He left Wayne Manor with a quiet goodbye, a hand on Bruce's shoulder,
" Bruce, take care of yourself, I will be back "
But before they left, Aaron did something that would have looked like nothing to anyone watching. He paused in the hallway. Closed his eyes. And let the serpent rise.
The pale gold form uncoiled from his shoulders, invisible to everyone except the two translucent figures still standing in Bruce's doorway.
Thomas and Martha watched the serpent with the same expression: awe mixed with fear, the look of people who had seen many strange things in death but nothing quite like this.
"You have to come with me," Aaron said. His voice was low. "Both of you. Now."
Thomas looked at his son, still sitting on the floor, still staring at nothing. "We can't leave him."
"You're not leaving him. You're helping him. But if you stay here, the reaper will come. Seven days. That's what the old texts say. After that, I don't know if I can bring you back."
Martha touched her husband's arm. A ghost's touch. Weightless. "Thomas. If there's even a chance..."
Thomas closed his eyes. Then nodded.
The serpent opened its mouth. A sealed space. A pocket of soul energy that existed outside the normal flow of death. Thomas and Martha stepped into it, their forms compressing, folding, until they were nothing but a faint warmth in the back of Aaron's mind. The serpent swallowed them gently and coiled back into its resting place.
Aaron opened his eyes. The hallway was empty.
"Let's go," he said.
His parents asked no questions. They simply followed.
The Gill family returned to their old mansion near Gotham, the same estate where Aaron had been bitten by vampires in what felt like another lifetime.
The house was cold from disuse, the furniture covered in white sheets, the windows dark.
"I need to tell you something," Aaron said.
Ashley and Aryan sat at the kitchen table while Aaron explained. The ghosts. Thomas and Martha Wayne. The seven-day window. The Kryptonian ship. The regeneration pods. The possibility of resurrection.
When he finished, Aryan leaned back in his chair. His face was pale but steady. "You want to bring two dead people back to life using alien technology."
" Can you really do this, Yes."
Ashley looked at her husband. Then at her son. "What do you need?"
Aaron almost smiled. Almost. "A van. Shovels. And a plane."
Night fell over Gotham like a black curtain.
Aaron took to the air in bat form, a swarm of dark wings cutting through the cold wind above the city. Below him, the lights of Wayne Manor flickered through the trees. The property was dark and quiet.
He landed in the private cemetery behind the manor. The Wayne family plot. Two fresh graves side by side, the earth still loose, the headstones not yet carved.
Aaron transformed back into his human form. No tools. No shovels. Just his hands.
He dug.
The vampire strength that had grown in him over these months made the work fast. Dirt flew. The hole deepened. His fingers found wood. He gripped the coffin lid, splintered it, and pulled it free.
Thomas Wayne's body lay inside. Embalmed. Dressed in his funeral suit. His face peaceful in a way it hadn't been in death.
Aaron lifted him out. Gently. Carefully. The way you carried something precious.
Then the second grave. Martha Wayne. Smaller. Lighter. Her wedding ring still on her finger, glinting in the moonlight.
He wrapped both bodies in the thermal blankets he'd brought. Spread his wings. The large, dark wings that had grown from his back when the Rakt bloodline had begun to stir. He'd never used them like this before.
He lifted off the ground. One body in each arm. Flying low over the trees, toward the road where his parents were waiting with the van.
They didn't speak as he loaded the coffins into the back. Aryan closed the doors. Ashley started the engine.
The van pulled away from Gotham as the first light of dawn began to creep over the horizon.
The private jet was waiting at a small airfield outside the city. Aryan's pharmaceutical company owned it. A perk of running a multi-million-dollar empire. They loaded the coffins into the cargo hold and took off without filing a flight plan that mentioned anything about dead bodies.
Aaron sat in the cabin, staring out the window as the East Coast fell away beneath them. His mother sat beside him. His father was in the cockpit with the pilot.
He pulled out his phone. Dialed Clark.
The phone rang twice before Clark picked up. "Aaron? It's four in the morning."
"I need the ship. The regeneration pods."
A pause. Clark's voice was suddenly very awake. " Why"
"I'll explain when I get there. Can you meet me at the airport?"
Another pause. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll be there."
"Good. See you soon."
He hung up before Clark could ask more questions.
The Fortress of Solitude gleamed under the Antarctic ice..
its Kryptonian metal walls reflecting the blue glow of the holographic interfaces. Jor-El's projection stood before the main console, his ancient eyes studying the two bodies that lay on the medical bay's examination tables.
"The cellular damage is extensive," Jor-El said. His voice was calm. Clinical. "Decomposition has begun. The nervous systems are degraded. The blood has been replaced with embalming fluid."
"Can you fix them?" Aaron asked.
Jor-El's projection flickered. He was silent for a long moment. "The regeneration pods can repair damaged tissue. They can reconstruct organs. They can even rebuild neural pathways. But it would take time."
"How much time?"
"Fourteen years."
Clark stepped forward. "Fourteen years?"
"The bodies must be rebuilt cell by cell. The decomposition must be reversed. The embalming chemicals must be purged. And even then..." Jor-El paused. "There is a deeper problem. I cannot detect any will in these bodies. No consciousness. No life force. The cells are intact enough to be repaired, but they are not sustaining. Without consciousness, the body is just meat. The pods can heal flesh, but they cannot summon back a soul that has already departed."
Aaron looked at the two bodies on the tables. Thomas and Martha Wayne. Peaceful. Still. Empty.
Then he looked at his panel. At the serpent coiled behind his shoulder. At the two warm presences still held in the sealed space within his soul.
Blood Servant. The ability he had never used.
He closed his eyes and let the knowledge flow into him. The mechanics of it. The cost. The binding. The skill wasn't just about creating thralls. It was about forging a connection. A bridge. A chain that linked one soul to another through blood.
Aaron opened his eyes.
"I can solve that problem"
Clark turned. "What?"
"The Blood Servant skill. If I inject my blood into their bodies and bind their souls to mine, it might anchor them and returned to body consciousness."
"You're talking about making them your servants?"
"I'm talking about saving their lives."
Jor-El's projection studied Aaron with new interest. "You would bind their souls to your own?"
"Yes."
Clark put a hand on Aaron's shoulder. "Aaron. Think about this."
"I have thought about it. I've been thinking about it since I saw them standing behind Bruce. They don't deserve to die. Bruce doesn't deserve to lose them. And I can help. So I will."
Aaron used his sharp teeth to inject blood in both bodies, and then The Kryptonian medical systems hummed to life. Needles extended from the console. Tubes filled with dark liquid. Aaron's blood. Vampire blood. Noblesse blood. Rakt blood. Ancient blood that carried the weight of two worlds and a thousand generations.
It flowed into Thomas Wayne's body first. Then Martha's.
The serpent uncoiled. Its sealed space opened. And the two ghosts flowed out, drawn by the blood, pulled toward the bodies that had once housed them.
Thomas entered first. His soul flickered, caught, held. Martha followed. The blood pulsed in their veins. The monitors beeped. The cells began to respond.
Then something unexpected happened.
A piece of their souls didn't return to their bodies. It flowed backward through the blood connection, through the binding, and into Aaron.
He gasped. His back arched. For a moment, he saw flashes. Thomas's memories. Martha's memories. Bruce as a baby. The Wayne family legacy. The night in the alley. The gunshots. The falling.
And then it settled. A warmth in his chest. A presence. Two presences. Bound to him forever.
The panel pulsed.
Blood Servant: Soul Bound (2).
Thomas Wayne — Bound.
Martha Wayne — Bound.
Jor-El's projection flickered. "The cells are responding. The binding is stable. The percentage of success has increased significantly. This may work."
Clark stared at the monitors. Then at Aaron. "What did you do?"
Clark looked at him for a long moment. Then, quietly: "Did you tell your friend chapter: Bruce?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because Bruce doesn't know about any of this. He doesn't know about Kryptonians or vampires or soul spirits. He's just a kid who lost his parents. And right now, he needs to grieve. He needs to be normal. When the time is right, I'll tell him. But not now."
Clark was silent. Then he nodded. "His parents. They agreed to this?"
"They asked me to try."
"Then that's enough."
On the other side of the world, Bruce Wayne stood at the edge of his parents' graves.
Except the graves weren't there anymore.
Two empty holes gaped in the earth. The coffins were gone. The dirt was scattered. Police tape fluttered in the cold morning wind. Officers milled around, taking photographs, shaking their heads, writing reports that would never be filed.
Alfred stood beside Bruce, his face pale, his hands trembling for the first time since the shooting.
"Who would do this?" Bruce whispered.
"I don't know, Master Bruce."
"Find them."
"The police are doing everything they can—"
"No." Bruce's voice was different now. Harder. Older. "Find them. I don't care what it costs. I don't care how long it takes. I want to know who took my parents."
Alfred looked at the boy beside him. The grief was still there. The pain was still there. But something new was rising underneath it. Something cold. Something relentless.
"Of course, Master Bruce," Alfred said. "I will begin immediately."
Bruce turned away from the empty graves. His hands were fists. His eyes were dry.
Somewhere under the ice of Antarctica, his parents were being reborn. But he didn't know that yet.
All he knew was that someone had stolen them.
And he would never stop until he found out who.