I had my mission: find the other avatars (because what else could they be called, given what they were), use the powers they were imbued with to break Hephaestus' enchantment, and find out Raven's location.
First, however, I have to backtrack, because it turned out that taking Grudy to Mars had consequences on Earth that seemed minor at first, but ended up becoming a headache in the long run, and not jut for me.
Naturally, many people back on Earth had seen the dustorm on Mars, and in turn many of them were either knowledgeable or savvy enough to realize it was not a natural occurrence (kind of obvious by now, I know, but I think it's still important to point it out) given its suddenness.
Their reactions to me essentially taking Grundy under my wing were mixed, to say the least, at least before I told my reasons for it: some thought I was merely making sure a superstrong zombie stopped posing a problem to Earth, others that I was the reason Grundy existed at all despite his sightings predating my arrival and accusing me of several things you don't need to know, and many more.
Things got even more hectic when I revealed them why I did that (seeing potential of good in Grundy), creating yet another uproar about me on the news.
Their reactions, again, were mixed people realized that I didn't kill Solomon Grundy as they thought I would, given his sordid past. Many accused me of playing favourites, killing petty criminals but not a monster, despite knowing exactly what kind of criminals I had killed. Others, though, were ecstasic, again for several reasons: some thought I was trying to redeem Grundy, others that he had always been a good guy and that everything he did had been because of misunderstandings and lack of comprehension from their part, with Foster leading them.
"This only proves that Doom Slayer can, as I already told you several times before doctor Wolper, tell apart the misunderstood in need of guidance from those who, simply put, should have been put six feet under several years ago!"
Given what he thought of the 'patients' of a certain asylum (he was compared to Cato the Elder; those of you who know roman history might get the similarity), it was obvious to everyone what he was talking about, and what he hoped I would do. So did Bruce, but that's for later.
It didn't help that the men Grundy had killed had in fact been an strike force sent by A.R.G.U.S, the pre-Cadmus branch of the government devoted to deal with superhuman threats, to capture him for their own use, despite barely knowing little much of him. And they knew that I knew, since Waller didn't want to just decry my taking in of Grundy because she didn't want me to reveal her personal army's little secret. Smart of her.
Now, if only had I actually made VEGA hack into A.R.G.U.S accounts to discover every plan, scheme and project they had from the beginning...
Now, back to Grundy himself.
He took living in the Fortress quite well, although he naturally had some difficulties moving around the place given that, while the main halls' ceilings were high enough for him to stand, the many hallways were another matter entirely, forcing him to crouch to get across. Overall, though, he liked it, especially the Ripatorium: quiet (unless John was in there of course), damp, dark, and big enogh he could actually rund around (although he still preferred his swamp).
Or slam a boulder against the floor in a fit of rage remembering the face of his killer.
He wanted something more than making true of his promise, though: after remembering his previous life, he wanted to get even with Ra's al Ghul. He remembered what he had done to him, the unspeakable experiments he and his cronies did on his body and mind, and the simple fact he was his killer. I promised him that Ra's would be his, but only after finding Raven.
Speaking of Ra's, he didn't seem to make the connection between the cowboy he had killed over a century prior and Solomon Grundy, or if he did, he shrugged it of, preferring to focus on the fact I had again proven, in his own words, that I could make the perfect Ubu for the Detective. The poor fool still believed that Bruce would become his successor, or that I would be remotely interested in his petty delusion of pseudo-godhood by culling humanity for the 'good' of the planet.
He'd end up changing his tune several months later. I'm not going to repeat myself this time.
If you're wondering why didn't do anything about either A.R.G.U.S or the League of Assassins, it's a simple reason, really: I didn't want the public at large to realize that I could find out every last secret they had if I decided to do so. Trust was my ally, people lose it easily, and I didn't want Earth to lose their trust in me. Yes, I could have gone the underhanded way, but it didn't occur to me at the time.
Let's go back to Grundy once more. My response didn't exactly satisfy him, but despite his relative lack of intelligence he knew he wouldn't get more from me so he accepted it. He had yet to show something resembling control over plant life, but that was because his full powers were 'sealed', for lack of a better term: I didn't want him to get to that point before having an understanding of what he could do. Still, I asked John to probe his body to see if there was something.
That done, I went to find the people Arella had turned into avatars of the Elements.
Despite John's fears and his nagging about it, there was no 'quest' to speak of in the end, mainly because I just could pop in anywhere on Earth via portal (and because he didn't actually come with me).
First, I would go for the Red, which ended up being easy. The finding, I mean, not what happened after.
Despite the nature of their powers, Vixen was still a fashion model in the Eastern Coast despite already having her powers, and B'wana Beast still worked in Brooklyn as Michael Payson, and had yet to show signs to control or combine animals, so that only left one possible host for the Red: Garfield Logan, aka Beast Boy, member of both the Doom Patrol and the Teen Titans, neither of which existed here (Plastic Girl did, but not the other two, as I later found out). The time discrepancy did make me think, but at that moment I was too focused on the mission to care.
I searched and found out about Michael and Lara Logan, an anthropologist and zoologist respectively that had journeyed to the Congo four years prior to help in the research of a local gorilla tribe and the effects that poaching had on both the apes and the local native tribes of the area, until one day they just vanished. They weren't highly known either, so not many people cared about their disappearance sans their relatives and friends, and even then they did nothing to see if they were alright, believing that they were simply too busy working to contact them.
In the end, it turned out they weren't.
I opened a portal to a spot of jungle in the Congo Basin, the location where one of the black magic signatures was located, expecting to see something that indicated the presence of both human life and the Garfield family, maybe a lab or even a village they were residing in. Instead, I found a cave. Just a cave, not some opening to an underground city or some ruins.
Something was wrong, as I later found out, and by later I mean 'less than thirty seconds after'.
The moment I set a foot into the cave, I was promptly attacked by a leopard, a smallish one to be precise. While it did startle me, it wasn't its ferocity or its sudden appearance that did so, but the fact that its fur was a moss green.
I stood there as the leopard tried to maul me without success, knowing who he was and unwilling to hurt him. At the same time, I expected him to do something else than just attacking me by himself, maybe summoning animals to his aid or something like that.
Eventually, Garfield tired himself out and turned back to his human form, glaring up at me as he crawled deeper into the cave, still on all fours, growling like an animal.
Only, he wasn't a teenager as he usually was in stories.
He was a child, barely out of toddlerhood by his size. More specifically, a wild child that could turn into animals. Again, I should have known given that both Logas had been actually quite young when they disappeared, but still.
This... complicated things.
Beast Boy makes his appearance, but he's not as old as usual. Sorrry for the lack of length for this chapter, I thought I didn't need to write more given everything depicted. Everything else that might seem flawed to you is a lack of putting my back into it like the others. Don't worry, though, the next one will be much longer, 2000 at least.