Batman is terrifying.
He is exponentially more terrifying than Superman.
This became especially true after the rise of the Superhero Popularity Center, when Green Arrow—relentlessly building upon the completely fabricated stories originally supplied by Ian—ceaselessly dragged Batman's public reputation through the mud.
The phrase "Batman's name can stop a child from crying" was no longer a warning confined to the households of ordinary citizens in Gotham.
The moment the female homeowner heard Batman's low, gravelly whisper, her remaining courage shattered entirely. She lost all bodily control on the spot.
The hardwood floor beneath her grew slick and wet.
Beyond the baseline biological odor one would naturally expect, the puddle carried the distinct molecular signatures of human immunodeficiency virus, alongside syphilis, HPV, HSV, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and condyloma acuminata.
An ordinary human could never perceive this.
But Superman and Batman were anything but ordinary. Superman possessed an advanced olfactory sense, while Batman possessed specialized technological sensors—clandestinely engineered through his own scientific methodologies—specifically designed to replicate and decode the exact analytical range of Superman's super-smell.
"..."
"A genuine, living... biochemical matrix..."
Truthfully, very few antagonists in existence possessed the capacity to force Batman into a synchronized retreat, his expression shifting into a rare displaying of deep, profound caution.
The civilian woman before them had somehow become that exact statistical anomaly.
She possessed the kind of biological profile that would cause Poison Ivy to recoil and proclaim her the ultimate vector of toxicity.
The sheer fact that she could force Batman back a few paces gave this entirely un-augmented mortal more than enough leverage to boast before the world's most dangerous supervillains.
Though, looking at her current state, she seemed completely oblivious to the unique distinction she had achieved.
"Stay away from me! You can't be in here! This is my private property! You are executing an illegal entry! I will sue you! I will sue both of you for violating my personal liberty, my right to privacy, and the domestic tranquility of my home!"
"Superman! Get in here and save me! You are an alien freak, it is your job to rescue me! And you—you giant bat monster! Don't think you can do whatever you want just because you're some kind of mutated demi-human beast!"
When it came to the innate talent for drawing absolute hatred.
This woman was clearly operating in a tier entirely of her own on planet Earth.
The veins across Batman's temples bulged tightly.
His baseline mood, which was already exceptionally bleak, deteriorated even further under the weight of her screeching.
"Perhaps I should initiate our session by sewing your mouth shut."
Batman reached back toward his utility belt. He didn't pull out any standard sewing materials, opting instead for a highly specialized chemical vial—a tailor-made sedative engineered to plunge a subject into a localized, recurring nightmare loop customized to break their specific psychological profile.
He was an absolute master at systematically dismantling an individual's mental fortitude to extract actionable data through legal gray areas. Outside the fractured villa, Superman stood perfectly still, completely turning a blind eye to Batman's internal interrogation tactics.
A cry for help?
What cry for help?
Superman internally maintained that his super-hearing had intercepted absolutely zero distress signals across this sector.
After all, he was a middle-aged man now.
Clark Kent had long since mastered the art of operational flexibility. In this exact moment, he was demonstrating a highly practical application of his super-hearing.
Much like an advanced audio engineer utilizing specialized software to completely isolate and delete a specific vocal track during a recording session, Superman retained final interpretation rights over his own sensory input. If anyone asked, he simply hadn't heard a thing.
It wasn't that he had stripped away his innate capacity for mercy.
He was simply thoroughly disgusted by the hyper-politicized, performative social landscape of modern America.
Inside the residence, the heavy oak doors successfully dampened the acoustic feedback for ordinary ears. Yet Superman's advanced auditory tracking easily mapped the brief, muffled sounds of a desperate, suffocating struggle, followed by the high-frequency hum of a localized neurological scanner activating deep within the room.
Then, an absolute dead silence.
Choosing to remain completely deaf to the interior, he concentrated his entire focus on the street outside.
Superman knew with absolute certainty that Bruce would utilize his own specialized methodologies to ensure that this self-absorbed parasite—who had actively attempted to transfer a lethal, high-dimensional hazard onto innocent civilians—paid the exact structural price required to secure the intelligence they needed.
Right now, tracking down the coordinates of their children was the only variable that mattered.
He shifted his gaze toward John Constantine, who was currently working at a frantic pace along the curb.
The exorcist was crouched low to the pavement, utilizing a specialized piece of chalk forged from charred, ritualistic bone to sketch out the final sequencing runes of a highly dense containment array around the Weeping Angel.
The magical boundary vibrated with a faint, spectral blue bioluminescence, constructing an invisible, conceptual cage that anchored the monstrous, lunging stone figure dead in its tracks.
Even if every single observer completely averted their gaze, the entity was structurally frozen, incapable of moving a single millimeter.
In the vast majority of alternate realities, a Weeping Angel represented an absolute, mathematically unsolveable apocalypse.
However.
The DC universe was a reality explicitly defined by an overabundance of high-dimensional entities. Cosmic, rule-breaking phenomena manifested across the timeline with terrifying frequency, and consequently, the native denizens of this reality had developed a highly specific set of countermeasures to contain such lifeforms.
"So," Superman initiated, his tone shifting back into a heavy, measured resonance.
"Our children have merely been temporarily displaced into a past coordinate, correct? They are... still breathing?"
Under normal circumstances, Constantine harbored an absolute hatred for being interrupted while actively structuring a complex spellcasting sequence—especially when an outsider began peppering him with baseline questions.
But in this exact microsecond, standing directly in front of an emotionally devastated God among men who had just demonstrated planet-cracking levels of wrath, he manually suppressed his irritation. He forced his facial muscles to arrange themselves into a stiff, highly performative smile.
"Superman—mighty protector—to address your query directly: theoretically... yes. Presuming they haven't suffered some localized fatal accident since arriving in the past." Constantine rarely found himself forced to market a submissive smile.
He intentionally utilized elevated language to grease Clark's ego—a localized manifestation of moral leverage, though structured with exponentially more sophistication than the civilian woman's crude attempts inside.
Maintaining a strict watch over the structural stability of the containment array, he continued his breakdown.
"Within a specific operational window, so long as the Weeping Angel is actively drawing sustenance from their timelines, they remain relatively 'secure.'"
Concluding his statement, Constantine noted the flicker of confusion manifesting across Superman's features.
He was fully aware that this monumental figure—who operated entirely outside the boundaries of conventional science and traditional esotericism—possessed a highly restricted vocabulary regarding the mechanics of the mystic arts.
Thus, he patiently continued his breakdown. "Think of it like standard biological predation. Humans consume the physical meat and blood of animals to survive. This classification of monstrosity simply operates on an alternate metabolic spectrum."
"They don't digest physical tissue; they consume time itself—or to be structurally precise, they feed upon the latent, unspent life-energy your children were originally fated to manifest across their native timeline."
Constantine searched for a more simple analogy to frame the high-dimensional mechanics.
"Visualize it this way: every single living organism, from the microsecond of conception to its terminal biological failure, possesses a pre-charted chronological track. That trajectory contains an immense volume of kinetic temporal energy. When a Weeping Angel violently hurls its prey back into the past, it is executing a conceptual extraction. It is manually clipping the subject away from their primary timeline."
"It drops the prey onto a much earlier, auxiliary branch of history."
He gestured with a tight flick of his finger toward the anchored stone construct.
"Once that extraction is complete, the entities function exactly like temporal parasites. They attach themselves directly to the severed chronological seam."
"They systematically harvest the time-paradox energy and the unspent, displaced life-potential generated by the prey's anomalous existence in a past era where they fundamentally do not belong. They use this energy to sustain their own biological functions and drive their reproductive cycles."
"The longer the prey manages to survive within that past era, the greater the volume of 'surplus' temporal energy generated by their existence, and the more thoroughly the Angel can feast. Consequently, their baseline programming prevents them from dropping a target into an instantaneously lethal environment—doing so would immediately sever their primary food supply."
"They explicitly prefer to strand their prey within an era where they are forced to fight for survival, living out a full lifespan while remaining entirely incapable of navigating their way back to the present. That is how they maximize their harvest."
Though the explanation remained heavily anchored in esoteric metaphysics, Superman successfully extracted the core operational data: his children had simply been subjected to forced chronological displacement.
The statue functioned as a specialized parasite, sustaining its own existence by drawing upon the surplus life-potential his sons were generating in the past; as long as the entity remained in a state of active consumption, his children were temporarily insulated from terminal harm.
"An exact mirror of institutional capitalism," Superman murmured, his internal vocabulary heavily contaminated by Ian's *Universal Theory of Exploitation*.
"The corporate machine preserves the life of the worker only to ensure the continuous extraction of labor."
With the mechanics fully mapped out.
The immense, suffocating tension that had tightly locked his nervous system began to dissipate.
After all, to the senior leadership of the Justice League and to Superman himself, temporal displacement was hardly an unprecedented operational crisis.
Beyond the Flash's organic capabilities.
The Justice Hall securely housed dedicated temporal transit instrumentation, and their roster had successfully neutralized dozens of existential crises triggered by historical tampering. As long as the physical bodies of his children were still generating a pulse, a successful recovery operation remained entirely within the realm of mathematical probability.
Furthermore, analyzing the variables objectively: Jordan was an actively awakened Kryptonian; Jonathan, while projecting a deceptively ordinary baseline profile in his daily life, was ultimately a conceptual vessel chosen directly by the Almighty.
Neither of them lacked the autonomous capacity to survive. Provided they hadn't been deposited directly into the core of a collapsing star or onto the frontlines of a localized cosmic reset, their baseline defensive suites would easily guarantee their survival.
His primary concern now shifted toward the terrifying probability that his sons might inadvertently fracture historical continuity out of pure ignorance.
As for Damian... well, measured against the absurd, rule-breaking specifications of his own two sons, the boy was technically classified as a "normal human." That statistical reality was likely the exact reason Batman was exhibiting an even higher level of operational anxiety than Superman himself.
Of course.
The designation of "normal" was purely contextual. In terms of raw combative discipline, wilderness survival training, and sheer psychological resilience, Damian Wayne was a hyper-lethal, masterfully conditioned weapon of war.
His capacity for systemic adaptation would easily eclipse that of most metahumans.
Batman was simply experiencing a standard lapse in objectivity driven by parental concern.
Arriving at this conclusion, Superman cast a brief glance back toward the residence. Batman appeared to have finalized his collection parameters.
He emerged from the threshold, manually hoisting the female homeowner—who was now completely mummified within heavy tactical restraint bindings and locked in a deep state of chemically induced unconsciousness.
Superman pulled his gaze away, refocusing on Constantine, who was currently wiping a thick layer of cold sweat from his forehead as he finalized the containment array.
"Constantine, do you possess the capacity to isolate the exact chronological coordinates where the children were deposited?" Superman demanded, zeroing in on the most critical variable.
Constantine reached into his trench coat, extracting a fresh cigarette and clicking his lighter.
He took a long, deep drag, his expression remaining profoundly dark amidst the swirling gray smoke.
"I can attempt a localized tracking sequence," Constantine offered, refusing to provide an absolute guarantee.
"The temporal transit mechanics utilized by these entities operate on a highly randomized distribution curve, governed by high-dimensional variables."
"My data regarding the Weeping Angels is purely academic; I have never engaged this specific species within an operational environment. The best I can do is manifest a localized retro-causal tracking spell to map the residual chronological wake left behind by the displacement."
Along the deserted suburban street, the only ambient light source came from the dull, amber glow of a solitary streetlamp. Constantine began to mutter a series of ancient, rhythmically jarring incantations, his fingers weaving complex geometrical pathways through the open air.
A heavy, suffocating scent of sulfur interlaced with the aroma of decaying parchment began to radiate from his form, causing the light emitted by the containment array beneath his feet to pulse erratically.
Within a spectrum of reality entirely invisible and inaudible to ordinary human senses.
The captured Weeping Angel instantly registered the intrusive nature of the mystical probe. Deep within its solid stone musculature, the entity unleashed a localized psychic shriek completely saturated with ancient, primordial malice!
The sound carried the agonizing frequency of metal scraping violently across glass, vibrating directly against the baseline structure of the soul.
Superman "heard" it with perfect clarity.
His advanced auditory tracking wasn't merely calibrated to intercept mechanical sound waves; it possessed more than enough sensory range to register sharp, non-physical psychic disruptions.
"The acoustic output of this species carries a distinct cognitive contamination vector," Superman noted, his brow furrowing slightly. He refrained from interrupting Constantine's casting sequence, silently waiting for the diagnostic data to materialize.
Right at that microsecond.
The heavy front door of the villa swung open, and Batman stepped out into the night air. His expression was as unyielding as forged iron, projecting a level of chilling detachment that surpassed even his standard operational baseline.
He casually hoisted the bound, unconscious civilian over his shoulder before tossing her onto the rear leather seating of the Batmobile, which had silently glided to the curb like a mechanical wraith.
"Destination: Arkham Asylum. Maximum security containment protocols. Initiate immediate isolation routing."
Batman delivered the low, synthesized voice command directly into the vehicle's onboard mainframe.
"Destination coordinates acknowledged. Transport sequence initiated," the Batmobile's internal AI replied in a flat, electronic monotone.
The vehicle transitioned into motion without a single whisper of mechanical noise, instantly melting into the surrounding dark as it tore down the asphalt, navigating directly toward the heart of Gotham.
Superman watched the vehicle's taillights vanish into the horizon, then shifted his gaze back to Bruce, tracking the cold efficiency with which he had processed the civilian. An realization crystallized within his mind, causing him to break the silence.
"A native of Gotham out on a localized work assignment?"
His tone carried a complex, completely unreadable layer of dry humor.
"Yes," Batman confirmed, stepping up to stand beside his long-time ally. He stared out into the dark patch of road where his vehicle had just vanished, letting out a heavy, weary sigh that resonated with absolute, fatalistic exhaustion.
"That explains the behavior perfectly."
Superman's response was clinical and efficient, fully conveying his absolute "recognition" of Gotham's unique cultural heritage.
"..." Hearing the remark, Batman let out another silent sigh, completely lacking the energy to construct a formal defense. After all, the forensic data spoke entirely for itself.
The cultural standard of Gotham City remained completely unassailable.
Of course.
Superman lacked the luxury of time required to continue bantering over localized demographics.
He manually reset his expression, locking eyes with Batman as he lowered his voice. "Analyzing the ambient mental feedback radiating from Constantine's subconscious, this specific stone construct does not represent an isolated anomaly. They exist as an entire species."
Constantine had structured absolutely zero mental shielding against Superman's newly evolved telepathic-auditory array, leaving his internal monologue completely exposed to the Man of Steel—unlike Batman, who had personally engineered and implemented a highly specialized neurological dampener the exact night he discovered the expansion of Superman's power suite.
"A collective species."
The data failed to elicit even a flicker of surprise from Batman. He offered a firm, heavy nod.
"The brief, fragmented memory files I extracted from her neural pathways contained scattered data points confirming the same variable. That is the exact systemic threat I am currently projecting. If these stone constructs operate as a unified species with a massive population density, and they begin actively hunting across the surface of the planet, casting large clusters of the civilian populace back into historical coordinates..."
"...the resulting accumulation of overlapping time paradoxes and compounding historical rewrites will inevitably shatter the structural integrity of our primary timeline. It will trigger a localized chronological collapse of unimaginable proportions."
He paused, his vocal pitch dropping into a register of profound gravity.
Superman's expression mirrored the dark assessment.
"From what specific cosmic coordinates did that woman manage to establish a bridge to introduce these high-dimensional organisms onto the surface of the Earth?" This was no longer classified as a localized criminal infraction; this was a Tier-1 existential threat targeting the structural continuity of space-time itself.
Batman offered a tight, frustrated shake of his head. "The data points I managed to scrape from her cognitive core were highly restricted and heavily degraded by her own internal panic. The singular firm variable I can verify is that she purchased this 'art piece' through an encrypted underground digital network from an anonymous broker. Furthermore, the telemetry indicates that this broker has successfully processed transactions for multiple units of the exact same classification."
"Her initial motivation was purely aesthetic; she viewed the construct as a high-end sculpture. The exact moment she began registering the localized spatial anomalies manifesting around her home, panic set in. Terrified of a personal counter-strike, she devised a strategy to deposit the object along a highly trafficked civilian route—attempting to offload the active curse onto an unsuspecting pedestrian to remove herself from the threat vector."
"Regarding the identity and location of this broker: I am mobilizing every orbital and systemic asset within my operational grid to map their coordinates. But compiling that data will require a distinct window of time." Batman was fully aware that a conspiracy of this magnitude required a highly sophisticated infrastructure operating in the shadows.
Superman nodded slowly in acknowledgment. He knew with absolute certainty that once Bruce initiated a manhunt, he would systematically tear up the bedrock of the planet until the mastermind was dragged into the light. But right now, an exponentially more immediate directive governed their actions.
"Our immediate operational priority is to establish a retrieval vector to bring our children back," Superman stated, articulating the fundamental, instinctual drive of a father.
Batman offered a rare gesture of complete alignment. "I harbor zero reservations regarding the survival profiles of the children. Given their combined offensive capabilities and baseline conditioning, their mathematical probability of survival remains exceptionally high—provided they haven't been deposited into the absolute dawn of cosmic creation or onto an active apocalyptic war zone."
He retained absolute confidence in the combined power metrics of Jonathan and Jordan, alongside the elite survival conditioning of Damian.
However.
"My primary concern revolves around the distinct probability that the children will do some completely irreversible alteration to historical continuity while stranded in the past—" He abruptly cut his own sentence short, manually forcing the remaining words back down his throat.
He had been on the absolute verge of stating that all three children had spent an exorbitant amount of time operating in close proximity to Ian, but he manually aborted the thought—fully aware that if Ian was covertly monitoring their communication lines from some hidden coordinate, the boy would map the comment and formulate a highly vindictive response.
He maintained a baseline defensive posture against Ian.
An exact mirror of how the global intelligence community maintained a baseline defensive posture against Batman.
Registering the sudden shift in Bruce's internal calculus.
Superman, possessing an intimate understanding of his brother-in-arms, instantly deduced the exact nature of the unspoken anxiety. Whenever a crisis intersected with the chaotic potential of his youngest son, a flash of localized awkwardness was entirely unavoidable.
He manually averted his eyes, pretending he hadn't mapped Bruce's thought process, and redirected his gaze toward Constantine, who was still chanting his esoteric formulas in a desperate bid to isolate the temporal coordinates.
Superman was actively dodging eye contact with Bruce.
And within that highly compressed, intensely awkward pocket of silent tension.
*WHOOSH—!*
A violent arc of brilliant golden lightning cut through the night sky like a localized aurora, moving at a physical velocity that completely defied the processing speed of the human optic nerve as it tore in from the urban core!
The kinetic discharge terminated instantly directly in front of Superman and Batman, the massive atmospheric displacement triggering a sudden gale that sent both of their capes whipping furiously against the air. Barry Allen—the Flash—had officially arrived on-site.
His sudden manifestation instantly injected a palpable current of kinetic energy and systemic hope into the bleak suburban night.
After all, when an operational crisis explicitly intersected with the mechanics of "time," there existed absolutely no asset across the face of the planet more fundamentally optimized for the assignment than the speedster who possessed the capacity to outrun light itself and pierce the dimensional boundaries of history.
"Guys, I intercepted the priority alert—"
The Flash initiated, preparing to launch into a rapid-fire status query.
However.
Before his vocal cords could complete the initial diagnostic briefing.
An abrupt, violent anomaly ruptured the localized equilibrium.
Perhaps the sheer density of the living Speed Force energy constantly coursing through his biological matrix carried too deep a structural connection to the fundamental tapestry of time; or perhaps his hyper-accelerated arrival had violently warped the fragile space-time fabric surrounding the containment zone.
Whatever the precise catalyst.
The Weeping Angel—which had been locked in an absolute state of conceptual paralysis within Constantine's mystical array—reacted to his presence as if it had just received a massive, high-voltage jolt of pure adrenaline! Its solid stone anatomy began to shudder and vibrate with terrifying intensity!
Deep within its stony mass, the entity's psychic shriek escalated into a deafening, sky-rending howl that completely shattered the integrity of the mystical dampening barriers, echoing with horrifying clarity directly inside the minds of Superman and Batman!
The translucent blue light cast by the containment array began to emit a violent, high-pitched static whine, flickering rapidly as the structural code of the spell began to collapse under the immense strain!
"Bloody hell! It's reacting to the Speed Force signature!"
Constantine's expression shifted into a mask of pure panic. Unleashing a raw curse, his fingers scrambled to form a series of emergency reinforcement seals to stabilize the fracturing array.
"This monstrosity is hyper-sensitive to localized temporal energy! Tell him to damp his speed force right now!"
Amidst the violent, erratic vibrations tearing through its stone form, the sharp, outstretched stone talons of the Weeping Angel appeared to violently jerk forward—advancing a fraction of an inch through the light barrier! The conceptual chains binding its mass emitted an agonizing, high-tension screech as they stretched to their absolute breaking point!
The newly arrived Flash.
Had inadvertently transformed into the exact catalyst that threatened to shatter the operational balance!