. It swung open on rusted hinges almost immediately, squeaking loudly in the still early summer air.
“Subtle,” Tim teased, stepping back into the SUV so M’gann could drive them onto the property.
The lane was choked with long grass and potholes, the orchard’s gnarled branches twisting overhead. They pulled up near the looming ruin. The estate was indeed more than a little half-collapsed - massive chunks of stone and mortar strewn across what might have once been a magnificent courtyard. They got out and moved in a loose formation through the debris.
“Be careful,” M’gann spoke up. “Not everything here looks structurally sound.”
“Orchard’s definitely ancient,” Dick muttered, poking through a set of toppled arches. “But I’m not seeing anything particularly interesting so far.”
They spent a good half hour searching the first and second level. Dust and cobwebs caked everything. They found rotted furniture, a collapsed fireplace, and what might have been a dining hall overtaken by moss. All told, it looked like any other abandoned building that had been left to the elements.
“Total bust?” Conner asked after poking his head into yet another empty chamber.
Tim frowned. “Don’t give up yet. Lambert and Bassin seemed sure something was here, and I’m certain they definitely knew more than they were letting on. Let me start a scan,” he said, producing a WayneTech tablet out of the back of their SUV. He walked around the perimeter, letting the software stitch together a digital layout.
“Nothing of note so far,” Dick muttered, edging around a broken archway. “Just an old shell of a building.”
“Hold on,” Tim called from deeper within the ruin. “Density scans show an irregularity under the east section - like a sub-chamber the collapsed floor doesn’t quite line up with.” He tapped the screen, highlighting a faint outline. “M’gann, can you density-shift down there to confirm?”
She nodded. “Sure. One second.” Closing her eyes briefly, she let her body phase through the cracked flooring. The others waited, scanning the area. A few moments later, M’gann’s voice echoed from below, muffled at first, then her head and shoulders reappeared through the rubble. “There’s definitely a sealed room below. No visible entrance from down here, but I can see a door blocked by a load of debris.”
Conner rose to his feet, brushing dust from his jeans as he moved to follow. “Then we go in the old-fashioned way. Lead the way?”
M’gann guided them around to a half-collapsed stone stairwell, buried under stone and debris, to the point only the faintest signs of etched steps could have denoted its presence. Conner knelt, pushing aside the rubble alongside M’gann, mindful not to destabilize the structure. After a few careful minutes, a rusted metal-bound door revealed itself.
Dick tested the latch - fused by time and rubble. “Tim, you seeing how thick this is on your readout?”
“Yeah. Probably an old storage vault or cellar room.”
Conner stood, rolled his shoulders, then braced himself. “Stand back.” One sharp application of Kryptonian super strength split the door from its hinges with a squeal or rending metal. Dust billowed as the door crashed inward, revealing a cramped barren corridor that seemed to lead to an even smaller space, the air within stale and thick with cobwebs.
Beyond, lay a cramped hidden chamber - unused for decades, maybe longer. Shelves lined one wall, laden with half-rotted leather-bound books. A single stone pedestal occupied the center, where an equally tattered, sizable tome lay untouched and waiting beneath what was likely layers upon layers of dust.
They paused for a moment, right at the entrance, as though the place itself demanded some modicum amount of reverence.
“Looks like it’s all been sealed here since… who knows when,” M’gann whispered.
Dick carefully stepped in first, shining a flashlight pulled from his belt over the shelves. He spotted old, water-damaged documents - ledgers, shipping manifests. Tim, however, was drawn straight to the large tome on the pedestal.
He brushed off layers of dust. The cover bore swirling lines that suggested flames coiling around a stylized shell - very similar to the faint “clam” or “shell” imagery they’d been chasing. The title, in faded golden script, was partly legible: Le Fiamme della Volontà.
“Burning Will…?” Tim muttered, flipping open the front pages. Time had taken its toll, but enough was intact to read. “It references something called ‘fiamme scaturite dalla volontà di vivere’ - ‘flames that spring from one’s will to live.’ And - ” He squinted at another heading, “the Tri-Ni-Sette?”
Conner approached, shining the flashlight directly on the text. “What does that mean?”
Dick shuffled over. “It mentions sette fiamme - ‘seven flames’ - guardians of this Tri-ni-sette, each with distinct attributes. This might be the earliest reference we’ve seen to the Vongola’s mystery powers - except it’s describing them as flames sparked by a person’s resolve rather than the coloured energies we’ve encountered.”
M’gann carefully turned another page with he telekinesis, mindful not to rip it. “It could be the closest thing they had to compare it to at the time. And your Gotham guy, did explicitly use fire based abilities right?”
Tim felt a rush of excitement quicken his pulse. “Right. So this is proof that, centuries ago, the Vongola were using these flame-based abilities. That they did have them at that time. And that it ties directly into this Tri-Ni-Sette concept - something 3s and 7s. It’s exactly what we needed to confirm that this ‘mythology’ is older and more real than we ever realized.”
Dick arched an eyebrow. “They’re not just advanced criminals or meta-humans. These flames the book speaks of… it’s basically a lost branch of ability we never even knew existed. Like some unique deviation from homo magi or an alternative branch of convergent evolution.”
“It’s definitely not something typical humans develop.” M’gann nodded in agreement. “If it’s unique to certain bloodlines, that might explain why we never see it outside these families. But the war machines, the masked assassins… maybe they’re modern evolutions of this same power?”
“Well either way, as it stands, not all of this is salvageable, but we can try restoring it. Barbara should have some options for us.” Conner gently cut in, shifting forward to gently close the book in front of the rest. “This is exactly the kind of concrete lead we came here for.”
Tim nodded. “We have to handle it gently. It doesn’t exactly look the strongest.”
“Agreed.” Dick’s gaze swept the dark corners of the chamber. “Let’s pack up what we can and get out of here - Bassin and Lambert obviously knew something was here. Otherwise, they’d never have sent us.”
Conner snorted. “So we could do their work for them, likely.”
“My thoughts exactly. Let’s go. Quickly.”
…
…
“I’m afraid it’s a little late for that.” A new voice suddenly cut in, indigo smog trailing into the small chamber, the outlines of Bassin and Lambert clearly visible within the faint light emanating from the doorway, alongside a third figure. Lithe and fair skinned, with short blonde hair and a distinctive striped scarf. In his arms, he seemed to clutch a book nearly the size of his chest, the source of the inky dark blue clouds suddenly bleeding into the space.
“We’ll be taking that book, if you wouldn’t mind and I’d suggest not resisting.” The central figure continued. “Rankings indicate, a less than 20% chance of survival for you all should conflict arise.”