At night in Gotham, the flashing red and blue lights of GCPD cruisers cut through the freezing rain of a narrow alleyway.
Three armed robbers already groaned on the wet asphalt, wrists bound by zip ties.
Batman stood over them, cape dripping, preparing to grapple up to the rooftops as usual when the sirens approached.
This time, the routine broke.
Instead of securing the suspects, a dozen police officers piled out of their cruisers and raised their weapons — shotguns, sidearms, tactical rifles — leveled at the Dark Knight's chest.
"Stop, Batman!" the lead officer barked over a megaphone, hands visibly shaking.
"You are under arrest under the federal crimes of unsanctioned vigilantism and massive property damage! Keep your hands where I can see them!"
Batman didn't gasp, didn't monologue about justice or betrayal. Standing in the open while a dozen nervous, trigger-happy cops held him at gunpoint was simply a terrible tactical position.
He didn't even let the officer finish reading the charges. With a flick of his wrist, a smoke pellet slammed into the pavement.
A thick wall of gray smoke erupted, and a few officers panicked and fired blindly into the fog, bullets sparking harmlessly off the brick walls.
By the time the rain cleared the smoke a few seconds later, the officers stood coughing in an empty alley. Only the zip-tied robbers remained.
Three stories up, cloaked in the shadows of a rusted fire escape, Batman watched them in silence, then tapped a button on his gauntlet, bringing up a secure encrypted interface.
***
The Batmobile's turbine engine spooled down, the roar fading into the steady drip of condensation deep in the Batcave. Bruce Wayne stepped out and pulled back the cowl, his face bruised and coated in grime.
He walked past the medical bay to the Batcomputer. Dick Grayson was already there, domino mask resting on the console, staring at the glowing federal database.
"One hundred thousand dollars," Dick said, arms crossed, glaring at his own profile. "Are you kidding me? Killer Croc causes more property damage on a Tuesday. Why is my bounty so low?"
"Because the military priced the bounties on structural threat algorithms, not martial arts proficiency," Bruce said, voice a tired rasp. "It's a federal kill order, Dick. Don't take it personally."
Dick spun his chair around, dropping the attitude. "Fine. But what's the pivot here? We're officially wanted by the state. The GCPD is shooting to kill. Do we go underground? Hack the Pentagon's targeting grid?"
Bruce bypassed his own fifty-million-dollar bounty and pulled up the top file. Reaper. Bounty: $500,000,000.
"We adapt our patrol routes and upgrade our smoke composites," he said, scanning the legislative framework of the Metahuman Registration Act.
"But Gotham isn't the variable we need to worry about right now. I don't know what the President was thinking, declaring Daniel the number one target. It's a catastrophic tactical error."
Dick frowned at the photo of Daniel staring blankly at a camera. "Really? I mean, I know he's heavily armed, but he seems more like a lazy guy who just wants to be left alone."
"He doesn't patrol because he's apathetic, not because he's harmless," Bruce said.
"Superman has a psychological barrier — godlike power, but he fundamentally wants humanity to trust him. He'd surrender to authorities just to prove a point. Daniel has no moral restraint, and he doesn't care about public perception."
Bruce brought up satellite imagery of Daniel's sprawling residence. "His entire mentality is built on convenience. He only intervenes when the planet's facing total extinction. He ignores street crime, ignores politics. But he has one rule: do not annoy him, and do not threaten his household."
He turned from the monitors, looking at Dick with grim certainty.
"If the government actually believes they can enforce this warrant — if they send an armed strike team to kick down his front door — Daniel won't negotiate, and he won't go to court."
"He'll simply eliminate the annoyance. If they push him, the consequence ends in a massacre that reaches the Oval Office."
***
Bruce Wayne's tactical prediction was flawless, except for one detail: he'd underestimated just how stupid the federal government could be.
The very next morning, Washington made its move.
The heavy front door of Daniel's mansion clicked shut as Ronnie walked back inside, holding a thick, cream-colored envelope with the gold-foil seal of the U.S. Department of Justice.
He stared at it a second, then jogged into the living room where Daniel sat on the couch, nursing a cup of black coffee.
"Uh, Boss?" Ronnie said, holding the letter out nervously. "A courier just dropped this off. You just got formally served."
Daniel set his mug down and took the envelope, tearing it open, eyes scanning the embossed legal document. A formal federal summons — an ultimatum from the government, backed by Lex Luthor's newly passed legislation.
Pay the sum of $500,000,000 in property restitution within forty-eight hours, or face immediate apprehension and a federal military tribunal.
The living room went silent.
Then the thick parchment crunched. Daniel crumpled the demand into a tight ball, a faint grey hum of cosmic energy bleeding through his knuckles, turning the paper to fine gray ash that drifted onto the glass coffee table.
"Ungrateful dogs," Daniel said. His voice wasn't raised — just calm, deadpan, cold.
He leaned back into the sofa, staring at the ash.
"Maybe I should just go and reap all of their souls right now," he mused, sounding like he was contemplating lunch.
"Drag every one of those idiots down to the Underworld and personally torture them for a few centuries. See how much they care about an infrastructure bill when they're burning in hellfire. Might be the only way to make them understand exactly who they decided to mess with."
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is 30 chapters ahead.
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace