The sewer tunnels reeked of decay and chemical waste. Jason moved through the darkness behind his mother, their footsteps silent despite the ankle-deep water. Victor's voice crackled in their earpieces, guiding them through the labyrinth beneath Gotham.
"Fifty meters ahead, take the left junction," Victor instructed. "You'll see a maintenance ladder. That leads directly into the warehouse sublevel."
Above them, the distraction was already in motion. Jason could hear it even through layers of concrete and steel—Bruce's gravelly voice amplified by loudspeakers, calling out Luthor. Arthur's mocking laughter. The theatrical show meant to draw attention.
Diana raised her hand, signaling a stop. She pointed up. Through a rusted grate, dim light filtered down. The warehouse.
Jason floated up silently, his body defying gravity as naturally as breathing. He pressed his ear against the grate. Voices. Heavy footsteps. The mechanical hiss of something technological.
And then—a voice that made his blood boil.
"...the contingency is in place..." Bane's accent rolled through the space above. "When Superman's son arrives, we will be ready."
Jason's hands heated involuntarily, the metal grate beginning to glow red.
Diana touched his shoulder, shaking her head. Not yet. Patience.
He forced himself to breathe. To think. To be smart.
Together, they removed the grate silently. Jason went up first, emerging into a subterranean chamber filled with crates and machinery. Kryptonite radiation made his skin prickle—dispersed enough not to weaken him seriously, but present. A warning. A cage.
Diana came up behind him, her warrior instincts immediately assessing the space. She gestured toward a stairwell. That's where the voices were coming from.
They moved like ghosts.
The warehouse floor above was massive, broken machinery and old containers creating a maze of shadows. In the center, under harsh fluorescent lights, stood Bane. Even at a distance, his massive frame was intimidating—eight feet of venom-enhanced muscle wrapped in that distinctive mask and tactical gear. Tubes ran from his head to a pack on his back, pumping the green liquid that gave him his monstrous strength.
But no sign of Luthor.
"Where is he?" Jason whispered.
Diana's eyes narrowed. "This feels wrong."
"Your instincts are correct, Princess." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere—speakers hidden throughout the warehouse. Lex Luthor's smooth, cultured tone. "This is very wrong indeed. For you."
Bane turned, and Jason realized the giant had known they were there all along.
"Hijo de Superman," Bane rumbled, cracking his neck. "I was hoping you would come. They say you have your father's power. Let us see if you have his control."
Jason's vision flashed red. "You want to see my power? I'll show you—"
"Jason, wait!" Diana moved to intercept, but it was too late.
He was already airborne, crossing the distance faster than thought, his fist cocked back. Bane smiled behind his mask—that terrible, knowing smile.
The impact shook the building.
Jason's fist connected with Bane's jaw, and the giant flew backward, crashing through a steel container like it was cardboard. But Bane was already rolling, already recovering, the Venom pumping faster through his tubes.
"Good," Bane said, standing. "Very good. But strength alone is not enough, boy. Let me show you what experience provides."
He moved with shocking speed for someone his size. His fist came up in a devastating uppercut that caught Jason in the ribs, lifting him off the ground. Pain exploded through his torso—real pain, the kind he rarely felt.
Above, the distraction team had noticed something was wrong. Jason could hear Bruce's voice shouting orders, the sounds of entry being forced.
But all Jason could see was red.
All the anger—at his mother, at himself, at his grandmother's words, at the expectations, at the legacy—it all came pouring out. He roared, heat vision lancing from his eyes, burning across Bane's shoulder. The giant staggered but didn't fall.
"Jason, control yourself!" Diana's voice cut through his rage.
He didn't listen.
He crashed into Bane like a meteor, driving them both through the warehouse floor, down into the sublevel where he and Diana had emerged. Concrete and steel shrieked as they tore through it. Jason's fists became hammers, pounding into Bane's reinforced body again and again.
Bane caught one punch, twisted, used Jason's momentum against him. They rolled across the ground, each fighting for dominance. The Venom made Bane strong enough to grapple with Kryptonian might. Made him dangerous.
But Jason was beyond caring.
He grabbed Bane's right arm with both hands, squeezing, pulling. The rage demanded violence. Demanded destruction.
"Jason, NO!" Bruce's voice, from above. He'd reached the warehouse floor.
"Stop!" Diana was descending into the sublevel, horror on her face.
Jason pulled harder. Bane screamed behind his mask, a sound of pain and fury. The arm began to separate at the shoulder, enhanced tissue tearing, bone cracking—
"JASON, THAT'S ENOUGH!"
With a wet, terrible sound, the arm came free. Venom and blood sprayed across the concrete. Bane collapsed, his remaining hand clutching at the wound, his body going into shock.
Jason stood there, breathing hard, holding the severed limb. The rage was draining away, replaced by something cold and hollow.
What had he done?
"Jason..." Diana landed beside him, her face a mixture of disappointment and concern. "How could you—"
"He lost control," Bruce's voice came from above, hard and disapproving. "Completely. That wasn't combat. That was mutilation."
Arthur and Barry had arrived too, staring down at the scene with varying expressions of shock.
"Dude," Barry whispered. "That's... that's too far, man."
Jason opened his mouth to respond, to defend himself, to say something—
"Congratulations," Luthor's voice echoed through the speakers again. "You've passed the test. Or perhaps failed it. Depends on one's perspective."
From the shadows of the warehouse floor above, something emerged. A massive mechanical construct, rolling forward on tank treads. Mounted on top was a cannon—but not any normal weapon. It pulsed with sickly green light mixed with something else, something that made reality itself seem to shimmer around it.
"Do you know what this is, Diana?" Luthor's voice was almost cheerful now. "I call it the Dimensional Atomizer. It combines Kryptonite radiation with exotic matter particles harvested from a Mother Box I acquired. It doesn't just destroy matter—it unravels it across dimensional barriers."
The cannon was charging, energy building in its core.
"Luthor, don't!" Bruce shouted.
"And the beautiful part?" Luthor continued, ignoring him. "I had to make sure Jason would be properly motivated. Angry. Out of control. Exactly where I wanted him psychologically. Thank you, Bane, for your sacrifice."
Bane groaned on the ground, consciousness fading.
The cannon reached full charge.
"Goodbye, Justice League."
It fired.
The beam was massive—a column of green-white energy that tore through the air with a sound like reality screaming. It was aimed at the sublevel, at Diana, at Jason, at all of them clustered together.
Time slowed.
Jason saw his mother's eyes widen. Saw Bruce reaching for something on his belt. Saw Arthur moving to shield Barry. Saw Victor beginning to calculate trajectories.
He saw the beam that would atomize them all, scatter them across dimensions, erase them from existence.
And he saw his mother directly in its path.
No.
The thought was singular. Absolute.
Not her. Not them. Not because of me.
Jason moved.
He'd never moved this fast before. Never pushed himself like this. The world became a blur, then a smear, then something beyond visual comprehension. He flew at the beam—not to stop it, but to take it, to absorb it, to redirect it.
The energy hit him like the birth of a universe.
Every atom in his body screamed. The Kryptonite radiation tried to weaken him, but his Amazonian heritage pushed back. The exotic matter tried to scatter him, but his will held firm. He wrapped himself around the beam like a shield, containing it, pulling it away from the others.
Up. He had to go up. Away from them.
Jason shot toward the warehouse ceiling, the beam still tearing into him, through him. He crashed through steel and concrete, up into the Gotham night, the energy trying to rip him apart.
But it wasn't enough to just absorb it. The explosion was building. When this thing detonated, it would take out blocks of Gotham. Thousands would die.
He had to get rid of it. Had to take it somewhere else.
Where?
The exotic matter in the beam—he could feel it now, really feel it. It was punching holes in space-time, creating tiny fractures between dimensions. Between realities.
An impossible idea formed in his mind.
What if he didn't fight it? What if he used it?
Jason pushed harder. Faster. He'd flown at supersonic speeds before. Hypersonic. But now he went beyond that. Beyond physics. Beyond the limits of this dimension's natural laws.
The world began to fragment around him. He saw Gotham below, but also Gotham from fifty years ago, and Gotham from a hundred years in the future. Saw versions of the city that never existed, that existed differently, that existed impossibly.
The barriers between dimensions were thinning. Breaking.
He pushed one more time, willing himself through the cracks, and—
Reality shattered like glass.
Jason tumbled through a kaleidoscope of existence. Infinite worlds flashed past him—earths where the sky was purple, where the continents were arranged differently, where humanity had never evolved, where gods walked openly among mortals. The multiverse opened before him like a flower blooming at the speed of thought.
And then the beam exploded.
The detonation ripped across dimensional barriers. Jason was at the epicenter, holding it all together through sheer force of will. The pain was beyond description. His body—molecular structure, very existence—was being pulled in a million different directions.
But he held on.
He held on for his mother. For Bruce. For Arthur and Barry and Victor. For all the people in Gotham who would have died.
He held on until the explosion burned itself out, the energy dispersing across infinite realities in tiny, harmless fragments.
And then there was silence.
Jason floated in a space between spaces. Not quite real, not quite unreal. His body was still intact—mostly. He could feel his cells vibrating at frequencies that shouldn't exist, could sense dimensional coordinates overlaying his vision.
He'd survived.
And in surviving, he'd changed.
He could feel it now—the ability to move between dimensions as easily as flying. The barriers that separated realities were visible to him, permeable. He'd crossed the threshold, become something more than Kryptonian and Amazonian.
He'd become dimensional.
But where was he?
Jason looked around. Below him—if "below" even meant anything here—he could see an Earth. But it wasn't his Earth. The continents were similar but different. The moon was larger. And in orbit around the planet, he saw satellites and space stations with designs he didn't recognize.
Another reality. Another universe.
The question was: could he get back?
Jason focused, reaching out with his newfound senses, trying to feel the dimensional coordinates of home. It was there, faint but present—a thread connecting him to where he came from.
But something else tugged at his attention. Something wrong with this world he'd arrived in.
Below, in what would be Metropolis on his Earth, a beam of energy was rising into the sky. Similar to Luthor's cannon but different. Older technology. More desperate.
And he could hear a voice, carried on exotic particles across the dimensional barrier.
"—anyone out there—across the dimensional divide—we need help—"
Jason hesitated. His mother was probably losing her mind with worry. Bruce would be analyzing what happened. They'd think he was dead, scattered across the multiverse.
But that voice calling for help...
He closed his eyes, made a decision.
First, he'd see what this was about. Then he'd find his way home.
Jason descended toward the alternate Earth, toward whatever crisis awaited there.
He'd crossed the multiverse. Developed power beyond anything he'd imagined.
And now, in a reality not his own, his real journey was about to begin.
Behind him, the dimensional barriers slowly knitted themselves back together, sealing off the path he'd taken.
For now.