Reckoning

The thunderstorm gradually died away.

Chu Men landed on the yacht's deck.

Its fittings had been torn to pieces.

Lark approached in her maid uniform, carrying a clean white towel.

Jay and Raven followed behind her, heads bowed, their eyes fixed on their toes.

"Master." Lark offered him the towel with both hands.

Chu Men took it, wiped the blood from his body, and tossed it into the sea.

"Go back to the lounge and wait for me."

"Yes." Lark nodded.

Chu Men bent his knees and launched himself into the night sky, leaving a blur behind him.

Lark straightened and watched him disappear, then turned to the captain.

"Back to port." Her voice was cold as ice.

The ground-floor lobby of the Iceberg Lounge.

Penguin's eyes flew open. He gasped for breath as his vision snapped into focus.

His bodyguards had long since fled.

Gritting his teeth, Penguin pushed himself up with his left hand and staggered toward the back door. His private plane was waiting at an airstrip outside the city.

If he could just get aboard, he could escape Gotham. The farther away, the better.

He had barely taken two steps when a heavy kick struck the backs of his knees.

Penguin screamed and fell flat on his face.

A black high heel pressed against his back.

Lark looked down at him, playing with a short knife.

"Mr. Cobblepot, where are you going?" Lark drew the tip across the fat nape of Penguin's neck, leaving a thin line of blood.

"Let me go, you bitch!" Penguin thrashed desperately. "He'll kill me! He'll kill all of us!"

"Shut up." Lark pressed the blade down, piercing his skin. "Until Master says otherwise, you're not going anywhere."

Jay and Raven came over with a length of Nylon Rope. They bound Penguin up tight and dumped him in the middle of the lobby.

The doors swung open.

Black sedans pulled up outside the Iceberg Lounge, one after another.

Falcone Family informants, the few neighborhood bosses who had survived in the East End, arms dealers from the south, gang leaders from the north... Every notable figure in Gotham's underworld filed into the lobby, driven by some invisible fear.

No one dared speak.

They looked at Penguin, bound on the floor, then at the three expressionless maids standing nearby. Without a word, they lined up on either side and dropped to their knees.

The lobby fell deathly silent. Only Penguin's ragged breathing could be heard.

Deep beneath Gotham, in Black Mask's safe house.

Roman Sionis paced the room in his black skull mask.

He had already smashed the satellite phone on the table.

"Three hundred million dollars... Deathstroke, that useless bastard!" Black Mask kicked over a chair. "Tell everyone to load all the cash from the vault into the trucks. Move it now!"

Several of his men were about to nod.

Then came the teeth-grating sound of metal twisting overhead.

Someone tore through half a meter of reinforced concrete and the alloy blast plate above it from the outside.

Chunks of concrete and rebar crashed down, crushing two men into pulp on the spot.

Black Mask looked up.

Chu Men hovered in midair, looking down at him.

"Roman Sionis."

"Fire! Kill him!" Black Mask drew both pistols from his waist.

The bullets fell to the floor as flattened scraps of metal.

Chu Men descended, seized Black Mask by the throat, and lifted him off the ground.

At the other end of Gotham, Harvey Dent sat inside an armored vehicle, tossing his coin.

It landed scarred side up.

"Damn it." Two-Face clenched his teeth. "Change course. Get out of Gotham!"

A deafening crash struck the vehicle's roof. The whole cabin buckled inward.

A hand punched through the bulletproof steel, caught Two-Face by the back of the neck, and yanked him out of the vehicle.

The top-floor suite of the Iceberg Lounge.

Steam filled the bathroom.

Hot water poured from the showerhead, washing over Chu Men's pale skin.

He closed his eyes and felt the power surging through him.

The Silver Age physique fragment had taken his awareness of the space around him to an entirely new level.

He pulled down a bath towel and dried himself.

Then he left the bathroom and changed into casual clothes, leaving the collar slightly open.

Chu Men walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the dark city.

From today on, it was his playground.

The elevator doors opened in the ground-floor lobby.

The gang leaders kneeling on either side slammed their foreheads against the cold marble tiles. None dared breathe too loudly.

Chu Men stepped out of the elevator.

Lark, Jay, and Raven immediately dropped to one knee.

Chu Men went to the broad chair set out for him and sat down.

Bang! Bang!

Two dark figures flew in through the front doors and slammed into the floor beside Penguin.

Black Mask and Two-Face.

"Everyone's here." Chu Men glanced at the three men on the floor.

Penguin shook like a leaf. Blood had rushed to the brand on his forehead—the character for "slave"—making it look especially hideous.

"Master... Master!" Penguin shouted at the top of his lungs. "They forced me! Roman and Harvey! They insisted on paying Deathstroke to kill you. I couldn't stop them!"

Black Mask spat out a mouthful of blood. "Cobblepot, you piece of shit! You contacted us! You said you were certain we could kill him!"

Two-Face stared at his coin on the floor, his voice hoarse. "The coin decided... It wasn't what I wanted. I'll hand over all my territory in Gotham. Just spare my life."

The three underworld giants who had once ruled Gotham were now like stray dogs tearing at one another.

The gang bosses kneeling on either side bowed even lower, cold sweat soaking their shirts.

Chu Men watched their performance. Lark brought him a glass of red wine and carefully set it beside his hand.

Chu Men picked it up and took a sip.

"You like hiring assassins?"

All three men fell silent at once and stared in terror at the man in the chair.

"I gave you a chance, Oswald." Chu Men looked at Penguin. "I take it you don't like the word on your forehead."

"No! I was wrong! Please give me another chance, Master!" Penguin slammed his forehead against the floor again and again, leaving a smear of blood.

Chu Men had heard enough.

His eyes slowly lit up red. Two dark crimson beams struck the tips of the three men's feet.

Sss—

"Aaaah!" Black Mask was the first to scream.

The red beams crept slowly up their feet.

Chu Men held his wine as if watching a dull opera.

The three men could not move. A force field pinned them firmly in place.

The heat seared their skin.

It blistered, split, and curled.

Fat sizzled in the heat, filling the air with the overpowering smell of roasted meat and char.

"Kill me! Just kill me!"

Chu Men did not react. The red beams continued upward, inch by inch.

Screams echoed through the lobby.

The gang bosses kneeling on either side trembled all over.

Some could not bear the sight and smell. They scrambled to the corners and vomited uncontrollably.

Lark, Jay, and Raven had gone deathly pale too.

Five minutes passed.

The three men's lower bodies had been reduced to charcoal.

Penguin no longer had the strength to scream. A ragged hiss, like air escaping a broken bellows, came from his throat.

Black Mask had passed out from the pain, only to be jolted awake by it again.

Chu Men shifted in his chair. The red beams reached their chests.

At last, the screams stopped completely.

Only three pools of charred blood remained on the carpet, sending up acrid black smoke, along with a few bone fragments that had not fully melted.

The three men who had once dominated Gotham's underworld had not left even one intact corpse.

Chu Men extinguished the beams.

The lobby was silent, apart from the chattering teeth of a few gang bosses in the corners.

One older boss's eyes rolled back. He collapsed, convulsing from a heart attack.

Chu Men rose and walked to the pools of scorched blood.

"From today on, there are no other families in Gotham." His gaze swept over the kneeling crowd.

Everyone pressed themselves flat against the floor, heads down.

"Only my rules."

Chu Men drained his wine and tossed the empty glass onto the floor.

The sound of shattering glass echoed through the lobby like the death knell of Gotham's old era.

"Ninety-nine percent of the profits from all your businesses go to the Iceberg Lounge." Chu Men turned and walked back to the elevator. "Lark, you're taking over."

"Yes, Master!" Lark answered loudly, fervor ringing in her voice.

The elevator doors closed.

Only then did the gang bosses dare straighten up.

They looked at the three black pools on the floor. Every one of them understood.

Gotham's darkest hour had officially begun.