Marcus was sitting comfortably on the couch watching a football game with Jonathan when his phone suddenly rang. He glanced at the caller ID—Bruce.
"...You caught the people who've been summoning demons?" Marcus said, standing up in genuine surprise.
He walked out of the room so his conversation wouldn't disturb the game. It had only been a short time since Bruce and his team started actively investigating this situation, and they'd already made such significant progress. That was faster than expected.
"It was Selina, actually," Bruce explained over the phone. "She discovered the demon summoners' operation, so we rushed there immediately and managed to capture several of them..."
After listening to Bruce's full explanation of how events had unfolded, Marcus nodded to himself in understanding. So that was how they'd found the cultists so quickly.
But it made sense when he thought about it. Selina had grown up around various criminal gangs and underground organizations since she was a child. She'd developed extremely keen intuition when it came to detecting people with malicious intentions or hidden agendas. It was perfectly natural for her to notice something off about those demon summoners.
However, from what Bruce was telling him, the team was having serious difficulty extracting any useful information from their prisoners. The cultists were remarkably tight-lipped. No matter what interrogation methods Bruce employed, he simply couldn't make these people talk.
"So you want me to come over and see if I can make them reveal the truth?" Marcus asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yes, teach," Bruce confirmed, his voice heavy with frustration. "We've even used Alfred's methods, and they still won't show any signs of wanting to tell us anything."
Bruce's tone was genuinely troubled. They'd been interrogating these prisoners for hours now without getting a single useful answer. Over all his years as Batman, Bruce had only encountered a handful of people this stubbornly silent, and he'd ended up sending every single one of them to Arkham Asylum.
"Alright, I understand," Marcus said. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
After ending the call, Marcus walked back into the room where Jonathan was still watching the game and Martha was preparing tea and snacks for them.
"My students have successfully captured the people who've been summoning demons," Marcus explained to the couple. "I need to go help them identify the real mastermind behind all this. Once we deal with whoever's running this operation, you won't have to worry about demons anymore."
Hearing this news, both Jonathan and Martha nodded repeatedly, relief visible on their faces. They understood perfectly how important this was. As long as the mastermind was dealt with properly, their lives could finally return to normal—the way things used to be before all this supernatural chaos started.
After giving them a few more reassurances, Marcus's body transformed into thick fog and dissipated right in front of them, vanishing completely.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce had just finished connecting everyone to a secure video communication channel when he noticed thick fog beginning to materialize in front of him.
"Batman, why is there so much fog around you?" Barry's confused voice came through the communicator.
He sounded genuinely curious about the unusual phenomenon appearing around Bruce. After all, Barry knew perfectly well that Batman was just a highly trained normal human who'd mastered some special energy techniques—not someone with reality-warping superpowers like some of the others on the team.
"It's nothing," Bruce replied calmly. "My teacher is arriving."
As he spoke, the fog gradually dispersed and faded away. Marcus stood before him, looking exactly as composed as always.
"Having a video chat with your friends?" Marcus asked, noticing the active video call.
Seeing that Bruce was in the middle of a team communication, Marcus walked forward with genuine interest and leaned down to look at the monitor displaying everyone's faces.
He was very curious about the team Bruce had organized. He wanted to see who exactly had made it into the first group of people Bruce had recruited to his cause.
The moment Marcus looked at the video screen, his attention was immediately caught by one person in particular.
"Hey, long time no see, ma'am!" Marcus said with a surprised smile.
Diana appeared in one of the video windows, which genuinely surprised Marcus. After all, Bruce had never once mentioned that Diana was part of their team.
"It's you?" Diana said from her location in Europe, equally surprised to see Marcus appear in the video call.
They'd met nearly thirty years ago, back when Marcus had taken her flaming sword away. Although the sword he'd eventually returned looked identical to the original, she could clearly sense that all the divine energy within it had been completely drained away.
"Well, it seems we have quite the connection, doesn't it?" Marcus said with an amused chuckle.
He continued, "This Batman you've all been working with? He's my student. And of course, this black kitten here too—she's also my student."
Marcus gestured toward Selina, who was also visible in the video feed. Selina nodded with a knowing smile.
"By the way, this guy right here is my godson," Marcus added, gesturing toward another video window. "What did you all call him again? Right... Superman!"
Everyone in the video call was visibly stunned by this revelation. None of them had expected that this man—who appeared to be roughly the same age as Clark—was actually the teacher of both Bruce and Selina, and the godfather of Superman, who was easily the most powerful member of their entire team.
Just as everyone was still processing this shocking information, Marcus's voice rang out again.
"Flash boy, you're here too! And Constantine..." Marcus proceeded to call out all their identities one by one, recognizing each person.
But when his eyes landed on Green Arrow, Marcus paused for a moment, looking slightly confused.
Green Arrow wasn't wearing his iconic equipment or costume—just casual clothes. Without those visual markers, Marcus genuinely couldn't place who this person was.
"Who is this...?" he asked, looking at Bruce with puzzlement.
"Green Arrow," Bruce explained simply. "The guardian of Star City."
"Green Arrow?" Marcus repeated, raising his eyebrows slightly.
Marcus didn't know much about this particular archery master and vigilante. However, before he'd crossed over to this world, he had paid attention to Black Canary—the hero who often worked alongside Green Arrow—for a while. She'd been interesting.
"Hello there," Marcus said pleasantly. "Looks like only the two of us haven't met before. By the way—does your family produce chewing gum?"
Chewing gum?
The question caught Oliver completely off-guard for a second. But then he saw Marcus's amused smile and immediately understood it was some kind of joke. He grinned and played along.
"Producing chewing gum? That's actually not a bad suggestion," Oliver replied good-naturedly. "Maybe everyone will be able to buy my chewing gum soon."
As a wealthy businessman similar to Bruce, Oliver's family fortune might not be quite as massive as the Wayne family's holdings, but it wasn't far behind either. Investing in a chewing gum factory would be pocket change for him—barely even worth thinking about.
After finishing introductions with everyone on the team, Marcus turned to look at Bruce directly.
"Let's go," he said. "I also want to see who exactly sent these people to summon demons."
With that said, the two of them walked together toward the secure area where the captured demon summoners were being held. After entering the holding area and coming face to face with the prisoners, Marcus looked them over carefully and thoroughly.
Although he'd never seen these specific individuals before, he could sense a very unique aura emanating from their bodies—something distinctive and familiar that told him these weren't just random cultists.
"It looks like there's something interesting here..." Marcus murmured.
As he spoke, Marcus raised his hand and pressed it firmly against the head of one demon summoner. His consciousness instantly connected with the prisoner's mind through telepathic transmission.
He dove deep into the person's memories, traveling rapidly through countless stored recollections, searching methodically for useful information that could identify their organization.
"Batman? He's nothing but prey to us..." a low, arrogant voice echoed through the memory.
That particular phrase immediately caught Marcus's attention. He focused on that specific memory, diving deeper into it. After fully entering and experiencing that recollection, Marcus finally understood exactly who these people were and what organization they served.
Through the summoner's memories, Marcus instantly understood the true identities of these people and the real purpose behind everything they'd been doing—all their demon summoning activities, all their schemes.
After disconnecting the telepathic link, Marcus turned to look at Bruce directly.
"It was them," Marcus confirmed. "Those little birds have been stretching out their claws, trying to make them sharper and more dangerous."
"So that factory Constantine and I discovered—that was theirs too?" Bruce asked.
"Yes, they were behind all of it," Marcus confirmed. "Including those demon corpses that were collected and processed over twenty years ago. The Court of Owls took all of those remains."
After thoroughly exploring the demon summoner's memories, Marcus now knew everything about their operation. While he didn't have a complete list of every member of the Court of Owls, he understood something crucial: those members were all long-time residents of Gotham from powerful families.
In fact, it could be said that if you simply killed every member of every famous, established family in Gotham, there would be a ninety percent probability that you wouldn't be killing innocent people. You'd be killing Court members.
That's right—the Court of Owls was exactly that pervasive. They were the true shadow controllers of Gotham, and family members from virtually all of Gotham's elite old-money families were members of the Court.
"If that's the case, then I understand the situation now," Bruce said quietly, his expression hardening with determination.
Originally, when the Court of Owls hadn't been actively doing anything threatening, Bruce had decided not to pursue finding these people. He'd had bigger priorities.
But now everything was different. Since the Court of Owls had made themselves into a source of danger to the entire world, Bruce didn't mind at all stuffing every single one of these people into Arkham Asylum and letting them all reunite there as inmates.
"I'll catch them all," Bruce declared firmly.
"You can't do it!" Marcus said immediately, his words cutting through Bruce's determination like a knife.
The blunt statement stunned not only Bruce but also everyone listening through the communicators. They'd all heard Marcus's words clearly.
Why did Marcus believe so firmly that Bruce couldn't catch these people? What made him so certain?
Marcus raised his hand and pressed it against the demon summoner's head once more. Void energy surged through his palm, and within seconds the demon summoner's entire body turned to ash and dissipated into nothing, leaving not even bones behind.
"Bruce, are you truly willing to start a massacre?" Marcus asked seriously, looking his student directly in the eyes. "Are you willing to kill even if it means innocent people will die?"
"This..." Bruce fell silent, the words dying in his throat.
He wasn't willing to do that. He'd never been willing to do that. He pursued peace and justice, not dictatorship or mass slaughter.
But he also understood exactly what his teacher was implying. If he couldn't bring himself to do something that extreme, then everything he'd done so far would ultimately be meaningless. The Court would continue operating, continue summoning demons, and continue threatening innocent lives.
"Why?" Bruce finally asked, voicing the question burning in his mind. "Why are you asking me to choose to raise the butcher's knife?"
"Why?" Marcus's tone was flat and matter-of-fact. "Because they're all famous families with long, established histories in Gotham."
Marcus's words were delivered calmly, but for Bruce and everyone else listening, the revelation was absolutely shocking.
The famous families with long histories in Gotham—the old money, the established elite, the pillars of high society—were members of the Court of Owls. That meant the vast majority of Gotham's upper class were their enemies.
No wonder. No wonder his teacher had asked him if he was willing to raise the butcher's knife and commit mass slaughter.
If Bruce actually did what Marcus was suggesting—if he went through with eliminating the entire upper class of Gotham to root out the Court—even if he killed every single wealthy elite family in the city, the number of genuinely innocent people caught in that purge would be insignificant. Maybe a handful at most.
"My God," Barry's shocked voice came through the communicator. "We're actually fighting against the entire upper class of Gotham?"
It was the first time Barry had ever encountered enemies who were literally the ruling class of an entire major city.
The families that had survived and thrived in Gotham to this day might not individually possess wealth equal to the Wayne family fortune, but they were far from poor. Collectively, they represented the richest group of people in the city besides Bruce himself.
And this information also explained why so many people had been summoning demons in so many different locations. After all, "there must be brave men willing to risk anything for a heavy reward" wasn't just an empty saying.
There would always be people willing to disregard their own lives in exchange for wealth, and those were exactly the kind of people these families had recruited and deployed to various cities.
It could be said that except for a small core group sent directly by these elite families, most of the demon summoners were ordinary people lured in by promises of incredible wealth.
"I see now," Bruce said slowly, his voice heavy. "No wonder you asked me if I'm willing to start a massacre. If the situation is really like this, then it truly is an incredibly serious problem."
There were too many powerful families deeply rooted in Gotham. If Bruce tried to eliminate all these people, Gotham would only descend into complete chaos—possibly worse chaos than even the current demon situation.
But if he couldn't completely wipe out these families, they would simply continue summoning demons and endangering the safety of all humanity. They'd proven they were willing to do exactly that.
Bruce fell into deep, troubled silence. No matter how he approached the problem, he couldn't think of a viable way to solve this situation without compromising his fundamental principles.
The communicator channel was also completely silent. Everyone had fallen quiet, processing the impossible nature of what they were facing.
This wasn't about defeating or killing one specific person or even one organization. This was about potentially wiping out dozens of Gotham's most powerful families—an action that would shake the very foundation of the city itself. None of them felt comfortable offering suggestions for something that massive and morally complex.
Marcus raised his hand, void energy swirling around it in dark spirals. He looked at the silent, conflicted Bruce and shook his head gently.
He wasn't Bruce. Even though he was Bruce's teacher and mentor, Marcus couldn't control Bruce's thoughts and turn him into a puppet who simply followed orders without question.
More importantly, the number of people who lived or died in this world ultimately had nothing to do with Marcus personally. He honestly didn't care about the life or death of any individual person here—he'd seen too much death across too many worlds to be moved by it anymore.
But Bruce was fundamentally different. He was a person of this world, someone who'd grown up in Gotham City. Everything he saw and experienced was completely real to him in a way it simply wasn't for Marcus.
Bruce couldn't act casually or carelessly about human life. And he definitely couldn't commit mass slaughter against these families, no matter how corrupt they might be.
"How about this," Marcus said, offering an alternative solution. "Let me erase their memories instead."
Marcus made the suggestion to Bruce carefully. Since Bruce couldn't bring himself to eliminate everyone involved with the Court of Owls, perhaps Marcus could simply erase the memories of these people—remove all knowledge of demons from their minds entirely.
"Teacher, will that really work?" Bruce asked uncertainly.
"Of course it will," Marcus assured him. "Not only will they forget everything about demons, but other people won't remember either. The knowledge will simply cease to exist in their minds."
"Then let's do it that way," Bruce said with clear relief. "I can't kill them all. But... can you at least let me know who they are? Let me remember their identities?"
"Yes," Marcus agreed. "You and your team will be the only group of people who remember the real history of what happened."
As soon as those words left his mouth, Marcus's body began emanating powerful waves of temporal energy. He was activating the abilities of Protea to lock onto and manipulate the timeline.
Marcus was reaching back through time, setting the temporal anchor point to over twenty years ago.
"Come on," Marcus said. "I'll show you the nests where all those little birds have been hiding."
Marcus raised his hand and waved it gently through the air. The scene in front of them began rapidly reversing and shifting. In the blink of an eye, they found themselves standing in a large hall filled with people wearing owl masks—dozens of them, all gathered for some kind of meeting.
"These are the members of the Court of Owls," Marcus explained, gesturing to the masked figures. "They will be your enemies going forward. But after right now, they and the entire city of Gotham will completely forget that demons ever existed."
As he spoke, the energy surrounding Marcus's hand suddenly shifted and changed form. Several streams of psychic energy flew out from his palm and dispersed through the air like glowing mist.
"Those things..." Bruce started to ask.
"The power of the mind," Marcus explained. "It can reshape everyone's memory. Their memories will deviate from and contradict your own memories—you'll remember the truth, while they'll remember a false history."
As Marcus spoke, Bruce watched as the dispersed psychic energy entered the heads of all those Court members. Every single person became visibly dazed and disoriented. Some even reached up and removed their owl masks in confusion, as if they'd forgotten why they were wearing them.
"It's him!" Bruce said sharply, his eyes narrowing.
One man had taken off his mask, and Bruce recognized his face immediately. He knew that person—had even interacted with him at various social functions over the years.
Soon, the energy in Marcus's hand changed again, transforming into pure void power. The dark energy spread out and covered the pile of demon remains and ritual materials that the Court had collected. Everything began to dissolve and fade, gradually dissipating into nothing right before their eyes.
"It's over..." Marcus said with a quiet sigh.
With those words, everything around them dissipated like morning mist. The vision of the past faded completely, and suddenly they were seeing the familiar scenery of Wayne Manor again, standing exactly where they'd started.
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