The ship hit tropolis and kept moving.
Three city blocks gone before it stopped. Buildings folded into the street like paper and the dust swallowed everything.
"What the hell is that thing!"
"Run, just run, don't look at it—just run—"
"My car, that was my—"
"Forget the car!"
People poured into the streets from every direction, no plan, just movent because standing still felt like a decision they couldn't afford.
A woman yanked her kid off the sidewalk and dove under a parking structure. A man in a suit sat on the curb and stared at the ship with the expression of soone whose mind had simply stopped.
Then the World Engine activated and the ground cracked.
A deep pulse rolled through the city—low and wrong.
The street buckled sideways and people went down mid-stride, grabbing each other, lamp posts, anything still attached to the ground.
Then a taxi lifted off the street.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
It shot upward into the beam and disappeared.
"It's pulling things up—"
"Get inside, get inside—"
"There's nowhere to go!"
A chunk of road the size of a bus peeled off the ground and followed the taxi up. Then a section of building façade. Then a parked truck, spinning slowly as it rose, dragged into the black column above the city.
Two blocks out a news van sat with its cara running, the reporter gripping the door, forcing her voice to hold.
"The ship has landed in central tropolis and we are witnessing what appears to be a gravity-based weapon pulling the city apart from the ground up. We are urging everyone to evacuate imdiately. If you are in tropolis, get out now."
The Batwing ca hard over the skyline.
Inside, Batman tracked the simulation across his screens as the aircraft banked sharply over the city.
The World Engine wasn't just destroying—it was weaponizing the environnt, lifting debris and slamming it back down, reshaping the terrain into sothing unstable, unlivable.
The longer it ran, the worse it got.
He fired two missiles.
They streaked forward—THOOM—THOOM—
—and stopped.
Fifty ters out, they caught in the gravity field, spinning in place before dropping straight down into an empty street.
A warning flashed.
Gravity convection field detected. Conventional projectiles ineffective.
Small crafts launched from the hull, already turning toward him.
"Of course," Batman said, pulling the Batwing into a dive.
Five incoming.
He took the first down—BOOM——rolling through the debris and lining up the next two, both breaking apart under precise fire.
From the third wreck, a Kryptonian soldier jumped before the craft finished collapsing, crossing the air in a single movent and landing on the Batwing.
The impact hit like a hamr.
The fra buckled.
The nose dropped.
Controls gone.
tropolis rushed up.
Batman fired the grapple, caught a building, and cut himself free in one motion as the Batwing spiraled away beneath him.
The line snapped tight and pulled him sideways into a glass façade, the entire wall shattering as he went through feet-first, hitting the floor and sliding across tile into a row of desks.
He stopped.
Got up.
The Kryptonian ca through the window behind him.
People scattered instantly, chairs tipping, footsteps pounding, the floor clearing in seconds.
The soldier didn't rush.
He picked up a desk and threw it.
Batman dropped low, sliding under it, already moving as he pulled a charge and threw it straight into the soldier's face.
It detonated—THUD—BOOM—
No reaction.
Batman shifted, throwing a gas grenade to break line of sight and closing distance to plant another charge, but the soldier stepped through the smoke without slowing. His hand shot out, caught Batman midair, and slamd him into the wall hard enough to crack it.
The charge detonated against the armor.
Nothing.
Batman hit the ground, forced himself up, wiped blood from his mouth, and tracked the soldier advancing through the thinning smoke, untouched.
He threw a Batarang.
It struck and stuck.
The soldier glanced down, almost curious, and reached for it.
The charge triggered—ZZZT—
Electricity surged through the exoskeleton, locking his body for two seconds, muscles seizing as the current ran through him and into the floor.
Then it stopped.
The soldier straightened.
Pulled it out.
Kept coming.
Batman adjusted instantly.
Two seconds.
That was the limit.
Four more crafts still active outside.
Different approach.
The lasso ca through the window first—fast, precise—wrapping around the soldier and locking his arms to his sides.
A second later, Wonder Woman entered, sword already in motion.
She drove it clean through the back of the exoskeleton.
The blade punched through.
Out the front.
The soldier stiffened.
No recovery this ti.
His strength dropped out of him as the system failed, the armor going dead around him as he collapsed to his knees, then forward.
Diana planted her foot on his back and pulled the sword free in one clean motion.
The body didn't move again.
She looked at Batman across the room, composed, untouched by the chaos outside.
"You look terrible," she said.
*****
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