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"There is no truth in this world. Anyone can become a God or a Devil; all it takes is for someone to claim that to be the truth."
- Eren Kruger (Attack On Titans)
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<(Omniscient POV)>
"I wasn't aware this fountain was another way into the Batcave. Why didn't you ever mention it before?" Circe, still wearing Diana's form, asked coolly as she trailed behind the armored figure of Bruce, who carried Harley Quinn's unconscious body with practiced ease, like she weighed nothing at all.
They were making their way through a sealed cave hidden behind a rocky waterfall located on the outskirts of Gotham. At first glance, the torrent looked far too powerful to walk through, let alone glimpse what lay behind. But when Bruce stepped in front of it and input a command through his armor, the water obediently split into two cascading streams, and the ten-inch-thick metal wall behind the fountain slowly slid apart like a Japanese door, revealing the entrance beyond with narrow stone steps rising out of the pool, allowing them access to the hidden passage.
"This part of the cave was only opened recently. As you might have realized from observing the bedrock and limestone composition of this cave, the whole structure is ancient, formed by an underground stream connected to the Atlantic. During the Civil War, it was used to help escaped slaves move through the city. Later, it was sealed off when the Wayne family began turning Gotham into the city it is now. When I reopened it, I had to reinforce the area before connecting the rest. The cave system runs beneath a large portion of Gotham, but I'm planning to expand it further—once I've installed countermeasures for seismic events and nuclear fallout," Batman said flatly, as if it were just another routine update.
"That makes sense." The woman nodded, her gaze lingering on the small lake they were walking past. She wasn't sure why, but something about the softly glowing, sea-green water felt... different. It didn't seem like a normal underground pool. Of course, she didn't know what it was—but at this point, nothing she'd encountered since meeting this man felt normal anymore. But despite that, she didn't think too much about it and decided to look into it once she got what she was really here for. "How much farther do we have to go?"
"...We will be there soon," Batman replied before briefly glancing over his shoulder. "Didn't expect you to be so impatient all of a sudden. You are normally so patient."
"..." Circe had nothing to say to that. He wasn't wrong. Patience had never been one of her virtues—especially not when it came to walking. As a sorceress, she greatly preferred flying over using her feet. But that wasn't something she intended to reveal to this man. Even as one of the most powerful sorceresses alive, she wasn't about to give him a chance to slip away. If he truly held the inheritance of a god within him, she had no intention of letting him escape somehow. So instead of using force and magic, she relied on the cunning that had helped her win even against impossible odds.
"We're here," Batman said abruptly, pulling her from her thoughts as they stepped through an invisible energy field and entered another section of the Batcave through a heavy metal door—one that looked even sturdier than the vault doors used in the most secure banks across the globe. In fact, every inch of this area was reinforced with thick metal, while neon strips and LED lights lined the ceiling and walls, casting a much more modern and comfortable glow compared to the darker, rougher sections they had just passed. Of course, there were brighter and more visually appealing lights as well, but they were mostly located in the sections that resembled laboratories, libraries, and workshops.
Yet even with all the upgrades and polish, the place was massive—larger than most royal palaces Circe had seen in her lifetime. She could see multiple levels connected by elevators and escalators, shelves upon shelves filled with strange items, giant display screens, multiple strange robots lined up after one another, as well as clusters of machinery that resembled computer servers. Tables covered in chemicals, bookshelves stacked with scrolls and ancient tomes, walls mounted with weapons, and cages filled with birds, insects, and other creatures—it felt like a mix between a fortress, a lab, and the strangest museum she had seen.
Her eyes caught sight of oddly shaped bat-themed cars, compact bat-themed aircraft, as well as bat-themed motorbikes lined up neatly, though some of them still looked unfinished. There were also a few massive machines scattered in the cave, but their purpose was unknown to Circe. A smaller pool, resembling a hot spring, rested quietly in one corner, but this one seemed ordinary enough that she dismissed it without a second glance.
One thing was clear to Circe—this was the space the man in front of her actually used. The rest of the cave was just future groundwork, waiting for a reason to be expanded.
"It's fortunate I found you first. There's something I need to show you," Batman said before pulling a small broken wooden puppet, something she hadn't noticed till now, from the back of his utility belt and placing it inside one of the empty cylindrical display cases. After securing it with a password, a passcode, a fingerprint, and an iris scan, he gently laid Harley's unconscious body inside what looked like an iron cage positioned near the display cases. Locking it with the same precision, he then turned and motioned to Circe with a slight flick of his finger to follow him.
"Oh? And what exactly do you need to show me?" Circe asked, her tone laced with a teasing flirtation, thinking perhaps she was about to get what she wanted without even trying.
"..." Batman let out a quiet sigh at her attempt, not slowing any reaction as he guided her toward a relatively vacant section of the Batcave. "Stand here—right on that spot," he instructed, pointing to a faintly glowing bat-shaped symbol embedded in the floor.
"Thank you," he said once she complied with a confused and curious look on her face. "Now… don't move," he added with a calm but firm tone before tilting his head up toward the ceiling. "Now, Cortana." His voice was dry, almost bored, as if he had expected something more.
In the blink of an eye, the floor beneath Circe shifted—lifting slightly as the surface broke apart into thousands of microbots. They swarmed and reformed around Diana's body, constructing a sleek cage in mere seconds. From the ceiling, a small device in the shape of a mini pyramid detached and descended onto the top of the cage, humming to life as it glowed blue once it was properly attached to the rest of the cage. A translucent energy field flared into existence, sealing the enclosure completely from the inside.
"Stupid bitch," Bruce Wayne muttered with a smirk, his armor retracting completely to reveal a sleek undersuit woven from unstable molecules.
"What sorcery is this?!" Circe shouted from within Diana's body, slamming her fists against the cage. The strikes should've shattered the strongest of steel, powered by the divine strength coursing through Diana—but the cage didn't even tremble. So, Circe channeled her own magic, trying to amplify the force, but there was nothing. No spark or magical surge of raw strength. It was as if her magic had been severed at the source.
She growled in frustration and tried to hurl bolts of raw magical energy at the bars, then shifted tactics—calling on transmutation spells to alter the cage's form. She even tries a variety of teleportation and portal spells to try and get out of the cage. But still, nothing happened. All her spells fizzled out before they could even manifest, her connection to mana completely blocked, as though magic itself refused to answer her call.
"How?! What did you do to me?..." she demanded, eyes burning with fury—but quickly remembered her original plan. Her expression softened, and her voice trembled. "Why have you imprisoned me here? Weren't you supposed to protect me in this world, just like you promised my mother? Then why would you trap me like this?" Her lip quivered. "Don't you... Don't you love me? I thought we felt the same way about each other."
She allowed a few delicate tears to trail down her cheeks, confident her performance rivaled any of the so-called Oscar-winning actresses she had observed in the modern world.
"Quit the acting. It was almost convincing at first," Bruce Wayne replied, the corner of his mouth curling into a satisfied smirk. "But now it just sounds desperate... cliché... and honestly? A little cringe."
At first, Diana didn't respond to the jab. She kept her gaze locked on him, letting the tears fall in silence. But after a few moments, the pleading look faded, replaced by a cold, hardened expression as she calmly wiped the tears from her face, her voice now steady and sharp.
"And here I thought I was one of the greatest actresses in the world," she said. "Even managed to fool the Olympian gods once… But tell me—when did you realize?"
***
<(Brue Wayne POV)>
"Contrary to what you might think, you slipped up more than once," I said calmly. "First, when you killed the snakeman without any type of hesitation, warning, or any attempt to find out why he attacked you. The real Diana would've stopped him, questioned him, and at least tried to understand why he was attacking her out of nowhere in the first place. Then once again, when you casually used the word 'mortal' like it were beneath you. Diana has never cared whether someone had powers or not—she doesn't even think in those terms, let alone speak like that."
I explained, not even bothering to mention the spike in mana radiation I'd picked up after meeting her—far higher than what I had previously recorded from Diana's body.
And yes, I could measure mana. It's just another form of radiation when you break it down. Designing sensors to read those levels wasn't even difficult—especially after borrowing a few concepts from the A.I. chip in the Warlock of the Magus World.
"I see. Then tell me—why can't I use magic here? How are you able to block all my sorcery?" she asked after a few seconds of silence, her tone low but sharp.
"Pure 8th metal," I replied, unfazed. "Etched with a few runes I picked up from a well-known mage family. It's enough to stop almost all mana-based magics and sorceries. Also, the pyramid-shaped device on top is equipped with a prototype reality anchor to suppress any attempts at altering reality. It also includes a power inhibitor to block metahuman abilities—just in case you had any of those tucked away." I gestured slightly toward the cage. "And there's a kinetic force field layered in as well, in case you tried to brute-force your way out or phase through the bars. Not that it would matter—the 8th metal alone could handle that."
"...Diana severely underestimates just how paranoid you are," Circe growled, her teeth clenched and her hands curling tightly into fists.
"Oh, you have no idea," I replied, the corner of my mouth twitching into a faint smirk.
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(A/N:I realized I never actually described Bruce's Bat Cave, so I took the opportunity to do exactly that)
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