The Silhouette and the Forge
Chapter 75

With my newly gained clarity over machines, taking control of Bruce’s suit while keeping him alive and intact in it was a difficult task but ultimately doable. The thing, for its size, moved far faster than its appearance would suggest and had a reaction time that made me think of some video games with the snappy movements that just did what you told it to do through the controls with no issue.

For a baseline human like Bruce, it would help him fight above his weight class, but it was being handicapped because of Bruce’s own limitations. He couldn’t react or move fast enough to make full use of it. The suit's insides were tailored to make sure if he did move at such speeds, the suit wouldn’t become a metal coffin to him as it tore his body apart moving at such speeds.

The open hatch on the shoulder had a small point sticking out of it before it flew off, with several others joining it. The suit suddenly jerked, moving to the side, fist almost making contact with the agent, to their surprise. The suit was fast and capable, just not enough to keep up with the hunters.

But it didn’t need to. The small missile about the size of a man’s forearm flew through the air, and the various means of intercepting it by my creations all failed when I took control of it, flying it like a professional stuntman for planes.

It weaved around the caster shells fired at it and the various hunters that attempted to grab and dismantle it in midair. Smith and the others realized they couldn’t stop it and leapt back with the missile impacting me.

The agent with a weapon pointed at Kirk’s head had a part of me that was under the bridge wrap around its head and weapon before I slowed its movements by using my newly gained enlightenment and connection to machines. It wasn’t perfect, and unlike Batman’s suit, they fought me for control, but it was enough.

The tentacle lashed out, grabbing the arm and forcing it to fire at several of the hunters, taking off limbs and bisecting them, if not launching a few back into the growing inferno that was halfway to touching us all. The instant their bodies made contact regardless of the upgrades and quality of the materials used, they were instantly turned to nothing once enveloped by the mass of growing destruction.

The blob wrestling with the hunter took on a silvery sheen like the T-1000 from Terminator 2 to further sell the idea it was just another machine and not a part of my actual body. Another one grabbed the hunter, choking out Black Canary as she looked like she was about to die, knocking it back and severing the metal cord as she slowly gasped with time around us, beginning to speed back up.

The missile detonated on my position, blowing me to pieces that quickly heated up just enough to help me shake off the ice and frost and recollect my body as it stitched itself back together and smoothed over any damage beyond superficial marks.

With the blast obscuring me and a part of me having snagged the pistol, I took aim at various points of it, firing several rounds that impacted, and despite all odds, considering everything else that had made contact with the firewall had been reduced to nothing, the frost shells managed to impact it, spreading a cold chill through the air that was reduced heavily from the point of contact.

The shells managed to do the trick, stalling out the blast and reducing its size, sucking all the heat and power out of it. The downside to firing my Caster Gun was giving away my position hanging under the highway, but it was fine.

I delayed the blast. Only a fool would believe that I had outright stopped it in its entirety. The area where it had been prior looked like a sphere had taken up the space, erasing everything that had been where it once occupied. Sides of buildings were gone, metal cleanly taken off from signs and streetlights, and the highway itself was unsteady and crumbling.

In the distance the truck was flying away courtesy of a glide spell that would help the shadows leave after I gave them instructions over the truck radio. The few agents around tried to intercept only for a wave of my control, like grabbing digital strings had me make their aim go wide and any other attempt fail.

Batman’s suit was now moving around as I spoke with him through the suit. “You're going to have to trust me.”

“Just this once,” Bruce said back bitterly. “How are you doing this? The suit was supposed to be sealed to any outside hacking or attempt to subvert its systems.”

“The same way Wonder Women can now command lightning.” I said flippantly, making his cowl's eyes widen.

“Get ready, I am going to put this suit through its paces, and here is some Jet to at least give you some clarity to keep up.”

Before he could argue with me on the game plan, his mouth was suddenly filled with Jet from a built in capsule in case he needed to move with the suit so he could keep up. The suit quickly grabbed Black Canary before firing off several projectiles at the various agents about to finish off Oliver.

They evaded them and were forced back with a grapple line wrapping around Green Arrow as he was halfway up off the rooftop before he was yanked back. Grabbing him, then Black Canary with the suit leaping down from the highway, Kirk joined us.

The various agents moved to pursue, only to pause briefly, the cement making up the broken road of the upper highway became like glue from a mixture of magic and chakra. They vibrated their legs to break free only to get pulled into it like quicksand even faster. They punched it, but it may as well have been like clay, as the cement took every blow that would shatter Green Lantern constructs with some difficulty and even potentially make Superman bleed.

Another spell was cast, changing the properties of the cement again, as the various hunters were now trapped with the highway folding up and forming into a ball that, with a magicka equivalent to a force push, shoved the ball into the shrunken fireball they intended to kill several of the heroes with.

"Alright, now we need to- oof!” I was silenced by a leg impacting my back, and if it weren't for my body shifting on the surface to match the now missing highways’ augmented properties, it would have cut through me.

Instead, I was sent flying dozens of meters before grabbing a support pillar and swinging from it to bleed off my momentum. Smith and what was left of the hunters, which was a lot of them, surrounded us.

Batman and the others regrouped with me as we were back to back. “What now? Any weaknesses you could tell us because I am at a loss on how I am supposed to fight them.”

“Stay back and let me, Batman, his bad copycat.” I ignored the indignant hey and glare from Kirk. “Act as the tanks. Everyone stick together and don’t let yourself be separated.”

The group was silent as we stared one another down. Smith was confused on how I was doing all that I had, and from that confusion and lack of understanding, he fumed. The world was simple in his eyes, it abided by certain rules. But when those rules were so readily torn apart and the world he thought he knew showed it wasn’t so ironclad, he got frustrated and even angry.

He wanted order and was abiding by what I had told him before. Be subtle about it. He was just being faster about it without the moral constraints I placed on myself when he had no issue killing off the Alliance. Just as he had also set fire to Gotham and in the process blamed Jaina and her Court, just as I had the Court before her.

She was going to be upset at me, and it would take who knows how long to explain to her why I wasn’t the one responsible… and that’s why we have a live audience to see me working with the heroes unbeknownst to Smith until now.

He walked up slowly and methodically, the subtle precision a machine could have while adjusting his tie and tossing his broken glasses to the side. His head moved across all of us before his stern gaze landed on me.

“I must admit, I thought we had seen all you could do up until this point, Father. But it would seem you had withheld something even from us… I speak for all of us." His arm waved towards his siblings, who silently watched us. “What I can say we may not understand, but we respect your desire to withhold things from us. But we have reached a critical juncture.”

He walked back and forth, and despite the calm pace he put on, it was like watching a wolf prowl around you looking for any opening he could find. Probing us like we were a pack of lambs for any weakness in any form he could find.

“For you see, most of these heroes must die for the greater good.” He pointedly looked at them with everyone glaring back at Smith. "Batman, of course, will be kept on ice just as you will be, but the rest… necessary sacrifices.”

The heroes looked at me as I turned towards them and shrugged. “You can’t lay this at my feet. He’s the one who warped and twisted what I was about.”

They were about to open their mouths to argue but fell back when chakra threads I snuck onto their backs had them bend backwards just in time, avoiding the shots fired at them that impacted things in the distance, either cutting through buildings from the razor-sharp wind generated or just melting metal and concrete like butter.

Another cast spell changed the concrete around Green Arrow and Black Canary into a cube that the agents punched and hit, only for their attacks to do nothing beyond surface-level dents that quickly smoothed out as if they were never there.

Then to their collective surprise a sonic wave just erupted out of the cube with no sign of damage from the attack. The two agents were incapable of processing what they were dealing with in time, they were hit as they mentally blue-screened like a calculator told to solve pi with no answer in sight, yet it couldn’t realize that.

A volley of arrows soon joined the sonic cries with agents too busy fighting me and the others to notice. The arrows in Oliver’s quiver had been inscribed with runes, with the various hunters now sporting scorch marks from both fire and electricity, with some of them spazzing out their limbs combined with my mental assault on some of them. I couldn’t do all of them at once because of too much mental strain.

I was juggling a lot already, with the mechanized Batsuit moving alongside me like a well-oiled machine, with my acrobatic form practically dancing around it like a monkey at the jungle gym. A slip under the armored titan’s feet and a fist coated in a green glow impacted the head of a hunter trying to get the drop on Kirk.

Snaking my way around the armored frame's side like a serpent, kicking another away with the same glow around my foot. On and on it went with me, Kirk, and Batman, who was more me controlling the suit than him by this point, pushing back the tide of hunters who were relentless in their assault.

They had lost most of their Caster Guns when a chain lightning from earlier prematurely set off all of the shells on them, turning the street into something that wouldn’t look out of place on the moon. “We are getting surrounded," Kirk said in concern.

We backed away slowly with the various agents mostly intact beyond the few damaged from the sonic attacks and especially Green Arrow’s shots. Bits of metal could be seen under the flap of their fake skin that was slowly sealing closed before it abruptly stopped.

The agents at first didn’t notice it as they stepped cautiously closer to us but grew more confident when they realized Kirk was tired and the rain of projectiles had come to an end. “What do we do now?” Kirk was getting antsy, looking towards me and then the concrete bunker.

“Wait for it.” I said calmly, standing straighter as if I wasn’t about to get flash frozen by an army of my own creations.

Bruce quickly picked up that I had a plan, and I highly doubt he hadn’t failed to notice the green glow around my arms and legs that I had used on the various agents that surrounded us.

The civilians had long since left the area, with me also alerting military authorities of areas where I knew the hunters had been. They wouldn’t be able to stop them with just simple soldiers, but it was more of a courtesy. It also gave me more eyes to use when they sent in jets and helicopters better prepared this time compared to the incident with the gala.

The more advanced a machine is, it becomes much more difficult to control multiple of them. The number had grown as the fight went on of how much I could control and how strong said control was. The various downed forms of agents missing limbs are, if not almost unrecognizable, from the shells that ripped through their bodies.

Each time one of them had their physical form destroyed, I wrestled and tangled their digital forms in the void, trying to seek safety and a new shell in a server at a discreet location that would construct them new bodies. Had it not been for their own bodies showing me their history and modifications, I wouldn’t have known, and the facility would have remained a thorn in my side for how long it would have taken to discover it.

Right now a metaphysical form of one of my many children watched me in utter surprise fighting my grip as I dragged them away from the tether that would have given them safety and a means to continue their foolishness. Instead, I directed and forced them onto a swirling current made of data that dragged them like it had all of the others before them starting with the ones outright destroyed by the experimental caster shell.

A prison made in the deepest parts of the web, beyond even the dark web. A layer I had found and adjusted accordingly, making it a prison suitable for them. The digital realm was like an ocean, the surface was vast along with the parts under it, the deeper depths full of wonders and horrors, and then the deepest parts beyond those that no one knew of.

That was what the final layer was. Like hitting what you thought was the deepest part of the ocean, only to fall into a massive, darker than black void empty of anything and everything with no means of getting back from where you came. I wouldn’t keep them there forever. They would only be there until I, with Lights' help, could get a proper prison set up and keep them contained for the foreseeable future until they either learn the error of their ways, which was not likely in the near future, or remain imprisoned for eternity.

“Wait for what?!” Kirk was getting concerned, stepping back as he looked all around us. “We need to retreat.”

“Stand your ground. It’s over, the agents just don’t know it yet.”

A chuckle escaped one of them. Then another as they all laughed at my comment. “Father, your tricks won’t work on us.” One said.

“You have to be nearing your limit.” Another spoke up with humor.

They were confident. A confidence they had earned by being my enforcers. One of my favorite creations. It’s why it made it all that much more sad as they all collectively paused.

Kirk, who was ready to break into the concrete bunker, paused as he watched the various agents who, moments before, were confident now paused as they began to look over their physical bodies.

“What is… happening to them?” He questioned in awe as the various agents surrounding us began to deform, dissolve, and rust away.

One held their hand up, watching with an expression of neutral calm turn into one of surprise as the hand's artificial skin began to flake away like dust against the wind, with the suit falling away into strips that turned to fragments along the cratered ground.

Their skin and suits were dissolved away, various chemicals and power sources along their bodies became slag and sludge no longer capable of pumping through them before the liquids turned solid and then crumbled out of the various pathways that now were riddled with holes.

Even the metals they had created for their upgraded bodies were not safe from the corrosion. It was as if time itself had accelerated and time had gone by so fast their bodies deteriorated in a matter of seconds. The realization hit them all at once when the green glow around my limbs all but told them it wasn’t a bluff and I wasn’t desperate. They had just fallen into a trap, and now it was too late.

Not that that stopped them from trying to incapacitate me, rushing towards me only to fall over when their legs gave out turned to rusted flakes of metallic dust on the ground. What few remained crawled towards us, arms outstretched, looking more like T-800s than my elegant yet intimidating hunters.

“We… only w-w-wanted to make the world better…” The last of them said pleadingly, arm outstretched before it collapsed entirely into a red and orange pile of metal chips with bits of black.

I stared down at the battleground and the fallen, riddled with devastation. The last of their digital souls were taken and placed in the pit. They would stay there until Light and I could construct a proper prison to hold them. Whatever anger I had left faded away seeing the sorrow radiating from the last of them.

Batman’s suit froze, hand outstretched to grab me with Kirk falling into a fighter's stance. It wasn’t anything professional, more self-taught from what I could tell from a glance. A dull thud could be heard coming from the concrete cube before, with a casual wave of my hand, the concrete receded back to where it had been, returning to normal, its strange new properties gone.

Black Canary and Green Arrow gave me unimpressed looks as the blonde-haired woman with a thing for fishnets and leather looked ready to have a dance with me, despite how tired she must have been after using that many Canary Cries. Green Arrow was out of arrows, but he didn’t look even concerned that he had to fight me hand to hand.

“Smith’s not here, and a few of the agents are missing that were a part of the initial attack.” The Batsuit remained frozen until Bruce broke the silence.

“Then we will handle them.” He didn’t need to say what they intended to do with me since it was rather obvious and they had long since learned to not give me any chances for surrender. That lesson had been drilled into them multiple times each time they clashed with me.

“No. You won’t. Not without my assistance.” I mentally connected his suit's network with the feed coming from the Akira satellite.

Batman’s eyes inside of the suit widened as his jaw locked tight as he rolled his jaw, seeing what it was and having heard from the others what I had hit Superman with.

The suit whirled on me, ready to grab me, with various weapons appearing out of it, all aimed at me. Most of which would be lethal against a normal or even a simple metahuman. But against me they would be just nuisances… Except for maybe the cryo cells that could be seen leaking out frosty mist into the air.

The suit stopped again as Batman was constantly trying to regain control but couldn’t. He may as well have been banging his head against the metal wall of the suit in frustration, not comprehending how I was hijacking it when there was no outside means to get access to the suit itself.

Another feed, this one also shown to Kirk and the others when I pulled a hologram projector. It showed one of my hallways with Smith and the rest of the agents, despite losing a great many of their brothers, they still had plenty more to spare for this final endeavor they are setting out to do.

Seeing Smith going for the Akira satellite as the other heroes gasped in horror when they realized what I had at my disposal, showing images of it firing at Superman with wild abandon along with schematics of its capabilities. The other image showed footage of Smith waltzing, ripping out internals to the satellite station for whatever he aimed to do. None of which was good for anyone.

“I know the way onto the Akira station, and I know its design like the back of my hand. Even if I didn’t, I want this done right.” I stepped up with no fear as the suit bent the knee, bringing its head down to my level while ignoring the pointed looks the others gave me. “You and your colleagues, while having improved a great deal, leave much to be desired, and with what’s at stake, I am not taking any chances. Now march like the good little toy soldier you are on my chess board.”

The suit did as bid when I pointed in a direction, making it move towards an alley with the others grudgingly following me. Bruce hadn’t given up on his attempts to regain control, but he couldn’t do a thing. We entered the alley before a wave of my hand had the ground open up into a staircase.

I looked up towards a building. “Are you going to join us or stay on the sidelines, Zatarra?”

For a moment the others' eyes widened before the man in question appeared as if the air itself had been helping conceal him. He muttered some words backwards before dropping down next to us like he hadn’t just stepped off a several story tall building.

“Good. Here’s the plan, Manbat will stick with the two dead weights." I gestured towards Arrow and Canary, who looked ready to punch me for the insult. “Neither of you can physically keep up unless you want some drugs?” My open hand had two inhalers in it as the two looked towards one another.

They both hesitantly grabbed them before I let Bruce have enough control to scan the contents. “It’s safe… you’ve improved on the formula since its first version, Will.”

“Evolve or die, Batman. What you're doing in that suit and all your efforts are a prime example of that. Time for Robin Hood and the Street Walker to catch up or be left in our dust.”

Zatara stepped in the way of Black Canary, who was glaring at me, ready to try and have a round. He looked at me sternly while looking back at Canary cautiously. “Must you be so crass? She is an ally and someone who is risking her life just as Green Arrow is.”

“An ally who could only use her screams after I had given her a means to not get attacked and Green Arrow over there only did the damage he had because of yours truly… she, on the other hand, accomplished nothing. We are here to stop a lot of people from getting killed. If they can’t even begin to hold their own or even act as a minor distraction, they have no business stepping into the shoes of being a hero.”

Whatever Giovanni was about to say died when he knew I had a point. Black Canary and Green Arrow, after a moment of deliberation, continued with us, ultimately choosing to back us up despite being in way over their heads. Something that could be respected.

“Batman, you’re with me. Zatara, you act as support and run interference when you can for the others. Above all else, stay back and don’t let the agents get close, Black Canary will act as additional protection even if it’s only to shield you.” The man, while not liking me, nodded in acknowledgment even if his eyes narrowed at the mention of Canary’s worth.

Something that made the heroine flare her nostrils as I went over the original capabilities of the hunters and any upgrades they had gone through, getting some raised brows at how the hell they got that powerful.

That and most definitely questioning how I managed to create them. The tech involved was not something that even Wayne Tech could easily create. No answers, and I made sure they knew they needed to thank me, otherwise, they would have been toast. The few left alive would have been frozen in suspended animation until it was time for them to awaken to see a perfect world that the hunters would attempt to create.

We moved through the tunnels, hurrying when Smith had taken care of a few sensors that had been observing him and the last of his siblings. A nondescript door opened before I stepped back with Kirk placing his arm around Black Canary’s waist and pulling her into him when a volley of metal slugs fired from railguns impacted the wall behind us.

The wall had become a meter deeper than the rest of it, courtesy of the thousands of rounds fired into it, with concrete chips pouring out of it as if the earth was bleeding. I raised my hand, lowering fingers in sequence until my pointer finger remained. My hand entered the doorway with a flash, and the usage of my grasp on technology had the automatic railguns that doubled as gatling turrets the hunters had set up jammed under my control.

We all moved as one. Batman came in like a wrecking ball, knocking agents aside and firing his weapons into them, managing to cripple, if not destroy, them after some runes upgraded his projectiles.

Black Canary remained behind screaming at the gathered hunters when they grouped together. Green Arrow managed to land far more accurate shots courtesy of the narrow hallway. Each shot took a hunter out of the fight, with electricity making the hallway glow or the red of fire making the shadows we cast lengthen.

Kirk himself was giving his best SpiderMan impression as he moved through the hunters with acrobatic skill and finesse that let him carve through their ranks like a hot knife through butter. He had two batarangs in hand, using them to great effect with the electrical discharge of the runes carved into them helping him stun and cut through their artificial flesh.

Giovanni and I made quick work of the bulk of them as we cast our magic and crushed and tore them apart. The magician had learned from his first fight against them when he went to rescue the trio, who are currently doing better than I expected. Green Arrow was a given when I modified his bow and made him new arrows with enough power to carve through my hunters even with their upgrades.

The hallway was long and filled with so many agents it made it take longer than I would have liked to get towards the door that led to my Akira station.

Raising my hand and firing off chain lightning blasts that zipped around, not destroying but stunning the agents and buying the others time to line up their shots. Various railguns and weapons were used against us, and all failed.

Channeling more magic as it surged into my hands, raising them as I took inspiration from a spell in Fable 2, a blast of pure kinetic energy moved down the hall, pushing the agents out of the way.

“Keep them busy, Batman, with me!” I yelled, taking control of the suit to Batman’s anger and annoyance as we moved through the crowd with the others carried by the hulking black-armored figure. The agents were shoved out of the way or knocked aside, arrows impacting any that were going to be a problem when they raised a weapon.

My connection to Akira, like any machine, showed me what it could be, but that was for later. It would need to be kept hidden from the League after it was revealed and Smith pulled his stunt. The station showed various methods to secure it so it could only be used by me, and already fail-safes came to mind that could prevent anyone else from using it through the glimpses at the section of the tree Akira was connected to.

The others remained behind combating the hunters and keeping them busy with their newly created weapons that would give them the edge they needed along with a nice enchantment that would corrode away armor and weapons. A parting gift just to make sure they didn’t screw up.

Batman and I made it to the end of the longest hall to date that could have been something inside of an absurdly big mansion with the door opened, revealing the sleek dark chamber with a viewing port on the outside revealing space with the Earth in the distance.

I know Batman was mentally noting everything he saw me do and what I had at my disposal. I chuckled aloud at the thought every time he believed he knew what I was capable of or what I could bring to fight against him and his friends. That belief was shattered like oh so fragile glass every time when I thought about it.

“I will admit if this is the end, I will miss screwing with your perception of me, Batman.”

The suit continued running alongside me far more quietly than something that big and as capable as it was of so much destruction should be. “You act as if I never figured you out.”

“Ha! Look at you thinking you know me. You know some things, but you don't know everything. Bet Bruce and Alfred wished they could see this.”

His heart rate went up, and his breathing, while incredibly controlled, hitched just enough for the suit to notice in his vitals. He didn’t like how close I was to figuring out his identity when I brought up both his real identity and Alfred, the closest thing to family he has now.

“Enough. Since you can control my suit with little issue, can you take control of Smith?”

Ignoring him trying to change the subject away from his alter ego and the last family he had, I give him my answer. “No. The others I could, to an extent, but whatever this is that is letting me do all of this is currently limited to both how much I can control simultaneously and the level of control. Your suit is easy to get into, Smith… not so much.”

I wasn’t lying either. Smith was different from his siblings, and the latter had proven hard to fully take control of, so I gave up on that avenue and settled for making it difficult for them to move quickly in specific moments that were bad times for them, like taking an electric arrow to the head or aiming a gun when their focus was on something else and shooting another hunter.

But Smith… he was the most difficult. When he was fighting us and I ascended to whatever the hell this was, I immediately tried to take control of him and just shut him down when I could. It obviously didn’t work, and even just controlling an arm or a leg proved difficult.

“So it's the hard way then.” Batman’s voice was cold and clinical like a surgeon about to conduct surgery on the operating table.

Sensing their presence as their bodies spoke to me, Batman’s suit moved without his input, and one hand smashed into the back of one hunter, putting him into a new crater in the metal wall, and the other uppercut into the ceiling before they reoriented mid-air and pushed off the ceiling even faster than the suit could move.

Running forward, my feet pounding off of the floor before my hand began to glow with the chirping of birds filling the room as the agent turned in time before a flash went by them and their torso fell on one side of the metal Batsuit and their legs on the other.

Their crawling upper body looked when a shadow loomed over to see a metal fist crush them into the floor. Another digital ghost snagged and placed in the pit. The blue glow of the chidori hadn’t faded with me continuing to run towards the third agent who had their Caster Gun out. They had time to fire two shots, one was sidestepped with a slight bend in my trajectory, and the other leaped over as I turned into a spear and zipped past the hunter.

Batman followed my lead and rushed at the hunter, who now was down an arm as their internal fluids leaked out in spurts. A pivot on their foot had them evade the punch that tore through the floor, and then they countered with their other arm vibrating to the point it was a blur. The fist hit the side of the suit, and it rang out like a gong reverberating across the entirety of the station.

Yet for all the power and force put into the strike, even with the high-frequency vibrations, the side that was struck only had a slight dent to show for the hunter's effort. Bruce wasted no time with me relinquishing some control as I left some gifts inside of the suit that helped keep pace via advanced targeting algorithms and other programs that would let him work with the suit as if they were one in the same.

It helped ease up the mental strain it took, as I couldn’t fight as effectively when I was distracted, controlling the suit and having to fight myself. He soon met the agent in a contest of strength and speed, his reaction speed much higher than it was before without my control, as the agent was missing blows that it should have landed.

A vicious punch that bent and crippled its remaining arm before another punch neared it, before a blast from an opening above the knuckles had the upper torso blown to bits with the legs falling to the floor.

More agents moved to intercept us as we fought our way through them with efficient teamwork. They tried to shoot us, a ward changed the trajectory of the shots. They tried to punch or kick us, we smashed and cut our way through them.

Wave after wave we fought and battled our way through them, covering the others' backs, making sure neither of us was injured. Even when clashing, I was doing everything in my power, diverting all of my focus beyond the fight itself to try and control the station.

It wanted to let me in, to control it. But it couldn’t. Smith had done something. It made me feel uneasy as my gut told me this wasn’t good. If he had somehow found a way to stop me from getting in, then it had to be something done physically to the station itself.

A trio of agents stood before a metal bulkhead door that led to the main physical controls of the station. The three charged us only to get countercharged when Batman activated thrusters on the back of the suit, ramming into the three, halting their momentum, and instead pushing them into the sealed doors, denting and even pushing through with the three flying into consoles and the viewport.

Two pried themselves off the consoles, and the third one landed and rose back up, dusting off its suit. They rushed towards us as the fight was quick and hectic, occasionally giving Bruce a helping hand adjusting the programs in the suit when the hunters began to push those things past their limits.

It was but a matter of seconds later, they fell to the ground in a heap with no damage on us besides some scuff marks on Bruce’s once shiny new toy. I looked towards the station's status when I let Bruce handle anything that would get too close.

“Not good, not good at all.” I muttered aloud to myself.

“Did you plan this?” Batman asked me with tension in the air.

“Of course not! If I were going to take control of various countries, I sure as hell wouldn’t use an orbital laser to do it. I’d just have the various leaders disappear and be replaced with replicas furthering my reach and control.”

I listed off nonchalantly while Batman looked ready to punch me but kept himself in check. “This is far too forceful, while I see the picture Smith and the others are attempting to create. It is far too brute-force. Not to mention the countless civilians caught up in the attack. What draws concern is this.”

Another image popped up with various cities marked on the Earth. All of them were capital cities or places where the leaders of countries reside and do their jobs as they give out orders to the rest of their country. America, Russia, China, the list went on. Countries that had some power compared to their compatriots and neighbors in regions across the world even though they were smaller nations hadn’t been spared from the targeting system.

Batman saw it all as his heart rate picked up. “We need to stop it. Shut it down.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do since we stepped foot on it?! Nothing's working, the remote shutdown won’t work, and the manual override isn’t doing a thing!” I was getting angry and frustrated even with my newly awakened power, the station wasn’t necessarily unresponsive, it simply couldn’t do as I told it because the systems in place to allow such a thing were no longer there.

“I am pleased to see you understand our goals, even if you don’t fully agree with them.” A raspy voice had us turn towards the figure, guards up, only for me to pause when I saw a figure that wasn’t Smith's body. The voice wasn’t his, yet the way it spoke may as well have been.

The figure that stood before us was barely five feet tall, muscular but not overly so. The figure looked like Cobra Commander from GI Joe.

“I see you found your younger brother's pod and body jacked him… you’ve been a very naughty boy, Smith.”

I mentally probed the body, and I saw his digital form inside of it. His digital fingerprint was all over the body that if it wasn’t for my power growing, I wouldn’t have known it was him inside of the android.

“I learned from the best. Sometimes a few dark deeds must be done for the greater good.” He said with Cobra Commander's iconic voice that it was taking some effort to not chuckle.

“With the end of the world's leaders, many countries and nations will be in need of direction… direction only we can give them. Subtle, with none of them even aware we are controlling them.”

Batman’s suit turned towards me, and I could feel the judgment even if I wasn’t looking right at the man through the suit's internal sensors.

Smith didn’t care about the byplay and continued to prattle on walking forward, arms clasped at the small of his back, calmly and assured of what he believed was his looming victory that was soon to come.

“I also had enough foresight to realize with your new enhancements that we needed to make sure Akira Station would be able to fire at some of the more important targets without you stopping it.” He stopped at the last step, now staring the two of us down.

We moved to both sides of him, ready to attack from either side, and made things a little difficult for him. Batman himself was looking over the texts I sent him of the androids' combat capabilities as he narrowed his eyes, knowing this wouldn’t be an easy fight.

“So you removed any method of shutting it down… you realize that means the station would just keep firing at targets until it either ran out of energy, which would take several centuries? The amount of collateral damage this would cause and loss of life…”

“A necessary sacrifice. Once the targets have been struck and confirmed gone, the station will be dismantled. We already have the blueprints and lesser power sources that would help make up for the lack of the current energy source.”

He tilted his head before a silence permeated the chamber. We faced one another down, ready for the coming clash, as Batman and I knew the stakes, and they were high.

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