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The warehouse was already half-collapsed craters punched into concrete, gashes carved into steel beams, scorch marks everywhere Doom had slammed Lobo through something load-bearing. Smoke curled toward the night sky. Gotham's docks flickered in the distance, unaware of the chaos happening right beside them.
Arthur and Batman exchanged a final look.
Batman's voice was low and certain. "I'll get that chamber in the Batcave prepared."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You're sure that'll be enough to restrain him?"
Batman didn't hesitate. "I'm positive."
Arthur exhaled through his nose, shaking his head lightly. "Alright. I'll be there shortly. Give me a signal once it's ready, I'll teleport there with him directly."
Batman handed him a compact, matte-black communicator small enough to fit between two fingers.
"Encrypted channel. Only I can receive it."
Arthur tucked it into a shadow pocket. "Good. Stay safe on your way out, Doom can be chaotic."
Batman gave the barest nod and stepped back into the shadows, swallowed instantly without a sound.
Arthur turned to the real battlefield.
Doom was still mauling Lobo each punch cracking bone, bending metal, sending chunks of debris flying across the broken warehouse. Lobo, now missing half his gear and half his face, still laughed through the blood.
"What is this thing you conjured, Shadow Boy?!" Lobo spat a tooth, then another. "Ugly bastard hits like my grandma after she got resurrected as a zombie recently... shame.. I had to put her down again.."
Arthur smirked.
"One of my many soldiers. Loyal and relentless. And capable of destroying you in a straight fight. If you weren't immortal, you'd have been paste by now."
Doom answered with another crushing blow to Lobo's ribs, sending the Czarnian skidding across the floor like a skipping stone.
Arthur walked toward him, calm and collected contrasting the chaos around them.
Lobo rolled onto his back, somehow still grinning despite having half a torso.
"You got a fun house of horrors in ya, kid. Real decorative."
Arthur crouched beside him, eyes glowing faintly violet as he inspected the brutalized body. Then he paused.
His gaze sharpened.
"Well," Arthur murmured. "Nice try, Lobo."
Lobo blinked. "…Huh?"
Arthur flicked his fingers. A small ping of shadow magic resonated from the ragged stump of Lobo's missing arm.
"You hid it. It's torn off and you threw it somewhere while Doom was beating you senseless." Arthur tilted his head. "Trying to reconstitute yourself from that piece once we leave you alone or capture you."
Lobo barked a laugh that ended in a cough and a spray of blood.
"Smartass bastard. None of this was in the damn contract… that bastard left out some important details."
Arthur's eyes narrowed.
"What bastard?"
Lobo rolled his head to the side, spit blood, and grinned.
"None of ya damn business."
Arthur straightened, expression flattening.
"Doom."
Doom stopped mid-swing, turning with glowing violet eyes. Arthur lifted his chin toward Lobo.
"Continue."
Doom dragged Lobo up by the hair and resumed pummeling him with renewed enthusiasm.
Arthur narrowed his eyes for a moment, searching his vision shifting into a deeper spectrum. Like peeling back layers of reality, tracing threads of heat, energy, and life.
In the collapsed western wing of the warehouse…
A faint flicker.
Small. Wet. Pulsing.
Lobo's severed arm, it was more like half a torso along with it.
Arthur closed his eyes and smiled.
"There."
He snapped his fingers. Shadows rippled outward.
A moment later, a towering figure emerged from Arthur's shadow Tusk, the High Orc Shaman, wearing shadow furs and bone ornaments that rattled as he bowed.
"My king. You summoned me."
Arthur pointed.
"Incinerate the entire area. I don't want so much as a drop of his blood left intact. Evaporate everything."
Tusk grinned a wide, tusked smile glowing with inner fire.
"With pleasure."
He raised the Orb of Avarice, now pulsing with fueled hellfire. The air warped. The temperature soared. Flames began devouring the very oxygen as the orb ignited.
A colossal wave of hellfire erupted outward, flooding the warehouse and several surrounding lots in scorching, hungry flame.
Wood turned to ash instantly.
Steel glowed red-hot.
Lobo's severed limb shriveled in a blink, vaporizing completely.
Lobo still being held down by Doom sniffed once and groaned.
"…Aw, c'mon! That was my favorite arm!"
Arthur folded his arms, watching the inferno dance across shattered concrete.
"Well. That should stop your regeneration tricks."
Lobo glared up at him with one eye, the other still reforming.
"You're makin' this real personal, Shadow Boy."
Arthur smiled faintly.
"Not really."
Behind them, the comm device Batman handed him blinked once signal received.
The chamber was ready.
Arthur stepped forward, shadow ring glowing.
"Now," he said quietly, "let's head somewhere, shall we ?"
****
GOTHAM - BATCAVE
A portal tore open above the stone floor of the Batcave silent, seamless and Arthur stepped through, violet eyes dimming. The air shifted behind him, and a compact sphere of pure shadow drifted after him like a floating black sun.
Batman was already waiting at the foot of the massive Bat-Computer, cowl lowered in that familiar, unreadable stare.
He took one look at the hovering shadow orb.
"…That's a bit small for Lobo," Batman said. "Unless..."
Arthur scratched the back of his ashen-white hair, a rare gesture of sheepishness.
"Yeah… that's his head inside," he admitted. "Literally what's left of him."
Batman's eyes narrowed behind the lenses.
"You're aware that—"
"I know," Arthur cut him off calmly. "I made absolutely sure not a single drop of his blood remained there."
Batman's silence carried the weight of approval and suspicion.
"Good," he finally said. "Bring him here."
Arthur flicked a finger, and the shadow orb dissolved revealing a half-reformed Lobo head suspended in a stasis-like grip of dark tendrils. Batman pressed a control, and a containment unit rose from the floor a reinforced cube of transparent alloy interlaced with metallic circuitry and glowing suppression glyphs.
Arthur arched a brow.
"That looks… dramatic," he said dryly. "Are you sure this is enough?"
Batman tapped a console, sealing the cube with magnetic locks.
"I'm not planning to keep him here forever. He'll regenerate inside this chamber, and once he's whole enough to talk we'll get answers about this bounty of his."
Arthur crossed his arms.
"You sound confident he can't escape."
Batman turned slightly, cape shifting.
"He can't escape this."
Arthur eyed the container again not convinced.
"…I'm not sure about that. But I'll leave it to you, Bruce. I've got something else to handle."
Batman nodded without looking away from the chamber.
Arthur turned toward a swirling shadow portal but paused.
"You're not going to tell the League about this, are you?"
Batman didn't answer immediately.
Then the edge of his mouth not quite a smile.
"Depends."
Arthur let out a quiet, amused breath.
"Fair enough."
He took another step toward the portal, but Batman spoke again.
"And one more thing."
Arthur looked back, expectant.
Batman's tone dropped to dry annoyance.
"Pull back that… shadow Joker of yours from Gotham's streets. The level of psychological damage it's inflicting on criminals is..."
"No chance," Arthur said immediately, smiling.
Batman glared.
Arthur gestured lightly.
"Bruce, come on. Crime rates are at an all-time low. You should thank me."
"I'm not thanking you for unleashing a nightmare duplicate of the Joker to patrol the streets," Batman said, voice flat as stone.
Arthur shrugged.
"He gets results."
Batman stared.
Arthur stared back.
Finally, the Shadow Monarch chuckled, flicked his wrist, and a portal of swirling darkness rose behind him.
"See you around, Batman."
Batman grunted whether in acknowledgment or irritation, Arthur couldn't tell.
Arthur stepped backward into the shadows, vanishing in a ripple of violet light.
The Batcave fell silent again.
Only the containment chamber hummed softly…
and inside it, the severed head of Lobo began to grow teeth.
/-\
If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my patreon at
"https://www.patreon.com/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want