Shadow Monarch in DC-Chapter 84: Cadmus Aftermath

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A RANDOM ALLEYWAY — BLÜDHAVEN

Rain pattered softly against the cracked pavement, but the cries of pain and the clashing of metal were anything but soft. A storm was already raging in the narrow alley, where Arthur Blackwynd moved like death incarnate.

Two Syndicate guards crashed against the brick walls, blood staining their white armor. One tried to crawl backward, whimpering, his rifle shattered beside him. The other attempted to run, but Arthur was faster, his foot slammed into the man's chest, pinning him down like a lion playing with prey.

"P-please! W-We didn't do anything," one of them stammered, breath hitching as he looked up into glowing violet eyes that shimmered with barely-contained fury.

"What... the hell... are you?" the other croaked, voice trembling, face pale beneath the bruises.

Arthur didn't answer.

Instead, he dragged one of them into the shadows of the alley, his grip iron, his silence deafening. With a flick of his wrist, he crushed the guard's comms unit. CRACK! Sparks burst from the device like fireflies as Arthur tossed it to the ground. With the other hand, he raised two fingers, and every surveillance camera in the vicinity shattered, lenses cracking like brittle glass, the alley plunging into unmonitored darkness.

The remaining guard whimpered. "We don't know anything, I swear! We just follow orders!"

Arthur's face remained unreadable, a perfect sculpt of wrath beneath the hood. His eyes flared, illuminating the alley with hellish blue. The pressure from his gaze alone made the man choke on his words, falling to his knees like a marionette whose strings had been severed.

"I asked you once," Arthur growled, voice low like distant thunder, "Who's commanding your patrols? And do you know anything about some sort of a 'resistance' ?"

"I-I don't know! We just get orders from command tower! We don't ask, we just do it please!"

Arthur stared at him for a long moment.

Disappointment.

That's all he felt. No secret code. No intel. Just another cog in a broken machine.

"Useless, all of you."

He plunged his hand into the man's chest quick, brutal, and final. The man's eyes rolled back as he slumped, lifeless, to the ground.

Arthur wiped his hand on the man's vest and stood up, sighing. "They never know anything... Always pawns."

He turned to walk away, footsteps slow, the kind of walk a predator took after a failed hunt.

But then something.

His muscles tensed. His senses snapped into high alert.

A whistle through the air.

Fast.

Faster than anything he'd sensed since arriving in this corrupted world.

His eyes widened.

Something's coming.

The pressure hit like a freight train of wind. Leaves spiraled, trash blew down the alley, and the streetlight behind him flickered once before bursting. His instincts screamed.

And then

BOOM.

A streak of lightning cut across the rooftops, vanishing behind a blur.

Arthur clenched his jaw, his eyes still glowing, heart pounding with anticipation. He wasn't sure what had just moved past him, but one thing was clear

He wasn't alone anymore.

"...Finally," he muttered with a twisted grin. "Someone took the bait."

****

JUSTICE LEAGUE WATCHTOWER — Arthur's Earth

The room pulsed with low-lit holographic displays and tension as thick as a thundercloud. The Justice League had gathered, but it wasn't unity that filled the air—it was heat, frustration, and something unspoken that clawed at every breath.

Superman paced like a lion, eyes glowing faintly red with restraint. He slammed a hand on the conference table.

"You went to Cadmus without me?!"

Batman stood across the room, calm as ever, arms folded beneath the drape of his cape. "We didn't have time to assemble everyone. Cadmus has accelerated their operations, and once again that boy had to involve himself. I couldn't risk alerting them with the entire League descending upon them like a declaration of war."

Clark took a step forward, tone edged with thunder. "And what, Bruce? You thought I wouldn't be able to control myself if I saw what they're doing? That I'd lose it?"

Batman's gaze shifted. Just behind the reinforced glass wall of the containment zone, Superboy floated unconscious inside a stasis field, restrained in anti-kinetic cuffs. The clone's resemblance to Kal-El was unmistakable right down to the jawline and the dormant fury in his clenched fists.

Batman didn't flinch. "I thought if you saw another Kryptonian, one made from your DNA like this one who could be your son here, you'd forget the mission and would do something stupid."

Clark turned toward the containment zone, heart torn between grief and disbelief. "That's not my son!"

"No," Batman said coldly. "But he is your responsibility. Whether you acknowledge it or not."

The words hung in the air like a blade just drawn.

Superman's jaw locked. In a flash of fury, his hand gripped a reinforced steel railing CRUNCH! and twisted it into a mangled mess like it was paper.

"You don't get to shut me out, Bruce!" Clark barked, eyes searing. "Not with this. Not when my blood is being used like a blueprint for monsters!"

Batman didn't reply. He just watched, quiet beneath the cowl.

"I'm done being kept in the dark," Superman snarled. "Don't do this again, and if it's about me or my family, I need to be involved whether you like it or not."

And with that, Superman took off in a thunderous boom of flight, shattering the sound barrier as he tore through the Watchtower's exit bay, a meteor of pain and purpose.

Silence returned. Not peace. Just silence.

From the shadows, Martian Manhunter emerged, his brow furrowed, eyes empathetic.

"He's not angry at you," J'onn said gently. "He's angry at himself. Deep down, he believes this is somehow his fault. That Cadmus was emboldened to play god and be that wary of us because he exists."

Batman's eyes remained locked on the stasis pod, unreadable. "I know."

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J'onn nodded. "He'll come around."

****

The war room of the Watchtower was bathed in sterile, artificial light, its long obsidian table surrounded by the world's greatest heroes, minus one.

Superman's chair sat empty, cold, and silent.

Batman stood at the head of the table, arms folded behind his back, his cape draped over his shoulders his voice, as always, was calm, cold, but not without weight.

"The infiltration was clean," he began. "No casualties on our end. But we were late."

He turned slightly, his cowl casting an angular silhouette against the glow of the holo-screens.

"Cyborg."

Victor gave a short nod and tapped a command into his arm interface. A screen flared to life behind him, replaying flashes of Cadmus chaos frozen in crystalline detail. Collapsed corridors. Burnt-out labs. Blood.

"Amanda Waller is dead," Cyborg stated. "Killed.. Most of the Cadmus scientists are confirmed casualties."

The room was silent, the weight of that name, Waller sitting heavy in the air.

"Lex Luthor, Galatea... and Arthur Blackwynd are missing."

Images of the three flashed on the screen. Lex's calculating smirk. Galatea's cold stare. Arthur... a blur caught mid-stride, shrouded in shadow.

"Last footage shows the three were hit by some kind of energy surge originating from that device Lex was building. We recovered the machine. But it's... incomplete. Whatever it was supposed to do, Lex hadn't finished it."

"We're still analyzing the tech. Reverse-engineering could take weeks," he added, frustrated.

Batman's voice cut in again, low and grim.

"He kept it sealed off from Cadmus, within the facility... Not even Waller had access."

He stepped forward now, gloved hands on the table.

"And Arthur... he's gone too far, he should have been captured if he didn't disappear with Lex. He crossed a line at Cadmus. I've seen him influence people, but this time he's turned someone I never expected to lose her grip."

A cold silence swept through the room. Eyes shifted toward the unspoken truth.

J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter, turned his glowing red eyes toward Batman. His voice, gentle and knowing, cut through the tension.

"It's Kara, isn't it?"

Batman said nothing at first, but his silence was enough. He gave the faintest nod.

Across the table, Diana leaned forward, concern etched in her face.

"She's still young. Still finding herself in this world."

"Not if Arthur's still out there," Batman replied, tone unwavering. "And not if she believes he's dead. We need to find them. Fast."

Green Arrow leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, scowling. "So let me get this straight, Red Hood went rogue.., Kara's gone dark according to you even though she still listened to us, the shadow boy vanished with Lex, and speaking of Lex, he might've just built a weapon that makes people dissapear. Is that correct ?"

Flash raised his hand halfway, as if in a high school classroom.

"Uh, question, Bats... Why are we still keeping these dead monsters around? First it was Doomsday, now it's Arthur's dead Kryptonian clone in a stasis tube?"

All eyes turned toward Batman.

He stared at Barry for a moment too long. The kind of stare that makes your pulse jump.

"Because understanding them is the only way we stop the next one," he answered flatly.

Flash blinked. "...Right."

He turned toward Hal Jordan with a shrug. "Always such a ray of sunshine."

Hal sighed, rubbing his temple with his gloved hand. "You know, I miss the days when our biggest issue was Luthor building another mech suit and shouting about justice. At least that made sense."

"We've also lost something else," Batman said, cutting back in. "A man named Dr. Evo. A captured scientist we believe Cadmus was using. His lab was torched. No body. No logs. But whatever he made... it's gone too."

The screen showed an empty, scorched chamber—equipment melted down to slag. No sign of the man. No sign of what he built.

The silence that followed wasn't quiet. It was the silence of minds racing.

"We're at the edge of something big," Batman said, his tone lower now.

Diana looked around the room.

"Then let's find them. Before the consequences catch up with all of us."

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If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.

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