Graffiti on the Wall

It was raining in Gotham again.

Raindrops struck the pavement, splashing muddy water in rippling circles.

No police lights flashed in the streets. No sirens wailed.

James Gordon's order had been carried out to the letter. The GCPD had withdrawn from the area entirely.

The East End had become a place beyond the law.

But it had not descended into the chaos everyone expected.

Instead, an eerie order hung over every street.

Diana walked through the standing water.

She wore a knee-length black trench coat and a baseball cap pulled low.

Most of the shops lining the street had their shutters down.

The few pedestrians she saw kept close to the walls.

Heads lowered, they hurried along with fear in their eyes that even the rain could not wash away.

Diana stopped before the window of an electronics store.

A dozen or so televisions of different sizes stood on display.

They showed no advertisements or soap operas.

Every channel played the same footage on a loop.

Superman, pinned beneath Chu Men's foot.

Diana watched through the glass for a full minute.

Amazons revered strength and respected the powerful.

But the man on the screens displayed none of a strong person's dignity. What she saw was sheer brutality and boundless arrogance.

Diana had reviewed all the combat data before coming here. She believed Clark had lost because of his mercy.

Clark's moral restraints weighed too heavily on him. He had worried about civilians and collateral damage, holding back when he needed to fight with everything he had.

"I won't."

She turned and kept walking.

As she rounded a corner, she heard glass shatter up ahead.

Outside a lit grocery store, five men in black suits were dragging a gaunt shopkeeper through the door.

Falcone Family enforcers.

Diana leaned against the corner wall, concealed in shadow, and watched.

The leader held an electronic notepad. His hand shook, and his movements were viciously rough.

"This week's payment is short." The leader seized the shopkeeper by the hair. His voice was low, stripped of its old swagger and edged with the agitation of a man near breaking.

The shopkeeper knelt in muddy water and repeatedly knocked his forehead against the ground. "More than half the people in the East End have fled. The store's barely made anything. Give me two days. I'll mortgage my house to get you the money."

"Give you two days?" The leader drew his gun and shoved it into the shopkeeper's mouth, pressing the barrel against his jaw. "If I give you more time, who gives me more time? If you don't pay, I'll have to settle the account with your life."

The other four enforcers stood guard with their guns raised.

Diana understood now.

Gotham had once been chaotic because rival gangs fought for control.

Now there was only one power. An absolute dictatorship.

These gangsters were no longer rulers. They were harvesting for someone else, driven by fear.

They were more ruthless than before because they were afraid to die.

The leader began to pull the trigger.

Diana stepped out of the shadows and caught his gun wrist with her left hand.

Bone cracked.

Before the leader could scream, Diana swept his legs out from under him, sending him crashing into the water.

The other four enforcers spun around and raised their guns.

Diana slipped aside from the muzzle and drove her right fist into one man's chin.

He flew three meters through the air.

She turned and slammed an elbow into another man's chest.

The dull crack of ribs carried clearly through the rainy night.

The last two pulled their triggers, but their bullets struck empty air.

Diana was already upon them. She grabbed their collars and slammed them together.

Their heads collided hard. Both men's eyes rolled back as they crumpled.

It had taken less than five seconds.

The leader rolled in the muddy water, clutching his broken wrist.

He stared at Diana in terror.

Diana walked over and looked down at him.

"Where is he?"

"Who?" The leader gasped through the pain.

"Your new king."

At those words, the leader went rigid.

Forgetting the pain in his wrist, he scrambled backward. He did not dare answer. He stumbled away into the dark, rain-soaked alley.

The grocery store owner remained on his knees. He did not thank her.

He gave Diana one frightened look, scrambled back inside, and pulled down the shutter.

This city had been frightened into submission.

Diana raised her head toward the heart of the city.

She bent her knees, tensed her muscles, and leaped into the air, her coat snapping in the night wind.

She sprang across the rooftops of several low buildings before landing on a thirty-story office tower.

Five kilometers away stood the Iceberg Lounge.

The building blazed with light amid the darkness.

It was like a nail driven deep into Gotham's throat.

Diana stood at the roof's edge and closed her eyes.

Her Amazon divine power spread outward through her senses.

Every life had a unique spiritual frequency. As long as someone existed in this world, they left a trace on the Fates' thread.

Clark was like a burning star, warm and powerful.

Bruce was like a dry well, cold and impossibly deep.

Now Diana focused her senses on the Iceberg Lounge's top floor.

A blank.

Nothing at all.

Diana opened her eyes, her brow furrowed.

The words Themyscira's seer Philippa had spoken before coughing up blood echoed in her ears.

"Not on the Fates' thread."

Diana reached through her coat and touched the holster on her outer thigh.

"I don't care what you are." Diana stared at the building. "If you bleed, you can be killed."

She leaped from the roof's edge, wind roaring past her ears.

Ten meters above the ground, she caught the iron ladder of an exterior fire escape.

Diana landed steadily.

The alley was narrow and dark, and the air smelled foul.

In the dim light of a streetlamp, Diana saw the redbrick wall at the end of the alley.

Graffiti covered a large part of it.

A pair of dark red eyes gazed down over the entire street.

"THE KING SEES ALL."

Seven or eight homeless people knelt by the wall, hands clasped and eyes closed, murmuring under their breath.

Diana took two steps closer and made out their words.

"Beg for forgiveness... beg that he doesn't send down the red light... rules are rules..."

When violence reached an incomprehensible extreme, human instinct turned it into something divine. It gave people a way to explain their helplessness and beg for a sliver of mercy in the face of certain destruction.

It had been less than a week.

The people at the bottom of Gotham's social order had already begun to worship the Tyrant.