> "Impossible!"
"How—how is that even possible?"
"What kind of monster is he?!"
The ballroom was still shaking. Guests clung to tables and marble pillars, their hearts pounding as fragments of dust drifted from the ceiling. The sound of disbelief echoed like waves breaking against stone.
And miles away—
---
Three blocks from the Gotham Grand Hotel, in a dimly lit apartment that smelled faintly of stale coffee and overheated wires, a slightly overweight young man sat hunched in front of a wall of monitors.
The flickering blue light washed over his pale face, highlighting the sweat running down his cheeks. His hands were trembling, fingers twitching above the keyboard.
Edward Nashton—better known to Gotham's underworld as The Riddler—was watching everything unfold live.
Every screen showed chaos. Broken glass. A terrified crowd.
And at the center of it all… stood him.
Homelander.
Alex.
The man who, moments ago, had rendered all of the Riddler's plans useless with a flick of his wrist.
Edward's breath hitched. His throat felt like it was closing up. His heart pounded so violently he could hear it echo inside his skull.
If he hadn't been the one monitoring every feed, he would've sworn the footage was fake.
Because there was no other explanation.
No human could possibly detect all those hidden explosives—let alone disarm them in an instant.
And certainly no human could make dozens of bombs rise into the air like feathers caught in an invisible current.
That wasn't logic. That wasn't science.
That was something else entirely.
---
Cold sweat poured down his forehead. His round glasses fogged up as he struggled to breathe.
The Riddler—Gotham's self-proclaimed intellectual kingpin—was panicking. Truly panicking.
His trembling hand reached for a mug. The coffee inside was long cold, but he gulped it down like water, choking on it between gasps.
Finally, he forced himself to breathe.
Focus.
Think.
He couldn't lose his composure now. Not when he'd finally made the whole city watch him outsmart a god.
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing at the screens.
> "Homelander…" he whispered hoarsely.
"You've far exceeded my expectations."
His expression hardened, jaw tightening until it ached.
> "But I haven't lost. Not yet!"
The defiance returned to his voice, raw and manic.
> "Homelander, I'll admit—you've impressed me. You've bested me this round. But I haven't lost!"
> "Because you'll never know who I am!"
He slammed a fist against the desk. The monitors rattled.
> "I can keep designing games—one after another—each one more complex than the last. As long as you fail just once… you lose!"
> "And me?" His voice cracked into laughter. "I only need to win once!"
---
Gotham Grand Hotel
The Riddler's taunting voice echoed from the speakers, cutting through the air like broken glass.
The joyous murmurs that had filled the ballroom moments ago vanished instantly. Every face turned grim. Every glimmer of relief was smothered.
Because he was right.
No one knew who the Riddler really was.
Even if Homelander had stopped this attack—what about the next one?
Could he always stop him in time?
Could anyone stop a man who could strike from the shadows, from anywhere, at any moment?
Fear crept back in like a cold draft. The guests glanced at each other, realizing that victory meant nothing if the enemy could never be found.
As long as the Riddler remained hidden, Gotham would never truly be safe.
---
> "You think I don't know who you are?"
The voice came from the center of the ballroom. Calm. Unhurried.
Alex's lips curved into a faint, mocking smile.
> "Who gave you that kind of confidence?"
Before anyone could blink—
Whoosh!
His figure blurred, then vanished.
A thunderous BOOM cracked through the air, shattering every piece of glass in the hall. The gust that followed knocked over chairs and scattered papers across the floor.
> "He—he disappeared?!"
"What just happened?!"
"Where did Homelander go?!"
Their words stumbled over each other, swallowed by the roaring silence that followed.
That speed—
It wasn't human.
---
The Riddler's Apartment
> "He… he knows who I am?"
The Riddler's blood ran cold.
> "No! That's impossible!"
> "Absolutely impossible!"
He shook his head violently, eyes wide with disbelief.
> "He's bluffing—he has to be!"
He had never shown his face. Never left a trace. Every signal was rerouted, every IP masked, every contingency calculated.
Even Homelander couldn't find him. He was sure of it.
He was always sure.
Until now.
---
Then—
Something changed.
The image on his monitors flickered once, then again—
And then Homelander was gone.
The feed went black.
> "What the—?"
"Did the network crash?"
"No, no, no, this can't—"
BANG!
A deafening crash exploded behind him.
The Riddler froze. His whole body went stiff.
He turned slowly—hands shaking—
And saw him.
That tall, calm, horrifyingly composed figure standing in the doorway, blue eyes gleaming like ice.
> "Hello there, Riddler."
Alex waved casually. His tone was polite—almost friendly, as if greeting a neighbor instead of a criminal.
The Riddler's brain went white-hot, then numb.
> "H–Homelander?! That's impossible! How did you find me?!"
He stumbled backward, knocking over a chair. His knees hit the floor.
Three blocks.
He was three blocks away.
And yet Homelander had crossed that distance in seconds—no, less than seconds.
It defied logic. It defied physics.
It defied the world itself.
---
Back at the Gotham Grand Hotel
BANG!
A loud impact blasted through the hotel's speaker system, followed by Alex's calm, collected voice—
> "Hello there, Riddler."
Then came the high-pitched sound of the Riddler's scream, distorted by the microphones but unmistakably filled with raw terror.
> "H–Homelander?! That's impossible! How did you find me?!"
Even through the static, his panic was contagious.
> "It's him!"
"It's really him—Homelander found the Riddler!"
"How did he do that so fast?!"
The guests stared at the speakers in disbelief.
Seconds ago, the Riddler had been taunting them from somewhere safe and unseen.
Now, his safety was gone—ripped away like a curtain in a storm.
Homelander had found him.
And struck.
---
Whoosh! BOOM!
Another sonic boom ripped through the sky above Gotham.
Guests ducked instinctively as the wind swept through the ballroom, rattling the chandeliers and shaking the floor.
When they looked up—
He was there.
Standing once again in the center of the hall, untouched, unshaken—
—and in his hand, dangling like a rag doll—
was the Riddler.
---
> "W–what are you?!"
"Don't come near me! Don't—!"
The Riddler kicked and thrashed uselessly.
Alex didn't even flinch.
He tossed the man to the ground like garbage. The Riddler crawled backward, eyes wide, mouth open in silent horror.
To him, Homelander wasn't human. He wasn't a hero.
He was something far worse—something divine and merciless.
---
The crowd gasped.
It was really him.
The infamous Riddler. Gotham's terrorist genius.
And now he lay at Alex's feet.
It hadn't even been five minutes.
Homelander had crossed the city, captured his target, and returned—without a single scratch.
Unbelievable.
Unstoppable.
That was Homelander.
---
Alex's gaze was cold, distant. His voice echoed through the silence like a sentence from the heavens.
> "I've said it before," he murmured.
> "I don't allow criminals in Gotham."
He paused, then added, quietly but unmistakably—
> "Anyone who commits a crime—dies."
He reached down, grasped the Riddler by the throat, and with a single effortless twist—
CRACK!
The sound echoed through the hall, sharp and final.
The Riddler's body went limp. His head fell sideways.
Gotham's most notorious mind—ended in an instant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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A battle that made a god.
That day, Gotham would never forget the name Homelander—
the man who crushed a legend…
and became one himself.