"This is Kent News, bringing you the latest report live from the scene..."
"Mr. Mayor, who tied you up here and left you on this rooftop all night?!"
Reporters had packed the rooftop so tightly that there was hardly room to move. Clutching their microphones, they forced their way through the crowd, desperate to ask the still-traumatized mayor a few questions.
"Listen to me, he was a devil!"
"He wore a black cape..."
"He had enormous wings..."
"And his mouth was filled with evil fangs! He was a demon, not some knight!"
"He kept me trapped here all night! He even threatened me, he threatened my life!"
"A true knight would never endanger someone's life to force them into doing what he wanted!"
The mayor of Metropolis was extremely agitated as he publicly denounced Gotham's masked vigilante.
"I demand an explanation from Gotham!"
"Keep that menace inside your own city!"
"Ruining one city should be more than enough for him, thank you very much!"
The mayor shouted into the cameras. The tension on his face made both his lingering terror and his fury over the Dark Knight's actions the previous night perfectly clear.
Slurp.
Inside a sealed private gym, a heavily muscled Bruce Wayne watched the interview on television while calmly drinking a glass of milk.
To defeat the God Among Men, he needed an even stronger body.
He needed more muscle.
"Mr. Mayor, what kind of message do you believe Gotham's protector was sending by coming to Metropolis?"
One reporter asked a particularly pointed question.
"Hmm..."
Bruce set down his glass and approached the television.
He wanted to hear how the mayor would answer.
"First of all, he is absolutely not Gotham's damned protector! In fact, Gotham would be better off without that goddamned bat!"
"Second..."
"My God, I've thought about this over and over, but..."
"You all understand that there may be only one reason why that man in black came to our city."
"And that reason is..."
The mayor suddenly stopped speaking and looked up at the sky.
Whoosh!
With a deafening roar, a man dressed in a white bodysuit tore through the air and appeared above the crowd.
Hovering beneath the sunlight, he shone brilliantly like a true god.
"It's Jovian! The protector of Metropolis!"
The crowd raised their hands toward the man above them, as though trying to touch him.
It was as if simply reaching upward could bring them a little closer to their magnificent god, to the Almighty himself.
"..."
The man in white said nothing.
He merely looked down at the crowd before ascending into the sky. A thunderous sonic boom erupted behind him as he shot toward another city.
"God has left..."
"The direction he's heading in, isn't that Gotham?!"
The reporters adjusted their cameras and filmed Jovian's rapidly disappearing figure.
"Shit!"
Bruce Wayne cursed when he saw Jovian openly flying toward Gotham.
He had already realized what Jovian intended to do, and the thought left him furious.
Inside a Gotham nightclub, a pale man dressed in a green suit sat watching the naked men and women dancing across the floor. His dark-green hair had been slicked back, and even in broad daylight, the club's debauchery showed no sign of stopping.
Beside the pale man sat an equally deranged-looking woman. She wore a bikini top and a pair of hot pants while continuously chewing a piece of bubble gum.
Her hair was tied into pigtails, one dyed pink and the other blue.
"Puddin', how about we go for a drive later?"
The beautiful woman looked at the well-dressed man holding a cane.
"Ha... ha... ha... ha..."
The man stopped admiring the primal activities taking place on the dance floor. He raised one hand to cover his mouth, revealing a smiling-face tattoo on the back of it, and released a spine-chilling laugh.
"Of course, my dear..."
Before he could finish, a deafening crash echoed through the nightclub.
Someone smashed an enormous hole through the ceiling.
A muscular man dressed in a white bodysuit descended through the opening and landed directly in front of the green-haired man and the beautiful, deranged woman.
Women screamed in panic.
The ceiling collapsed as chunks of stone crashed to the floor.
Bodyguards in black suits raised their weapons and chambered rounds.
And amid all the chaos...
"Wow, wow, wow..."
The green-haired man made a series of incomprehensible noises.
"What an extraordinarily rare guest..."
Before he could finish speaking, a massive hand closed around his throat.
"Your friend visited my city. I need to teach him that actions like that have consequences."
The muscular man in white lifted the green-haired man off the ground with one hand.
"Is that so? Unfortunately for you, he isn't my friend..."
The green-haired man showed no fear despite the danger he was in.
On the contrary, he appeared positively thrilled.
He raised one gloved hand. A tiny opening appeared in the palm of the glove, releasing a cloud of strange gas directly into the man in white's face.
"Goodbye, my god!"
The green-haired man grinned maliciously as the cloud engulfed his captor's head.
Then...
Inhale.
The muscular man in white frowned and took a deep breath, sucking every trace of poisonous gas out of the air and into his lungs.
He then blew a multicolored smoke ring from his mouth.
"Not a bad flavor, but it could use a little more kick."
The man in white gave the green-haired criminal a contemptuous smile.
"Let go of my puddin'!"
As Jovian held the green-haired man in the air, the deranged woman swung a baseball bat at the back of his head with all her strength.
Clang!
The instant the bat struck Jovian, it snapped cleanly in half.
Jovian slowly turned his head toward her.
"Hahaha..."
The woman hid the broken bat behind her back and gave him the guilty expression of a child desperately trying to conceal her misbehavior.
"Heh..."
Jovian chuckled.
He suddenly pulled the woman toward him and crushed his mouth against hers, hungrily devouring her lips.
He continued until her head was spinning and she looked almost drunk. Only then did Jovian release her and toss her aside.
Still holding the green-haired man, he launched himself into the sky.
Boom!
The nightclub ceiling, which already had one enormous hole in it, gained another.
"I like him..."
The deranged woman watched Jovian disappear into the sky. She wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth, her eyes filled with infatuation.
As for the heavily armed bodyguards, the moment they recognized the intruder, they stood completely still and didn't dare move a muscle.
The green-haired man was the Joker, the dark emperor of Gotham's criminal underworld. He was terrifying, but he was not unbeatable.
The muscular man in white, however, was a monster that humanity could never defeat, even if it used every weapon currently at its disposal.
No, he was no monster.
He was a god.
He was the Almighty walking among mortals.
The God Among Men.
"Cough... cough..."
Jovian carried the Joker to the tallest building in Gotham, Wayne Tower, and roughly hung him from the building's spire.
His message could not have been clearer.
Everyone knew that the Joker was effectively the unofficial mayor of Gotham's criminal underworld.
The previous night, Gotham's protector, the Dark Knight, had tied the mayor of Metropolis to a rooftop.
As soon as morning arrived, the great God Among Men captured the Dark Knight's greatest enemy, Gotham's underworld mayor, the Joker, and hung him from Wayne Tower.
The internet immediately exploded.
Everyone began discussing the conflict between the two heroes who represented day and night.
"The Dark Knight went too far!"
"God did nothing wrong! God is always right!"
"Exactly! Exactly!"
"The Dark Knight was the one in the wrong!"
"Come to think of it, the Dark Knight has always allowed an evil monster like the Joker to live without doing anything about him. I suspect they're working together! The Dark Knight is a fraud!"
Online opinion was almost entirely one-sided.
Through the movies starring Jovian, people around the world had come to see him as the flawless god he portrayed on the screen.
In their eyes, God could never be wrong.
Whenever something went wrong, the fault had to belong to the insignificant mortals beneath him.
Soon, countless keyboard warriors and terminally online trolls began relentlessly attacking the Dark Knight.
Gotham's hero said nothing in response to their abuse.
He merely continued training, pushing his body until it returned to its peak condition.
At the same time, the Dark Knight issued a public challenge.
"Listen carefully, Jovian Kent."
"Meet me in Gotham one week from now."
"If you refuse to come, I will reveal everything you have done to the public."
The Dark Knight had issued a direct threat, seemingly attempting to force the great God Among Men into meeting him.
Once the message spread across the internet, another wave of heated debate erupted.
Some believed Jovian must have done something terrible, something serious enough to compel the Dark Knight to confront him.
Others believed the so-called Dark Knight was nothing more than an attention-seeking clown who belonged in Arkham Asylum alongside the green-haired lunatic known as the Joker.
Still others believed the entire conflict was merely a publicity stunt devised by the two heroes to promote their respective cities, attract tourists, and stimulate the local economies.
There was nothing strange about that.
Heroes were still people, and heroes needed to make a living too.
In fact, tourist traffic in both Gotham and Metropolis had skyrocketed over the following days.
Even the dark alleys that had once remained empty were now overflowing with visitors.
The local muggers no longer knew whom to rob because easy targets were everywhere. Yet when every street was filled with potential victims, the criminals somehow forgot to rob anyone at all and remained inside their homes.
There were simply too many tourists.
The crowds had even occupied the places where the muggers usually stood while waiting for victims.
Everyone was waiting.
The entire world eagerly anticipated the earth-shattering battle between the Dark Knight and the God Among Men.
"Hahahaha!"
"Fight! Fight!"
Lex Luthor laughed wildly as he watched the news.
He couldn't wait for the two of them to start fighting.
Whether the Dark Knight killed the God Among Men or the God Among Men reduced the Dark Knight to pulp with a single slap made no difference to him.
Either outcome would give Luthor exactly what he wanted.
He had prepared countless strategies.
No matter how the confrontation ended, Lex Luthor would be the ultimate victor.
The week passed in the blink of an eye.
Bruce Wayne put on the armor he had prepared and finished setting up every countermeasure intended specifically for Jovian.
Now all he had to do was wait for Jovian to appear.
Bruce sat silently inside an empty building.
Boom!
Lightning flashed and thunder roared as a torrential downpour suddenly erupted outside.
Rain poured through the cracks in the building.
Whoosh!
Violent winds howled, repeatedly driving the rain against the Dark Knight's face.
The weather made him uneasy.
He walked outside and allowed the rain to batter his armor while he stared into the sky and waited.
One minute passed after another.
The God Among Men still did not appear.
The storm grew increasingly violent until the rain exceeded the limits of the Dark Knight's vision. His surroundings became nothing but an impenetrable curtain of water, making it impossible for him to judge even the road ahead accurately.
"I don't remember any heavy rain being forecast for tonight."
The Dark Knight was puzzled, but he continued waiting.
He waited patiently...
Until dawn.
The person he had challenged never appeared.
"This was your choice!"
The Dark Knight was furious.
He decided to reveal the truth about Kent Tower to the entire world.
Just as he was preparing to release the information, he received a message from Jovian.
"I'm very sorry that I failed to attend our meeting last night."
"The truth is, the rain was extremely heavy, and my mother, Martha, accidentally fell and injured herself."
"Please give me another opportunity. I promise I'll be there tomorrow night."
The Dark Knight stared silently at the message.
"Martha..."
He softly repeated the familiar name.
He decided to spare Jovian, but only for one more day.
If Jovian failed to appear that night, the Dark Knight would reveal the truth first thing the following morning.
Having made his decision, the Dark Knight limped and staggered back toward his home.
In truth, the rain had been so heavy the previous night that he had slipped and fallen.
That evening, the Dark Knight once again emerged into the endless darkness.
The sky was still covered in thick storm clouds, but this time, hail began falling from above.
"Hail?!"
The Dark Knight frowned in confusion.
The weather was currently rather cool, and hailstorms were unusual under such conditions. Hail was generally associated with warmer summer weather.
As the Dark Knight stood shivering in the freezing wind, Jovian was inside Kent Tower, humming cheerfully and drinking red wine.
As for the Dark Knight's invitation?
Fuck that.
Jovian certainly wasn't going.
Anyone stupid enough to accept could go in his place.
For now, Jovian was simply trying to decide what excuse he should use to avoid the meeting tonight.
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