The brief affair between Superman and Wonder Woman concluded quickly. In the days that followed, Wonder Woman trained Clark using the rigorous methods of the Amazonian warriors.
Meanwhile, on the rooftop of the Daily Planet building, Alfred Pennyworth finally found his young master, Damian Wayne.
"Master Damian..."
Alfred's face was etched with deep sorrow. He had always considered Bruce Wayne his own son, and the same affection extended to Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. They were Bruce's adopted children, and thus, Alfred saw them as his own too.
Not long ago, he had witnessed Bruce kill Dick and Tim to protect himself. Then, once Bruce was fully consumed by the virus, Alfred himself had been forced to kill him with a shotgun. He had killed his own children, a burden that would haunt Alfred for the rest of his life.
"Alfred... Grandpa..."
Seeing the old man's profound sadness, Damian hesitated for a moment before uttering the name Alfred longed to hear.
As expected, hearing Damian call him "Grandpa" brought a faint, bitter smile to Alfred's sorrowful face. The long-standing distance within their family finally dissolved completely. If only Bruce and the others hadn't died, this moment would have been truly wonderful.
With that thought, Alfred knelt down and placed the suitcase he was carrying on the ground. "This is what Master Bruce wanted me to give you in the end. Actually... this has been kept in the warehouse. Bruce had been preparing for this for a long time."
After a series of security checks, the suitcase slowly opened under Damian's fingerprints. Inside, they saw a slightly smaller Bat-suit and many USB flash drives. These drives contained all of Bruce's preparations for the future.
Some of the information was still relevant, while other parts had already been used, like the protocol for the Justice League to handle a situation where Batman lost control—a protocol that would now never be needed again.
Though it was just one small suitcase, it held Bruce's entire legacy. Now, he had passed it all on to his son, Damian.
"Damn it..."
Damian, who had been forcing himself to remain calm, could no longer hold back. Tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. He wasn't crying for Batman, but for his stubborn, foolish father. "Since you already prepared it, why didn't you take it out sooner!"
After his roar, Damian grabbed the suitcase and walked into the only undamaged part of the Daily Planet building. Soon, he reappeared, clad in a perfectly fitting Bat-suit. At that moment, all the heroes felt a change in Damian. While it was just a well-fitted suit, the instant Damian put it on, he became Batman—the new generation of Batman.
"It seems Batman's will has been passed down," Green Arrow sighed. His own legacy, however, couldn't be. He had tried to contact other heroes associated with his "Green Arrow family," but without exception, they had all lost contact. In the face of the current disaster, there was only one grim possibility: they were all infected.
"There's no time to waste, guys," Superman said, as he and Wonder Woman flew back with Clark alone. "Now Metropolis, Baltimore, and Washington have been destroyed. The city isn't suitable for us anymore. We need to find a new place for the survivors and start implementing the plan Batman left behind."
Everyone nodded. They had to act fast, racing against time to save as many people as possible. Superman began assigning tasks. "Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Damian, use Green Lantern's power to take the survivors from the Daily Planet to my Fortress of Solitude.
They'll meet the other superheroes who'll be arriving there. As for the rest of us, from now on, all satellites, optical cables, and anything related to the internet must be destroyed!"
"Understood!"
The heroes sprang into action. Superman, with his son Jonathan Kent Jr., and The Flash (Barry Allen), with his nephew Kid Flash (Wally West), began destroying servers, optical cables, and other internet infrastructure worldwide.
They needed to completely eradicate the internet, which hosted the Anti-Life Equation virus, in a very short time.
Wonder Woman had a similar mission, but she wasn't in a hurry. Instead, she took Clark directly into outer space. From the moment Clark realized the entity called Byte was Kryptonian, he no longer needed to breathe and could survive in space as long as he was bathed in yellow sunlight.
Diana came here for two reasons: she needed to destroy all artificial satellites to stop the internet's spread, and the lack of atmosphere in space allowed Clark to receive the maximum amount of sunlight, accelerating his gain of superhuman powers.
During this time, many heroes, and even some villains who had a complex love-hate relationship with the heroes, gathered at Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
This included Lex Luthor, Superman's arch-nemesis, known as the second smartest person on Earth, and now, arguably the smartest. He too had come to the Fortress of Solitude and joined the heroes' camp.
However, one member of the Justice League had not yet arrived at the Fortress of Solitude: Aquaman (Arthur Curry).
Rewind to the moment Superman realized the outbreak had begun and rushed home to stop Jonathan Kent Jr. and Damian Wayne from playing video games on network TV.
In the waters near Atlantis, a cruise ship had lost power and was drifting. Aquaman discovered it and suspected it was merely a power outage, so he approached to offer aid.
However, when he boarded the vessel, he noticed a chilling atmosphere of deadly silence, broken only by faint, occasional sounds. Alarmed, Aquaman tensed his muscles and moved towards the door leading to the cabins.
The moment he opened the door, countless infected people surged out, swarming towards him. Although often ridiculed as the "shame of the Justice League," Aquaman was the King of Atlantis. The nails of the infected could not pierce his skin, so they couldn't infect him directly.
Unfortunately, Aquaman chose the wrong approach. After a brief shock, he decided to investigate the infected. Instead of subduing them on the cruise ship, he chose to jump into the sea, luring them into his domain.
He overestimated himself and gravely underestimated the Anti-Life Equation Virus. He wasn't physically harmed, but the infected blood carried the virus, which rapidly spread through the seawater and entered his body as he breathed.
He believed his superior physiology made him immune to all poisons, but in the end, he paid a terrible price. Uninjured, yet infected by inhaling the viral seawater, a hero of the Justice League had fallen.