The first humans were fragile things.
They had no claws to rend flesh, no fangs to tear through hide, no natural armor to turn aside predators. They huddled in caves carved by wind and water, clutching stone tools that broke as often as they were held, wearing skins stolen from animals stronger and faster than themselves.
Survival meant understanding which berries wouldn't kill you, which streams ran clean, where lightning was likely to strike. It meant learning that fire kept the darkness at bay and that the dark always brought things with teeth.
In those early days, humanity's greatest weapon wasn't strength or speed; it was pattern recognition.
The ability to see cause and effect, to understand that actions had consequences, that the world operated according to rules even if those rules felt arbitrary and cruel.
When lightning struck and killed your brother, when drought starved your children, when sickness ravaged your tribe despite every precaution, people needed explanations. More importantly, they needed to believe someone or something out there cared, and that if death came, it meant something beyond random chance, so they created stories. They created Gods…
Gods of Thunder and Harvest,
Spirits of the Hunt and Hearth,
Divinities who could be pleased or angered, bargained with or appeased.
Soon, religion became humanity's shield against the existential terror of a Universe that seemed determined to grind them into dust. On Rowan's Earth, those Gods were fictional… Comforting lies that helped people cope with mortality and the sheer meaninglessness of it all. But here?
Here, the Gods were real. They walked among mortals when the mood struck them. They intervened in wars for reasons both petty and profound… They sired champions who could level cities or save kingdoms.
Zeus actually threw lightning bolts.
Ares genuinely reveled in bloodshed.
Athena's wisdom wasn't metaphorical, but the tactical advice whispered directly into a favored warrior's ear before battle.
The myths weren't allegories for human nature, they were historical records of Divine tantrums and celestial politics playing out with mortal lives as collateral damage.
When ancient humans prayed for Deliverance, sometimes Deliverance actually arrived wearing golden armor and wielding Divine Armaments.
When they begged for Justice, occasionally Justice manifested as a Demigod with a magic sword cutting down their oppressors.
Here, the Gods answered.
Not always, of course!
Not reliably either…
And seldom in ways that didn't create new problems, but they answered, and it made humanity weaker for it.
Because whether the Gods were real or imagined, humanity still huddled in their caves. They still scrambled for resources, still fought over territory, still killed each other over whose divine patron deserved greater worship.
But divine intervention couldn't eliminate their struggles, it just made them dependent.
After all, why develop better farming when you could pray for rain?
Why build stronger walls when a hero might save you?
Why think, innovate, or adapt when the Gods might solve your problems for you?
Every answered prayer taught that humanity wasn't enough on its own.
The Gods crippled as much as they saved, turning humans into perpetual children waiting for Divine parents to fix what they broke. Progress became a lottery of Sivine favor rather than earned achievement. And the worst part? 'The Gods will it' could justify every atrocity… Even worse, sometimes the Gods actually did will it, even descending to validate the horrors committed in their names.
Perhaps they'd realized the harm they were doing to humanity.
Perhaps that was why the Pantheons had left Earth alone in recent centuries.
Then again, maybe he was giving them too much credit.
Maybe they simply got bored with the fragile humans.
The Universe was vast, after all, filled with countless species and unexplored regions even the Pantheons probably hadn't ventured.
Staring at the storage room with guns mounted on every wall, crates of ammunition and grenades stacked floor to ceiling, Rowan couldn't help but see himself and other heroes in that same pattern.
Like the Gods, they were powerful beings inserting themselves into mortal affairs, convinced their interference was necessary, probably causing more damage along the way.
Without his intervention, would Heller's plan have worked?
Would Marcus have earned Black Mask's complete trust and gotten these weapons to the Resistance?
Would the Resistance have taken Gotham back from the kingpins and proven to humanity they didn't need caped saviors, that they could fight for their own freedom?
Rowan couldn't say…
And he might never be able to.
"You did well." The words came out real this time, not the practiced comfort from before. "You need help moving these?"
"No..." Marcus staggered forward, swaying on his feet like he'd had too much to drink, trembling fingers extending toward the weapons with the same reverence a father would show his child.
To him, these weren't just weapons.
They were promises made in blood-soaked hovels where good men had died for nothing,
They were compromises he'd had to make,
Lines he'd had to cross in pursuit of salvation.
"Aren't you going to tell me this is wrong? That there's another way?"
"I'm but one person. I cannot hold this city on my own, and neither can you. Gotham needs her people to rise up, men and women who are willing to do the difficult things."
Chuckling darkly, Marcus dug into his pocket and produced a chunky phone that could have been ripped straight from the early 80s.
As the man began to dial, he paused, just long enough to mutter, "Thank you... For not lying to me. For not pretending this will be clean."
"If you really want to thank me, send someone to these two addresses."
Rowan rattled off the locations without hesitation.
"The first is where I've left the Man-Bat. Take samples of his DNA to the second address. There's a woman there who can synthesize a cure. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
"And Heller—"
"If he's alive, I'll save him." Rowan interrupted, relinquishing his hold on the Imp Shade. "If he isn't, I'll return his corpse for burial. Either way, you'll have closure."
Miles away, in the gutted remains of a warehouse that Gotham's economic collapse had left to rot, Rowan still stood a meter apart from the Man-Bat.
He freed the hair-thin cable from his utility belt, then slowly approached the sprawled Mutant.
From where he was, Kirkland looked almost pitiful as shallow breaths stirred in his chest.
Rowan circled slowly, boots finding careful purchase among the scattered debris carpeting the floor. He was about to secure Kirkland's wrists when he saw for himself those white, milky eyes twitch all of a sudden.
It was just a minute twitch that could have been nothing but an involuntary muscle responses as the body struggled to maintain basic functions. Could've been his exhausted mind running on fumes and seeing patterns where none existed.
But Rowan's hand froze mid-motion anyway as his instinct screamed warnings.
He'd been through too much, survived too many things, to dismiss those primal alerts now.
Besides, one of the first things Bruce had drilled into him was to listen to his instincts, that even fear served a purpose, seeing as humans had evolved with it.
Feigning ignorance, Rowan continued to approach, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet. And then, predictably, the Mutant rolled off his back. Already prepared, Rowan launched himself backward, moving before conscious thought even caught up as Kirkland pounced from his position.
He tore through the air where Rowan's throat had been a fraction of a second earlier, claws fully extended and gouging deep furrows into the concrete column behind the Son of Trigon.
Man-Bat's body began to convulse as he arched his spine, vertebrae cracking like gunshots going off simultaenously. And then his fur started to slough off in patches, falling away as the skin beneath split open along seams of muscle that swelled and writhed beneath.
"Goodie… A Phase 2. Just what I needed for a warm-up."
Next Kirkland's shoulders broadened in pops, each joint separating and reforming larger than before, while his wings stretched further as bone extended through membrane with wet splashes.
Seizing the opportunity, Rowan had the Wisp sputter forth enough lightning to short-circuit the Robo T-Rex in the Batcave, but instead of seizing up like he did earlier, Kirkland stopped only for a short few seconds.
"Doc... I don't want to hurt you."
Bathed in the lightning, Man-Bat bared his fangs as something akin to a chuckle escaped from his lungs and his muscle fibers bulged, cording together into dense masses that likely shielded his nervous system from the shock.
"Your wife, Doc. Francine. Think about what she'd say if she saw—ah, the hell with it. Just remember," The Good Doctor's jaw distended with a crack, his fangs lengthening as his skull reshaped accordingly to accommodate the new bone structure. "You asked for this."
Unleashing another bolt of lightning, Rowan charhed forward and ducked beneath the swipe that would've seperated his head from his shoulders.
His fist shot up, landing squarely against elongated ribs, yet contrary to his expectations, it was he who grunted in pain instead. That one punch had left fissures in his bones, and yet the Man-Bat barely seemed affected. He hurried away from Kirkland's claws, only to get struck by his wing instead.
Thrown through the column, Rowan coughed up a mouthful of blood, then forced himself upright just in time to evade Man-Bat's follow-up. Vision darkening, he glared at the Mutant and lifted the mouthpiece of his helmet to spit out black blood.
The thought of summoning the Imp Shades to flatten Kirkland crossed his mind, but thousands of voices echoed through his consciousness before he could enact his plan.
Some feminine, others masculine.
Some old, some young.
Some hopeful, others desperate.
His Shades were the only things standing between these people and the criminals.
So many still in peril throughout Gotham… If he pulled them back now, what would become of those civilians?
What nightmares would descend upon them?
He wiped the blood from his lips, glancing at the dark ichor that stained his fingers.
"Heh... It seems I've forgotten myself."
The street orphan who'd survived Gotham would never have rushed into combat so carelessly… He would never have let himself get caught by that wing strike. He would've assessed his opponent first. He would've used the terrain to his advantage, and when there was none to explore, he would've made some!
Come to think of it, when had he last sparred without his powers?
When had he last relied purely on the fundamentals Bruce had drilled into him during those early months?
The discipline Batman had instilled, the countless hours perfecting forms and learning how to apply them… They'd all fallen by the wayside once he discovered he could summon Shades and hurl lightning.
The result was he'd grown more and more dependent on his powers, but powers weren't everything.
Bruce had demonstrated that time and time again.
"Thanks for knocking some senses into me, Doc. I really needed that." Kirkland, unfortunately, didn't seem to appreciate his gratitude very much, frothing at the mouth as he marched forth. What greeted him, however, were a handful of anesthetic pellets that filled the warehouse with thick green vapor.
Rowan's mask filtered out the vapor without issue, but Kirkland had no such protection.
The dosage would've dropped a herd of elephants, Serum or no Serum, and his enhanced physiology was only making things worse since that supercharged heart and those hyper-efficient lungs were also pumping the anesthetic through his system at accelerated rate.
Man-Bat's movements grew sluggish soon enough, coordination faltering as the anesthetic worked deeper into his system. If Rowan could see it happening, Kirkland had to feel it too. The creature's wings beat frantically, trying to clear the vapor while aiming straight for the hole they had torn in the side of the building earlier.
But Rowan had already anticipated this.
"Haven't you heard? Flight's been canceled, Doc!"
The Batclaw shot out and caught Kirkland's ankle, dragging the creature to the floor. Thoroughly annoyed now, Kirkland opened his maws wide and unleashed a Sonic Scream that instant dispersed through the anesthetic cloud to reveal a taut cable looped around several shelves, but there was no Rowan in sight.
Above, Rowan suddenly dropped from the ceiling with a pair of rebars clutched in one hand, and before the Mutant could process what was happening, both pieces of steel had punched through the joints of his wings!
Pinned to the floor, Man-Bat twisted to take a swipe at Rowan, but the rebars held firm.
His thrashing only worsened the injuries as the membrane started to rip.
Man-Bat released a guttural sound, but there was nothing threatening about it, no.
There was only agony, the kind one'd expect to hear while walking by the local slaughterhouse. "Sorry, Doc, but you asked for it."
The taunt seemed to finally give Man-Bat that much needed second wind as he lurched forward, trying for a bite. Borrowing Bruce's maneuver, Rowan tossed another handful of pellets into Kirkland's gaping mouth, before positioning himself behind the Mutant who slowly began to shrink. "Well, would you look at that. The roids are wearing off."
He circled Kirkland, feeling the ache in his ribs and the dead weight that was his lame arm hanging limply at his side.
Halfway through his circle, his vision suddenly pulsed, the colors bleeding away until all he could see was the network of veins beneath Kirkland's skin, and the blood flowing through arteries and capillaries like luminescent rivers mapped across pale, grey flesh.
His heart rate spiked, fangs lengthening and pushing past his lips as he lifted the mouthpiece, saliva pooling in his mouth at the sight of the pulsing veins in Kirkland's throat.
'Just a sip.'
Rowan thought and knelt, sinking his fangs into exposed flesh.
'Just enough to accelerate my healing.'
.
.
.
His eyes opened to countless, pitch-black tendrils that crawled across his chest, moving over scar tissue that crisscrossed his torso, old wounds that had healed years ago but never quite faded.
The tendrils traced each raised line of damaged flesh before sinking beneath the skin and disappearing entirely.
Contrary to his expectations, the sensation was rather… Pleasing, which his brain instantly flagged. There should have been pain.
His hand moved to his chest next, fingers finding the steady thump of his heartbeat behind stained bandages that looked too fresh at the rim to have been done any longer than a day or two.
He pressed harder, checking for irregularities, for signs of trauma or internal damage, but his ribs felt intact.
Even his breathing came easy despite the uneasiness in his chest.
Yet, everything worked the way it should, which only made the wrongness of it all more pronounced.
Across the room, a mirror hung cracked and dusty but still reflective enough to serve its purpose. He rose on unsteady legs and crossed the small space, coming face-to-face with his own reflection, and a man in his mid-to-late twenties stared back at him.
He had thick black hair, with jawline sharp enough that even exhausted and disoriented, it cut a half a square in the mirror.
Blue-gray eyes stared back, bloodshot and weary but still sharp, while decades of hard-earned muscle pushed against scarred skin.
It was neither the bulky mass of a strongman, nor the grostesque of a bodybuilder, but the functional strength of someone who'd spent a lifetime fighting.
He turned to check his back, his sides, searching for traces of whatever had been crawling across his chest moments ago, then spun at the faint rustle his ears caught immediately.
"… Selina."
The woman smiled at him from where she lounged on the velvety couch, draping it like she didn't have a single bone in her body.
"Took you long enough. I was starting to think you'd sleep forever, Bruce."
"How long have I been unconscious?"
"Fifteen days, give or take." Selina's voice carried that carefully casual tone she used when delivering bad news. "You've been out for over two weeks, Bruce."
Fifteen days… That was fourteen days too long. "What happened to Gotham?"
Her smile faltered, fingers drumming against the armrest in that nervous tell Selina Kyle probably didn't realize she had. The hesitation lasted maybe three seconds before she sighed and sat up properly.
"It's bad. The word got out that Batman's dead. The inmates at Arkham saw you fall into the ocean with Croc, and they've been screaming it from the rooftops ever since.
The kingpins were able to capitalize on the chaos, and turned the city into a massacre. Most of their leadership is either underground or… Toot, toot. They're operating in broad daylight now, Bruce. The GCPD's completely overwhelmed. Gordon can't even hold his life together, let alone the city, but most of his officers won't respond to calls anymore."
She paused, and genuine fear flickered across her features.
"Gotham thinks you're dead, and it's tearing itself apart."
Each word dragged across his heart like nails on stone as Bruce glared down at the limp he was sporting.
"Where's my suit?"
"Bruce—"
"Where is my suit?"
She moved faster than most people could follow, suddenly standing between him and the door with her hands raised but not quite touching him.
"You need to rest. Just a few more days. I searched for days before I found you washed up on the rocks miles away from Gotham. Your ribs were shattered, your lung was punctured, you were bleeding internally in multiple places, and hypothermia had nearly finished what Croc started."
Her voice broke, and the raw concern in it nearly made him reconsider his decision.
"The surgeon said your heart stopped on the table. Twice, Bruce. You died twice on that table over there, and they had to shock you back both times."
His hands found the edge of the mirror, knuckles white as he steadied himself against a wave of dizziness.
"Gotham needs me."
And even if she didn't, Alfred, Dick… They were probably still stuck inside.
"The city needs Batman. Not a corpse."
"Where's my suit, Selina." Catwoman's hand suddenly snapped toward his throat.
The punch would've landed if she'd actually meant to, but Bruce reacted nevertheless, driven by instincts and muscle memory. The dodge sent pain lancing through his ribs and ankle, nearly dropping him before she caught his arm.
"Still think you can play hero?"
He straightened despite the agony radiating through his torso, then pulled free from her grip and limped toward the door. Three steps was all he managed before her thumb found his ribs, pressing directly into the worst of the fractures.
"Urgh, you're stubborn as—"
She didn't get to finish as a tendril erupted from Bruce's shoulder like it had a mind of its own, lashing across the room to punch a hole through the rotting wood. It missed her throat by mere inches, before retracting and sinking back beneath his skin without a trace, leaving in its wake two extremely bewildered Capes.
Their eyes met, both searching the other's face for answers that neither had.
"What was that?"