Chaos spread through Gotham. The **emerald beast**, a grotesque, tormented mockery of **Conner**, bellowed its fury, its each movement causing shockwaves of unadulterated chaotic energy tearing through the city. Skyscrapers collapsed, streets warped, and civilians fled in fear, their terror fueled by **Klarion's** distant, invisible magic. **Young Justice** struggled an desperate, losing fight to constrain the rampage, rescuing civilians while attempting to sidestep direct engagement with their distorted teammate.
"It's growing stronger! Luthor's projectors aren't restraining it, they're *fueling* it!" **Robin** shouted across the comms, his voice hoarse as he leapt out of the way of a falling skyscraper. "His technology is resonating with the chaotic energy, not dampening it!"
In fact, **Lex Luthor**, directing the operation from behind a heavily shielded rooftop command center, snarled as his projectors throbbed, trying to restrain the monster. He regarded the energy boom as proof of his mastery, not knowing that **Mordru's** power was tainting his technology, making his quest for domination a force for planetary chaos. "Foolish beast!" cackled Luthor, believing himself on the verge of victory. "You will be my servant, Lex Luthor! You will break this world, and I will remake it in my image!"
Below, **Vandal Savage** manipulated his human shield, orchestrating waves of angry citizens, psychically manipulated by Klarion and taught by his own guile, to stand in the way of the Justice League's journey to the beast. He enjoyed the chaos, his ancient eyes witnessing the best evidence of man's inherent barbarism.
In the Watchtower, **Michael** observed the horror unfolding, his gaze trained on the beast's exponentially increasing energy signature. He saw Luthor's projectors not only failing, but *speeding up* the corruption of the beast, creating a whirlpool of uncontrollable violence that threatened to engulf Gotham and then, the world. He saw the strings of Mordru's blueprint, tugging at Luthor's egomaniacal ego, converting his need for control into an instrument of destruction. He saw Savage, savoring the pain of humans. And he saw Klarion's enthusiastic involvement, guaranteeing maximum conflict.
"He's going to dismantle the city before we even have a chance to get there!" **Zatanna** wailed, her own spells clinging precariously to the wave of international misinformation being spewed by Klarion's manipulations. "Luthor's hubris is feeding Mordru straight!"
A bleak, horrific clarity descended on Michael. This was no longer about heroes and villains. It was about stopping cold, irreversible unmaking. Luthor, in his unshakable conviction of his own superiority, was the immediate conduit, the crucial failure point upon which everything teetered. His present behavior, driven by Mordru's power, was creating a holocaust that would ensure the beast's final unleashing and the destruction of the world. The gentle touch, the narrative intercession, the argument of persuasive reason. all were irrelevant in the face of this instant, cataclysmic act of multiplied chaos. Occasionally, a story required a decisive, merciless cut.
"Zatanna, concentrate everything on disrupting Klarion's worldwide broadcast, his psychic manipulation. I'm heading to Gotham." Michael's tone lacked emotion, a cold-blooded quiet that astounded even him.
He did not wait for an answer, simply disappeared, reappearing seconds later on the roof of Luthor's command center, a cold, dark specter. Luthor, struck briefly abnormally with power by the beast, turned, his face splitting in a triumphant sneer. "Queen! Here to see me ascend? Or maybe beg for mercy?"
Michael remained silent. His warm, inquiring eyes that normally glinted with a scholar's interest were now cold, pragmatic, and absent of the soft heart that characterized him. He moved towards Luthor, each step measured. Luthor, taken aback at the absence of banter, laughed, "Don't tell me you're finally speechless, boy. Maybe you understand the folly of your romantic ideals now that."
Before Luthor could even get the words out, Michael acted. His hand flashed forward, grasping Luthor's throat with impossible speed and power. There was a revolting *CRACK*. Luthor's face went white in shock, his triumphant sneer replaced by a frozen mask of horror, and then it was gone. His body fell, limp.
A heavy, deafening silence fell upon Michael. It was done. The critical threat, the instigator of this immediate escalation, was eliminated. He felt neither triumph, nor wrath, but only a cold, absolute necessity. The soft scholar, the soft-hearted Libriomancer, had just performed the final, brutal edit.
He glanced briefly at Luthor's corpse, then shifted his attention toward the city. **Vandal Savage**, seeing the impossible act for himself from his own rooftop vantage point through a comm link, gazed in shocked silence. The sheer, unanticipated savagery of Michael's action, the finality of it, broke Savage's composure for a moment. Michael, taking advantage, reached out with his hand towards Savage. Sequences of unadulterated narrative power, radiating old symbols of restraint, burst forth from the earth, constraining Savage and dragging him down to the very depths of the city, not to a jail, but to a profound, unescapable narrative pit. He was not merely trapped; he was buried, sealed beneath one of Gotham's oldest, most abandoned buildings, a new pyramid of abandoned striving.
With Luthor killed and Savage entombed, the unholy trinity was shattered. Klarion's global chaos, deprived of its key human vessels, started to dwindle, its dissonant notes growing weak. Michael refocused his attention on the city, his attention now only toward Klarion. The most volatile component of Mordru's original plan was still intact. He raised his hand, a lump of Libriomancy coiling inside him, willing to unmake the Witch Boy's very being, to rend his story asunder. But as the magic burst forth, as his will concentrated, something strange occurred. The raw, primitive nature of Klarion's wild power, rather than being unmade, pushed back, then broke, doubling upon itself. The magical force didn't destroy him; it *rewrote* him.
Klarion's cackle caught in his throat. His shape shivered, his wicked, old eyes expanded in sudden, deep confusion. The wild energy around him dissolved, and he started to fall, not as a mighty Lord of Chaos but as a little, unencumbered boy. The symphony of silence rang, a deep quiet after the turmoil, punctuated only by the crying of a child. Michael had made a dark, pragmatic choice, doing an unforgivable thing for the sake of order. But in the process, he had undone a Lord of Chaos no one could have foreseen, making the harbinger of discord an icon of troubling, mandated innocence.