Adeline managed to evade the police on the ride back to the apartments. The ride was a bit uncomfortably quiet. Ioana had a small smile on her face, and Adeline had a scowl when she glanced back at James. When she parked in front of the building Adeling said “While I’m parking this, you will go with her up to the penthouse.”

Looking into the bodyguard's eyes, James could see that she was deadly serious. He nodded and helped Ioana out of the car. Thankfully other than a few scratches Ioana wasn’t hurt. James, on the other hand, felt his body was bruised and beaten. His foot was throbbing as he led Ioana into the Penthouse.

As Ioana entered, she took off her jacket and looked at James and said “So you want to tell me how long you’ve been one of those supers.”

Since she had handed him the glove, he was dreading having this talk with her. Taking a moment he began “Honestly not too long. In fact I just came up with the outfit a few days ago.”

“I see.” Ioana went to the kitchen and got out a glass and poured herself a glass of brandy. “Do you have a name? Want a glass?”

“Yes.” James took a glass and took a sip and said “The name is still a work in progress, Leviath.”

Ioana raised her eyebrow at that and shook her head. “Needs a bit of work. So are you a hero, or are you one of those supervillains?”

“Hero is a big term to live up to. All I want to do is help people I see. I’m not interested in robbing a bank, or killing people. I think I am just a regular person wanting to do his best.” James shrugged drinking.

“A regular person with powers.” Ioana said, sitting next to him at the counter. “So what is going to happen now?”

“What do you mean?” James asked. “I’m not going to hurt you because you know my secret.”

Ioana shook her head, “No I mean I’m part of a crime family. You must admit it is weird for a so-called hero to work for the mob.”

“I admit it is less than ideal. But honestly I don’t mind working for you. You haven’t asked me to do anything I consider morally wrong, and you do seem like a good person.” James said.

She scoffed and said “You don’t know the blood I have on my hands. You don’t consider working for a brothel morally wrong?”

“Why should I? I don’t think you're forcing these women to sell their bodies, and you at least seem to care about their wellbeing. If a woman wants to sell her body, that is her choice, even if I don’t think the result is a good outcome for her. There are lines I will not cross, and you have yet to even approach them.”

“Oh? Can I ask what lines?”

“Harming innocent people for one. I also will not stand by you if you intend to hurt a child.” James said vehemently.

She frowned and said “Were you um hurt as a child?” 

“No.” James said. He looked out of the penthouse windows and said “When I was eight I had a friend who came to school with a black eye who said she fell. I had a bit of a crush on her, so I got her some candy to get better and went to her house. Where I saw her Step-father… well, you can probably guess the rest. I ran away scared and for three days I didn’t say anything.”

James' gut rose and he repeated “For three days I didn’t say anything until I finally confided to my father. The girl's step-father was arrested, and the girl was saved and went to live with her grandma. She thanked me and all I could think was that I waited three days. Due to my inaction I put her through three more days of hell, and I can't let that happen again.”

Ioana put her hand on James’ and said “You were just a kid. You didn’t know any better and you did still help her.”

“I know that, but it still bothers me. If I see someone who needs help I feel compelled to help them. Though I can’t say I am as compassionate as you are, Madam Ioana.”

“Please drop the Madam part. I think knowing your secret identity should make us on equal footing.” Ioana said, taking a long drink of her brandy. “I’ve never been called compassionate before, ambitious yes, but never compassionate.”

“It’s ambition tempered with compassion. Honestly, you haven’t struck me as an evil person. Even if you have blood on your hands, there is still good within you. Not like your Uncle.” James said.

Ioana didn’t say anything for several moments before saying “You don’t have to worry about me saying anything. Nor will I blackmail you into doing anything for me as your hero side. Of course I still expect you to do your job as Manager.” Ioana said.

“Understood. Thank you Ioana.” James said.

“So do you know who that person was on that roof?” She asked.

“No idea.” James shrugged. “I have some suspicions, but I need to look into it before I draw any solid conclusions.”

“Did another gang hire a super to fight for them?” She mused.

“I don’t think so. Rather I think he was using that gang attack to achieve his goals.” 

“What? Killing the leaders of the two gangs?” She asked

“Maybe. I get the feeling that he is responsible for the gang war that is starting to develop.” James said.

She frowned and said “I should be able to find out who those attackers were by tomorrow.” She paused and said “Thank you for saving my life.”

“You're welcome.” James said. “I need to get changed back into my regular clothes.”

“Go ahead.” Ioana said.

Heading into the bedroom James quickly changed back into his regular clothes. Before he left the room he made sure to repair the plates so as to not draw suspicion from Adeline. He really needed to be more careful about hiding his identity. As he walked back into the living room Adeline opened the front door of the Penthouse and came walking in. 

James looked at Ioana and said “I need to get down to my shift, Ioana.”

“Alright. Have a good night.”

“I will. Speak to you later.”

Passing by Adeline he swore he could feel the temperature drop from the icy glare she gave him. He stepped out into the hallway and began to limp towards the Elevator when he heard Adeline come out of the penthouse behind him. Pausing he turned around as she stormed up to him. She grabbed onto his shirt and shoved him forcefully into the wall.

He, of course, let her do it sensing that she needed to vent at him. “I’m not done with you.” She snarled.

A scowl of pure rage was taking over the Russian woman’s face. A faint bruise was developing on the left side of her face where she must have gotten struck. Her clothes were roughed up, and he could tell that she was favoring her right arm as it trembled holding him against the wall. Looking into her eyes which were pits of pure ice he asked “What do you want Adeline?”

“I gave you specific instructions to protect Madam Ioana. You weren’t there when she needed you the most. You are lucky that she was saved by a superhero. If she had been hurt, I would have made your life hell.” Adeline said, getting right into his face.

“I did what I thought was the right move to protect Ioana. I admit that I was wrong and put Ioana unknowingly into danger. So yes, you are right to be mad at me for failing to protect her. But that’s not why you are angry, are you?” James said coolly.

Her eyes flashed dangerously at him and she said “What?” 

“What you are truly angry at, is yourself. You’re angry that you weren’t there for her. We both know Ioana could have figured out a way for you to have accompanied her into the meeting.”

She grabbed him by the neck and said “You know nothing.”

The truth of the matter dawned on James and he said “I wondered why you had a chip on your shoulder against me ever since I met you. Now I see why, you're jealous of me being close to Ioana.”

She responded by punching him hard in the liver. Normally that wouldn’t have hurt, but the beating he took earlier made that area of his body incredibly sore. He dropped to the floor with a wheeze, and she kneeled next to him and grabbed his hair forcing him to look up at her. “That is for not being there for Madam Ioana. Now if you speak any of that nonsense to her, I will break you.”

Adeline shoved him then stood up and walked back into the penthouse. Wincing he pushed himself up to his feet. His body was incredibly sore and felt like he had run a marathon while being shot with bean bags. Going down to the lobby, he sat behind the desk with a groan. Clearly the rush of adrenaline from the fight was starting to die down leaving his body in pain. 

A few prostitutes dropped by dropping off their payments and he spoke with them a little bit about the killings. Apparently there was word of a homeless man possibly seeing one of the attacks happen. The police were looking for this man, but they had disappeared. The prostitutes thought the man might have been killed.

Still it was another lead that he should check out. As he was contemplating on that he saw Alexandru entering the lobby. The thin man gave him a nod as he passed by the elevator. Clearly Alexandru had managed to evade the police and escape the place. Now that he was alone, he pulled out the crystal orb to take another look at it.

From first impressions it looked like it hadn’t changed from when it emitted a glow. Yet as he held it up to the light, he saw that there was an additional line engraved into the crystal that hadn’t been there before. Strangely he felt he had a connection to this line, like some intangible energy now connected him to it. Taking out his smartphone he attempted to do a rough translation of the hieroglyphs that he saw.

To his surprise he did manage to translate the new line, however it only caused him more confusion. What he managed to translate was that it was a name, his name in fact. Why it was now engraved inside of the crystal he didn’t know. His gut didn’t know either and it must have been inscribed by the goddess.

Unfortunately, the rest of the hieroglyphs were a complete mystery to him. He would really need someone well versed in hieroglyphs to translate them. He did manage to spot that in the center of the Orb was the name of the Goddess Heqt along with an Ankh. For some reason this Egyptian goddess had stepped in the fight and saved James for some reason. What that could be James didn’t know, but he wasn’t sure he liked owing a goddess a favor.

Still it didn’t seem likely that the goddess would have gotten into mortal affairs that easily, unless the man that he had been fighting was in fact another god. Given his attitude James could buy that, though if he was one, he was clearly more powerful than Heqt at that point. So why did he stop when he did? 

The god must have some goal in Gotham otherwise why would he even bother coming here himself. If he was more powerful he could have probably beaten Heqt. Then the reason he stopped must be that fighting would have interfered with his goals. Even if Heqt couldn’t have stopped him, it would have drawn the attention of other who might be able to. For instance Batman and the Justice League.

Given that, what could be the god's goal in coming to kill a few people? Possibly to make a statement. Since he didn’t reveal his identity, it would appear that a gang hired a super to essentially assassinate the heads of a rival gang. In that case the other gangs would respond by hiring supers of their own to combat. That would just cause escalation until Gotham is a smoldering pile of rubble.

Why would a god want that to happen? If it meant the god would gain power that would be a possible reason. Another if they were feeling vindictive to Batman for some reason. If either of these reasons were on point, it cleared up the identity of the god to James. The black armor that the God had assumed supported this idea, so he could only think that the god was in fact Ares, the God of War and Conflict.

This was clearly beyond James' ability to deal with himself, so he would need to speak with Zatanna. As he thought that he heard the elevator doors, open and Alexandru came out and walked over to James. “I wanted to say good job tonight.”

“What?” James said feeling a little taken aback by this sudden change of attitude.

“I saw how you managed to protect Ioana in that meeting room when I was getting Mr. Ibanescu out.” Alexandru said. “I was impressed. I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I was just doing what I was supposed to. So how is Mr. Ibanescu?” James asked.

“After the police arrived, they found him collapsed on the roof. They sent him to the hospital. The doctors are working on him now, it looks as though he had a heart attack. Probably from running up all those stairs.” Alexandru said. “Don’t tell anyone I told you that.”

“Understood.” James said.