Gordon's Helplessness

Police sirens tore through Gotham's night.

Alternating bands of red and blue light cut the street into fragments.

Three hundred heavily armed SWAT officers formed a square and sealed off the Iceberg Lounge's entrance.

Above them, three police helicopters circled, their powerful searchlights sweeping across the building's outer walls.

Four SWAT armored vehicles blocked the intersection.

Gordon stood at the front. He snatched a megaphone from the detective beside him and turned the volume all the way up.

"Everyone inside, listen up! This is the GCPD! You're surrounded. Hand over the suspect responsible for the Arkham massacre, and come out with your hands raised!"

His voice echoed over the street.

On the top floor of the Iceberg Lounge.

Chu Men leaned back on a sofa, holding a glass of red wine.

He glanced down at the crimson liquid swirling against the glass.

The orders shouted from below reached his ears.

Did these Gotham cops never sleep?

He took a sip, got up, and pushed open the door.

The night wind whipped at the hem of his black clothes.

He walked to the edge of the balcony, leaned halfway over the railing, and looked down.

More than three hundred people crowded the street, no bigger than ants from up here.

"So noisy."

Chu Men let go. The wineglass fell straight down, struck the awning below, and shattered.

He brought his feet together and leaned forward.

His whole body plunged straight down from a hundred meters above.

On the ground, Gordon held up the megaphone, ready to issue a second warning.

A shrill rush of air came from overhead, growing louder.

Boom!

The roof of the police car in front of Gordon caved in. Its steel frame shrieked, its chassis slammed into the asphalt, and its tires burst.

A powerful shock wave erupted from the car.

More than thirty SWAT officers in the front row were hurled away along with their riot shields and crashed into the armored vehicles behind them.

The detective beside Gordon tackled him to the ground. His ears rang, and his mouth filled with dust.

He shoved the detective aside, staggered to his feet, and drew his sidearm.

A man stood atop the mangled police car. Firelight illuminated his black hair and expressionless face.

Several detectives sat on the ground, their guns pointed skyward. Their hands shook too badly to grip them, and they made no move to retrieve the bulletproof helmets lying at their feet.

Chu Men looked around.

Hundreds of guns pointed at him. Red laser sights crisscrossed his chest and forehead.

"With a turnout like this, I thought you were filming a movie." Chu Men rolled his neck, making the joints crack.

Gordon gripped his gun with both hands and aimed at Chu Men's chest.

"Get down! Hands on your head! Now!"

Chu Men did not even look at Gordon. He raised his right foot and stepped onto the police car's hood.

The hood buckled further.

He jumped off the car and walked toward the SWAT perimeter, one step at a time.

"Open fire!" Gordon ordered.

Gunfire erupted.

Hundreds of assault rifles fired at once.

A dense hail of bullets poured toward Chu Men.

Muzzle flashes lit up the street.

The bullets struck something in midair half a meter from his body, bursting into showers of sparks.

The metallic clangs ran together.

The rounds stopped outside the force field, lost their momentum, and fell to the ground in sheets.

Chu Men did not slow down. He walked on through the spent casings carpeting the street.

The gunfire gradually died away.

The SWAT officers stared at the impossible scene before them and forgot to reload.

Dozens of veteran officers who had spent years on the front lines took two steps back. In the quiet street, the sound of them swallowing was painfully clear.

Gordon clenched his jaw, raised his gun toward the spot between Chu Men's brows, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The bullet left the barrel.

Chu Men did not even blink. The bullet stopped between his eyes, a centimeter from his skin, its tip badly deformed.

He raised a hand and lightly flicked the misshapen bullet with his index finger.

It fell to the ground and rolled to Gordon's feet.

"Is that all you've got?"

"Wasn't the floor full of shredded flesh at Arkham enough for you? Do you want to end up there too?"

Gordon stared hard at Chu Men, forcing down his instinct to retreat.

In all his years as a Gotham cop, he had seen madmen and monsters. But he had never seen anything like this, something that did not belong in the realm of humanity at all.

"You won't escape Gotham's laws."

Chu Men laughed.

He could not be bothered to say another word. He raised his left hand, aimed it at the three armored vehicles across the intersection, and made a grabbing motion.

Creak— An ear-splitting scrape of metal rang out.

The bodies of the SWAT armored vehicles, each weighing more than ten tons, caved inward and folded.

Bulletproof glass shattered. Thick steel plates crumpled like paper.

The drivers inside could not even scream before they were crushed along with their vehicles into balls of metal.

Three armored vehicles became three metal balls.

Blood dripped through the gaps in the metal and pooled on the ground.

The entire street fell silent.

Hundreds of officers seemed to stop breathing. Some dropped their rifles, turned, and ran.

Chu Men lowered his hand and straightened his collar.

"Laws?" Chu Men swept his gaze over the crowd. "What I say is the law. Anyone who disagrees will end up like those piles of scrap."

With that, his feet left the ground and he rose.

The blast of air made it impossible for Gordon to open his eyes.

Within seconds, Chu Men climbed high into the air and flew straight back to the top-floor balcony of the Iceberg Lounge.

A helicopter's searchlight swung toward it. The balcony was empty.

Gordon stared at the three blood-dripping balls of metal on the ground. His grip loosened, and his gun fell.

The justice and order he had always taken pride in were not even a joke in the face of absolute power.

Two streets from the Iceberg Lounge, atop the bell tower of Gotham Cathedral.

Batman crouched on a Gargoyle, his black cape blending into the night.

The wind stirred the hem of his cape.

A miniature screen sprang from the bracer on his left arm.

Data streamed across it like a waterfall.

Through his suit's long-range detection system and microwave radar, he had watched everything that had just happened.

The screen froze.

"Initial flight speed exceeded the sound barrier."

"Invisible force field covering the body. Impact resistance exceeds that of all-caliber armor-piercing rounds."

"Remote object manipulation. Force exerted in a single use estimated at over fifty tons."

Batman entered the figures into the interface.

Combined with the traces of high-temperature rays he had recovered earlier at Arkham, they triggered a glaring red warning box on the screen: Threat level—extremely dangerous.

This was a superhuman with no moral limits, one who enjoyed crushing others with his power.

The figure in the red cape from Metropolis flashed through his mind.

Their abilities were remarkably similar. Even the way they fired red beams from their eyes was identical, but their conduct could not have been more different.

The one in the red cape was at least a decent person. This one was a tyrant through and through.

Gotham's existing firearms and police force were useless against a superpowered man with no restraints.

Batman shut off the screen and stood.

The eyes behind his mask fixed on the top floor of the Iceberg Lounge.

Every living thing had a weakness.

A genetic flaw, a particular kind of radiation, or some specific frequency of matter.

He spread his cape, leaped into the darkness, and glided away.