Chapter 632 A World Without Gates

JUSTICE LEAGUE WATCHTOWER -

Superman teleported to the Watchtower looking like a man who had walked out of a war and decided to take the long way home.

His suit was in ribbons. His cape was gone entirely. A burn crossed one shoulder, there was dried blood in his hair that wasn’t his, and he was smiling the tired smile of someone who had been awake for two week. He rolled his neck until it cracked, and strolled onto the main deck as if he’d popped out for coffee.

"Morning," said Clark.

Barry, mid-sandwich, choked.

"Clark?" He dropped the sandwich. He was across the deck before it hit the floor, circling Superman in a blur, hands raised in the universal gesture of a man afraid to touch the evidence. "Dude. You look like you lost a fight with a volcano."

"A serpent, actually. About the size of a small town." Clark considered. "And technically I won."

"You’ve been gone for some time," said Diana.

She had risen from the monitor bank, and her voice was steady, but there was something fierce and glad in her eyes that she didn’t try to hide. She crossed the deck and gripped his forearm. "We did not know whether to search for you or trust you guys. Bruce made the decision to trust you. I did not enjoy it."

"I didn’t enjoy it much either," Clark said gently.

"You’re alive," said Batman.

He had turned from the monitors without hurry. He stood in the pale light of the deck, arms crossed, and his face was unreadable. But he had not moved in a full ten seconds, and Martian Manhunter, standing quietly at his shoulder, noticed that.

"Barely," Clark agreed. "Give me ten minutes. I’ll tell you all of it."

"Start at the beginning."

"The beginning," said Clark, "is the Rulers."

He told it the way Clark Kent told everything: plainly, in order, leaving out nothing that mattered. The Rulers’ ultimatum. The creature called Nidhogg and the seven-day war. The plan, and the wound, and what it had cost to carry it out. By the time he reached the part where Frost had flung an ice spear through the Shadow Monarch’s chest, Barry had sat down on a console and was staring at him with his mouth open.

"I’m sorry," said Barry. "Back up.. He faked his own death? In that sort of situation?"

"He asked us to. He needed the Rulers to come for us."

"And you hit him."

"Several times, yes."

"And he asked you to."

"I didn’t like it," Clark said. "It was a good plan, though."

"That is," said Barry, "easily one of the top three bonkers plans I’ve ever heard, and I once outran my own funeral."

"It worked," said Clark. He told them the rest of it: the trap, the silent clones, the eight Rulers broken in the dark. Then he told them about the light that had split the Abyss, and the man who had walked out of it.

"His name is Michael," he said. "The archangel."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"The Michael," Diana said slowly. "On Themyscira my mother spoke of beings who stand between realms. Guardians who answer to no throne. I confess I took them for stories." She drew a careful breath. "So he finished off the Rulers."

"With one hand," said Clark. "He didn’t even seem angry."

"I felt it," said J’onn.

All eyes turned to him. The Martian had been silent through the entire telling, his arms folded, his gaze distant. "Two hours ago. A tremor across the telepathic fabric of the world. Then a silence I have not felt since before the gates started appearing." He inclined his head to Clark. "I did not know what it meant. Now I do."

"There’s one more thing," said Clark. He took a breath, and for the first time in a week, his smile was easy. "You don’t have to worry about gates appearing anymore. Michael closed all of them. Every single one, around the whole world. No more dungeons. No more monsters."

"No wonder," said Batman quietly.

He had turned back to the console. The deck’s great curved monitor showed the globe, slowly turning, and across its surface a map of faint overlapping fields glowed in soft, shifting colors. "We detected a great shift in mana levels around the world a little while ago. Everything dropped, then settled. And no gates have appeared in the past two hours." He paused. "I assumed it was a lull."

He stopped.

It was a small stop, the length of a single indrawn breath. But it was long enough that Diana glanced at him.

"If the Rulers are truly dead," Batman said, very slowly, "then their vessels are in danger."

"Oh.." said Diana.

"The people who carried their power, their link to the Rulers is severed. Whatever that connection was doing, whatever it was holding up..." He frowned. "I don’t know what happens when it breaks. But I doubt it’s gentle. Mortal danger, perhaps."

"Arthur told us already," said J’onn. "That their survival depends on their willpower. Severing the link is dangerous for them. He did not say it lightly."

"Then I need to check on the boy," said Batman.

He had already moved. He crossed the deck in four long strides and snatched his cowl from the edge of the console, and the cape swirled behind him. "Ethan. I won’t leave him alone with this."

"Bruce," said Diana. "If it is a matter of willpower..."

"I won’t rely on willpower and hope alone," said Batman. "Not for a child. Not when I can be there."

He paused at the door. When he turned, he did not look like the Bruce Wayne who dined on rooftops or the Batman who stalked criminals through the dark. He looked tired and calm.

"I’m glad it’s over," he said. "Truly. Whatever comes of this, I believe the results will benefit this world. Whatever else Arthur is, he’s done what none of us could."

He went out. J’onn followed without a word, shifting into mist as he passed through the door.

Barry watched them go. He looked at Diana, and at Clark, and at the quiet globe turning slowly below them, free of the faint, flickering gate-lights that had pocked it for so many months.

"So," he said. "Since the whole mess of gates and hunters is over.. What now?"

Clark smiled, and sat down on the edge of a console, and for the first time in days, closed his eyes.

"For once," he said, "I think we deserve a bit of rest."

.

.

.

ARTHUR’S ESTATE -

"I must confess," said George, "that nothing in my professional training has prepared me for this."

He set the silver tea service on the table with the care of a man laying down a bomb. It was late afternoon, and the light slanted gold through the old trees at the edge of the garden. The fountain murmured, the roses nodded in the breeze and at the wrought-iron table beneath the biggest of the trees sat the Shadow Monarch in a fresh coat, a tall figure in robes of pale silver with a face that was difficult to hold in the mind, and a woman in black with a silver ankh at her throat, who looked entirely at ease.

"I have served countless important men," George went on, pouring. "I have served a goddess of the amazons, three League members who could have lifted the estate with one hand, and a talking beast, though I have never, until this moment, served an archangel." He placed a cup before Michael with a small and perfect bow. "I took the liberty of omitting the cucumber sandwiches. I am told that angels find them ordinary."

"I’m impressed that you know of this... Thank you, George," said Michael.

"Archangel." George nodded then turned to Arthur, his expression carefully neutral. "Shall I prepare a larger table, sir? The household appears to attract increasingly eschatological guests."

"Just the tea, George."

"Very good. I shall be in the kitchen, should the end of the world require refreshment." He set a plate of biscuits at Didi’s elbow with a nod. "Lady Death."

"George," said Didi, delighted.

He withdrew, spine straight.

Michael watched him go. Then, very slightly, the corner of his mouth moved.

"I like him," he said.

"Everyone does," said Arthur.

For a while, they only drank their tea.

It was strange, Arthur thought, how quiet the garden was. The birds had come back. The light came through the oak leaves in broken coins. He had expected a confrontation, or a warning, or some grand pronouncement. He had not expected to sit across from the archangel and listen to a teaspoon clink against porcelain.

"You asked me why I closed the gates myself," Michael said at last.

"I did."

"They were not made for what they became." He turned his cup slowly in his hands. "They were doors. Wards. They were built to hold what was imprisoned in the dark, and to keep it from touching the worlds that had not earned it. That was the Rulers’ charge. Guard the doors." His voice was very quiet. "Somewhere in the ages, they stopped guarding and began to use them, the prisoners they had. They let what was sealed bleed through. A world that survives such a flood grows hard, and strong, and a strong world serves a war they were certain was coming. I believe they truly thought it was kindness. I believe that is what made it so terrible.. They wanted you dead, including the others that you have claimed."

"They called it a necessary battle, I never wished to get rid of them before, but why did the silver city never did something about this?" said Arthur.

"We always did something about everything, the universe is big, earth is but one of many places that we oversee..."

Didi had been listening with her chin on her hand. "And Heaven?" she asked lightly. "Does Heaven approve of what you did?"

"Heaven has not been told," said Michael, "in any detail."

Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"Some of the Host fear you," Michael went on, evenly. "A mortal, they say, should never hold Death. Some are curious. And some, a very few, believe Heaven would be wise to be grateful." He glanced at Arthur. "I do not require their approval. I came to see for myself, that’s why I did what I did."

"And what did you see?"

"Your people." Michael’s expression softened. "I walked among them, before I came to your door. I expected fear. In my experience, mortals fear what they cannot understand, and you have given them a great deal that they cannot understand." He shook his head slowly. "I found respect. In a café, a man told me you had saved his daughter’s school from the first gate that ever opened over her city. He did not know who I was. He did not know I knew you. He simply wanted someone to hear it." He was quiet for a moment. "I was surprised. I did not expect it. I should have."

Arthur said nothing. He looked into his tea.

"She chose well," Michael said, and nodded across the table.

Didi lifted her chin. "I did," she said, with perfect composure. "I believed it at the time, and I believe it now. I would make the same choice again."

"I never doubted your reasons," said Michael, gently. "Only the cost."

"The cost," said Didi, "was always going to be high."

"Yes." Michael set down his cup. His eyes, calm and clear, turned to Arthur. "That is what I came to say."

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