When Chu Cheng met those eyes, a chill crept through his spine like the cold mist that seeped through Gotham's alleyways.
Damn it, he thought. I was just passing by. Why are you looking at me like I just escaped from Arkham? Do I look that suspicious?
He instinctively turned his head to avoid eye contact, ready to slip away unnoticed—only to find that the route behind him had been silently sealed off. A student, with the casual stillness of a seasoned gatekeeper, had positioned himself behind Chu Cheng, his body blocking the path without a word.
As panic scratched at the back of his mind, a black van screeched into view—low-slung, matte, and armored, like something Bruce Wayne would loan to Nightwing in a hurry. It drifted elegantly into the sidewalk and halted. The sliding side door was yanked open with mechanical precision.
Two figures leapt out.
One was a woman—her presence alone enough to slow time. Long legs, sleek black windbreaker, hair tied back like she meant business. Just her dismount from the vehicle was enough to stir gasps from the bystanders. She had that Catwoman in daylight kind of energy—grace and lethal intent fused into a singular silhouette.
The other figure was pure contrast. A bald man, thick-set, with a permanent scowl and a half-lit cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth. He looked like he'd fought Bane and didn't lose.
"This one's loud," he muttered, a stream of smoke curling out like lazy venom. "Daylight too. We're not gonna sweep this under the rug, are we?"
"That's not in our job description," the woman said coolly. Her voice was velvet over steel. She stepped forward and pulled a slim black rod from a sheath strapped to her thigh—effortless and precise.
A switch clicked.
A surge of electric blue arced at the rod's tip.
A stun baton. Tactical-grade. Gotham-style.
Lucky for Chu Cheng, the group that had been staring daggers into him now shifted their collective gaze to the new arrivals. The threat had changed. New predators entered the zone.
Two particularly conspicuous figures stepped forward—"Seafood Merchant" and "Steel Wool Merchant," Chu Cheng mentally dubbed them. One was a bloodied boy whose cheeks bore slash marks like a Joker henchman after a bad day. The other, a girl whose face was so disfigured by bruises she could have passed for Two-Face's sibling.
They didn't feel pain. No—what twisted their faces wasn't agony. It was hate. Undiluted and raw.
"No good thing... no one's good," the girl rasped.
"You too? You wanna laugh at me?!" the boy shouted, eyes wild and cracked.
"Die. Die. All of you—die!!"
That was the cue.
The madness surged again.
The crowd exploded into chaos. A wild mob, driven by some invisible force. A scene out of Gotham on a bad night.
The bald man flicked away his cigarette and snapped his baton into place. Side by side with the woman, he surged forward.
Two human shockwaves.
Chu Cheng sidestepped quickly. He wanted to watch—God, did he want to watch—but his survival instincts, honed by every horror film and Batman graphic novel he'd ever consumed, screamed otherwise.
But just as he was about to bolt, a soft voice touched his ear like a feather.
"Excuse me…"
He turned. A girl. Short hair, white blouse, holding a sleek white tablet in both hands. She looked clean, unassuming—almost like Barbara Gordon on a school day.
She had just stepped out of the van, probably part of the same unit. Her eyes were unusually sharp. Calculated. Batgirl energy.
"Look here," she said, lifting a device that reminded Chu Cheng of a barcode scanner.
The light passed over his chest and face. A digital flicker appeared on her screen. She frowned slightly.
"Huh? That's odd... no infection traces at all…"
Meanwhile, the fight raged behind her.
The two agents—strike team, special forces, whatever they were—danced like Arkham's worst fears made flesh. Electric arcs lashed out with every swing of the stun batons. Bodies dropped with eerie synchronicity, twitching as they hit the pavement.
No killing. Just rapid, efficient neutralization. Batman would have nodded in approval.
"It won't take long," the girl said, eyes still on her scanner. "They'll be done soon."
Chu Cheng glanced once more. He didn't need a timer to know she was right. The attackers were already down. All of them. Unconscious. Sprawled across the concrete like puppets with cut strings.
The agents holstered their batons and approached.
"Ninth Special Service Division, Homeland Defense Bureau. Chen Meiyue."
The woman held out a silver-badged ID card. Sleek, official.
"Ninth Secret Service. Luo Yajun." The bald man flashed his ID, then immediately lit another cigarette like he needed the nicotine to keep his thoughts from escaping.
Seeing them formally introduce themselves, the girl nodded politely. "Tang Li."
"Relax, kid." Chen Meiyue smiled. "You're safe now."
Under normal circumstances, Chu Cheng would've snorted and corrected her—maybe he was younger, but kid? That was a stretch. But today…today he didn't have the strength.
People were watching now. Faculty, students, civilians. Cameras were out. Whispers grew. Even from a distance, eyes were wide with fear and awe. The incident had no doubt already spread like a virus across campus.
Tang Li approached her companions and showed the tablet. "Below 1%. No signs of infection."
"Oh?" Meiyue and Yajun raised their eyebrows in tandem.
Luo Yajun clapped a heavy hand on Chu Cheng's shoulder. "You held it together, huh? Not even a flicker. Impressive."
"Infection?" Chu Cheng asked, eyes narrowing. "What the hell happened to them?"
"Can't say," Luo Yajun replied flatly. "Protocol. We're not allowed to disclose sensitive details to civilians."
Chu Cheng looked at the still-twitching students on the ground. Looked at the crowd watching from windows, stairwells, balconies. A thousand hidden witnesses.
And they think they can keep this under wraps?
Large-scale illusion genjutsu? Maybe Zatanna would help—if this were fiction.
Luo Yajun shrugged. "Whether it leaks or not, not our problem. We're just here to clean up. That said, it was only a localized mild outbreak. Low-grade exposure. They'll be okay."
Chu Cheng bit back the urge to scream. That was mild? If this was Gotham, they'd be calling in the full Bat-Family by now.
But then…he remembered the game last night. The horror. The man calmly sawing off his own head like it was the tutorial mission.
This wasn't fiction anymore.
At their request, Chu Cheng relayed everything he'd seen. Every twitch. Every scream. Every sliver of madness.
Tang Li recorded it all, stylus in hand, her expression neutral—clinical.
Soon, another armored van pulled up. Uniformed agents in black filed out, laying down perimeter tape. Like Gotham SWAT after a Scarecrow attack.
"Thank you for your cooperation," Tang Li said. "One last thing: we'll need you to undergo a full physical screening. Don't worry, the infection scan cleared you. But protocol demands a full-body diagnostic—just to be safe."
A hospital trip? Chu Cheng groaned internally.
He hated hospitals. Ever since childhood. Blood draws, eye tests…torture disguised as routine.
He remembered one time, as a naive child, memorizing the entire vision chart to cheat the eye test. The doctor whipped out a glass rod and pointed to a blank spot.
He never saw that rod again. Or anything, for that matter.
Still, when he remembered the chaos from earlier—the foaming mouths, the snarls—he decided a check-up might not be the worst idea.
And so, for the first time in years, Chu Cheng underwent the most complete medical exam of his life. From retina scans to neurological diagnostics. Lunch was forgotten. By the time he finished, the sun was already leaning west.
After dinner out, he arrived home around five.
He dropped into his chair, powered on his PC, and double-clicked the game icon.
"Avengers VS Justice League: A New Era" booted up.
As the logos lit the screen—bold "A" on one side, bold "JL" on the other—his nerves finally relaxed.
This was a world he could understand.
Even if it wasn't much safer.