Thea had been studying Superman's attack patterns, hoping to find something—anything—she could learn from him. But after only a few seconds, she realized his style had nothing in common with her own. There was no overlap, no technique she could borrow. With a soft sigh, she gave up on the idea.
Her attention drifted back to Parallax—and that was when she noticed something wrong.
"…Huh?"
"What is it?" Batman asked sharply.
Thea narrowed her eyes. "His power… it's rising again. Slowly, but definitely rising."
Amanda Waller stiffened, scanning the quiet buildings around them as if expecting a monster to jump out of the shadows. "Don't tell me someone out there is still feeding him fear—civilians, broadcast networks… something?"
Thea didn't answer immediately. She couldn't sense any conscious fear-absorption behavior from Parallax. And yet his energy kept climbing—while Superman's was beginning to drop after prolonged combat.
At first, the yellow entity had been completely overpowered—nothing more than a sandbag for Superman to punch. But now it was starting to push back. Once, it even wrapped Superman in a coil of smoke; the Kryptonian had barely blasted free in time.
Frustrated, Parallax began smashing through the surrounding buildings, tearing open the city block to create an empty battlefield where its massive size could dominate.
Where is all that power coming from? Thea activated the Eye of Horus, watching the energy fluctuations closely. Superman's output was visibly lowering. Parallax's wasn't. Impossible.
A cold voice beside her broke the silence.
"Satellites," Batman said. "Every broadcast satellite in the world is focused here. Live feeds. Global viewership. If enough people feel fear simultaneously…"
Thea's eyes widened. Damn it. Of course. The media vultures, always circling, always hungry for spectacle. Millions—maybe billions—watching. Fear magnified and funneled directly into Parallax.
"Shut them down. All of them."
Thea didn't hesitate. "Amanda, contact every government you can. Cut the live feeds—now."
Amanda immediately began dialing, barking orders into her phone. But after only three minutes, her expression collapsed.
"No good," she growled. "Half the networks don't take government orders. Their parent corporations refuse to comply."
Thea exhaled sharply. She could picture it perfectly—billion-dollar media moguls in penthouses, cigars in hand, shrugging at the end of the world because ratings were good today.
"Fine," she said coldly. "If they refuse to act responsibly, I'll make the choice for them."
She pulled Amanda aside and whispered, "Can we hijack their satellites? All of them."
Amanda actually blanched. "That's—Thea, that's the entire global satellite grid. Over a thousand units. Even for me, that's—"
Thea ignored her, already opening a comm line.
"Felicity."
"Yeah?" Felicity's voice came in bright and alarmed. "Thea, please tell me you didn't just say what I think you said. Because it sounded like you want me to hack every satellite orbiting Earth."
"That's exactly what I want."
There was a beat of absolute silence.
"…Okay, that's insane—and I love it—but not with our current computing power. I'll need a supercomputer. And help. A lot of help."
"Borrow WayneTech's supercomputer," Thea said smoothly, not even glancing at Batman, who was standing right beside her. "As for help—I'll get you the best hacker alive."
She turned to Amanda. "Release Noah Kuttler—Codename: the Calculator. Felicity Smoak's father. He'll assist her."
"You already investigated him…" Amanda muttered. "Fine. I'll arrange it. But this never happened. This was a volunteer hacker collective. ARGUS had no involvement."
Even she didn't believe her own lie—but she clung to it anyway.
Minutes later, the satellite signals on Felicity's monitor began dropping one after another.
"It's working!" Thea called out. "Keep going!"
But soon Felicity's voice returned, strained.
"The last batch won't fall—some countries run their satellites on isolated internal networks. No external access. I can't breach them."
Thea frowned. Of course. Those certain countries with very unique security procedures.
Negotiating would take days. They didn't have minutes.
Her gaze slid toward Batman.
"Bruce… the Watchtower has an emergency blackout protocol, right? A signal-masking field that blinds orbital surveillance?"
Batman's jaw clenched. Hard.
Absolutely not.
He didn't need to speak—the furious look was enough.
Thea read it clearly:
I am not committing an international incident to cover your magic fight.
Without his override codes, the Watchtower was inaccessible. She'd have to find another way.
Her fingers tightened around her crossed arms as she thought through her options.
Fine.
If the world insisted on watching this battle…
Then she would simply take away the world.
She inhaled deeply, letting her magic rise—dark, endless, thick as ink.
"Everyone brace yourselves," she warned. "And—uh—Batman? Try not to trip."
Then she unleashed her Dominion spell.
"Eternal Night."
Magic flooded the sky like a collapsing ocean. In the blink of an eye, the entire coastline vanished beneath a seamless black dome. No stars. No moon. No light. No visibility.
Deep, primordial darkness.
The best cure for fear… is absolute blindness.
Superman barely reacted—invulnerability and solar storage made him immune to most of the weakening effect. Even Ares would have lost power under her night, but Superman only dipped by a sliver.
Parallax, temporarily linked to a Guardian's body, also counted as "male"—so he received the same slight reduction. Not enough to end him, but enough to tilt the fight.
Thea expected Superman to finish the battle decisively.
But that was when she sensed it—
A spike of murderous energy erupting from the ground.
A smaller, condensed fragment of Parallax tore upward and shrieked:
"Yellow Lantern—you die HERE!"
A brilliant yellow beam flashed toward her.
Thea raised her hand, calling a shield—
—and steel crashed in front of her.
A figure landed between her and the beam, shield raised, sword ready. The energy slammed into the warrior's braced arms, sparking violently but failing to push them back even an inch.
A familiar silhouette. A familiar shield.
Diana had arrived.
Reinforcements—at last.