Chương 95: SS - Buying Time

"Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." -Theophrastus

"We need to do it," Carl told his partner.

"No, we don't," Ashley hissed quietly.

"We very much don't. We can leave. Right now. Pretend we didn't see anything."

"We can't," Carl insisted.

"Our bodycam footage caught him and the screams. When it's reviewed, everyone will know we were here and left without trying to stop him."

"So what," Ashley glared back.

"Nobody will blame us. Even the chief won't blame us."

"A reputation for cowardice can last a lifetime in the force."

"Not committing suicide is not cowardice."

"We'll live," Carl rolled his eyes.

"I won't," Ashley insisted.

"I really will die. You know what happens. Do you want to put my mom through that? My sister? And there's this guy I've been trying to hook up with. Do you think I'll be able to face him? If I make it back at all?" Carl genuinely didn't have an answer to that. He didn't have anyone like that in his life. He'd been married to the job for so long, felt no desire for family or a romantic partner, and all his friends would do was raise a glass in his name.

Ashley was young and pretty, had only a few years on the police force, and had her whole life ahead of her. She had much more to lose than Carl. Yet his answer didn't change.

"We need to," Carl repeated.

"Why?" Ashely threw her hands in the air.

"Why us? We're beat cops. We're not Supers. This is too big for us. If this goes wrong, we won't even be a statistic. This isn't our fight." How could Carl make her understand? They had already spent too much time arguing and risked losing the trail.

"You weren't infected, were you?" He knew the answer despite asking the question. Her eyes had never been flicked with pale blue starlight, unlike his.

"No," Ashley shook her head.

"But I was there when they came through the city the first time. I saw what that woman, Raven, could do. We can't deal with something like that."

"I was," Carl reminded. They both knew he had been among those who had fallen the Grace of the Moon when shadow flooded Edmonton the first time, but he hadn't said a word of the experience, unlike some others in the precinct.

"I saw the Elden Lord. Touched his scales."

"... What was it like?"

"Easy. Simple. Clean." Carl rambled, unsure how to put what he had seen and felt into words. He was never the most articulate of men.

"Terrifying. Majestic. Sureal. Tens of thousands of us touched him, and we barely covered one of his scales. We were flying over the ocean on a cloud of shadow; the sun had already set over there, and we just had the Blue Moon. But when I touched him... It wasn't like Heartbreak or when he healed my cancer. It was more than that. Like he said, all he promised was life. I have never felt more alive than I did in that moment. So, I promise. We'll be fine." Ashley stared at her mentor and partner for a long second.

"This really means that much to you," she asked.

"It does," Carl answered immediately.

"I am doing this whether you join me or not, but I really want my partner with me."

"Fine," the younger woman sighed. It couldn't cover how her voice shook.

"But if we die, I am blaming you."

"Thanks," Carl's smile was almost lost under his bushy mustache, but his partner caught it and rolled her eyes. Together, the two cops exited the car into the cold night. They advanced down the narrow alleys, the snow thick around their feet and breath foging the night air. The night was bright from the distant light of the city, the nearby streetlights, and the Chill Moon above, yet the shadows of the buildings still played tricks on their vision.

The screams and growls had cut off while they had been talking, but the silence was almost more oppressive, only the crunch of the snow under their feet giving away that nothing still lived in the half-abandoned warehousing district. A routine nightly patrol could instantly turn into a horror movie in a place like this. Which made the man waiting for the cops all the more disconcerting.

"Hello there." The Elden Lord couldn't look more out of place in his floral print shirt, shorts and sandals standing on the snow. The added height of nearly two feet of snow reinforced his towering frame, even leaning against a building. He was twiddling a blade dexterously between fingers and loomed over three feet taller than Ashley's respectable five foot six and much higher than Carl's five-four. Ashley, gun in hand but not pointing at the Dragon, answered back on instinct.

"General Kenobi." Barely had the words left her mouth when Carl saw horror dawn on her face, realizing what she had just said to the most powerful being on the planet. Possibly the universe. Mikael beamed, his slight smirk turning into a wide smile as he stood straight with a laugh.

"Ha," he bit out a bark of laughter, tossing the small dagger in his hand and catching it in the other.

"I love it when people play along. You have no idea how hard it is to get most of my wives properly cultured. You just made my night."

"Always happy to help," Ashley squeaked out, eyes darting around the alleyway before silently settling on Carl and begging for help.

"You are Mikael?" Carl called for verification, keeping his gun at the ready. Not for the figure in front of him. A pistol, or even a tank, wouldn't help him if the Dragon wanted them dead.

"Elden Lord? Global Villain?"

"Guilty as charged," Mikael's smile turned back into a smirk, his orange draconic eyes bright in the night. The blade in his hand glinted in the moonlight as he tossed it and caught it by the handle.

"What can I do for you, officers?"

"You are under arrest," Carl said simply. Then, as an afterthought, he added: "Sir." Mikael looked even more amused.

"Now I am genuinely curious," he said, approaching the pair. They flinched, but he paid them no regard. Carl noted he left no footprints in the snow.

"Why are you here, officers? You know this will not end well for you."

"Told you," Ashley hissed under her breath.

"I took an oath, sir," Carl said, voice trembling.

"Protect and serve. Just because the law is written by idiots doesn't mean I can stop following it or upholding it."

"You could have left," Mikael pointed out, gesturing with his small dagger in the direction of their car.

"Driven off. I know you thought of it. I could hear you arguing." That did not surprise the cops in the least.

"We received reports of a fight, some sort of wild animal," Carl responded. He was shivering. From excitement, fear, or the cold, he could not say for sure.

"Just because you are here, Sir, doesn't mean we can run away."

"Conviction. Even if in only a formality. I can respect that," Mikael nodded.

"Not what I'd do in your position, but I can respect it. Of course, since you are insisting on 'arresting' me, you know what this means, don't you?"

"We do."

"Please have mercy." Carl's grim determination was completely contrasted by Ashley's squeak of fear. Mikael looked at the pair, evaluating them, before letting out a chuckle.

"Tell you what, I'm in a good mood, I like you, and it's almost Christmas, so I can be a bit merciful."

"Really," Ashley asked hopefully.

"Depends on if you can do me a favour," Mikael shrugged casually, catching his dagger a final time.

"Can you two hold your stomachs?" Worry overtook Carl at the possible implications, but he answered.

"We were one of the first responders to Devastation's massacre. We are not squeamish, Sir." Ashley looked pale but resolute as she nodded. If whatever the Elden Lord needed her to do would save her from his hands, she'd do it.

"I don't know that one," the Dragon admitted but turned to walk deeper into the alley.

"But I'll take your word for it. Follow me." They did, struggling to wade through the snow. These narrow alleys were not plowed like the main streets or those closer to the city center. It barely took them three turns before finding the scene. Carl's thoughts about a horror movie flooded back as he stared at the mess. He'd some shit in his day, but this... Ashley gagged at the smell but managed to keep her dinner. At least they didn't have to worry about the snow here. It was all melted or tossed everywhere.

Instead, they just needed to worry about the blood. So much blood.

"Stop there," the Elden Lord ordered casually, walking through the gore as the two police officers stopped outside the red-soaked alley.

"Touch any of this stuff, and you'll probably be infected. I can cure you, but better not need to."

"What..." Carl asked, looking around in horror.

"What is this?" There were bodies littering the alley. Men. Women... Children. They were torn to pieces, rent with claws and fangs. Some had clearly been eaten, while others were just tossed aside. Some bodies looked days or even weeks old, while others were clearly fresh. A nest. That's what this was. A bloody, gore-covered nest. In the center of the alleyway, at the epicentre of the blood-soaked nest, some... thing was pinned to the wall by a sword.

It was humanoid-ish in appearance but covered in coarse and bloody fur. Only its torso and head remained intact, all its clawed limbs separated and lying below the corpse. It was like some sort of horrific modern art exhibit.

"This bastard," Mikael gestured to the macabre mural.

"Had a minor Stranger ability. I bet you've had an uptick in disappearances recently, right?" The Elden Lord didn't even give the cops a chance to nod before yanking the blade from the monster's corpse, causing it to slide to the ground with a disgusting 'Splortch.' He flicked his blade, clearing it of blood. Then, with a move that screamed of a thousand repetitions, he attached the dagger to its hilt with a click.

"What is it?" Ashley asked in horror.

"It's what happens when someone thinks they don't need to be cured of the plague I was talking about," Mikael sighed.

"Whoever this was either didn't trust my Family to cure them, thought they could handle it, or just wanted the power. The cause doesn't matter. You can see the result. They became a plaguebeast."

"Why," Carl swallowed his bile.

"Why are you showing us this?" Maybe Ashley had been right. Maybe this was too big for them. Carl had trusted the Elden Lord not to hurt them, but this... this was something else.

"You got a camera on you? I have to destroy all of this or risk spreading the plague more, but when I heard you guys, I figured you could take some pictures. I might not bring them back, but you can at least give the families of the victims some closure." Mikael looked so at ease with the horror, so used to the bloody sight and smell, that the idea that he cared for faceless, helpless victims seemed... surreal to the two police officers.

It was with almost numb fingers that the two police officers took what pictures they could of the bodies. It did enter Carl's mind, the one that wanted to find fault, that this could all be a setup. That there was no plague and the Elden Lord was just manipulating things. That there was no risk of people turning into... this and committing this kind of horror. A part of him wanted that to be true. Even if it meant his personal saviour was humanity's enemy. But Carl knew the truth.

He had seen the blood fly from his body as he laid hands on a resplendent scale. He had felt Mikael's power then. The Elden Lord did not need to trick them. If he wanted the Earth, he could have taken it. Instead, he was putting so much effort into saving Earth from a villain's plot. All this? The Elden Lord didn't need to do this. He chose to. Chose to save them. Chose to care. Chose to be human.

Once they were done, Mikael conjured a spectral dragon head that bathed the alley in a fire hot enough to melt the stone and metal. Dissipating the construct, the Elden Lord sniffed the air like a dog, checking to see if any blood remained.

"That takes care of that," he said, stretching languidly.

"Now, just to deal with you two, and I can call it a night."

"What?" Ashley asked in shock, shaking from the fugue the terrible sights and smells had put the pair in.

"You said you'd be merciful."

"And I will be," Mikael grinned smugly.

"Unlike every other cop, soldier, or Super that tries to arrest or mess with me and my family, I will not humiliate you on television, put you in compromising positions and take pictures for the internet, or turn your clothes into outlandish costumes." For the briefest of moments, the officers felt a thread of hope. They didn't understand that Mikael was a sadist.

"But I can't let you go scot-free," the Dragon revelled in their despair.

"What would people think when they heard? I have a reputation to maintain."

"What if I said pretty please?"

"Hmm," Mikael pretended to give the woman's plea some thought. Then the facade fell, and he grinned maliciously.

"No." With a clap of his hands and a wild laugh, the Elden Lord disappeared from the dark alley. It took very little time for the two cops to discover what had been done to them. Their standard-issue handcuffs had all been replaced by ones covered in pink fuzz. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Not just the ones they had on their person either, but also those they had in the car.

If that had been all, the pair could have laughed it off and requisitioned more without issue. It wasn't. The fuzzy cuffs were enchanted to be tough enough to stand up to superstrength, making them too valuable to get rid of. And they only worked for Carl and Ashley. For the rest of their careers, the two of them would be ordered to use the pink handcuffs. The only good news of the entire mess was that the guy Ashley had her eyes on found out about her new equipment and was intrigued.

The new couple put the cuffs to good use.

"What happened here?"

"Captain Marvel," Yoruichi greeted the woman, looking far more severe than the heroine had ever seen the Consort in all the videos she had been shown of what had happened during her absence from Earth.

"What happened?" Carol Danvers asked again, fists tightening as she beheld what had once been a small Bialyan village. Not even rubble remained after the torrent of electricity that had blasted the area into glass.

"The local militia thought the beast plague would help them overthrow the regime. I dealt with it already." Dealt with it. The woman had killed everyone. Destroyed the town till nothing remained but this craterous wasteland. She had been thorough enough that the repeated blasts of powerful lighting in the area had attracted Captain Marvel's attention.

"Why," the heroine bit out, impotent fury building in her chest.

"I just told you," the dark-skinned woman raised a brow and smirked at the heroine.

"They were planning on using the plague to kill Queen Bee, infecting the entire capitol with her in it."

"Do you have any proof," Captain Marvel asked, fist curling.

"And why kill everyone? You could have arrested them and cured them."

"Oh," Yoruichi waved off her question airly.

"Raven already came through the area. Everyone who wanted to be cured was and was dropped off somewhere safe. I only dealt with those that were left."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you have any proof?"

"None beyond my word." This was wrong. This was all wrong. So long as they declared someone had the beast plague, these dragons had the right to kill and destroy whoever they wanted? What if someone wasn't infected, and they just wanted them dead? Was the heroine just supposed to step aside and let the Elden Lord and its wives do whatever they wanted on 'their word?' Yet the heroine couldn't even say there wasn't a reason behind it. She, too, had been infected and not even realized it.

She had seen those who became beasts and had felt a primal terror at the sight, a fear of becoming like that herself. She had taken the cure and touched the Elden Lord, all so she wouldn't become a beast. She had seen it happen to others. The Punisher had made a great effort to hunt down criminals who sought to cause havoc with blood-enhanced strength. He had become a terrible beast, the very thing he had fought against. The disaster could have been devastating if Goodwitch hadn't been in the area.

Only the dragons were immune; they were the only ones who could wade through the blood and were able to entirely destroy the infection down to the last drop. Captain Marvel knew this. She understood this. It was still wrong. These had been people. Desperate people. What they had been planning was undoubtedly wrong, but they likely felt they had no choice. They were regular people who had been trying to overthrow a corrupt despot, a Master who had managed to secure UN approval and tied the Justice League's hands.

Was this to just be another compromise? Another of the lesser evils Carol had been forced to accept since she started her career as a heroine? When had the world become so complicated? Then Carol Danvers asked the question that needed to be asked.

"Why were you in Bialya in the first place?"

"Just dealing with the infected," Yoruichi said casually, but her cat-like eyes told the heroine to stop asking questions. Time to press on, maybe she'd let something slip.

"Have you heard? Queen Bee is dead. Passed away only an hour ago."

"Can't say I'll miss her," Yoruichi answered back plainly. She didn't even blink, staring the heroine dead in the eyes.

"Word on the vine was that she was a villain, Master, and serial rapist with her powers. Shame about these rebels. If they had waited a day, they might have made a different choice. But I doubt it. Anyone willing to use the Beastplague for their purposes will need to be hunted eventually." Captain Marvel's knuckles popped from the force she clenched them.

"Nobody knows how she died," Carol continued, cataloging every twitch the other woman made.

"Just fell over dead."

"How frightening."

"I was called because there was some fear about what to do with her body. Despite seeing the Grace of the Moon, she never went to get cured. Imagine my surprise when I got there and found her body completely cured... If it really is her body."

"Sounds like some sort of ghost story," the cat-woman smirked.

"You'll have to tell me if anything comes of it." Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a twitch. Captain Marvel wasn't a Thinker, nor was she anywhere near as good as Batman when it came to interrogating people, but she had plenty of experience. Yoruichi Shihouin was a stone-cold liar. She gave nothing away. But Carol knew. Yoruichi had killed these infected. She had killed Queen Bee. She had probably even killed some of the hundreds of public officials who were dying in drove around the world. Maybe all of them.

The Elden Lord's enemies were dropping like flies worldwide, all under mysterious circumstances, and the Justice League could do nothing. What heroes left were so busy dealing with the void caused by their comrade's disappearance that they could barely spare a moment for anything else. Carol Danvers was staring at an unrepentant assassin and mass murderer, and if they fought, the heroine would be the one the public would decry.

"We should get going," Yoruichi eventually said when Carol didn't speak for a long moment.

"I understand you are very busy these days. So am I."

"You won't get away with this." Carol didn't even try to stop the words from coming out. They had been bottled for too long.

"You. The Elden Lord. The rest of you. You won't get away with this."

"Get away with what?" Yoruichi asked guillessly.

"You know what." Yoruichi sighed, and suddenly, the neutrality was gone. In its place was something else.

"Listen, girl-""Don't call me that."

"I'm older than your country," Yoruichi snapped back at the interruption.

"I'll call you whatever I spirits-damn want to. Now listen to what I am saying or else." Carol held her tongue, not out of fear, but in the hope that the dark-skinned woman would say something incriminating in her anger.

"You and everyone in a too-bright costume seem to think we need to be either the good guys or the bad. With you or against you. We've played along so far, but do not mistake my Family's complacence with compliance." Suddenly, the woman was right in front of Carol. She hadn't even seen her move.

"Good. Evil. Some of us care about that. Most don't. We are maintaining a balance here, nothing more or less." Yoruichi was shorter than Captain Marvel, yet the heroine felt a shiver of apprehension as cat-like eyes narrowed at her. It was like she was being pressed down by the dragon's will, and Carol felt her lungs seize slightly at the woman's anger. No. Not anger. Annoyance. That's all Captain Marvel was to Yoruichi. A momentary annoyance. A yipping dog with no clue of how tiny and powerless it really was.

Anger replaced fear in Carol's chest, but Yoruichi didn't care for the woman's fury.

"This isn't some grand conspiracy to take over the world, steal power, or get away with 'crimes.' You all need to get over yourselves," Yoruichi gave the heroine a look of profound contempt.

"If we wanted to destroy this world, we'd just leave. You'd do the work for us."

"Then why don't you," Carol snapped back.

"This is not your planet. Leave!" The pressure on Captain Marvel doubled. Tripled. They were on the ground, Carol realized. They had ceased flying and were standing on the ground at some point. And she wasn't imagining the pressure. The Earth was flattened around the two women like someone had taken a hydraulic press to the entire area. Carol could stand up to the pressure. She was one of the strongest heroines on the planet. The Earth under her feet couldn't.

The terrifying aspect wasn't that the Earth caved under feet, lowering into the ground. It was that it only pressed her down exactly as much as it needed to put the two women precisely at eye level with each other. Carol Danvers had not been on Earth during Heartbreak, but she was suddenly very aware that she was staring down a woman who had soloed an Enbringer.

"Because some of us still care," Yoruichi answered simply.

"And when one of us cares, all of us care. That's what it means to be Family." Then the pressure and the woman were gone. Captain Marvel was left in a destroyed town's ruined, flattened remains. The heroine took a deep breath and let out her frustration through her nose.

"You shouldn't have done that," Batman's voice called over the coms.

"I wasn't wrong," Carol called back.

"This is exactly what I was warning you about! This plague! Look what it's done. You know it's their fault."

"You weren't," Batman acknowledged.

"And they are partly to blame. Mikael fully admited that to me. But nore are they doing nothing to rectify it. Without giving anything we can use as proof, Yoruichi as good as admitted to being the one behind the assassinations. But you missed the message she was trying to send, that the Elden Lord was trying to send through her."

"Enlighten me."

"Despite being able to leave as soon as she was done with the rebels, she was waiting for you. She brought up the Queen before you, though her targets.

'Anyone willing to use the Beastplague for their purposes needs to be hunted eventually.' She was telling us that Queen Bee was working with the blood plague."

"So we're just supposed to let her get away with the assassination of a world leader," Carol asked rhetorically.

"I hated the bitch, but if we let them kill Queen Bee, why not let her kill the president of the US, the King of Britain, Magneto, Black Panther, or anyone else."

"That is part of the message Yoruichi sent," Batman explained.

"Anyone with a brain can guess Mikael and his family are behind the killings. She was promising us to keep it to only those who messed with the blood. Everyone else, even influential political figures or powerful Supers who are actively trying to antagonize them, are being spared. They're not being indiscriminate."

"They're still killing whoever they want!" Carol was shouting. She was yelling at Batman because she was angry. Angry at the situation, the Elden Lord, at Yoruichi, at her inability to stop it all. Why wasn't this simple? Punch the bad guys, save the day, go home. Rinse and repeat. That was how it was supposed to go.

"... You've been in the field for days," Batman said slowly.

"You need to rest."

"I need the world to return to normal," Captain Marvel denied.

"Too many villains think they have a chance with the rest of the League gone and heroes gone. I don't have time to rest."

"It's not just sleep, I mean," Batman chided.

"You need to get updated info before you snap and do something rash." Captain Marvel felt a shiver down her back.

"... What happened?"

"I'll tell you when you get back."

"Bruce."

"... One of the warlords vying for power in China after the loss of Beijing was secretly being aided by a faction of the Japanese military. As far as we can tell, they were trying to replicate the 'lead from below' technique Imperial Japanese soldiers used during WWII, hoping to lead Japan back to its colonial era by forcing a war with a divided mainland. They were trying to manufacture another Manchurian Incident."

"What. Happened." She didn't need background context. Carol needed answers.

"A rogue Japanese general led his four divisions to 'pacify' an area. The warlord found out and recruited everyone he could get his hands on, former soldiers and civilians. Both sides had Supers. Both sides spread the blood plague to their soldiers, who took it willingly. They hated the other side enough to turn into beasts." Carol was former air force. She knew the classifications. Four divisions were roughly ninety thousand soldiers.

Assuming rough parity, if in numbers, if not actual power because of civilian volunteers involved...

"Oh god."

"We have no way of calculating the total dead," Batman said sombrely.

"Raven's shadow pulled those who wanted to be cured from the battle, but so many had turned to beasts by then. Ranni dealt with the rest. That Chill Moon spell Strange saved you from? It plateaued the area."

"How did we miss this?" Carol hissed, rage and heartbreak filling her in equal measures.

"We could have stopped this. Should have stopped this!"

"We should have stopped a lot of things. I only learned about it because Wonder Woman, the one married to the Elden Lord, told me about it after it happened." Carol heard it. The weariness. The sadness. Bruce Wayne was willpower incarnate, but Carol knew it stemmed from a sense of responsibility just as potent. He blamed himself for not catching and stopping the tragedy.

"With the infrastructure so damaged in that part of the world, the decentralizing of power, and the infighting," Batman continued reporting.

"We've lost most sources of information. That's why I want you to come back and rest up. As soon as you get some sleep and are briefed, that will be your jurisdiction until things stabilize. You are one of the only ones who are fast enough, can fly, know the language, and have Justice League permission to act before reporting. We need someone there."

"Fine," Carol bit out.

"What about the Elden Lord?"

"... Despite their designation as 'Global Villain,' they are not our priority. Our priority is to save human lives. Even if just from themselves." Despite the promise of rest, exhaustion filled Carol. They were addressing symptoms, not causes. They both knew it. Until something changed, they were just buying time. Sometimes, just sometimes, Carol wished a hero could save her. Where was Superman when you needed him?

"Galatea is in Houston," Dragon reported.

"I rerouted her to deal with Carnage."

"Houston?" Batman clarified.

"Where's Eidolon?"

"Peru. A Master 7 has taken over Callao."

"Keep Supergirl in Star City then," Batman ordered, cataloguing the heroes' movement and changing plans in an eyeblink. Best the clone and the heroine didn't meet for the moment. No need to risk their continued ambivalence to each other.

"Instead, contact the Protectorate in LA to send Kid Flash to Butte, Montana. He'll cover the east of the Rockies well with his speed. Falcon still has the mountains for the moment." Anyone with a Mover rating above eight was to be separated by cities or states for maximum area coverage. With limited heroes to call on, force projections were important. To facilitate this, flyers or speedsters were placed in stratic areas to cover as wide a net as possible.

Even if they couldn't stop a threat themselves, they could delay it long enough for backup to arrive. A higher density of heroes was needed in populated and important locations, as those were most likely to be targeted by villains. Still, those usually had PRT and Protectorate teams in the area.

"Myrridin is requesting backup."

"Can you send a suit?"

"No, I am dealing with a new Tinker villain in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Their specialty is self-replicating tech.

"... Focus on that. We can't allow a Tinker like that to remain at large. What's happening with Myrridin?"

"A cabal of rogue magic users. Some sort of ritual on Lake Michigan. They've started a massive winter storm over the lake, and it is reaching hurricane levels of force."

"I'll contact Zatarra."

"And," Dragon's voice fell, heavy with regret.

"Azrael has turned." Turned. He had become a beast. Bruce closed his eyes for a moment. Jean-Paul had answered the call to justice, just as he always had, but hadn't heeded his warnings about fighting the infected. Then, the moment of mourning was over.

"Let Nico Robin know," Batman ordered.

"Where is Raven?"

"She's on her second pass through Yemen," Dragon reported, one of her duties keeping track of the shadow as it moved back and forth over the world, ferrying the infected to the Elden Lord and back.

"When you talk to Nico Robin, have her relay a request to have her cover Genosha again."

"This will be the sixth time."

"A hemokinetic decided to try and overthrow Magneto."

"... Very well."

"What's the status of the satellites?"

"Indonesia is all set, but it will be a few more days before I have enough in the air to cover Russia and China. I have half of India covered, but they aren't powerful enough to make up for the lack of communication technology in that part of the world."

"Anything else requiring immediate attention?"

"No. The situation seems stable for the moment. Get some sleep. I'll alert you if needed." Batman did just that. Even with all his tricks, medicines, and willpower, he still needed to sleep after almost a week of nonstop work, with only the barest of breaks for food. He set his alarm four hours from then and willed himself into darkness, trusting that he would be awoken in case of an emergency. Batman would be up before Captain Marvel and could direct her to where she was needed.

He just hoped she took his words to heart about needing to not antagonize the Elden Lord. For now. Batman knew this day would come. Not necessarily in this exact fashion, but he had not ignored either Carol's warning about the 'Sleeper Plague' or his own belief that, eventually, Mikael would start disregarding Earth laws to do as he saw fit. So yes, Batman had known a day like this would come. It didn't mean he was ready. It was too soon. So many of his plans relied on heroes that weren't available.

The goal had never been to kill the Elden Lord, just to provide enough of a deterrent that he left Earth rather than deal with those who opposed him. As it was now, the world was like an ironic joke on that plan. Mikael was the enemy of Earth, yet they could do nothing against him. More than that, any hero or law enforcement agent who tried to confront the man or his wives found themselves publicly humiliated in some fashion.

'Harmless pranks,' Mikael called them. Batman knew it was partially Mikael's sense of humour, but it was also an incredibly effective plot to alienate his enemies from the general populace. This was why Bruce respected and feared Mikael. His power was prodigious, but his mind had Batman wary.

'The blood plague originates from my Island,' Mikael had told the Caped Crusader.

'Waller's team took an animal with it and gave it to a villain who cloned and spread it. Mister Sinister was probably using the X-men as a distraction, hoping I wouldn't catch on. He failed. We have the kid and the mom and will bring them to Xavier as soon as they are cured. As far as I know, I am the only one who can cure it. And I will. It's partly my fault.' Ostensibly, Mikael was accepting responsibility, but there were three extra layers to those few sentences.

First, he mentioned Amanda Waller specifically and laid the start of the plague at her feet. Waller was a central US figure and had broken international law to gain the blood. Waller was the first leader who became mysteriously 'incapacitated.' Second, Mikael was also telling Batman that the heroes had also, unwittingly, been part of the problem. It wasn't blackmail but a reminder that if Batman tried to lay the whole blame at his feet, he could take them down with him.

Third, the Elden Lord was making himself indispensable. Even if Batman had a perfect plan to fight him, which he didn't, he couldn't afford to antagonize the only source to provably able to cure the disease. Looking back, as soon as Mikael had briefed him about the Bloodplague, days before the declaration of war and the Family's reply, the Elden Lord had probably expected that extra-legal measures, including assassination and mass killings, would be required. The poison and the cure.

A reliable tactic, one Batman had used himself when dealing with some of the trickier criminals of his city. That was Mikael at his core. Simple strategies, not complex plans, taken to the extreme. The speech in the Chill Moon was another example of a tactic just as simple. Lowering emotion, inciting fear and hopelessness, then raising them up, then lowering, then raising them again. An interrogation/torture trick as common as good cop/bad cop that left people psychologically vulnerable to influence.

The humiliation of heroes? It just proved the Elden Lord wasn't the villain in the eyes of the public. If he was, he would have killed them. So clearly, the heroes trying to arrest him were the bad guys. With every day that passed, a simple PR campaign focused on humour and friendliness had spread belief in the Elden Lord as much as killing the Endbringers had. And Batman could do nothing but allow him to get away with it. If he spoke out now, he'd just be another of dozens of heroic figures to be dismissed.

If he allowed Captain Marvel to fight Yoruichi or anyone to confront Ranni over the destruction of the armies, Batman would become not just a figure of mockery but part of the problem. It would be easier to swallow as the Dark Knight biding his time until he could confront a villain at the best moment, fully prepared. Only... even now, even after all the death and destruction Mikael and his family had caused, intentionally and not, Batman could not think of Mikael as a villain.

Everything the dragon had warned him about had come true. From those who tried to fight the beasts, turning into beasts themselves, to using blood to cure wounds, to those trying to empower Supers and soldiers. Batman had no doubt that if the Elden Lord hadn't healed everyone on the planet just a few weeks ago, countless people would turn to the blood to heal themselves from diseases or injuries. The Elden Lord also was focusing on peacekeeping, more than enemy elimination.

If Mikael had asked people to rise against the governments calling him a villain, Bruce had no doubt that half the world would be consumed in civil wars. Also, as warned, nobody else was able to handle the plague. All healers, magicians, mutants, or scientists had failed to find a way to cure people. Most couldn't even tell the infected from the clean. Only the Grace of the Moon in the eyes was a hundred percent indicator.

Without Mikael, Earth would have just become one of the countless planets lost to the 'Sleeper Plague.' That was the issue. For every problem Mikael and his Family caused, in the end, it was better to have them than not. Even right now, the only reason Batman could spend days on end coordinating heroes all over the globe was because Nico Robin was a constant supervisor of Gotham in his absence.

Without her, the city would have become a cesspool of beasts as soon as its terrible occupants learned of the potential of the blood. Doomsday, Trigon, the Endbringers, even the Phoenix Force, in a way. There were so many tragedies that could have been so much worse without the Elden Lord. Batman didn't know if he was making the right decision to entrust his world's fate to Mikael. He just knew it was the best of bad options.