Quiet Revisions, Loud Truths
Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor did not rage.
That alone would have unsettled anyone who truly knew him.
In the privacy of his LexCorp tower office, the lights dimmed to a thoughtful amber as holographic screens hovered around him—paused footage of Cheshire in motion. Not grainy rumors. Not hearsay.
Data.
He replayed the clip again, slower this time. Frame by frame. Cheshire moved like liquid violence—bullets slipping past her skin, blades glancing off as if repelled by invisible oil. Her momentum was wrong. Too efficient. Too clean.
Not metahuman genetics.
Not tech—no emissions, no energy signatures, no reaction delay.
And not magic. At least, not in any form he recognized.
Lex steepled his fingers.
"So," he murmured to the empty room, "the pattern holds."
Eight months.
Eight months of global surveillance, mystical probes, alien sensors, divine divinations—and not a single confirmed Devil Fruit location. Yet somehow, in less than a year, three confirmed users now existed.
Damian Wayne.
Superboy.
Cheshire.
That was not coincidence. That was distribution.
Lex pulled up another file—Damian Wayne's behavioral profile. His movements. His absences. His interactions with Ra's al Ghul. The League of Assassins' sudden technological leap.
Lex exhaled slowly.
Hypothesis Revision #4:
Devil Fruits are not merely discovered.
They are acquired through a method not replicable by conventional search.
His earlier assumption—that only one Devil Fruit could be consumed per individual—still held. Superboy had received one. Damian had eaten one. Cheshire now had one.
But a new realization settled in, colder than the rest.
Secondary Hypothesis:
The fruits resist replication, detection, and forced acquisition.
They respond to intent, compatibility, and selection.
Semi-sentient, perhaps. Or bound to rules outside known physics, magic, or biology.
Lex's lips curved—not a smile, but something sharper.
"So you're not hoarding power," he said quietly, imagining Damian Wayne.
"You're curating it."
That was far more dangerous.
He closed the files.
For now, he would not confront Ra's al Ghul. Not Damian. Not even Cheshire.
No.
You didn't spook the dealer when you hadn't learned the rules of the game.
Artemis
Artemis Crock didn't need surveillance footage.
She had seen Cheshire with her own eyes.
The memory replayed uninvited as she stood alone on the Young Justice training deck, bow resting loosely in her hand, untouched targets lined up in front of her.
Cheshire—Jade—had always been fast. Always lethal. That wasn't new.
What was new was the way the world seemed to fail to touch her.
Artemis closed her eyes.
Blades sliding off Jade's skin.
Gunfire skimming past like rain on glass.
That smooth, effortless motion—no wasted steps, no hesitation.
And her scars.
Gone.
Every old mark. Every reminder of the life they'd survived.
Artemis swallowed.
"It doesn't make sense," she whispered.
Jade wasn't a metahuman. She hated relying on gadgets. Magic had never been her thing. And if it were tech, Artemis would've seen it—heard it, felt it.
Instead, Jade had looked… free.
That hurt more than Artemis expected.
Because freedom was the one thing Jade had always chased—and always paid for.
Artemis's grip tightened on her bow.
"So that's it," she muttered. "You found something that finally works for you."
Her thoughts drifted, unwillingly, to Damian.
His calm. His analysis. The way he'd watched everyone—not like a strategist planning betrayal, but like someone measuring burdens.
I found two Devil Fruits, he'd said.
There might be more.
At the time, Artemis had dismissed it as another one of Damian's unsettling truths.
Now?
Now Jade was proof.
Artemis exhaled sharply and loosed an arrow. It struck the center target dead-on—but she barely registered it.
"If you got that power from him," she said quietly, staring at the target,
"then whatever game Damian's playing… it's bigger than any of us."
She didn't know whether to be afraid.
Or hopeful.
And that uncertainty, more than anything, told her the world had already changed.