The World After the Bat
The world did not calm down after Washington, D.C.
It fractured.
What had begun as a brazen terrorist display by the so-called Legion of Doom ended as something far more destabilizing to the global balance of power: proof that Batman had crossed a technological threshold no one else had seen coming.
The smoke from the Hall of Justice had barely cleared when satellites, analysts, governments, villains, and gods alike began asking the same question—
What just happened… and how did Batman do it?
The Public Eye: Fear Behind the Headlines
Officially, the story was clean.
The Justice League repelled an organized villain assault. Civilian casualties were minimal. The Hall of Justice sustained damage but remained operational. Heroes prevailed.
Unofficially?
Every intelligence agency on Earth was replaying the same footage on loop.
Footage of Superman struggling against a kryptonite-powered armored opponent—Lex Luthor's suit—long enough for the public to see that even the Man of Steel could be delayed.
Footage of Solomon Grundy—an undead juggernaut capable of trading blows with Wonder Woman—being dismantled by Batman in under thirty seconds.
Not with brute force.
Not with magic.
With speed.
Batman didn't just dodge Grundy's blows.
He moved between them.
Frames slowed, analysts rewound, enhanced, zoomed in.
Batman's movements blurred—not like the Flash's lightning-fast sprint, but something worse. Something colder. More deliberate.
He wasn't reacting faster.
He was thinking faster than time itself.
Government Panic: When the Bat Breaks the Scale
The Pentagon – Secure Briefing Room
Amanda Waller stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, face carved from stone.
Rick Flag Sr. sat to her right, jaw clenched, military posture rigid. Across from them, General Samuel "Sam" Lane flipped through a tablet filled with red-highlighted threat assessments. At the far end, General Hercules—head of several black-budget meta-response programs—watched the footage again in silence.
On the screen:
Batman dismantling Solomon Grundy.
Bone-shattering strikes delivered in a fraction of a second.
Perfect positioning.
Zero wasted movement.
"This isn't enhancement," Hercules finally said. "This is superiority."
Waller's eyes narrowed.
"Say it again."
"This suit," Hercules continued, "lets a human operate at a level where even Superman hesitates. Not loses—but hesitates. That alone changes deterrence doctrine."
Sam Lane looked up sharply.
"My daughter fights alongside these people. You're telling me Batman now has tech that lets him neutralize threats Kryptonians struggle with?"
Rick Flag exhaled slowly.
"And he didn't tell anyone."
Amanda Waller leaned forward, palms flat on the table.
"That," she said quietly, "is the problem."
She tapped the screen, freezing the frame where Batman vanished from Grundy's field of view.
"Batman has always been dangerous because he prepared for everything," Waller continued. "This? This is something else. This is unregulated escalation."
Sam Lane frowned.
"Can it be copied?"
Hercules hesitated.
"Unknown. But the principles? Time-dilation, reflex acceleration, neural synchronization—those are not alien concepts. If Batman can build it…"
Waller finished the sentence.
"So can we."
Project Authorization: A New Arms Race Begins
Two hours later, the President of the United States signed off on a classified directive.
PROJECT OVERCLOCK.
Its mandate was clear:
Investigate the origin of Batman's new combat technology.
Analyze whether it can be reverse-engineered or independently replicated.
Develop a controllable version suitable for government-operated super soldiers.
Deploy as a countermeasure against rogue metas, mind-controlled heroes, or extraterrestrial threats.
Amanda Waller would oversee it.
Rick Flag Sr. would handle field acquisition and intelligence pressure.
General Sam Lane would coordinate meta-theory and defensive countermeasures.
General Hercules would ensure the project stayed off the books.
The justification was simple.
If Batman could do this alone—
Then the world needed a way to answer him.
The Question No One Wanted to Ask Aloud
Privately, however, a darker question circulated among generals and analysts:
If Batman wanted to… could anyone stop him now?
The Light: Fear Behind Polished Smiles
LexCorp Tower – Executive War Room
Lex Luthor stood before a holographic projection of the battlefield, fingers steepled, expression unreadable.
Around him sat the core members of the Light.
Vandal Savage.
Queen Bee.
Ocean Master.
Others watched via encrypted channels.
Lex paused the recording at the exact moment Batman struck Solomon Grundy—five hits delivered in less than a heartbeat.
"This," Lex said calmly, "is why I aborted the suit and escaped."
Vandal Savage's eyes narrowed.
"You fled."
"I adapted," Lex corrected. "That suit was no longer viable."
Queen Bee tilted her head.
"Explain."
Lex gestured, and data scrolled across the hologram.
"The technology integrated into Batman's suit is something I've only encountered in theoretical models and off-world black markets," Lex said. "A cybernetic operating system designed to compress perception and reaction time."
He highlighted a string of characters.
"The name surfaced briefly in intercepted chatter and pattern recognition."
He let the word hang in the air.
"Sandevistan."
Ocean Master frowned.
"Cyber technology?"
"Yes," Lex replied. "But not crude augmentation. This is late-stage cyberware—designed for high-risk combat environments. The user doesn't just move faster."
Lex smiled thinly.
"They experience the world as if it's slower."
Vandal Savage leaned forward.
"And Batman built this?"
Lex shook his head slowly.
"No. Batman refined it."
Silence fell.
Lex continued, voice tight with restrained irritation.
"I couldn't gather enough combat data because the system likely includes an escape protocol and internal failsafes. The moment the suit reached its analytical threshold, it removed itself from the equation."
Queen Bee's voice was sharp.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," Lex said, "that Batman anticipated this reaction. He knew we would try to study it."
Ocean Master crossed his arms.
"So where did he get it?"
Lex's jaw tightened.
"That," he admitted, "is the variable I can't yet solve."
A Dangerous Conclusion
Lex deactivated the hologram and turned back to the room.
"What matters is this: Batman has crossed into a technological domain previously reserved for gods, speedsters, and cosmic entities."
He met each of their gazes in turn.
"And he did it without asking permission."
Vandal Savage smiled slowly.
"Then the balance shifts."
"Yes," Lex agreed. "And balances always provoke… correction."
Elsewhere: Heroes Quietly Uneasy
Within the Justice League, reactions were more subdued—but no less intense.
Superman didn't say much.
But he replayed the footage of Batman moving past Grundy again and again, a faint crease in his brow.
Wonder Woman respected Batman—but even she felt a flicker of unease.
The Flash joked about it… too loudly.
Cyborg ran simulations he didn't share with anyone.
And Batman?
Batman said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Because while the world argued, investigated, and panicked—
The arms race had already begun.
And somewhere beneath the teen Titans Tower , a teenager who knew far more than anyone realized continued to work quietly, unaware—or perhaps fully aware—that the world had just taken its first step toward chasing him.