1.10 Ancient Warriors Part 5

Adalbern strolls out of the plane and down the steps, looking odd in the fancy suit he is wearing. After having heard so much from the original Leaguers about him, I always thought of him as a barbarian warrior, not a modern day politician that he currently appears to be.

And while his clothes are those of a politician, his body is most definitely not. A long mane of dirty blonde hair flows down past his shoulders and his face is extremely rugged and scarred. His body is buff, like really buff, and the way he holds himself just radiates power and authority.

And what is even stranger is when his bodyguards exit the plane. There are four of them, three men and a woman, but they look normal and seem to be the same as any other bodyguards.

No, what is strange is the idea of one of the toughest and dangerous people on the planet having normal humans as bodyguards.

By tough, I mean Adalbern has walked off a miniature nuclear explosion and by dangerous, I mean he has a personal kill count in the millions without counting those he has indirectly caused the deaths of.

On the other hand, Adalbern has fitted into modern society really well in the last few decades.

Back to first hand, he has committed genocide countless times over the centuries and hasn’t left many virgins in his wake in the past.

Plus he’s a pagan and a heathen.

Then again, Narszara is also a pagan and heathen. But we don’t exactly talk about that and I’m not an overly zealous fanatic like some folk I can think of.

I honestly don’t care about religion, race, gender or other stuff like that when it comes to people, just what kind of person someone is. That is probably going to get me into trouble someday with some fool that does care.

“President Adalbern,” says Britannia politely as she steps towards, “Welcome to Britain. I hope you had a good flight.”

“Miss Greene,” replies Adalbern, holding his hand out, “Good to see you. Your leadership of the Albion Defenders has been rather good.  I heard about what happened to your identity and you have my sympathies. Any luck on finding the personal responsible Sentinel?”

I shake my head.

“A shame,” notes Adalbern, “Will anyone else be showing up?”

“I sent Narszara to escort Sir Gawain here,” I say.

“Sir Gawain?” repeats Adalbern before clasping his hands together in excitement, “Excellent! I always look forward to seeing him! Though, if you told me any time before this last half of a century that we would end up as friends, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“Sir,” says one of Adalbern’s bodyguards, “We really ought to get moving. Your staff is waiting to leave the plane.”

The man is speaking in German, but I understand it rather well. Part of the preparation we received from the old League was various languages. I can personally speak English, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Maltese, Russian, Mandarin, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Sangorri, Turkish, Polish and Egyptian.

I also know quite a bit of a few other languages as well. I should also probably mention that I’m quite rusty when it comes to most of them with only German, French and English being the ones I don’t need some refreshing in.

It occurs to me that Britannia is the only person here who can’t understand German.

“So the lot of you were assigned to honour guard me?” inquires Adalbern politely.

“The fact that as we’re famous and well-known national superheroes and you’re a visiting a head of state are the main reasons,” replies Warden.

“Another reason it is us is because you’re effectively an ex-supervillain and as one of the most dangerous and powerful in history, the folks at Downing Street felt that they needed supers tough enough to take you on around you in case things went bad,” I continue my Aunt’s explanation, “They figure you’re most dangerous type of villain out there. Well, I do at the very least.”

“And by that you mean?” prods Adalbern, switching to Greek as our group starts to walk.

“There are two types of dangerous supers,” I reply, also in Greek, “You have the Class 5s and 6s, who are dangerous on the count of sheer power. The threat they propose comes simply from their raw power. Then you have the arguably worse ones, those without powers or only weak or basic ones that rely on their wits, skill and tech to be dangerous. Amongst them you have Blue Knight, the Aquilines and Black Watch. Then you have the mix between those, those that have powers and smarts. Those ones include you, the original Lantern and Black Storm amongst their number. Sir Gawain and Narszara too. But you and I both already know this and we both know it. Combined with the fact you switched to Greek, language most people are unlikely to know, you’re just testing my knowledge.”

I’m also certain that I got some of my words mixed up or pronounced in correctly. Being extremely bilingual isn’t easy without constant practice that I don’t have time to do.

“Correct Sentinel,” says Adalbern, now speaking in Italian, “It is good to see the legacy of grand heroes continued by worthy heirs.”

He pauses before switching Russian, “I am hoping to meet Narszara. I have heard much about her. What exactly is she like?”

“For starters, she’s a Class 6, but is passively a Class 2 when not using her powers and is usually only Class 3 or 4 when fighting,” I reply in French before switching to my native English, “I only seen her full extent of abilities during testing. Her main ability is her magic, martial skill and toughness. Her toughness and durability are extremely interesting. Unlike many with super toughness, she lacks the usual nigh-invulnerability. Instead, she is relatively hard to hurt when compared to a normal person. But she can take a darn lot of hurt. For example, with Britannia, try and stab her skin with a knife and you wouldn’t even harm her an ounce. With Narszara, one would probably get a shallow cut if you tried the same, but she would shrug it off without a second thought. If you escalated the scale of the attacks, you would eventually overwhelm the nigh-invulnerability. On Narszara, she just continues to shrug it off. Stab her? She probably won’t even realise it. Break a limb? Just continues using it without feeling the pain. Give her multiple fatal injuries. She would- actually, Narszara had some when we first met and ignore them for a while before dismissing them as “minor injuries of no concern” if memory serves. Basically, she can be hurt, but Narszara will just walk off pretty much anything. Continue to hurt her and she’ll continue to walk it off. Even things that would take out people like Tharlore or Powerman.”