Cape in the Night Sky

Chu Men paused.

A cool current surged from his heart, rushing through his blood vessels with his blood.

The South American Frog Poison Penguin had sent a female assassin to use on him earlier.

That stuff could not even break his skin.

But that did not mean he liked people plotting against him with chemical poisons.

Now that the system had given him this passive ability, he could stop worrying about it altogether.

Even if someone poured Potassium Cyanide down his throat like tap water, it would be no different from drinking Soda Water.

The system knew exactly what he needed.

Chu Men stood and, without looking at him again, walked toward the balcony.

The rain in Gotham showed no sign of stopping.

Chu Men reached the balcony's edge.

Lark and Jay stood on either side of him in thin black-and-white maid outfits, their skin prickling with goosebumps in the cold wind high above the city.

Their eyes stayed lowered. Instinct kept them from so much as glancing at Chu Men's back.

Chu Men gripped the railing and bent his knees slightly.

Bang.

The entire balcony shook violently, and the stone railing shattered into dozens of pieces.

Chu Men became a black blur, tearing through the curtain of rain as he shot into the sky.

The shockwave rolled back.

The dishes on the restaurant tables went flying.

The gale drove Lark and Jay several steps backward, and they fell to the floor.

High above, the temperature plunged. Raindrops bounced away before they could touch him.

He kept climbing, easily piercing the thick Thunderstorm Cloud Layer.

Chu Men hovered in midair.

He looked down. His vision penetrated the heavy clouds, leaving the whole of Gotham City unobstructed before his eyes.

His gaze swept across several blocks toward the city center.

An old Gothic clock tower stood there.

A ring of ferocious demon Gargoyles was carved around its spire.

Chu Men leaned forward, let himself drop, and went into free fall.

His toes touched down lightly.

He landed squarely on a Gargoyle's back. The stone sculpture gave a dull crack, and two fine fissures split its surface.

Chu Men sat down, the gale tousling his short black hair.

A hundred-meter drop yawned beneath his feet. Rain smeared Gotham's dim yellow neon into patches of blurred light.

He liked this height, this place where everyone was beneath him.

His gaze drifted toward the bridge spanning the sea to Metropolis.

The chunks of flesh scattered across Arkham, along with the news Penguin had deliberately spread, should be enough to draw out that Alien Boy Scout next door.

Come on. The more of you, the better.

Just then, a mechanical sound reached him from two kilometers away.

The corners of Chu Men's mouth turned down.

Some rich guy who stayed up all night flying around in a black bedsheet.

Gotham City's symbol.

Since he's here, I might as well play with this relic of a bygone era.

In the storm, a shadow darker than the night glided silently on the air currents.

Batman tugged at one corner of his cape. The Miniature Hydraulic System in his suit engaged, helping him resist the gale's pull.

He took a wide detour, using the clouds' shadows and the blind spot beside a neighboring building to close the distance bit by bit.

Data streamed across his helmet display.

Radar detected a high-energy reaction ahead.

In the thermal imager, the man sitting on the Gargoyle had an abnormally high body temperature, surrounded by a dark red halo of heat.

Batman landed on the tip of another stone pillar fifteen meters from Chu Men without making a sound.

Crouching behind the pillar, rain running down the grooves of his armor, he raised his wrist.

A Miniature Analyzer sprang from his left forearm armor, its lens trained on Chu Men's back.

He needed data on the man's weaknesses.

Bone density. Muscle contraction frequency.

As long as he breathed, he had to have a weakness.

Chu Men sat there, a piece of broken stone somehow in his hand.

He pressed his thumb into it. The hard stone crumbled to powder, and the wind carried it through his fingers into the night sky.

Several minutes passed.

The two remained locked in a standoff amid the wind and rain.

"What are you looking for?"

Behind the pillar, a shadow moved.

A black cape snapped in the gale.

Batman stood and stepped halfway out of the shadows.

Rain streamed down his pointed-eared cowl.

His wrist hung low. His gravelly voice cut through the wind and rain.

"Leave this city."

Batman stared at Chu Men's back. "This place has rules. You don't get to do whatever you want here."

Still facing away, Chu Men scoffed. He raised a hand and dug at his right ear with his pinkie.

"Gotham's rules?" Chu Men turned and looked down at the man in black. "You mean the gang scum I cut in half, or the pile of rotten meat in Arkham's basement?"

The lenses in Batman's cowl gleamed with a cold white light.

A clasp inside the left arm of his suit clicked almost imperceptibly into place.

A walnut-sized Miniature Reactor rapidly built up power.

"You crossed a line." Batman's voice stayed flat. "Slaughter won't solve Gotham's problems. Your presence has already upset the balance here."

He had seen the alien in Metropolis with the same abilities.

That man respected humanity's limits and never crossed the line.

But the man before him was an out-of-control tyrant.

Still, anything living had genetic vulnerabilities.

Heat vision, super strength, flight.

On Earth, that combination of powers had only one explanation—a Kryptonian Constitution.

The Miniature Reactor finished charging.

The alloy plating beneath his palm opened, revealing the glowing green face of a crystal.

A high-purity Synthetic Kryptonite Ray.

It was a contingency he had originally prepared in case the man from Metropolis lost control.

"I'm giving you two choices." Batman raised his left arm and leveled the weapon at Chu Men's chest. "Crawl back to your own turf, or I'll throw you into the lowest level of Blackgate Penitentiary myself."

The green glow spread through the downpour.

It cast a sickly green light over a dozen meters around them.

Rain passed through the glow, and even the air temperature seemed to shift subtly.

It was an energy wave designed specifically to irradiate Kryptonian Cells.

Under its light, even the toughest man of steel would become helpless prey within a second.

Chu Men looked at the green glow and tilted his head.

He felt nothing. Power still surged through him like molten lava.

The Do As You Please System had fused him with Homelander's peak template.

Homelander's power came from a mutated Compound. It had nothing to do with Krypton's damned solar radiation.

To him, a glowing Green Stone was just a green stone.

"You came all this way in the middle of the night." Chu Men rose, and the Gargoyle beneath his feet split under the strain. "Just to show me a Green Flashlight?"

Batman's jaw tightened beneath his cowl.

He did not answer Chu Men's mockery.

By his calculations, the man's limbs should have gone weak by now, leaving him unable to fly and sending him plummeting.

But they had not.

Chu Men still stood firm. His patience was gone, and he hated nothing more than someone talking down to him and making demands.

"You talk too much."

Boom!