The rain had stopped, but the weight of the night remained.
Inside an abandoned industrial complex on Gotham's outskirts, the remnants of the chaos still lingered. Smoke curled from shattered concrete. Bodies—some stunned, others broken—lay scattered like pawns left behind after a failed game of war. Draven stood amidst it all, his armor cracked, cape torn, a thin trail of blood weaving down his jawline.
Beside him, Evelyn's hand was trembling—not from fear, but adrenaline. Her eyes flicked from the blood on Draven's shoulder to the crumbled wall behind them where Pulse had vanished after the explosion. The twisted remnants of his electric blade still sparked near the wreckage, as if mocking their narrow escape.
Draven's voice was hoarse. "He's getting bolder."
Evelyn nodded, voice soft. "He knew we were coming. That wasn't an ambush. That was a performance."
They moved deeper into the building, stepping over cracked surveillance terminals and shredded steel doors. Draven's senses stayed sharp. Every creak, every flicker of light overhead could mean danger.
And then they found it—what Pulse had been protecting.
A lab.
The door was blast-sealed, but Evelyn's fingers moved like fire over her portable terminal. "Encrypted, high-tier Halcyon protocols. I'll need a minute."
Draven crouched, scanning the corridor. His voice low. "Make it twenty seconds."
The hallway whispered with silence—too much of it. His instincts flared. He pivoted, blades half-drawn, but it was only Evelyn, her hand suddenly brushing his chest. She looked up.
"You okay?" she asked.
He hesitated. For once, the mask of the vigilante cracked, just slightly. "That thing… Pulse… he was targeting the people inside. Civilians. He didn't even care if they screamed."
Evelyn's voice softened. "Because he's not after screams. He's after silence. Terror doesn't always need sound."
Her hand lingered a moment too long. In the brief stillness, under flickering lights and the stale scent of blood and ozone, Draven's eyes met hers. His voice dropped lower.
"You don't have to keep coming with me."
She smiled, faint but defiant. "And leave you to get killed by electric lunatics, mad surgeons, and masked sociopaths? Not a chance."
Before he could reply, the lock clicked.
The door to the lab creaked open.
Inside—an eerie, pristine chamber. Silver walls glistened, humming faintly. Pods—six of them—stood aligned like sarcophagi, each filled with a strange amber fluid. But these weren't just experimental tanks. Each one had a figure inside. Not children this time—adults. Soldiers. Wired into machines, pulses mapped on monitors.
Evelyn moved first, scanning a nearby console.
"Project Echelon," she read aloud. "Combat enhancement. Neural rewriting. They're turning people into programmable weapons."
Draven's jaw clenched. "These aren't just Syndicate grunts. These are sleeper agents."
Suddenly, a voice echoed over the intercom—glitchy, warbled.
"Enjoying the tour, Knight?"
Evelyn froze. "It's him."
Draven stared at the corner where the surveillance lens blinked red. "Harbinger."
The voice laughed, distorted like a symphony of static. "You always were good at cleaning up the mess, Draven. But the deeper you dig, the closer you get to the roots. And roots... rot."
One of the pods hissed open.
The figure inside dropped to the floor—shaking, confused, eyes glazed in silver. He looked at Draven.
Then screamed.
A psychic wave pulsed through the lab. Evelyn staggered. Draven fell to one knee.
The soldier lunged—faster than human reflex should allow.
Draven met him mid-air, steel against flesh. The fight was vicious. Brutal. Not a brawl—this was a test. The soldier moved like a puppet—every strike rehearsed, mechanical. As if his mind had been overwritten by code.
Evelyn scrambled to the terminal. "They're still wired into a command protocol. If I can disrupt it—"
Draven ducked a strike and countered with a brutal elbow, slamming the soldier against the wall.
"Do it!" he growled.
Evelyn's fingers flew. Sparks burst from the control panel. The pod behind them exploded in a burst of amber mist.
The soldier froze—then collapsed. The silver drained from his eyes. He blinked, coughing, lost.
"I… I couldn't stop it," he gasped. "I could see everything, but I couldn't stop."
Draven lowered his blade. "You're safe now."
Evelyn whispered, "They're not making monsters. They're turning people into them."
Suddenly—sirens. Red lights flared.
"Backup's coming," Evelyn warned. "We have to move."
They slipped out through a side exit, back into the storm-choked night. But before they vanished into the alley, Evelyn grabbed his arm.
"Back there…" she said. "Why did you hesitate? With the soldier?"
Draven didn't answer immediately. Then, quietly: "Because I saw myself in him. A weapon… someone else's creation."
Evelyn's eyes shimmered. "You're not just a weapon, Draven."
He looked at her. "No. But I was."
And for the first time, her hand didn't just brush against his arm—it stayed there, fingers lacing briefly with his. A small warmth in a city drowning in darkness.
Behind them, the lab burned. But in its ashes… something had stirred. A file left open on a terminal. A name buried in the chaos:
Nyx.
And in a different place, far away—in a theater of shadows—a man with a grin wider than pain sat watching footage.
He sipped from a teacup.
Smiled.
Spoke to no one.
"They still think he's the knight."
He chuckled, eyes gleaming.
"But I'm the king."