Superman Takes the Blame

The entire room fell silent. Even the sound of breathing stopped.

Everyone lowered their heads further.

Chu Men kept cutting his steak without missing a beat.

He set down his knife and fork and looked at Penguin on the floor.

"Get me a change of clothes. And I'll be taking a bath later."

"Yes!"

Penguin gritted his teeth. His men helped him up, and he headed backstage without daring to raise his head.

The air on Arkham's second basement level reeked of scorched flesh.

Batman's boots made wet, sucking sounds against the sticky floor.

The iron bars along both sides of the corridor were mangled. Beneath them lay solidified lumps of molten metal, while deep, charred gouges scarred the walls.

Wreckage littered the floor.

Batman stopped outside the security office.

The guard still cowered under the desk. The smell of urine wafted out, and a puddle of fresh vomit lay nearby.

"What happened?" Batman crouched, his voice hoarse.

The guard flinched at the sound and looked up.

Bloodshot eyes fixed on Batman's black mask. Tears and snot covered his face.

"The devil... He wasn't human..." The guard's teeth chattered too hard for him to form a complete sentence.

"Who did this?" Batman seized the guard by the collar and pulled him close.

"Red light! Red light everywhere!" The guard clawed at the air and shrieked. "They're all dead! All gone!"

Batman let go. The guard collapsed to the floor, clutching his head and twitching.

Red light from the eyes.

High-temperature beams.

That guy in the red cape from Metropolis?

Batman rose and walked to the end of the corridor.

A headless body in a purple suit lay in a pool of blood.

He recognized him. It was Joker.

Batman crouched and took out a miniature scanner. Blue light swept over the corpse's severed neck.

The head had been crushed and torn off by sheer force.

Batman knew better than anyone how cunning and difficult Joker was. Anyone powerful enough to kill him before he could even beg for mercy was a threat of the highest order.

Batman took out a sampling tube and scraped up a little blood.

He stood and scanned the floor, spotting several clear barefoot prints amid the charred wreckage.

This was a madman who enjoyed killing.

Batman put away his equipment and headed back the way he had come.

Several police cars and black FBI SUVs stood outside Arkham's gates. Searchlights washed the agents moving between them in a deathly pallor.

Commissioner Gordon stood beyond the police cordon, reading a report with his brow deeply furrowed.

Batman did not greet Gordon. He climbed straight into the Batmobile.

The engine roared, and the Batmobile vanished into the night.

Back in the Batcave, he went to the Batcomputer.

Search: Superman, Heat Vision, Metropolis.

Lines of data scrolled down the screen.

Batman stared at the blue-clad figure on the monitor, the veins standing out on the back of his hand.

Only one known being on Earth could shoot high-temperature beams from his eyes: that alien.

But why would he come to Gotham? Why massacre Arkham?

It did not add up, but Batman had to consider him a suspect.

On the top floor of the Iceberg Lounge, inside a luxury suite, steam filled the air.

Chu Men reclined in a spacious whirlpool tub, warm water washing over his solid muscles.

Outside the bathroom door, two scantily dressed women with curvaceous figures held a fruit platter and red wine. Their heads were bowed, and they barely dared to breathe.

At the same time, in an underground chamber, a private doctor cut away the fabric around Penguin's shoulder and used tweezers to clean the charred wound with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

The doctor's hands shook badly. The tweezers touched raw flesh.

"Useless!" Penguin kicked the doctor over.

He bit down on a white towel. Sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt.

The doctor scrambled up and injected him with morphine.

As the drug took hold, the frenzy in Penguin's eyes only grew.

"Boss, we've had another update from Arkham." A trusted subordinate stood nearby and handed him a tablet.

Penguin spat out the towel and drew a ragged breath as he took the tablet in his left hand.

The screen showed a damaged surveillance still: a bare-chested man with slicked-back dark red hair walking through Arkham's ruins.

It was the man upstairs.

"Everyone on the second basement level is dead. Joker's head was crushed," the subordinate said quietly.

Penguin slammed the tablet onto the floor, shattering its screen.

"He wants me to submit? To hand over everything I've spent years building? He can dream!" Penguin ground his back teeth, his face contorted.

The Iceberg Lounge was his lifeblood, the scepter with which he ruled Gotham's underworld.

He had fought his way through Gotham for decades, rising from a freak everyone mocked to his present position over countless corpses.

He would never be a dog for some superpowered stranger who had come out of nowhere.

"That guy's bulletproof. Even bullets can't hurt him..." The subordinate swallowed.

Penguin narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"Gotham's never short of lunatics. To deal with a monster, all you have to do is find his weakness."

He looked at his subordinate.

"Send Arkham's surveillance footage and word that he's here to the GCPD anonymously. Make sure that bat freak who likes wearing tights gets a copy."

"And put the word out on the black market: an alien's come to the Iceberg Lounge with top-secret information on Superman. Muddy the waters. Get all those flies buzzing over here."

"Let him test what this monster can do."

Inside the luxurious bathroom, Chu Men opened his eyes. He had heard every word spoken in the underground chamber.

"Heh. Trying to get someone else to do your dirty work?"

Chu Men did not care about Penguin's schemes. Against absolute power, every plot was a joke.

He rose from the tub and wrapped a towel around his waist.

Hearing him move, the two women outside opened the door and came in, carrying a silk robe. Their wrists were still trembling.

Chu Men stepped forward and gripped one woman's chin, forcing her to look up.

He spread his arms.

The woman draped the robe over him with trembling hands and tied the belt.

Chu Men walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down over the city of sin.

The game had only just begun.

In the underground chamber, Penguin lounged on a sofa. The morphine he had just been given had left his mind unnaturally wired.

He kept his eyes on the suite's surveillance feed. The bed filled the entire screen.

Two petite figures moved beneath a powerful body. Each time Chu Men's broad back flexed, the wineglass at the edge of the frame gave a little jump.

Penguin grinned, exposing yellowed teeth.

"So what if he's strong? Once his pants are off, he's just a piece of meat that breathes."

He got up and opened the hidden door. The people he had summoned had arrived.

Footsteps fell almost soundlessly on the concrete floor.

Three women in black tactical leather approached.

Lark, Jay, and Raven.

His three sharpest blades.

Half of Lark's hair had been shaved off, revealing a teal snake tattooed on her scalp.

She stopped two steps from the sofa and glanced at the tablet screen.

"Boss, you want us to kill this guy who's going at it like a jackhammer?"