Wonder Woman yanked downward on the Lasso of Truth, spinning like she was throwing a hammer, and whipped Superman back to the ground.
Like a stone from a sling, he hit first, smashing straight through the front gates of Gotham State University.
Wonder Woman followed immediately, sword in hand, tightening the lasso and thrusting forward, aiming to impale him clean through.
The Lasso of Truth glowed brilliantly—but it failed to completely restrain the Kryptonian. Superman wrenched an arm free and broke the lasso's hold.
"I killed you once—I can kill you a again!"
He grabbed the rope, trying to seize control, but Wonder Woman released it instead after testing his strength, causing him to stagger off balance.
"Delusional lunatic."
This was something she had learned from fighting Joey—letting go prevented her from being turned into a kite dragged around by overwhelming force.
She didn't know where this older version of Superman had come from, but since he was hostile, there had to be a reason he needed to be killed.
She flicked the loose end of the rope aside and charged again, swinging her blade toward his neck. From experience, she believed the Godkiller sword could deal a fatal blow.
Superman barely managed to deflect the blade from the side, the misalignment of force leaving only a shallow wound on his arm. He rode the momentum backward, blasting through a historic clock tower outside Gotham University like a cannonball before shooting upward into the sky.
"Shazam!"
A roar echoed through the heavens as thunderclouds, lightning, and storm winds engulfed Gotham once more. Shazam called down the wrath of Zeus, striking the fleeing Superman with a bolt that locked his body in place.
Right behind it came seven or eight missiles from Cyborg, laced with kryptonite dust, blasting Superman back into the ground—flattening what remained of the clock tower along with him.
Joey, arriving just in time to see it, immediately cursed:
"Cyborg, who the hell taught you to use kryptonite like that?!"
He wasn't criticizing Cyborg for developing kryptonite weapons—after all, Kryptonians had been studied for years, and their weaknesses were well known. He was just… pained.
Kryptonite, formed from Krypton's geological remnants irradiated by a yellow sun, was everywhere in most universes because Krypton had exploded into countless fragments that reached Earth.
But in this universe, Krypton was still intact.
Until they figured out whether kryptonite could be artificially synthesized within six days, every bit used was irreplaceable.
No wonder Joey snapped:
"Do you have any idea how scarce kryptonite is in this universe?!"
To stop Cyborg from wasting more of it, Joey sped into the blast zone despite the irritation from the airborne kryptonite dust, locating the buried Superman beneath the rubble.
The man still had fight left in him. The moment he saw Joey, he lunged out of the debris and smashed a fist into Joey's nose, catching him off guard.
"You son of a—!"
Blood spraying, Joey barely turned his head before regaining his footing. Ignoring the burning itch on his skin and the pain in his lungs, he threw a full-force hook into Superman's temple, knocking him flat.
He bent down, grabbed him with one hand, hoisted him up, and started hammering punch after punch into his face, each blow spraying blood in all directions.
As Joey's attacks grew more reckless, the rubble beneath them crumbled completely into dust. From the point of impact of his fists, massive cracks spread across the concrete ground of Gotham University.
But it only fueled his anger further.
Dozens of punches—his opponent's nose was a bloody ruin, Joey's own hands split and bleeding, the ground smashed into a ten-meter crater—yet the man still wouldn't die. He hadn't even managed to break his nose.
At their current weakened state, neither fully charged by sunlight, they were roughly evenly matched. Joey could punch him all the way to the Earth's core and still only beat him half to death.
Why are Kryptonians so damn hard to kill?!
"Here, use this!"
Wonder Woman retrieved her lasso and cast it again. This time, it finally bound the now-unconscious Superman, who had lost the strength to resist after the relentless head trauma.
That gave Joey an idea. He reached out to her.
"Diana—give me your sword."
Hearing that, Diana spun the blade in her hand and reversed her grip, about to pass it to him—
But Cyborg and Shazam, still crackling with golden lightning, arrived in the crater.
Shazam raised a hand, stopping her.
"No. He's completely beaten. Don't let anger control you. And—keep him alive. We can learn something from him."
Joey, still straddling Superman, lowered his hand, seeming to consider it.
"You fraud, wielding stolen power of the gods—what right do you have to tell us what to do?!"
Blocked from moving forward, Wonder Woman tightened her grip on the sword, flipping it back into a forward hold and pointing it at Shazam, each word forced out through clenched teeth:
"Get out of my way."
Cyborg stepped between them.
"Billy—on a personal level, I agree with you. Killing someone who can't fight back doesn't sit right…"
Wonder Woman shot him a glare so sharp it felt almost physical, making what little scalp he had left prickle—but what he said next made even Shazam frown:
"…but on the other hand—this guy is way too dangerous. Maybe our decision needs a bit more… pragmatism."
Cyborg knew he couldn't satisfy both sides.
But he could absolutely annoy everyone at once.
Especially now, when his own stance wasn't exactly stable. This new Kryptonian—unless he could be completely annihilated right now—would be a problem whether alive or dead.
The cooperative battlefield had suddenly turned into a tense standoff over how to deal with the enemy.
At that moment—
BOOM!
A heavy impact burst open a hole beside the crater, connecting to the sewer system. A massive surge of seawater flooded in.
And with it, arrived a figure clad in full armor, golden hair, golden armor, and wielding a golden trident—
Aquaman.
"Sorry, looks like I'm late! All this stuff about sovereignty and territorial waters is such a pain. I originally planned to ride the Kraken across the surface, but I got intercepted by an aircraft carrier outside New York Bay..."
Aquaman had wrapped himself in a massive sphere of seawater, forcing his way through sewer systems filthier than even the Trench's territory. Now that he had finally emerged back into open air, he couldn't help but vent:
"I had no choice but to ask one of my crocodile friends and take a shortcut from here—but you have no idea what kind of disgusting crap these land-dwelling idiots in Gotham dump into their sewers! That route was just—Ugh!"
Ever since his capital had been relocated to the coastline by Joey—placing it within range of human artillery—Aquaman had, somewhat begrudgingly, started taking things like 'sovereignty' more seriously.
In the past, he would've simply commanded the Kraken—untouchable by human weapons—to bulldoze straight through. Why would he ever suffer through Gotham's sewage?
But after being forced to accept these rules, he discovered they were actually quite useful—especially when you possess the military strength to conquer an entire continent in an instant.
Now that his situation had improved, Aquaman was willing to operate within certain international frameworks in exchange for the authority to monitor and enforce against overfishing and pollution in the deep sea.
At the very least, when he saw whaling ships or nuclear waste being dumped into the ocean, he could now 'legally' dump it all right back onto their land.
Wonder Woman had already had enough of Aquaman's rambling and cut him off bluntly:
"Who the hell cares how you're getting along with those people right now?! Arthur—come. Make a choice."
"Uh… I think I'll pass… I mean, I 100% support Superman—no, Super—uh, wait, I mean Joey—but then again..."
Faced with two nearly identical figures—same colors, similar suits, similar faces, just different ages—Arthur's brain started to short-circuit. Realizing he couldn't dodge the question any longer, he finally spoke honestly:
"I can't make that call, Diana. I really can't."
"The last two times I made a decision—once, I tried to marry you, and it led to war. Amazons, Atlanteans, humans—hundreds of thousands died."
"And the time before that, I almost committed something even worse than what that bastard tied up there did—almost caused the deaths of hundreds of millions."
"It was Superman—yes, our Superman—he gave me and Atlantis a second chance."
"The truth is, I don't have the right to decide anymore."
"And you, Diana… you're the same as me."
"You—!"
Ever since the war, Wonder Woman and Aquaman had never truly reconciled. Even if hostilities had ceased, both sides had blood on their hands. There was no way there wasn't resentment.
Now, being lectured like this—especially when he wasn't wrong—only made it worse. She was furious, but couldn't find a way to refute him.
Just as the situation was devolving into chaos, a mass of blazing fire dropped into the crater. The intense heat instantly evaporated the seawater beneath their feet.
Starfire stood there, flames roaring around her body. The massive hole in her chest was rapidly healing. She looked at Joey.
"Kryptonians clearly aren't all the same. This is your decision to make."
Hearing that, Joey suddenly felt like that Superman hadn't done only bad things—at the very least, punching a hole through Starfire's chest seemed to have somehow fixed the one in her head.
As for Joey's decision?
Why should he decide?
Shouldn't something this serious be decided by the victim's family?
Bang!
A gunshot rang out from above the crater.
Holstering the pistol he had taken from the old Bat, Bruce Wayne spread his cape and leapt down into the pit.
And just like that—
The focus of everyone's argument no longer existed.
Superman had been shot clean through the head.
The bullet was a modified round—an ordinary handgun bullet fitted with a fragment of kryptonite Bruce had retrieved after asking Raven to return to the Justice League Watchtower.
A Batman from another world had made the decision.
The scene, once filled with opposing voices, fell into silence.
Batman looked at the seven figures in the crater—familiar, yet strange.
Superman. Himself. Wonder Woman. Aquaman. Cyborg. Shazam. Starfire.
For a moment, he felt disoriented.
When 'their' seven had first come together, everything had been ideal. Every member righteous. Every action just. Everything united and bright.
There had been no bitter arguments, no fractured loyalties, no blurred moral lines.
And yet… it had still ended the way it did.
Snapping out of it, Batman almost instinctively fired his grappling hook and left, as if escaping.
He knew—everyone present had the power to stop that bullet.
And none of them chose to.
When Batman reached the top of the crater, the night of chaos had left nearly half of Gotham in ruins.
At that very moment, the sun rose over the flattened horizon, its light falling across his dark cape.
A creature of the night, he vanished from the first rays of dawn, retreating into the shadows between the skyscrapers.
In another time, seven heroes uniting to defeat a great enemy and save the world—
Batman would have called it the dawn of justice.
But now, seven people had gathered again—
And together, they had committed an act of injustice.
This team was not like his old one. Not as united. Not as close. And likely never would be.
Wonder Woman and Aquaman did not respect their Superman—they feared him.
Cyborg and Shazam formed their own smaller circle.
And Starfire's feelings toward Superman were… far more complicated.
A team already fractured on the surface—
Where would they end up?