When his awareness finally flickered back, it was not to the cold porcelain of the well-lit restroom, but to the stench of old dust and chemical cleaner perfectly blended with a side of stagnant air.
A throbbing ache pulsed behind his eyes, and thrice his eyelids quivered, sticky with the residue of drowsy tears, before opening to a dim slit of light filtering in from beneath the ill-fitting door.
Silently, he hauled himself up, yawning as his joints cracked.
He felt… Bizarrely great.
It was as if the last three days had been an elaborate joke, and he the poor bastard on the receiving end of it.
The sudden lurch of his movement instantly jolted the girl huddled across from him to her senses.
"Where are we?" He rasped dryly, utterly parched.
"The maintenance room," The girl replied faintly, pulling her knee in a little closer as loose strands of her auburn ponytail stuck to her damp forehead. "I managed to drag you in here after you… Well, fainted."
"Why are you looking at me like I'm about to eat you alive?"
He just saved her, for crying out loud! And this was the thanks he got?
"B-Because, well," The girl stammered with none of the earlier tongue-in-cheek. "You do look like something that might… Eat children?"
And judging by the death grip she had on the silver rosary, she was definitely ready to throw hands.
"You are incredibly rude, you know that?"
"… I'm not trying to, it's just… Your face—I don't know how else to put it. You'll need to see for yourself."
"My face?" Rowan repeated quizzically, blackened talons grazing over the raw, exposed muscle where skin should've been. "What the hell?" His fingers pressed harder, dragging down his mangled face in an effort to peel off the 'disguise'.
Were those… Eyes? Plural?
"What the actual fuck?!!"
He ran his fingers over the side of his face again, dread coiling in his gut, then tossed the girl his phone. "Snap me a picture."
"Of you?"
"No, of you," He shot back, rolling his eyes. "What do you think? And turn on the Flash, please."
Visibly shaken, she took the photo and handed him the phone.
The boy staring at Rowan from the screen looked half-familiar until you noticed the third, reddish-orange eye calmly watching just above his left cheekbone, and the crimson, bone-like growth slowly inching toward the bridge of his nose. He'd complain, if not for the fact it looked hella'—"Cool!"
He recognized the design, too: From the red skin, to the extra eye, to those burning, inhuman irises.
Crinkling her nose, the girl hissed. "Cool? How's that cool?! You look like a monster!"
"That's the idea, sport." Rowan eased the door open with a creak to scan the dim hall and whispered. "Got any idea who or what hit the Academy?"
The girl shook her head.
Of course not.
What the hell was he expecting. With a sigh, he pulled out his phone, opened the Gotham News app, and rubbed at the stress building behind his eyebrows. "There it is—'Bank Hit. Children Caught in the Crossfire. Is the GCPD Impotent?'"
Yikes… Trust Gotham News to twist in the knife.
"GOTHAM NEWS:A bank robbery quickly spiraled into chaos after the suspects' escape vehicle crashed near Gotham Academy. The crew of eight, already responsible for the death of one security guard, stormed the school close by and took hostages in a tense standoff that has yet to end. Commissioner Gordon—"
The girl lunged at the mention, snatching the phone from his hand. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you little gremlin?!"
"Hey, that's my dad!"
"Your father?" Rowan muttered, staring at the image of the Commissioner and his unmistakable cop-stache. "… You're Jim Gordon's daughter?"
"You know my dad?"
"Know your da—who fucking doesn't?!"
Even if he hadn't meta-knowledge, the Commissioner was practically a regular on the 6:00 P.M. News at this point! But if she was Gordon's… Didn't that make her—'Batgirl?'
"The Commissioner said the GCPD is attempting to negotiate with the robbers, but so far, their efforts have yielded little to no results. Meanwhile, public outrage is growing over how quickly the situation slipped out of their hands."
The girl—Barbara Gordon narrated.
"This wasn't a planned attack… None of the robbers seem tied to any supervillains. You're gonna go after them, aren't you?"
'I've been talking shit to Batgirl this whole time?!!' He was so getting kicked out of the Batfamily…
Barbara suddenly nudged his shoulder.
"Yep." Nodded Rowan, features stiffer than a wall. "Of course."
A few regular dudes with guns?
With no Metas to back them up?
They'd be easy picking for him, usually… If he had access to Bat-gadgets. 'But—'
Flexing his arm, Rowan closed his eyes and let the overflowing strength pulse through him.
'Maybe I won't need those gadgets after all.'
He used to fear the things in the dark… Now he was that thing, and there was something strangely comforting in knowing that. "Can I come wi—"
"Hell naw. You stay put," Rowan barked, then grabbed a handful of rags and tossed it at her. "You ever played hide-n'-seek? Wrap these rags around you and pretend you are."
"But I can help!"
Staring at her, he did an impressive impersonation of J. Jonah Jameson before slamming the door in her face.
The article said there were eight robbers in total—just the perfect amount for Rowan to warm up on, and maybe even see what he was capable of. "Congrats, gents. You just earned front-row seats to your own beatdown."
Bolting down the hall, he had to bite back a laugh.
He wasn't Flash-Fast, nor Superman-Strong, but he was fast and strong, and that was enough. Furthermore, if his 'suspicion' was right, he probably still had a lot more room to grow.
With his future now a little brighter, Rowan raced back to his classroom; to Alex's desk where that little gremlin always stashed his crusty Batman toy mask.
He found it exactly where he expected, grimaced at the booger-crusted inside, and yanked it free with two fingers like it was radioactive. Pinching his nose, he gagged. "Jesus, why does this reek of death and feet?"
Deciding he did have time to be picky, he made a beeline for the acting club's room, slipping inside just as two of the thugs closed in on his position.
"I told you we shouldn't have brought that psycho! Now it's not just robbery—we've got multiple counts of murder and kidnapping on our hands!"
"Oh, come on! How was I supposed to know he was that brain-dead?"
They could've bailed clean, but no!
Crazy Eight had to overcompensate for his shriveled-up roid nads by waving the gun around like he was auditioning for a Tarantino movie! And now the idiot was babbling about Demon and Amargeddon like a schizo coke fiend!
"I told you! I fuckin' told you! Who the hell brings a guy called Crazy Eight to a heist?! We had to tie his psycho ass down with the faculty and students, for fuck's sake!"
"I know, I know, aight?! Just shut the hell up and let me think!"
But thinking wasn't gonna be on the schedule for much longer, because unbeknownst to either of them, a Demon had crept up right behind them, just waiting to strike. Outside, the last scraps of sunlight bled out over the horizon, like the world was drawing the curtain for Rowan's performance. 'I won't disappoint.'
Quietly, he slipped into the dark and raised his arm, casting the Shadow which eagerly gave chase. It definitely wasn't happy being leashed to his will, but whatever grudge the Sentient Shadow held toward Rowan and his methods had long since been drowned out by its craving to mete out violence. A craving he'd promised to satisfy under one simple condition: 'You may not kill.'
Grinning like the Devil, his Shadow dragged the first robber by the ankle with the same ease a lion would have snuffing the life out a newborn gazelle.
The second crimimal barely had time to register what was happening, only coming to when he was thrown face-first into concrete.
"He-Help me!"
Despite having no voice of its own, the Shadow's laughter pounded like war drums beside their ears as it hurled the robber through the glass and out the window, where he then plummeted into a bush.
"It's the Ba—" The sound withered in Heller's throat as his eyes locked onto the thing stalking them—a Shade right next with his own.
Its mouth was split in a grin far too wide; its fingers sharp like knives glued to its hands as it leaned in and tapped him on the head. Heller shouldn't have felt anything at all, yet he did…
From the jagged ridges of its talons scraping across his face and leaving phantom stings, to the scales on its rough and elongated fingers. "What the unholy—"
Before he could complete the sentence, the Shade had already dipped behind his shadow, hands cradling the head of his reflection like something both precious and yet utterly doomed.
Heller felt himself being lifted.
"He-Hel—Uhmm!"
He felt claws clamp around the crown of his skull, followed by a palm lodging itself in his mouth to smother the scream in the back of his throat.
He felt his legs flail uselessly in the air next.
And then he felt the points—cold, sharp, and thrumming with the barely contained giddiness of a child at a playground—poke through his skin and curl deeper into the flesh underneath. If only he could scream… It wouldn't lessen the pain, but at least it would mean he still had a voice. Still had something to cling to. But all he had was silence.
Crushing. Absolute.
And the knowledge that no one was coming to save him.
In that moment, Heller realized he would've gladly taken the Bat.
The Bat would break bones, maybe leave him crawling and sucking food through a straw for weeks, but at least there'd be a chance to crawl away. At least the Bat was human.
This thing wasn't.
It didn't care.
And it wasn't stopping.
Heller didn't know what it was. Maybe in the way it moved, or the sheer hatred radiating from the two-dimensional Shade on the flat surface, but he could tell it wanted to kill him. And it probably would have, if not for the voice.
"That's quite enough." Never in his life had he felt such overwhelming relief at hearing another human voice, only for it to curdle into profound disappointment the moment he saw who it belonged to.
'A kid?!' The boy barely reached his chest which, admittedly, was impressive for someone his age, but Heller would rather a savior with some actual fucking hair on their chest! And yet, with just a single utterance from him, the Demon was immediately repelled.
Now free, his first instinct was to flee, but before Heller could make a break for it, the thought was crushed by the brat's annoyingly calm voice. "It would catch you." So he turned to fight instead, lifting his gun, only to find his fingers frozen-stiff on the trigger as the boy intoned. "You'd die."
Now that he was closer, Heller could see the faint glow in those eyes. They weren't like Metropolis' Boy Scout's, no. This was subtler, more primal—like a cat waiting to pounce on its prey and, unfortunately, he was the prey.
Goddamnit. He should have listened to the rumors!
There was a reason even monsters like Cobblepot, Black Mask, the Falcones, and Maroni gave the Academy a wide berth. And clearly, it wasn't just the kids' powerful parents keeping them away. Beside him, the Shade gave a mocking wave before abruptly tugging him sideways and leaving deep gashes in his forearm.
Heller' favorite channel growing up was National Geographic, and if it taught him anything, it was how smaller pack animals took down prey. See, hyenas didn't have the muscle to wrestle a buffalo to the ground or the speed to catch a gazelle.
Instead, they swarmed.
They circled.
They wore their prey down with small nips and bites until the poor bastard collapsed from exhaustion and fear. That was exactly what this felt like, only the hunt was already over. All that remained was the butchering. "I see you have been introduced to my pet…"
Scooting back on his hands, Heller's heart slammed to a halt when his spine hit the wall. "What are you, freak?!"
"What I am," His brown eyes finally met with the orange. "Is none of your concern. You will speak only when spoken to, and you'll answer every question truthfully or I will have my pet tear you apart with his teeth…"
Chomping at the air, the Shade ran its claws along his shadow, drawing a cut that burned with the intensity of the midday Sun.
"Have we an understanding? Now!" Heller wasn't afraid to admit he flinched at the clap, embarrassing as it might sound to some. "First question: How many of you are there?"
The newspapers mentioned there were supposedly eight in on the botched heist, but Rowan needed to be sure.
How he'd kill for Detective Mode right about now.
"You're not getting anything from me, you fucking fre—"
"Shadow, it seems our friend's got a problem with his long-term memory… Why don't you fix that? I think a, say, fifteen-second session will jog his brain?"
On cue, the Shade grabbed him by the waistband and yanked him up with ease, then slammed him spine-first into the wall. "Fuc—!"
"Oh, we're name-calling now? Make it thirty. And make it hurt."
The Shade obeyed with glee, dragging Heller across the floor like a trash bag, then drove him into the nearest classroom.
The door gave way with a metallic groan and to an awfully silent room save the wheezing gasps Heller managed through his aching ribs.
Bathing the classroom in a bruised orange glow, the dying Sun cast a soft amber smear across the wall, but the serene light did little to soothe his fear.
Instead, it made the Shade look even more solid, more real—like a dark stain corrupting the warmth…
The Entity swept aside the shadows cast by tables and chairs, and the furniture mirrored the motion, flying to the far end of the room. Each step it took, it grew, swelling in size until the man-shaped Shade loomed tall enough to brush the ceiling. "I'LL TALK, I'LL TALK!!! MAKE IT STOP—PLEASE!"
From the shadowed hall, the boy stepped in, his short frame seeming to eclipse the entire doorway. "Then talk."
— [HELLBRED] —
"Turned out, that really was their first rodeo. After forty-something years of busting their backs at the harbor, getting screamed at by their manager, and then robbed of their hard-earned wages just days after payday, those once-respectable working men finally snapped.
'Screw it,' They said. 'Let's go out swinging.'
No families. No real ties—they had nothing to lose anyway.
Worst case scenario? They rot in a cell until the Reaper clocks them out.
Best case? They vanish with the money and live like kings.
Phenomenal plan, really, if not for three tiny hiccups.
The first? Crazy Eight. Who the hell green-lit a guy named Crazy Eight for a heist? That should've been red flag number one, two, and three. The second? Me. Because of course, the one place they decided to hole up in just had to come with its own brand of 'freak.'
And the third? The long, glorious parade of assassination attempts they'd now be dodging for the rest of their very short lives. Needless to say, breaking into a school packed with the rich and dangerously well-connected was not exactly a winning retirement plan.
Although I don't condone their actions, I get it.
Nobody wakes up thinking, 'Yeah, I wanna be a criminal today.'
But being a good person isn't easy.
Being good and poor is even harder.
Being good and poor while living in Gotham? It's damn near impossible.
Ninety-nine percent of Gothamites—and I do mean ninety-nine—have taken a bribe to look the other way at least once.
When you're struggling to put food on the table, trying to survive in a ten-square-meter concrete coffin that turns into a furnace in summer and the Arctic in winter;
When insurance and social services keep denying your claims because 'getting a car thrown at you by Solomon Grundy' isn't a valid reason for temporary disability, while robbers, thieves, and killers rake in blood money, you'd start to lose it too.
Sure, some might argue it's the same story in every city and country, that poverty isn't an excuse. Those people don't know Gotham. Not really.
Most only know it through a screen—cartoons told from the Caped Crusader's perspective, blockbuster movies that paint Batman as a lone savior, or sanitized news clips broadcast by networks too scared to show the real rot. They don't know the despair that eats away at every Gothamite who isn't wealthy or running on rooftops in a cape.
But I do.
I know it all too well.
Alas…"
— [HELLBRED] —
"Oh, God—"
Rowan held still, carefully burying the twitch beneath a calm mask.
Lucky for him, the rookie was too shaken to catch the flinch. "We're gonna die, aren't we? It wasn't supposed to go like this… We were just tired. But you wouldn't get it—you rich kids live like kings. You don't know what it is truly like to despair."
Stilling as the man clung to his pants, Rowan let out a sigh, quietly wondering if this could've been him had Bruce not taken him in.
Even if he'd somehow dodged every trap waiting for a starving orphan, would he have grown up just another bitter, broken man? Another felon chasing his own desires?
"On the contrary," He said at last. "I do. Alas, you went about it the wrong way. 'If you can't beat them, join them'—is not the way."
"Easy for you to say," Heller snarled. "Easy when you're chauffeured around in a damn Rolls Royce. What the hell do you know? You're just a kid! A kid and a freak!"
The Shade surged forward, claws sharp and ready, but the robber's fear had soured into a bitter rage. "Go ahead… Kill me… But you know I'm telling the truth."
"I can't help you."
They'd already made their choices—crossed too many lines.
All he could offer was a promise.
"But I swear to you: One day, Gotham will be safe to walk at night. One day, good, honest, hard-working men won't have to bow down to crooks anymore."
"What does it matter?" Heller snorted, hands braced on his shaky knees. "I won't be around by then."
"Promise me you'll do the time. That you'll repent. And when you get out—"
"If I get out," Heller cut in.
Because odds were, he'd either be shanked by a hired inmate or rot until Death of the Endless came knocking.
"Promise me," Rowan pressed, "And I'll do everything in my power to make sure you get to bear witness to that future."
Extending his hand, the vigilante hesitated for a split second—distracted by flickering runes dancing faintly above his skin… The brief lapse snapped as Heller clasped his hand.
"Don't be too hard on the others," Heller muttered. "They never wanted to hurt anyone. We were only supposed to get in, then get out. Crazy Eight though…"
Rowan's eyes darkened at the mention.
Only one other robber had seen his Shadow prior to Heller and Abraham—the one he'd thrown out the window.
"Don't worry, I'll give 'im hell."
.
.
.
"Robin." The Dark Knight greeted, landing on the rooftop right beside his sidekick.
"Batman."
Below, the parents tearfully embraced to their terrified kids. 'Is that Barbara?'
Looked like she'd found her way out of the maintenance room after all. 'Good for her.'
"Eight captured, none hurt too badly—you did good."
"I was trained by the best." The boy shrugged, flinching as he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm glad you're safe." The instant the words left him, the Caped Crusader's eyes dropped to the bandaged arm. "Are you hurt?"
"Well, I wouldn't say hurt…" He pried the tragedy mask off to show crimson scales where he expected a bare, clean patch of skin. "How long have you exhibited these symptoms?"
"Since Reuben—so, about three days, I think?"
"Why didn't you mention it?" Bruce's eyes narrowed.
"It was invisible at first. The concealment only broke when I accidentally touched a rosary."
"That is insufficient." The Dark Knight intoned. "Given the prevalence of… Anomalous phenomena in recent years, I would've arranged for immediate diagnostics. Early intervention could've prevented progression."
"I thought I could handle it."
"This is handling it?"
Throwing his arms in the air, the boy rolled his eyes. "Well, I never said I was handling it well, did I?"
Brows creased, the Dark Knight dropped a suitcase at his feet. "Get dressed. I've arranged a meeting with a magical consultant. They'll know how to help you."
Bruce turned, silently demanding an explanation for the boy's defiance, and he got one. "Not yet. I've got reason to believe someone'll try to take these fine chaps out soon."
Even if the Court thought it beneath them, some pissed-off parent with too much money and too little patience would make a move eventually. And by 'eventually,' Rowan meant now—while the media circus was still in full swing and public attention hadn't drifted to the newest tragedy.
Why would they do it? The better question was: Why wouldn't they?
Sending a message worked way better with a live audience.
"I thought you didn't care for criminals?"
"I don't care for irredeemable monsters… And I don't think these men are there yet."
Most were carrying blanks—cheap theatrics meant to scare, not maim.
Only Crazy Eight and two others, whose names Rowan hadn't bothered to remember, carried live rounds.
And of those three, only Crazy Eight had actually used his.
Only he had drawn blood.
Only he deserved death.
After a quick inspection, Batman growled, "Someone rigged the squad cars. We need to move."
Damn, these bastards didn't waste time.
But just as he stepped toward the ledge, Rowan tugged his cape. "Hey, Bruce, wanna see something cool?"
"This is no time for jokes."
"I'm not joking."
Bringing his arms into the great floodlight illuminating the busy schoolyard, Rowan's shadow stretched, reaching for the rag the robbers and officers both, it cleared all except one.
Bruce would've chalked it up to a trick of light, if not for the fact that everyone the Shadow touched was inexplicably 'tossed away' by the blast completely unharmed.
"What was that?" He demanded.
"My new power. I call it…" He paused, studying his clearly sentient Shadow before adding with a puffed chest, "Ichor."