The scene inside Commissioner Gordon's trashed office had shifted dramatically.
Where moments ago, the masked attackers had been filled with arrogance, laughing as they destroyed the space, now they stood frozen, gripped by something far worse than uncertainty—pure, unfiltered fear.
It was the voice.
Arias's voice had resonated through the room like a death sentence, and every single one of them knew what that meant.
The leader of the group, the same masked man who had been running his mouth in the broadcast, snapped his head around in a panic. His breath hitched as he scanned the room frantically, as if expecting Arias to materialize from thin air.
"Where is he?!" he yelled, his voice cracking just slightly.
None of the others answered. They were too busy gripping their weapons, hands slick with sweat. One of them, his mask slightly askew from the sheer tension, finally choked out—
"That… that was his voice… he's here!"
Another man, already trembling, turned to glare at the leader. "You said we'd be gone before anyone reached us! He's fucking here! I'm outta here!"
To say he was panicked would be an understatement.
The fear people in the underground world had for Arias wasn't normal. It wasn't the kind of fear reserved for rival gangs or hit squads. It was the kind of terror associated with myths—the kind that made people check over their shoulders at night, the kind that kept them from even whispering his name unless absolutely necessary.
And right now, every single one of them realized they had made a fatal mistake.
The panicked attacker didn't hesitate. He bolted for the door, shoving past the others as if their presence alone might get him killed.
"Hey! If you fucking leave, you're not getting paid!" the leader snapped, his desperation barely hidden by anger.
The retreating man didn't even glance back. "Fuck the money. It ain't worth my life."
With that, he yanked open the door, ready to escape—
Only to freeze in place, his eyes widening in sheer, gut-wrenching horror.
Arias stood there.
Casual. Hands in his pockets. Like he had all the time in the world.
His gaze, piercing and unreadable, settled on the man like an executioner deciding whether the blade should fall. Then, in a voice far too calm for the situation, he remarked—
"You should've thought of that before attacking my city."
The man's throat bobbed, but no words came. His body locked up, muscles seizing as every survival instinct in his body screamed at him to move—yet he couldn't.
The others inside the office had stopped breathing entirely. Even the leader, who had been the loudest, was as still as a corpse.
The retreating man finally managed a weak, "I—"
But that was all he got out before Arias lazily raised a hand.
The man barely had time to process what was happening before his body was yanked forward, lifted off his feet by an unseen force. Then—
**CRASH!**
He hurtled across the room, smashing into the overturned desk. His body bounced off, spinning midair before slamming against the far wall with a sickening **THUD**.
His mask loosened from the impact. Blood spattered against the floor as he crumpled, his body twitching. One arm was bent at an unnatural angle, his leg barely responding. He let out a weak, gurgled groan—alive, but barely.
The leader flinched at the sight, his breath turning shallow. He turned toward the others, eyes wild with desperation.
"Shoot him!!"
His voice carried no confidence—only panic.
But it didn't matter. His men, too far gone in their terror, obeyed without hesitation. Even the cameraman abandoned his phone, scrambling for his gun with shaking hands.
**BOOM!** **BOOM!** **BOOM!**
The room exploded with gunfire. A shotgun blast rang the loudest, the force of it strong enough to tear through solid walls. Muzzle flashes lit up the wreckage as they unloaded everything they had at the doorway.
And yet—
The bullets barely traveled an inch before stopping midair.
They hung there, motionless, as if caught in an invisible web. The shotgun shells, meant to tear through flesh, hovered uselessly in place.
From behind the wall of suspended bullets, Arias smiled.
On the ground, still bound and bloodied, Commissioner Gordon weakly lifted his head. His one working eye took in the sight—the bullets frozen, the masked men petrified—and, despite everything, a wave of relief washed over him.
He wasn't going to die today.
The attackers, however, weren't as fortunate.
Arias stepped forward, entering the room as if he were simply taking a stroll. The bullets in the air slowly rotated, turning back toward their owners.
The men holding the guns finally realized their mistake.
Their hands shook. Their knees buckled.
This was it.
Arias's voice, calm and unbothered, resonated once more.
"I think it's time I set a very clear example to those wishing to bring harm to Gotham."
The five attackers, including their leader, widened their eyes in sheer horror.
The room went dead silent.
The masked attackers, who just moments ago had been unloading bullets now stood paralyzed, weapons still gripped but utterly useless in their hands.
Then, one of them—perhaps the weakest, or just the most desperate—abruptly dropped his gun.
The clatter of metal against the floor was loud, especially in the suffocating quiet.
He raised his hands slowly, his body trembling as he fell to his knees. His voice came out uneven, cracking under the sheer weight of terror pressing down on him.
"I— I surrender!" he gasped. "You can arrest me!"
It was a pitiful sight.
The other attackers didn't move. Didn't breathe.
To those watching—students at Ark Academies, hidden away in their bunkers, glued to their screens—this moment reinforced exactly what they had been taught. That under Arias's banner, they were untouchable. That their enemies, no matter how bold, would break just like this at the sight of him.
To many others around the world, it was an unexpected twist. Barbara included.
She had been watching in breathless anticipation, clinging to the hope—perhaps foolishly—that this would be the end of it. That Arias would let Gotham's so-called 'justice system' handle these men.
But Arias had no such intentions.
His footsteps echoed through the destroyed office as he stepped further inside.
Not a single attacker moved. They didn't dare.
To them, Arias was a specter, an executioner in a pristine black suit. He wasn't breathing hard, wasn't injured, hadn't even tried to dodge their bullets—because he didn't need to. And worst of all, the absence of noise beyond these walls meant one thing.
The rest of their crew wasn't alive anymore.
Killed so quickly. So quietly.
That realization made the so-called hardened criminals feel like children, helpless before something they could neither fight nor flee from.
Arias looked down at the kneeling man. His lips curled slightly—not in amusement, but in disdain.
"You threatened to bring carnage to this city and its innocent people because of me."
The kneeling attacker flinched.
"And because of your actions, the streets are now flooded with criminals. Worse…" Arias's cold gaze swept across the others. "You targeted and executed the good men and women who swore to protect this city, all to spread your pathetic agenda."
His voice carried no anger, no righteous fury. Just absolute, unwavering finality.
"No…" He scoffed, shaking his head. "Arresting you would amount to nothing."
The moment those words left his lips, every attacker in the room felt their stomachs drop.
Their last lifeline—gone.
Back in the bunker, the tension among those watching skyrocketed.
Barbara's hands clenched into tight fists, her breath shallow. Billy, standing beside her, shifted uneasily. Lois looked uneasy. No one spoke. No one dared to blink.
Then, Arias delivered the final words that sealed the attackers' fate.
"The world already thinks I'm a cold-hearted killer."
He tilted his head slightly, as if considering something trivial.
"I don't mind bearing that reputation anymore if it means ridding the world of people like you."
A choked, helpless sound left one of the attackers.
The others could barely stay standing. Some stumbled backward, bumping into overturned furniture, while the kneeling man visibly swayed, close to collapsing from sheer dread.
Then—Arias acted.
No more words.
No more delays.
His hand barely twitched—but the kneeling man's body suddenly convulsed as if a thousand invisible hands had grabbed hold of him.
A sickening **CRACK** rang out as his right leg bent the wrong way at the knee, snapping like a twig.
His agonized scream barely had time to escape his throat before his left arm twisted violently, bones piercing through flesh. His body jerked unnaturally as he was dragged off his knees and lifted into the air like a puppet with severed strings.
The others could only watch in mounting horror as Arias slowly, methodically crushed him.
The man's eyes bulged, his jaw contorting in an attempt to beg—plead—something—
But then his head twisted sharply with a grotesque **SNAP**.
His body dropped lifelessly to the floor.
The remaining attackers lost all restraint.
One stumbled back, pressing himself against the wall, trying to merge into it as if that could somehow save him. Another let out a shaky breath, muttering something under his breath—maybe a prayer.
Arias didn't care.
Another gesture of his fingers—
The second attacker was flung across the room with such force that he hit the ceiling before plummeting back down. His spine audibly shattered on impact.
The third barely had time to move before his own arms were wrenched clean from his body, blood splattering across the ruined office. His shrieks lasted seconds before Arias flicked his wrist—and his skull caved in.
The fourth—
A gunshot rang out.
A desperate last stand.
A feeble attempt.
Arias didn't even glance his way. The bullet stopped midair, then spun around and shot right back, piercing the man's throat. He choked violently, blood bubbling from his lips as he collapsed.
That left only one.
The leader.
His mask was damp with sweat, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
His gun was still in his hand, but he didn't try to shoot. He didn't try anything.
He knew it was over.
Arias took a single step forward.
The leader let out a broken, "P—please—"
Arias didn't respond.
Instead—
His limbs tore away from his body one by one.
The man's screams were horrific, inhuman, as his arms and legs were ripped from their sockets in slow motions. Blood pooled around his writhing torso.
His cries turned into pathetic gurgles as Arias's telekinetic grip reached his skull.
His eyes bulged, then violently popped, leaking red down his mask.
And finally—
Arias lifted the man's own shotgun off the ground, aimed it downward, and let it hover in place.
For a moment, the leader's mangled form twitched on the floor, barely alive.
Then—
**BOOM**
His head ceased to exist.
The shotgun dropped to the floor with a heavy **clunk**.
Arias exhaled through his nose, the only sound in the now silent room. He turned his gaze to the phone that had been dropped during the firefight, its cracked screen still flickering with the live broadcast.
Without hesitation—
He lifted his foot.
And stomped on it.
The screen shattered instantly, the feed cutting to black.
For those watching in the bunker, the last thing they saw was a glimpse of Arias's unmoving expression before everything disappeared.
Barbara stared at the now-dead screen, unable to speak.
Billy swallowed hard, his earlier excitement gone, replaced with something else entirely.
And Lois—
Lois let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
There was no mistaking it now.
Arias Markovic didn't just handle problems.
He erased them.