At dawn on Judgment Day, the plaza in front of the Washington Monument was already abuzz with excitement. As soon as the sky began to lighten, hundreds of thousands of people had already surrounded the judge's bench.
The air was filled with the aroma of food, and the vendors' carts were surrounded by crowds, with their calls rising and falling.
"Five last judge's seats! Only $999!" A scalper waved a forged pass and was quickly dragged away by agents.
On the judge's bench, five vibranium-plated defendant seats reflected a metallic luster in the morning light.
Each seat is equipped with a collar device that suppresses superpowers, with Wakanda-specific purple energy patterns flowing on its surface. This was specially made for The Flash and Diana by Shuri, Tony, and Banner.
(They knew Hal Jordan had lost his Lamp Ring, making him essentially an ordinary person. Superman? He was stuffed with Kryptonite, so he was now also essentially an ordinary person, perhaps even worse off than an ordinary person because of the Kryptonite.)
(Even if Superman breaks free from the Kryptonite's control, no matter what restraints Tony and the others create, they probably won't be able to hold him back.)
Each position has a corresponding symbol, representing the location of an Injustice League hero.
Amidst the intense anticipation of the crowd, it was already 9:59 AM. In the plaza in front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of thousands of people eagerly turned their gaze toward the judge's bench.
In other regions, people who couldn't be there in person watched the trial via the internet and television broadcasts, with the number reaching over a billion.
When only 10 seconds remained on the holographic projection display, some mischievous young people started shouting, just like a New Year's Eve countdown.
"Ten!" A young man wearing a Hulk mask suddenly raised his fist and shouted.
His shouts roused the others.
"Nine, eight, seven!" The voices rose and fell, gradually becoming unified and converging, the sound waves so powerful that they dispersed the clouds in the sky.
"Six! Five! Four!" The countdown continued, and suddenly the sky was torn apart, a huge spatial rift was cut open by the blade light.
A beam of light shot from the crack toward the judge's bench, and Tony, Chen Tian, and Captain America slowly emerged from it.
A deafening roar of cheers erupted from the crowd. The moment the beam of light disappeared, only two seconds remained on the clock.
"Two!" Five beams of light appeared in the dock, and five figures were raised from under the judge's bench. They were the five leaders of the Injustice League: Superman - Clark Kent, Wonder Woman - Diana, Yellow Lantern - Hal Jordan, Flash - Barry Allen, and Cyborg - Victor Stone.
When they all appeared in the stands, people became even more agitated. Those who hadn't originally joined the countdown were there with anger and grief to watch these executioners who had caused innocent harm to their loved ones while apprehending criminals.
(The adjudicator trembled.)
"One!!!" The countdown ended completely, and the clock on the judge's bench started counting down, the numbers scattering and turning into several large characters.
"Trial begins."
Some people cheered, some cursed, and a few Justice League supporters shouted for the defendants, but their voices were quickly drowned out.
(All I can say is, foreigners really do whatever they want.)
Tony, dressed in gold and red armor, made a downward gesture from the judge's bench, signaling the crowd to be quiet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today we are not here to judge heroes—but to settle scores with atrocities."
His voice, amplified by the special loudspeaker on the judge's bench, resounded throughout the entire Washington district.
As he spoke, the holographic projection in the square began to change, displaying the first set of data: a 3D modeled map of Gotham City, densely packed with 478 red dots.
"This is a record of the first week of operations as the Justice League transforms into the Injustice League."
Tony's voice suddenly turned somber. "Red markers represent civilians who died during the operation."
The projection suddenly zoomed in, showing a close-up of an apartment building bisected by thermal imaging.
"Mr. Clark Kent claimed to be hunting the Penguin, but the heat vision penetrated three layers of concrete walls and killed—" The scene switched to the kindergarten's surveillance camera, and the children's terrified faces were frozen in the bright light of the explosion.
Suppressed sobs erupted from the audience.
Diana jumped to her feet, sparks flying from the vibranium collar around her neck: "That was an accident! We saved many more people!"
"An accident?" Tony snapped his fingers, and the projection switched to slow-motion replay—Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth was wrapped around the Flash's neck, and the yellow lightning of the Speed Force, out of control, plowed a hundred-meter-long bloody path through the mall.
"Mr. Barry Allen was trying to stop you from executing Harley Quinn, which resulted in 217 customers being torn apart by the collision of the Speed Force and your power." Tony pulled up a hologram of the autopsy report. "The youngest victim had just turned three."
The steel skeleton suddenly emitted a synthesized mechanical voice: "The data is incorrect! The energy reading at the time showed—"
"Shut up, you candy!" A soda can thrown from the audience hit the bulletproof glass of the defendant's stand.
Tony unfolds a new hologram, this time showing Cyborg hacking into the logs of nuclear missile silos around the world.
"While Mr. Victor Stone was using the Justice League's network to monitor all of humanity, he also deleted thousands of surveillance videos that could prove his teammates' atrocities."
The scene suddenly cuts to Cyborg's first-person perspective—he watches as Hal Jordan uses an energy-manifested bulldozer to crush the slums, but manually shuts down the alarm system.
Superman suddenly struggled violently, but now weaker than an ordinary person, his shouts sounded feeble, "We stopped the crime rate from rising!"
"In a way that is more cruel than that of criminals?" Tony released the final video.
This is an image extracted from Batman's sidekick, Nightwing, before he died.
Nightwing, on the verge of death, coughed up blood and murmured, "Superman, justice shouldn't be like this."
A long sword pierced his chest; it was the weapon of Damian, Batman's new Robin.
In the video, Damian is at a loss, but Superman stands by with a murderous look on his face. He first pats Damian's head to comfort him, then looks at Nightwing and says, "This is my justice. Anyone who doesn't obey is a criminal, so, Dick."
After saying these words, Superman's eyes flashed red, and the whole scene turned crimson.
The crowd in the square fell into dead silence.
A hoarse voice suddenly rang out from a corner of the audience: "My daughter was just participating in an anti-war march!"
This voice acted like a fuse, igniting the entire scene. The angry outcry from hundreds of thousands of people nearly overturned the judge's bench.
Tony raised his arms. "Calm down! What I'm about to show you is the real nightmare."
The holographic projection instantly expands into a 360-degree surround image, turning the entire square into a giant world map.
Countless red dots flashed on the map, like festering wounds. Tony's voice became unusually heavy:
"According to the Arbitrators' Union's global statistics, during the period of the Injustice Alliance's rule—"
He waved his hand to zoom in on the Ouzhou area, and the red dots immediately connected to form a blood-red river. "38,567 innocent people were executed for 'anti-social crimes,' and most of these people were just involved in strikes or marches, or were involved in other protests against injustice."
When the camera pans to Africa, an image of a thin black boy suddenly pops up, his terrified eyes filling most of the sky: "This child stole a loaf of bread for his hungry younger brother and was sentenced to three years in a labor camp—while his mother was vaporized by heat vision during a protest."
Superman shouted, "So what! If we don't stop a child from committing crimes now, he'll commit even more serious crimes when he grows up!!"
"But it's also possible to study hard, escape poverty, and even master newer technologies to give back to his people!" Tony angrily interrupted Superman's shout.
"This child was once the most talented student in the school! And now! He suffers from a serious mental illness! All because you burned his mother to ashes in front of him!!" Tony's voice was unusually angry, and he didn't even care about the host.
"murderer!"
"A tyrant who will destroy the future!"
"Execute him!!"
The crowd erupted in uproar once again, the angry voices of the people drowning out the judge's bench.
The defendants looked grim.
Tony raised his hand again to stop the riot, and then pulled up another set of shocking statistics:
"Three days ago, the number of innocent casualties worldwide was 65,792, but after Chen Tian announced the trial of the Injustice League, people who were previously afraid to speak out reported the deaths of their family members or friends."
The red dots on the holographic projection began to converge.
The numbers are displayed in blood red.
"286413"
"Whoosh~~~"
People around the world watching the live broadcast gasped in surprise.
Tony looked at the data and took a deep breath. "These are just the dead civilians. There are also some who were mistakenly killed and disabled, or who are unconscious, who have not been included. If they were included..."
The numbers began to change.
"1369874"
"Damn it!! Those executioners!" The crowd in the square was even more furious, spitting and cursing angrily.
Countless mineral water bottles, aluminum cans, and even some food items were thrown at the defendant's dock.
Without bulletproof glass, the five leaders of the Injustice League would be buried under garbage.
Diana, unwilling to be humiliated like this, struggled and shouted, "We have established order!"
"An order established with concentration camps?" Tony sneered, the projection switching to a live feed of the Lonely Fortress in the Arctic—a former temple of science now a gloomy prison, with the frozen corpses of protesters faintly visible beneath the ice.
Tony seized the opportunity to unleash his final trump card—a encrypted watchtower communication record.
In the scene, Superman is saying to the representative of the United Nations, "If any other country opposes the new bill I propose, I wouldn't mind turning your capital into a second Hiroshima."
The billions of people around the world watching the live broadcast gasped in shock.
"One million,366,974 lives." Tony shut down all projections. "This is the price of your so-called 'justice'."
Hal Jordan suddenly burst into hysterical laughter: "What do you know! When the Joker nuked Metropolis, it was Batman's so-called 'non-killing' policy that led to Metropolis's destruction!!"
"So you've become the very thing you hate most," Captain America finally said. "Bruce Wayne, after losing his parents, chose to become someone who stops crime; and you, after losing Lois—chosen to become even more ruthless criminals."
These words pierced the hearts of the five giants like a sharp sword. Barry immediately knelt on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. He was originally a kind young man, but he was manipulated by Superman and others and became the person he is now.
Seeing the stats Tony presented, coupled with Captain America's words, he could no longer bear the pressure and burst into tears.
The other four also looked grim. Hal Jordan hunched over, not daring to speak. Cyborg's pupils trembled constantly, while Diana and Superman, though their faces were pale, still stood upright.
In the audience, the father who had lost his daughter began to sob softly, which quickly touched everyone around him.
The cries of countless people filled the square, creating a sea of sorrow.
Although Superman's expression was grim, he still didn't think he had done anything wrong. He stubbornly raised his head and said to everyone, "These are all necessary sacrifices, all for a better world!"
Chen Tian hovered in mid-air. He raised his right hand and gently pressed his palm down—an invisible force spread out like ripples, instantly calming the boiling crowd.
"Clark Kent." Chen Tian's voice wasn't loud, but it pierced everyone's eardrums like a morning bell. "Do you know the difference between a hero and a tyrant?"
Superman raised his head, "I saved—"
"You created fear." Chen Tian interrupted him, waving his hand to unfold a new holographic image.
The footage shows a street interview. When the reporter asked, "What did you feel when you saw the red cape?", the mother holding her baby suddenly trembled and cried out, "Please don't film me... my baby is only three months old..."
The projection switches to Gotham's slums, where dirty kids are playing an 'execution game.' The boy playing Superman points a stick at his friend and says, 'You're guilty!' Then he pretends to fire a heat vision.
"Is this the 'wonderful world' you created, the revelation your wife paid with her life for, that all children should live in the shadow of execution games?"
Superman suddenly sprang to his feet, his vibranium shackles rattling as he struggled to break free: "Don't mention her!"
In complete silence, Chen Tian landed in the center of the judge's bench.
He reached out and placed his hand on Superman's shoulder, a simple gesture that made the steel-willed man tremble violently: "A hero should be a lighthouse in the darkness, but you have become a dark cloud that shrouds the world."
Superman's eyes still burned with anger as he looked at Chen Tian. To this day, he still didn't think he had done anything wrong.
Chen Tian looked into Superman's stubborn eyes and sighed softly. He turned to face the hundreds of thousands of people in the square, his voice echoing in every corner:
"Now, it is up to you to decide their fate."
As he finished speaking, two huge holographic options appeared above the judge's bench—[Execution] and [Imprisonment].
Below each option, global voting data began to be tallied in real time, and the numbers were jumping at an astonishing speed.
"One vote per person." Chen Tian raised his hand to indicate, "People at the venue can vote using the button they received before entering, while people in other regions can vote using the options in the global live stream."
Tony instructed Friday, "Friday, make sure the voting system isn't disrupted."
"Quantum encryption protocol has been deployed, Boss." The AI butler's voice came from the speakers around the judge's bench. "Any hacking attack will be traced back to its source."
The moment voting began, data from around the world flooded in. On the large screen, the real-time vote counts were displayed below the portraits of the five defendants:
Barry Allen's vote for imprisonment quickly surpassed 60%. He knelt in the dock, tears streaming down his face onto the vibranium floor: "I'm sorry... I really didn't know it would turn out like this..."
Hal Jordan's vote was neck and neck, with the votes for "execution" and "imprisonment" hovering around 50%. The former Green Lantern huddled in his seat, mechanically repeating, "It's all the Joker's fault...it's all the Joker's fault..."
The most shocking data is that of the other three: Diana's "execution" vote has reached 78%, Cyborg's is 81%, and Superman Clark Kent's "execution" support rate is a staggering 93.7%!
"No!" Diana roared, summoning her remaining divine power in an attempt to break free of her restraints. "What right do you mortals have—"
"boom!"
A purple magic circle descended from the sky, pressing the Amazonian princess back into her seat.
Bayonetta walked up to her in her high heels, touched her forehead with her finger, and drew away her divine power. "My dear, public opinion is the best lasso of truth."
Superman stared intently at the ever-increasing number of executions, his anger growing ever stronger.
When the number surpassed 95%, he suddenly laughed: "Look, Diana, they proved me right—human beings inherently crave violence."
This sentence became the final straw. The global voting system suddenly emitted a piercing alarm—Superman's "execution" approval rating soared to 99.3% within ten seconds!
"The will of the people has been made." Chen Tian waved his hand to turn off the projection. "Based on the results of the global vote."
Chen Tian looked at Superman, his eyes sharpening. "I hereby declare on behalf of the people: Superman! Human name: Clark Kent, real name: Kal-El. Wonder Woman! Human name: Diana Prince. Cyborg! Human name: Victor Stone!"
"death penalty!"
-----------------------
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(End of Chapter)