The thing about fishing is... You can never be a 100% sure that you will catch something. Even when the currents are flowing smoothly and the horizon looks nice, the odds could still be against you.

That's something he knew very clearly even as he sat at the precipe of the... Red sea. Sweat dripped down to his ragged clothes in large beads as the heat around him seemed to grow even fiercer. But, he had already gotten used to this, and he wasn't worried that he would burn to crisp sometime soon.

He picked up his fishing rod and cast the bait into the bubbling magma. There was no way anything could survive such intense heat, and he knew it as he watched the bait dissolve into the bubbling magma. He was hoping on something however.

"I've grown to love the art of fishing." He said to himself. "I can now understand why humans love it. It calms thoughts and allows for inspiration."

In all his years, he had never envisioned that someday he would be seated casting his hope into a sea of hopelessness. No one, not even the most renown fisherman would sit by the edge of this abyss and do fishing. They would have already flipped and gone mad.

But he was already Mad himself.

That's what differentiated him from everyone else. He had a keen sense of calm, especially in situations that threatened to capsize the frail mind of a conscious being. He could manage to bear with this kind of situation, and calmly plan the way forward. Or maybe it was because he was holding out hope that his plan would work.

"They were destroyed, just like that." He said as he remembered something that had happened. "They were the most powerful in the universe, yet they didn't stand a chance against him."

"Such power." He fathomed as he replayed a past event in his mind. "And to think that I was bested and trapped in this hell. It is unacceptable to defy a being such as I."

"But that was no ordinary sorcerer that did this to me." He said. "It couldn't be. No one could overpower a Conqueror, unless they were a Conqueror themselves."

"It seems I have much to learn." He said as he squinted his eyes towards the distant crimson horizon. "Here it comes, once again."

There was a rumble beyond the vast magma, far from where the Mad Titan had been seated. The magma's calm state disrupted as the distant rumble caused shockwaves in the vast expanse.

"Seems that he brought friends with him this time." Thanos observed. "Is that, a dragon?"

He watched as a dragon soared towards the smoky skies and roared, letting out a fiery furnace in the sky. At the back of the dragon was a rider with flames for eyes, squinted in murderous rage.

His expression that of pure villainy as he stared to the small island where Thanos was perched. He didn't know why, but he felt a sense of incompleteness by just staring at Thanos. An overwhelming desire to obliterate Thanos coursed through his fiery veins as he stared at him.

He didn't know who Thanos was, and neither did he know who he was himself. Not even his named whispered in his mind. He couldn't discern why he existed, or what his purpose was. But he could tell that he hated life.

He had scouted this "beautiful" place filled with magma without spotting any sign of existence around. But on seeing Thanos and noticing the breath that filled his lungs, all he could think about was the many ways he would kill him.

He had crafted an army that marched with him through the molten surface. An army made from the very magma itself. The only thing he knew were simple - he was powerful, he seethed with burning rage, and he hated life.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Holding his flaming weapon and allowing the dragon to let out another fiery roar, he signalled for his army to attack the life before them. His dragon flapped it's broad furnace wings and moved towards Thanos with fury and rage.

Thanos pulled his fishing rod and removed the bait from the magma. He observed it keenly, completely oblivious of the attack coming towards him.

"Just as I thought." He said to himself. "Not every part of me gets burnt out completely."

He then looked around at the measly number of bones scattered around him. "If not for the fact that he is stuck in a time-loop, he could have devoured me completely. But I guess more parts of me get salvaged if I die quicker."

"Soon, I will have a resistant armor that will enable me to swim across this vast sea." He said resolutely as he stared at the dragon before him. "And I will be the one to attack him first after reaching where he comes fr..-"

What was meant to become, became.

---

"We need to move quickly." Doctor Strange said. "Something big is about to happen on Earth."

"Whoa!" Batman objected. "Who gave you the permission to bark orders at us?"

"There is no time to argue about it." Doctor Strange said. "Whatever Lex has been doing is just getting started. He might have found a way to subdue powers and make any of you vulnerable."

"That's true." Kara said. "That's what we experienced, Barry."

"That was Lex's doing?" Barry asked remembering how he had been sent flying when his powers malfunctioned. Same thing had happened to Kara who had been flying in the sky as they went to the Sanctum.

"Yes. There were more anti-magic artifacts besides the Nthirium, and he managed to harness them to somehow inhibit our abilities, but it didn't take them away completely." Kara said. "His next attack may be more permanent and large-scale, if let to happen. Who knows what danger he could bring into this world with such an attack?"

"Mmmhh..." Batman hummed for a second as he remembered everything that had happened with the Riddler. "This is bad."

First was the riddle from the Codex:

_"Within the shadows of ones and zeros I dwell. Stuck in what pierces the Gotham sky. Gotham's power, a puzzle to unwind. Hurry, before I'm lost, out of sight._"

As it turned out, the riddle pointed towards the towering skyscraper of the Wayne Enterprises (pierces the Gotham sky). What lay in Wayne Enterprises was however not only an object, but also a group of scientists who had been working on an Energy plant program that would revolutionize energy in Gotham City.

The Riddler had hinted at kidnapping these scientists who had been tirelessly perfecting the code, but before Batman had managed to decipher the riddle, the deed had already been done. The Riddler had kidnapped all the scientist, taking the entire research with him.

The codex that Batman had obtained was after all not what would shut down Gotham's power, but his own investment. But the Riddler was not without his signature move, and he had left yet another riddle leading to his next crime.

Enraged that such a thing would happen in his backyard, Batman momentarily abandoned his sharp instincts and started to hunt the Riddler like a maniac. He moved through the streets of Gotham breaking bones and snapping necks that connected to the Riddler, and finally he was about to catch the obsessive villain, when he creatively escaped to New York City.

Worried that his actions would result into more unnecessary violence, Talia Al Ghul had told Batman to step aside and resolve the situation in Gotham as she hunted the Riddler by herself. The research and the scientists that the Riddler had taken were of course of vital to her as one of the corporate heads of Wayne Enterprises.

But the trail on the Riddler grew cold in the crowded City of New York, and the closest she could get to him was through Metro Innovations whose technology had been advancing so quickly.

In New York, she had come to learn about the existence of a great magical presence and the ongoing heist on relics in the city. On further investigation, she came across a name that she had hoped to never hear again, thereby resolving to contact her father: Nthirium.

That's when she found out that the Sorcerer Supreme had taken it, and she hunted him to see if she could find the forbidden artifact. Her tabs on Doctor Strange (Razake at the time) allowed her to find his hideout, and she was about to infiltrate and steal the Nthirium when a dark sorcerer interfered by controlling her mind.

She had been given the pass into the Sanctum, but on stealing the Nthirium, she would instead take it to Felix Faust instead of the League of Assassins as originally planned. Those plans were foiled with incredible might.

After not hearing from Talia for sometime, Batman was about to follow the Riddler in New York, when the Riddler returned to Gotham, revealing to Batman that his plans to shut down Gotham's power were at their climax. But he wasn't going to stop there. He would shut down all of the Earth's power by powering the Sonic Power Surge to the sky.

That information came to Batman using yet another riddle.