The city was quiet. Too quiet for Gotham.
The storm had left scars across its skyline, ice shattered into towers of rubble, streets broken like bones. Sirens wailed in the distance, too few for the damage that had been done.
Oblivion walked the ruins without a sound, his coat brushing against frost that had not yet melted. His blades were sheathed. His eyes were fixed forward.
It reformed too quickly. Bound deeper than I've seen in centuries. Something pushed it here. It didn't choose Gotham.
His mind sorted through fragments like a chess player studying a board. There had been creatures like Frostbearer before, but scattered, isolated. This one was stronger. Fed by something greater.
And it remembered him.
That fact mattered. The League noticed, but they didn't understand. Not yet.
A figure stepped from the broken shadows. Not League. Not police. Too controlled. Her steps were precise, her posture sharpened. She wore the markings of the League of Assassins.
"Ghost," she said softly, bowing her head. Not Oblivion. Not his current name. A name older, carried in whispers.
Oblivion's eyes shifted to her, unreadable. "You shouldn't be here."
"We keep records. When the Frost awakens, it is written that the Ghost will walk again. Ra's believes this was no accident."
He tilted his head slightly. "Ra's believes too much."
Her expression flickered, but she didn't push. Instead, she held out a scroll, sealed in black wax. "The archives said you would want this."
He didn't reach for it. He only stared. "Tell Ra's his records aren't as private as he thinks."
A ripple of unease crossed her face. Before she could respond, Oblivion stepped past her. By the time she turned, he was gone, swallowed by the frost-covered ruins.
Elsewhere, whispers stirred.
In an abandoned church, a small circle of mystics huddled over an open tome. The parchment spoke of anchors, cages, and a ghost that had walked through centuries.
One of them, his hands shaking, whispered: "He's real. The Ghost is real."
Back in Gotham, Oblivion stood on a rooftop, overlooking the city. His eyes carried that quiet weight — charm and death entwined, years layered within.
Beneath the silence, he felt it. A vibration. Not danger yet, but the promise of it.
Another storm was coming.
And somewhere in the world, unseen, another shadow moved — a woman cloaked in whispers, her eyes not unlike his own.
But that revelation would wait.
For now, the Ghost prepared.