Caterpillar

A new Era

While Wonder Woman and Naruto had been travelling and seeing the wonders of the universe and romancing each other, many other people did not have it as good as them. For example, the previous year had been a nightmare for Batman.

The Justice League disbanded shortly after Wonder Woman left the Earth. That is not to say that it was her act of killing Maxwell Lord IV that had caused the disbandment of the League. It was one of the factors, indeed, but the main reason was that everyone learnt about the AI, Brother, that Batman had created. Most of the members of the Justice League did not take it well that someone that was supposed to be their teammate and leader had created an AI of such complexity just so he could spy on them. Having lost trust in two of their main leaders, Batman and Wonder Woman, the Justice League disbanded within one month from the fateful incident.

With the Justice League no longer around, the crime rate skyrocketed over the past year. Without a brain to coordinate everyone and without the Watchtower's means of transportation (teleporters and spaceships) solo heroes could not deal with crime as well as before. They could only go back to protecting their home turf. As for regular policemen, they were out of their weight class when it came to dealing with metahumans.

Currently, Batman was in his Batcave, studying recent data on the sociopolitical situation of the world. Apart from the graphs displaying the spike in crimes committed by ordinary humans and metahumans alike, information on the armed conflicts around the Globe was also displayed on the large screen of his supercomputer.

In the USA, it had taken the intervention of the army to quell the violent and armed rioters. But the social unrest was far from gone. A separatist movement was born as a result of the army's actions against civilians and many states (not only the southern half of the country but from the West Coast and Midwest as well) were trying to leave the rule of the White House by taking a legal approach now. A referendum was going to be held within the next two months. Going by how things looked like, it seemed that the president would rule only over New England and Mid-Atlantic. Most of the other states wanted to have nothing to do with the White House anymore.

The situation was even more tragic in the rest of the world. The United Nations had isolated the most populous country in the world both diplomatically and economically. The UN was threatening to invade China with their armies for the massacres committed by the so-called Liberation Army against the common civilians. The UN was pushing for abolishing the current regime, for the sake of the billion and a half people suffering because of it. But the communist party was not intimidated in the least. Tensions were sky-high. The possibility of a World War III starting no longer seemed as far-fetched as before.

In Myanmar, the army was still controlling the government and the rioters had organized themselves in armed forces that used guerrilla tactics against their oppressors. Tens of casualties appeared every day on both sides of the civil war.

In Africa, the rioters from Senegal had managed to overthrow the corrupt government but civil war ensued between the parties that wanted to take control over the country. The Central African Republic had also fallen under the violent assaults of the rebels and it became a paradise for crime lords. Mozambique had fallen prey to the assault of rebel forces as well and Somalia was now being plagued by increasingly bold acts of piracy.

Civil wars, riots, crime - it was chaos everywhere. However, Batman could do nothing about it. He was but a normal man. A wealthy and very intelligent person but still a 'regular' man nonetheless. He could not do anything significant by himself.

He took off his mask and rubbed his face in frustration. With a sigh, he operated the computer to stream the funeral of the Man-of-Steel. Superman's death had hit Batman the worst. For him, Superman had been not only the most powerful ally he had ever had but he had also been like a light in the darkness. Superman had shown him that justice did not always need to come from the shadows, that justice could come from the light as well. But that light had been snuffed out now. Only darkness remained.