The St. Jude Hotel was compromised. While the Batman had vanished into the night, the lingering scent of Kevlar and righteous judgment remained, clinging to the heavy velvet drapes like stale smoke. Aaron stood in the center of the penthouse, his shadow stretching long and jagged against the peeling wallpaper, moving independently of the flickering candlelight.
"A lovely chat," Aaron murmured, his voice static-laced and smooth, "but I do hate unexpected guests who don't RSVP."
He twirled his microphone staff, the iron singing a low, discordant note. With a sharp tap against the floorboards, the room dissolved. The reality of the hotel suite folded inward, consumed by a tide of inky darkness. Aaron didn't just walk through shadows; he wore them like a tailored suit. He stepped through the umbral plane, bypassing the gridlocked streets of Manhattan entirely, and emerged deep beneath the city's skin.
The air here was cool and smelled of rusted iron and brackish water. He had relocated to a 'ghost station'—the abandoned City Hall loop of the IRT subway line, a curved architectural relic adorned with dusty skylights that saw no sun. It was silent, save for the rhythmic dripping of condensation and the distant, skeletal rattle of trains passing on active tracks miles away. A perfect studio.
Aaron set his staff down, the metal clinking against the tiled mosaic floor. He assumed the *Wuji* stance, his feet rooting into the concrete, eyes closing as he centered his *qi*. The demonic hunger within him—a ravenous, toothy maw demanding fear—snarled, but he quieted it with a mental sweeping motion, forcing the chaotic energy to flow smoothly through his meridians. He needed clarity for what came next. He needed the Sight.
Lifting his hand, he summoned the shadows to form a scrying surface, a pool of black liquid suspended in mid-air. He didn't look for the future this time; he looked for *secrets*. He cast his mind into the static of the information age, pulling threads of data, magical resonance, and whispered rumors.
*Where does the Amazon sleep?*
*What lies beneath the Manor?*
*Where is the invisible door to the Sanctum?*
The images flashed in the black mirror—a penthouse in Gateway City, a cave beneath a waterfall, a brownstone on Bleecker Street masked by reality-bending wards. Aaron smiled, his teeth elongating into needle-points. The information was delicious, heavy with potential ruin.
"Time to start the fundraiser," he whispered.
He tapped the staff. The shadows around him surged, plugging directly into the archaic copper wiring of the subway station, which Aaron bridged effortlessly to the modern fiber-optic grid above. He hijacked the signal, bypassing firewalls, military encryptions, and magical wards with the brute force of an eldritch sledgehammer.
At 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, every screen in Times Square, every car radio in Los Angeles, every smartphone in Tokyo, and every secure monitor on the SHIELD Helicarrier turned static-gray.
"Testing, testing," Aaron's voice boomed, translating instantly into every local dialect, carrying the warmth of a 1920s radio host and the underlying screech of a dying star. "Is this thing on? Wonderful!"
A visual manifested on the screens: a stylized, shadowy silhouette of a man in a pinstripe suit, grinning with too many teeth.
"Salutations, citizens of this marvelous, chaotic little marble! It is I, the Broadcaster, returning to your airwaves with a proposition. A game, if you will!"
In the Triskelion, Nick Fury slammed his hand onto the command table. "Trace him! Now!"
"We can't, sir!" a technician yelled, typing frantically. "The signal is bouncing off... everything. Toasters, satellites, the ionosphere. It's omnipresent!"
On the screens, Aaron's silhouette leaned forward. "I have noticed a distinct lack of transparency in your world. Gods walking among you, billionaires in iron suits, vigilantes in bat costumes. Who are they? Who is the man beating criminals to a pulp in Gotham? Where do the wizards hide their libraries?"
A collective gasp seemed to ripple through the populace. In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne froze, staring at the massive computer screen.
"I have the answers," Aaron purred, holding up a small, shadowy notebook. "Names. Addresses. Social Security numbers. The geographic coordinates of magical sanctuaries that defy physics. And I am willing to share."
The grin widened, splitting the silhouette's face. "But knowledge, my dears, is expensive. I am opening a global escrow account. The details are flashing on your screens now."
A routing number appeared, burning in neon red.
"The price for the 'Masks Off' package—containing the full identity of every costumed hero operating on American soil—is a mere fifty trillion dollars. If you want the 'Magical Tour' package, revealing the location of every hidden sorcerous enclave on Earth... well, let's call that a stretch goal. Shall we say, a combined total of five hundred trillion?"
He laughed, a sound like a bow drawn across a rusted saw. "You have twelve hours. Empty your wallets, liquidate your assets, mortgage your countries! Do you want the truth? Do you want to know who lives next door? Let's see how much you value your curiosity."
The broadcast cut to a countdown timer: *11:59:59*.
Pandemonium was instantaneous.
It wasn't that the world governments had five hundred trillion dollars to give—the sum was an economic impossibility, a ludicrous demand designed to break the system. But the *public* didn't care about economics. They cared about the secrets.
Within minutes, the internet ignited. Forums dedicated to unmasking heroes exploded with activity. Crowdfunding campaigns launched instantly. Hackers tried to trace the account, only to find it routed through a shadow dimension that bricked their computers.
At the ghost station, Aaron watched the chaos unfold through a thousand stolen camera feeds. He saw the panic in the streets, the greed in the eyes of tabloid journalists, the terrified scrambling of SHIELD agents realizing their witness protection programs for powered individuals were about to be obsolete.
"Sir," Maria Hill's voice was tight over the secure line in the Helicarrier. "We have confirmed chatter. The criminal underworld is liquidating assets. The Maggia, the Penguin, the Hand—they're trying to pool money. They think if they pay, he'll actually give them the Batman."
"He's baiting them," Fury growled, his single eye fixed on the countdown. "He wants us to panic. He wants the heroes to come out of the woodwork to stop him."
Aaron sat back on a conjured velvet chair in the damp subway station, sipping a glass of wine that materialized from smoke. He checked the metaphysical accounts. The money wasn't real—he didn't care about fiat currency—but the *intent* was a powerful energy source. The desperation, the avarice, the fear of exposure... it fed the Radio Demon's soul like a five-course meal.
He keyed the mic for a localized frequency, whispering directly into the earpieces of the Justice League and the Avengers Initiative candidates.
"Tick tock, heroes," Aaron crooned, his voice dripping with malicious delight. "I'm currently hidden beneath a layer of reality you haven't even discovered yet. No magic can track me; no satellite can spot me. You can't stop the signal. So, the question remains... do you trust your public not to sell you out?"
Above ground, the city of New York vibrated with a frantic, terrifying energy. The Broadcaster had turned the entire planet into a game show, and the grand prize was the end of privacy itself.