The meeting ended in a storm of words and glowing signatures. Holographic seals flashed across the table as the League's leadership cast their votes. The echo of Shiloh Kane's gavel rang out like a verdict already half-decided.
"It's settled," she said, her voice sharp enough to cut through the hum of machinery. "Tomorrow, we summon the vigilante known as Moonveil to the Court of Power. He will answer for his actions, his methods, and the threat he poses to international stability."
The chamber fell still. Even the air-filtration vents seemed to hesitate.
Across the room, Blaze Striker and Gaidan exchanged a glance—fire and starlight sharing the same weary understanding.
"They never learn," Gaidan muttered under his breath, voice a low growl that carried the fatigue of centuries. His eyes glowed faintly, the kind of light that belonged to beings who had seen civilizations rise and fall. "Every time something they can't control appears, they cage it. And when the cage breaks, they come to me to clean it up."
Blaze Striker smirked, a glint of dry amusement flickering in his molten eyes. "You're too grim for someone who's practically immortal."
Gaidan didn't look at him. "Practicality is a curse of long life."
Blaze stretched, flames rippling lazily along the seams of his armor. "Well, it's not my circus. If they want to provoke a demigod, let them. I've got actual work to do."
"Work?" Gaidan arched a brow.
Blaze chuckled. "Yeah. I'm headed back to Cosmotee Moon Base. There's a lot happening up there the League isn't ready to admit. We've got research from Aetherian debris that might make your old tech look primitive."
"You're still tinkering with Aetherian relics?" Gaidan asked, half-amused, half-annoyed.
"Someone has to. Besides, unlike the rest of you, I like the quiet." Blaze started toward the exit, sparks trailing from his shoulders. "Good luck cleaning up their mess, old man."
Gaidan exhaled slowly. "Luck won't help them."
He turned back toward the table where the others still debated the logistics of summoning a being who could break reality with his hands. "Nothing will."
---
The next morning dawned overcast and silent.
Marc Stevenson—Moonveil—was in his lab beneath the cottage, cross-referencing Aetherian tech schematics with Howard's new data, when the world around him shimmered like a glitch in perception. His pen froze mid-stroke.
The air thickened. His breath left a frost in front of him, and for a second, everything—light, sound, gravity—collapsed inward, like a held breath.
Then the floor was gone.
Marc blinked and found himself standing in a circular chamber of impossible architecture. Marble that was not marble. Air that glowed faintly with arcane light. The ceiling arced into infinity, a dome of mirrored constellations. Every point of light above him represented a being of power—heroes, demigods, alien envoys—all watching.
The Court of Power.
He'd heard whispers of it—where beings above nations were judged not by law, but by consensus. A tribunal of gods, soldiers, and symbols.
Before him sat the League's assembly: Shiloh Kane at the center, flanked by Palisade, the Lion of Kilimanjaro, the Cyber-Titan, and others whose names filled textbooks. Even Gaidan was there, silent in his corner, arms crossed. Blaze Striker's seat was empty—already gone, perhaps, to his moon base.
A holographic barrier circled Marc, more for decorum than defense; they knew if he wanted to, he could walk through it.
Kane's voice carried easily, authoritative yet brittle. "Moonveil. You have been summoned to answer for your actions in London—the execution of Juarez, known associate of William Lex Webb and the El Lobo Syndicate. You are accused of acting outside all human and divine jurisdictions, of committing acts of excessive force, and of concealing powers that may constitute a global threat."
Marc said nothing. His gaze moved from one face to another, studying them the way a soldier studies the terrain of a battlefield.
"Do you deny killing Juarez?" Kane asked.
"No," Marc said simply. His voice was calm, low, almost eerily steady.
Murmurs rippled through the tribunal.
"Do you deny dismembering him?"
"No."
Kane leaned forward. "Then do you deny enjoying it?"
That silenced the room.
Marc's jaw tightened. He met her gaze. "I don't enjoy killing. I finish what others won't. I don't celebrate blood, Director Kane. But I won't apologize for using it when it's necessary."
Palisade's metallic fingers tapped against the table. "Necessary? You call tearing out a man's organs necessary?"
"I call stopping a monster necessary," Marc replied. "He was a vessel for something older than you understand—a creature that devours souls and calls it worship. The graft you call a stomach wound was a seed of that power. He was never going to stop. And you all sat in your towers debating regulations while he consumed people by the hundreds."
The Lion of Kilimanjaro growled. "Watch your tone. You're speaking to the council that keeps this world from collapse."
Marc looked at her with the quiet pity one reserves for those who mistake bureaucracy for strength. "You're not keeping it from collapse. You're documenting the collapse as it happens."
The Lion half-rose, but Gaidan's hand lifted, stopping her. "Let him speak," the alien said.
Marc glanced toward him—a brief moment of mutual recognition.
"Go on," Gaidan said softly.
Marc took a slow breath. "You want to know about my powers. Fine. I didn't ask for them. I was given them by a god who saw fit to make me his vessel. Tecciztecatl—the Aztec moon god. I was dying on a battlefield, and he offered me a second life. I took it because I thought it meant redemption. But it wasn't redemption—it was responsibility. I don't wield his light for revenge. I wield it because the darkness we're fighting isn't bound by your rules or your treaties."
The Cyber-Titan scoffed. "And what gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies?"
"The same thing that gives you the right to call yourself heroes," Marc said. "Except I don't pretend it's clean."
That landed hard. Even Kane hesitated before responding.
"Do you understand what you've done to the balance?" she said at last. "By acting without sanction, you make all of us appear as if we condone your violence. You threaten the structure we've built between nations and gods."
Marc's eyes flashed faintly silver. "Then maybe your structure deserves to fall if it fears a single man doing what's right."
The holographic lights flickered. The entire chamber seemed to hold its breath.
"Arrogance," someone muttered.
"Truth," Gaidan countered quietly.
Marc turned his gaze toward the alien warrior. "You know what's coming. You've seen it. You've seen William's kind before."
Gaidan nodded once. "Yes. I've seen what happens when men play gods. It never ends quietly."
Kane slammed her gavel. "Enough. The tribunal will reconvene in twenty-four hours to pass judgment. Until then, Moonveil, you will remain confined to this realm under League supervision."
Marc smiled faintly. "You can try."
The light around him warped—the glow of the holographic field bending as though under a gravitational pull. For a split second, every sensor, every energy signature, every recording device blinked static.
Then he was gone.
The chamber went still.
Kane stood, furious. "He—he vanished!"
Gaidan exhaled, rubbing his temples. "You tried to summon the moon, Director. You shouldn't be surprised when it rises and leaves on its own time."
Blaze Striker's empty chair flickered with residual flame, a reminder that some understood what the League refused to.
And somewhere far away, in the quiet between gods and men, Moonveil stepped through a veil of silver light and whispered to the voice that had given him everything.
"Tecciztecatl," he said. "The judgment's begun."
The god's reply was soft, almost proud. Then let them learn what justice looks like when the light no longer asks permission to shine.
---