NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14: **Chapter 14: Collapse and Pursuit**
**Chapter 14: Collapse and Pursuit**
The battle in Arkham had reached its breaking point. The Apex clones, now fully active, swarmed the room like an unstoppable tide of raw power and fury. Ethan, Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl fought with everything they had, but the odds were rapidly turning against them.
Ethan twisted to avoid a massive swipe from one of the clones, using his fusion ability on the fly. He grabbed a shuriken from Nightwing's belt and combined it with one of Batman's explosive Batarangs. The result was a razor-edged projectile that detonated on impact. He hurled it into the face of an advancing Apex, the explosion tearing half its skull away. But to his horror, the creature kept moving, its body already knitting itself back together.
"We can't keep this up!" Batgirl shouted, ducking under a clone's punch and countering with a precise strike to its throat.
Batman had already calculated their chances. "We need to collapse the facility. That's our only option."
Ethan's mind raced. Cipher had deactivated his explosive, but there had to be another way. His eyes locked onto the ceiling, where massive steel beams supported the entire underground structure. If he could fuse something powerful enough…
Grabbing his last EMP grenade and a chunk of debris, he fused them together. The device pulsed with unstable energy. "Clear the center!" he called out.
As soon as the others moved, Ethan hurled the makeshift bomb at the central support beam. The explosion was instantaneous. A deep, guttural groan echoed through the facility as the structural integrity failed. Cracks spider-webbed across the ceiling, and the entire place began to shake violently.
Cipher merely smiled. "Impressive, Mr. Cross. But this isn't over."
Before Ethan could react, Cipher vanished in a flash of light, teleporting away as the ground beneath them buckled. The Apex clones, lacking orders, roared in frustration as rubble rained down, crushing several of them beneath tons of debris.
"We need to move!" Batman ordered.
Ethan, Nightwing, and Batgirl followed him as they sprinted toward the nearest exit. The hallways were crumbling around them, fires erupting as gas lines ruptured. Ethan fused his grappling gun with a flare gun, creating a zip-line strong enough to carry all of them at once. One by one, they shot out of the collapsing structure, landing on a rooftop just as Arkham's underground lab caved in completely.
The ground shook with a deafening roar, sending dust and debris skyward. They watched as the remains of Cipher's lab were swallowed by the earth.
Nightwing exhaled. "Please tell me that was enough."
Batman didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the city skyline, where a dark figure stood atop a distant building.
Cipher.
Ethan clenched his fists. "He's still out there."
And he knew, deep down, that this war was far from over.
The team took a moment to catch their breath on the rooftop, the city sirens wailing in the distance. The chaos had drawn Gotham's emergency response teams, and soon, the GCPD would be swarming the area.
"Batman," Commissioner Gordon's voice crackled through the comms. "What the hell just happened? Half of Arkham just collapsed."
"Long story," Batman replied, his tone grimmer than usual. "Cipher's experiment got out of control. We contained most of it, but he escaped."
There was a pause before Gordon sighed. "And I assume the evidence is buried under tons of rubble?"
Batman's silence was answer enough.
Ethan paced, his fists still clenched. "We can't let him regroup. If he had an entire lab hidden under Arkham, who knows what else he has waiting?"
Nightwing crossed his arms. "Agreed, but we're barely standing right now. We need to regroup."
Batman turned to Ethan. "Your fusion ability—how does it work with technology?"
Ethan blinked. "What do you mean?"
"If we could track Cipher's energy signature, could you amplify our sensors?"
Ethan considered it. "Possibly. If you have something I can merge with a high-frequency scanner, I might be able to enhance the range."
Batman nodded. "Then we move to the Batcave."
The team made their way through the city, staying to the shadows as they evaded the arriving authorities. Ethan kept glancing at the skyline, half-expecting to see Cipher watching from another rooftop. But there was nothing. He had disappeared—at least for now.
{The Batcave}
Ethan marveled at the cavernous depths of Batman's base. The sheer scale of technology, the arsenal, and the massive Batcomputer put anything he had ever seen to shame.
"Alright," Batman said, pulling up data from Arkham's collapse. "Let's see if we can track him."
Ethan placed his hand on a scanner device and fused it with a power module he found nearby. The machine hummed to life, its range extending as energy crackled along its surface. Numbers scrolled across the Batcomputer's display, searching for Cipher's energy signature.
"There." Batgirl pointed to the screen as a faint trace of Cipher's teleportation energy appeared.
"He's still in Gotham," Batman said. "But moving fast."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Then let's hunt him down."
The war wasn't over. Not yet.