Chapter 174: Arias Vs The Justice League Part 4

Shortly after their conversation, Harley and Arias heard the alarms of the base go off loudly. Arias furrowed his brows and cast his glance to the corners of buildings, soon spotting the various cameras around them.

Harley, thinking they were done, just sat on the back of one of the dead officers and asked, "What's wrong? No signal? We could just jack one of those fighter jet thingies and I could take us back, simple."

Arias raised his brow in confusion at her before shaking his head. "Just grab a gun and shoot anything that moves."

Without saying anything else, Arias began walking away from the airstrip, soon seeing a group of soldiers rushing and yelling at him to get down on the ground and surrender. 

But their words fell on deaf ears, and Arias once again lifted multiple figures at once, their movements completely restrained. He saw their panicked expressions, their confidence waning instantly. This brought Arias a smirk. "At least you tried," he said, his voice calm, but his words made the soldiers' spines tremble.

They couldn't reply, their teeth chattering in hesitation as they prayed for a miracle. But sadly, Arias wasn't about to waste his time on them.

**Crack!**

In a sudden burst of movement, the soldiers' eyes widened in pain and anguish as their bones slowly began to feel a force pushing at them, creaking and bending under the pressure. It was a strange sort of pain, one no amount of training could have prepared them for. Yet it lasted only a few seconds before their bones cracked and broke, piercing and tearing into their bodies, causing an internal flood of blood.

They felt the strange sensation of gurgling on their own blood as the world around them faded, knowing they were about to be no more. Yet, without a moment of final clarity, they were gone. 

Arias swiftly moved his attention away from them and continued on.

Meanwhile, Harley followed at a skipping pace, having collected six M16 assault rifles, two of which weren't hanging off her shoulder but were joyfully carried in her hands like pistols. 

Another group of soldiers saw this and realized what it meant to be a non-superpowered villain. They were naturally freaks of nature—true but sincere insanity.

She saw them from afar and sported a wide grin as she aimed ahead and unleashed a torrent of bullets, hitting with incredibly fatal shots, despite a lack of accuracy. They, too, could only die in shock from such an experience, lacking any clarity in their final moments.

Following this pace, it didn't take long for the duo to completely decimate every single person present on the base. In their final moments, those still alive could only rush toward the modestly sized tarmac where the military vehicles were parked.

Unfortunately for this fleeting group, Harley and Arias had found themselves an ideal means of leaving the site.

This means could be heard by the fleeing group, in the form of a helicopter flying at an incredibly low altitude. 

That alone would have only caused a momentary bit of fear before settling, but what made them run was the even more terrifying sound of bullets whistling past them and shattering whatever they hit.

One running soldier tried to look back, and he felt his world moving in slow motion as he witnessed another soldier getting hit from behind before his body burst. The bullet whizzed past the one looking back, leaving a burning sensation on his cheek. He could only lose his sanity there and give up, letting the bullets hit him too. He saw not light, but everything go dark.

As for the atmosphere inside the helicopter, it was calm. Arias sat in one of the two piloting seats, his expression casual as he started to dial a number on the satellite phone. Beside him sat a trembling military pilot who was flying the helicopter, and behind them was a laughing Harley, gunning down fleeing members of the staff as if she were playing a game.

Once everyone was killed, Harley simply started shooting at grounded vehicles, creating a blistering inferno in that cold desert night, under a nice, bright full moon.

Soon, Arias was done as well and was linked into the Leviathan network, easily creating a conference call between him, Slade, and Mercy.

**Slade:** "Finally! Please tell me you called to say I can kill future President Slade Wilson's running mates. They're just creepy. I think one of them is a hustler; even I'm confused. Oh, and between you and me, I think that Mercy assistant of yours has got one hell of a stick up her ass."

**Mercy:** "What the fuck? Who is this?"

**Slade:** "Uhmm, Jeff?"

With their numbers concealed in a complex custom secure communication software, Arias ignored this exchange and just said what he needed to say. "Mercy, I'm going to need you to secure a custom flight for me. I'll send you my pickup coordinates in roughly an hour."

A confused Mercy heard this and began wondering but didn't question Arias's strange methods. Instead, she asked the one thing she wanted to know. "Who the fuck is Jeff?" she asked in visible anger.

Slade referring to himself in the third person had made her think he was someone else. But unfortunately for her, Arias had said what needed to be said and cut her off from the call before saying to Slade, "The plan took an unforeseen turn, and things are progressing wildly, although still on route to the same end. An important change that needs to be made is to use the data your team managed to collect and create scarring on both the Justice League's and the government's reputations."

Slade went silent for a moment before digesting the meaning in Arias's words. He then responded, "I roughly get what you mean. With the footage, sound, and hacked digital documents we've secured, you could ruin them both. Justice League betrays Arias Markovic after he helped rescue the kidnapped children, surrendering only to ensure the safety of the children while the Justice League handed him over to an American chopper.

"It tells other governments that the Justice League is biased and that the government itself has a superhuman organization under them. But it gets worse when a well-known official admits they lied and wanted to pin the blame on you so that I, President Wilson, can be seen as linked to a terrorist. Instead, it shows that they are scared of the change we bring, while the people will just think it's the same change you've done to Gotham..."

Hearing a near-accurate explanation of the ending result they were heading for, Arias was impressed by Slade's ability to read his thinking after spending so much time around him and witnessing his plans.

"That's roughly about it, unless… hold on." Arias trailed off as he felt the helicopter shake to a stop mid-air.

At this point, Harley, who was sleeping at the edge of the open side of the helicopter without even wearing straps, woke up and looked around. "Huh? Why did you guys park in the sky?"

She leaned her head forward and into the darkness, wondering why they stopped in the sky. Soon though, a fluttering red cape blew past into their view, causing Arias to frown.

"Proceed with what I've said so far. Oh, and for the next hour, it seems it can't be helped."

A confused Slade heard those words and asked, "What couldn't be?"

No answer came, and the call was soon cut off as Arias grabbed the pilot and tossed him out of the helicopter. The only thing was, the man was sent flying at incredible speed, and even Superman reacted on instinct and chose to save the man, leaving the helicopter to descend in a spiral.

Arias got out of his seat and picked up a nearby parachute before handing it over to Harley. She didn't understand where this was coming from and went in a completely different line of thought.

"You don't gotta sacrifice yourself for me, Mr. M! We can go together! I ain't gonna let you die on me! You hear me?" she yelled in a somewhat awkward, emotional but still crazy tone.

Not hearing another word, Arias just sighed. "Take the satellite phone and shout for me when Mercy calls back," he instructed before pushing her out of the helicopter.

It soon spiraled to the ground and caused a huge explosion, alerting Superman, who was now holding the hideously disfigured dead body of the pilot he had tried to save. 

He soon spotted Harley in the air and was about to act, but…

"Mr. M!!" Harley yelled out, but soon saw the inferno sizzle to a dim ember before going out, leaving an unscathed Arias standing in the middle of the debris.

Superman looked back and saw in the inferno the reflection of the burning rage he felt, mirrored in his eyes.

From emotional, Harley did a complete 180 and cheered, "I didn't know you could land on your feet, Mr. M!"

Ignoring Harley's echoing voice, Superman began to hover to the ground, soon putting the dead corpse softly on the ground before looking at Arias with hate. "You're a monster..."

Arias gave no reaction. Instead, he brought his hand forward, and his eyes flashed an eerie light as he chose to ignore the law of the conservation of energy. In his palm, for that moment in time, the universe's energy no longer remained constant, as Arias created energy out of nothing.

In nearly no time, this new energy was shaped into a blast of terrifying magnitude at point-blank range.

Superman saw only white before his body was sent flying away, breaking through countless rocky hills.

Arias, in the meantime, retracted the newly created energy before it could spread and cause more commotion, by destroying it, once again ignoring a vital law surrounding the physics of the known world and dimension.

A groggy Superman looked forward weakly, confusion in his mind, only to blink and see Arias standing before him. "I warned you about that third time."