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SM/DC Chapter 87 : The Syndicate Watches
🕑 Added 2025-04-12 20:29:35 +0000 UTCLuthor took a staggering step back, dropping the scanner onto the workstation as his mind reeled.
He dragged a hand through his head, staring at Arthur like he had just walked in with the secrets of the universe.
“All these years I’ve been watching the Syndicate tear this world apart. I kept thinking... what if this Earth was the outlier? What if there was a better version of all this, a world where people like Ultraman never rose to power?”
Arthur looked around the lab scraps, scavenged pieces of brilliance, the work of a man fighting impossible odds with bare hands and burning genius.
“There are better versions,” Arthur said. “And there are worse.”
Luthor’s eyes narrowed again.
“How worse?”
Arthur hesitated for a heartbeat, just long enough for the weight to settle.
“Let’s just say... I had to kill you.”
“You were one of the worst versions in my world.”
The words landed like a thunderclap.
Alexander Luthor stood still, his breath caught in his chest. The silence lingered before he finally spoke, voice low, thoughtful.
“I see… so I’m also different there.”
A pause. Then a soft, almost melancholic nod.
“Thank you for telling me. I can tell… you fought for something good back in your world.”
Arthur offered a faint shrug, a grim smile.
“You could say that.”
Luthor turned away, walking toward a desk cluttered with old blueprints and fragments of theoretical schematics. He began leafing through them with practiced hands, mind already shifting into motion.
“It was just a theory to me,” he said. “That there existed a prime Earth, one axis point… and that around it spun an infinite number of divergent realities. Possibilities, fractured and mirrored across the multiverse. I never had proof.”
Arthur nodded.
“And now you do.”
Without warning, his voice darkened.
“Come out.”
From the far corner of the room, shadows stirred, slithered, until a figure emerged and knelt beside Arthur: another Luthor but a shadow, cloaked in ethereal black, eyes aglow with power.
Alexander’s jaw slackened.
Arthur turned to him calmly.
“You don’t have to worry about saving this Earth alone anymore.”
“This… is Lex Luthor of my world. The one who built the machine that brought me here.”
Alexander stepped back in astonishment as the shadow-Lex rose and calmly walked to a table, snatching a pen in fluid, unnatural motion. In a blur of movement, he began scribbling complex equations, mechanical schematics, and quantum parameters faster than any human eye could follow.
Then he handed the page to Alexander.
Luthor took it, stared, read
“Brilliant…” he whispered. “Yes. Yes, that’s certainly possible!”
His eyes widened further.
“But… it’s incomplete. It doesn’t look very stable, the containment field, it’s all missing so even if we manage to build it, it won’t be accurate, and instead of sending you home, you’ll be in another random earth.”
Arthur smirked.
“There are two of you now. Both geniuses. I think you’ll figure it out.”
Alexander chuckled under his breath, the disbelief still clinging to him.
“We’ll need resources,” he said, straightening. “And I don’t mean scrap metal, I’m talking real tech. The kind that only the Syndicate hoards.”
Arthur's eyes glinted.
“Of course it wouldn’t be easy..”
He stepped forward, shadows rippling at his heels.
“But I’ll do it.”
Alexander studied him, then finally smiled.
“You do seem to have the power for that.”
He reached under the desk, pulled out a small communicator black and metallic, designed with stealth tech embedded inside.
“Take this,” he said. “You’ll need it. If they detect you and they might, given how much you radiate power then you shouldn’t stay here, I’ll need a way to reach you.”
Arthur took it with a small nod, his tone dry.
“Very well. I wouldn’t want you getting killed before building that machine.”
Then he turned slightly.
“Doom.”
A rumble filled the lab as something massive emerged from the ground itself, beneath Arthur’s feet, a hulking shadow forged from raw wrath and bone, crowned in jagged horns. Doom, the General of Arthur’s shadow army, knelt on one knee.
Even Alexander Luthor the man who’d seen the worst of the Syndicate took a step back in pure awe.
Arthur’s voice was low, commanding.
“Protect them. And this place.”
Doom growled his acknowledgement. Then, without a word, he merged into Alexander’s shadow, anchoring himself there, an invisible guardian of living nightmare.
Luthor looked down at the darkness shifting beneath his boots.
“This is… beyond anything I ever imagined.”
Arthur turned to him one last time, voice calm, but resolute.
“Send me their location when you have it and I'll try to get what you want. But first there’s a place I need to check.”
Without waiting for a reply, Arthur strode toward the exit, cloak billowing, shadows coiling behind his heels like smoke trailing a comet.
****
The Syndicate’s High Tower -
Thunder crackled beyond the skyline, casting shadows across the torn city below. Inside the fortified walls of the Syndicate's inner sanctum, Johnny Quick leaned heavily against a reinforced console, his body twitching with residual tremors, residue from his emergency dive into the Speed Force. His uniform was scorched, chest heaving as he gulped in air like a man dragged from drowning.
Across from him stood Owlman, ever the cold analyst, arms folded, his expression unreadable beneath the cowl.
“What kind of man leaves you in this state?” Owlman asked, his voice laced with judgment.
Quick wiped a line of blood from his chin, his tone rattled and bitter.
“If I didn’t tap into the damn Speed Force when I did… I wouldn’t be standing here. I don’t even know what that freak was. Shadows, blades...every strike meant to kill.”
Owlman’s eyes narrowed. Calculating.
“Fool. You shouldn’t have toyed with your prey if you didn’t know what you were up against.”
The tension escalated as the steel doors slammed open behind them.
Ultraman walked in, cape dragging like a monarch of war, eyes burning with restrained fury.
“This can’t be Alexander. Or anyone associated with him,” he growled, disdain dripping from his voice.
Johnny snapped, voice laced with pain and frustration.
“Of course it wasn’t! You think Alexander Luthor could hit me like that?! This guy was different.. He wasn’t as fast as me but, he used the shadows like weapons. Every move he made… was to kill me.”
Ultraman paused mid-stride. That piqued his interest.
‘A man capable of killing Johnny Quick? ‘
“A being who nearly ended you… and fights like that?” he mused, more to himself. “Maybe we don’t have kill him. Maybe we should recruit him.”
Owlman tilted his head slightly.
“You want him with us?”
Ultraman smirked.
“Better to aim a weapon than stand in front of it, and this one sounds interesting, maybe he will share our ideals, if not we kill him.”
“Then investigate,” Owlman said flatly. “If you’re so curious.”
Ultraman’s eyes flared briefly, but then he waved the idea off with an annoyed grunt.
“No. I’m not gonna waste my time on this.”
He turned to the wall, where holograms shimmered with the outlines of territories under Syndicate control.
“Let Power Ring handle it. Scan, track, whatever he wants. If this shadow bastard becomes a real problem…”
He looked back, eyes glowing red.
“Then I’ll deal with him myself.”
Johnny scoffed, still trying to steady himself.
“You’d better hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Owlman didn’t respond. He was already in thought, his mind cataloging everything.
****
BOOM.
Arthur dropped from the clouds like a meteor wrapped in shadows, landing with perfect grace. Dust kicked up in a ring around him, and the cracked ground sizzled faintly beneath his boots, the impact reverberating like a low drumroll across the desolate shore.
A second impact struck just moments after, Galatea landed beside him, her shadow hair swept by the salty breeze. She rose, unshaken, statuesque as ever.
“Thanks for the swift flight,” Arthur said without turning, voice smooth like smoke under moonlight.
Galatea bowed her head slightly.
“I don’t deserve your praise, my King,” she replied, her tone reverent but steady.
Before another word could pass between them, a high-pitched chirp echoed from Arthur’s belt.
The device Luthor had given him flickered to life, projecting a faint light as Arthur lifted it. A voice crackled through:
“Good. For a second there, I thought it wasn’t working… or you were dead.”
Arthur smirked, voice dry.
“Still breathing.”
Luthor’s tone turned sharper, more urgent.
“I forgot to mention one thing. Something… more serious. I have a piece of information one I haven’t been able to confirm, but if I’m right, something far worse than the Syndicate is approaching my Earth.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes slightly.
‘Damn. I totally forgot to ask him about that…’ he thought.
“I’ll spare you the data dump,” Luthor continued. “When we meet again, I’ll explain. For now, I’ll build whatever I can with the scraps we’ve scavenged. Give me a day or two, and I’ll send you coordinates for the Syndicate’s High Tower.”
“You’re confident you can find it that fast?” Arthur asked.
A pause. Then Luthor replied with a smug lilt:
“They’re not exactly subtle. We’re the ones hiding, remember?”
Arthur let out a short laugh.
“Fair enough.”
“That’s all for now,” Luthor said. “Stay alive.”
Click.
Silence returned, but not for long.
Arthur turned his gaze toward the ruined horizon.
Before them lay what used to be the site of Titans Tower, at least in his world, now there is nothing here. His boots crunched softly on gravel as he walked.
“This is where it should be…” he murmured.
Then it happened.
A low hum, deep began to rise from his system inventory.
Arthur halted.
A key pulsed within his grasp, materializing in his hand with a cold metallic shimmer. It radiated with shadow energy, vibrating like a heartbeat in sync with the earth itself.
“As expected,” he said, eyes starting to glow a fierce blue.
“The entrance to the dungeon remains… even on another Earth.”
He slowly raised the key, shadows flickering around him.
“I can still access them. Even if they could detect me here in the open, they won’t know where i am once I'm inside dungeons.”
Then a ding echoed in his mind.
[System Notification]
[Use the Legacy Shadow Legion Dungeon Key ?]
Arthur's lips curled into a confident, wolfish grin.
[Yes.]
The key ignited the doorway to the dungeon
The air around him distorted, and with a rumble a portal showed up.
Arthur stepped toward it without hesitation.
