The gunshot cracks through the night air like thunder in the narrow confines of Crime Alley.
The sound is impossibly loud, echoing off the grimy brick walls of the buildings that tower on either side of the street. Thomas Wayne's body jerks backward from the impact.
His expensive suit does nothing to protect him. Blood blooms across his white shirt, spreading outward in a dark stain that looks black under the dim streetlight. He crumples to the ground, his legs folding beneath him as all strength leaves his body.
Martha Wayne screams. The sound is raw and primal, tearing from her throat as she watches her husband fall. She reaches for him instinctively, but the man with the gun is already turning toward her.
The barrel swings in her direction. Her pearl necklace catches the light for just a moment, the expensive gems gleaming white against her elegant dress.
The second gunshot is louder than the first. Or maybe it just seems that way because eight-year-old Bruce Wayne knows what's coming.
The bullet strikes his mother in the chest. The impact sends her stumbling backward. Her hand goes to her throat, clutching at the pearls as if they might save her somehow.
The string breaks under the pressure of her grip. Pearls scatter everywhere, bouncing and rolling across the dirty pavement of the alley like dozens of tiny white marbles. They scatter in every direction, some disappearing into shadows, others rolling into gutters.
Martha falls. Her body hits the ground beside her husband's. Blood pools beneath them both, spreading across the cracked pavement.
Bruce Wayne screams. The sound tears from his small body with a force that feels like it might rip him apart from the inside.
His voice echoes in the alley, bouncing off walls, filling the space with his agony. He's frozen in place, his legs refusing to move, his mind unable to process what just happened. His parents are on the ground. They're not moving. There's so much blood.
And then reality fractures.
It happens in an instant, but Bruce experiences it as if time has slowed to a crawl. Something slams into his consciousness with the force of a freight train. It's not physical.
Nothing touches his body. But inside his mind, it feels like a collision. Another presence, another awareness, crashes into his thoughts with overwhelming force.
Memories that aren't his flood through his brain. He sees things that make no sense. Panels of artwork showing people in costumes. Stories written in word balloons.
Futures that haven't happened yet. Heroes who don't exist. Villains he's never heard of. A man in a bat costume who looks like his father.
A city that looks like Gotham but isn't quite right. Timelines and storylines and continuities all jumbling together in a chaotic mess.
Pain explodes through his skull. It feels like his head might split open. Two consciousnesses exist in the same space, both trying to occupy the same mind.
The child Bruce Wayne, eight years old, traumatized and screaming. And something else. Someone else. An adult mind with decades of memories from a different world entirely.
The fusion happens whether he wants it or not. The two minds slam together, merging, becoming something new.
The child's raw emotions mix with the adult's analytical thinking. The boy's innocence crashes against knowledge of terrible things to come. Grief and strategy. Trauma and meta-awareness. Pain and opportunity.
And then the screens appear.
They materialize in his vision like something out of a science fiction movie. Glowing blue text boxes that overlay his view of reality.
They're translucent enough that he can still see through them, still see his parents' bodies on the ground, but solid enough to read clearly.
**[LOCK-IN SYSTEM ACTIVATED]**
The words burn themselves into his awareness. Bruce's scream cuts off abruptly. His breath catches in his throat.
The system. The Lock-In System. Knowledge from the merged consciousness tells him what this means. A cheat ability. A golden finger. The kind of advantage that transmigrators get in the stories he suddenly remembers reading.
More text appears, scrolling across his vision in neat lines:
**[HOST: BRUCE WAYNE CONFIRMED]**
**[AGE: 8 YEARS]**
**[SPECIES: HUMAN]**
**[STATUS: TRAUMATIZED, HEIGHTENED EMOTIONAL STATE]**
**[ENHANCED INTELLECT: ONLINE]**
That last line makes something click in his merged consciousness. Enhanced intellect. His mind is already working faster than it should be.
The shock and trauma are still there, still real, but underneath it all his thoughts are moving with a clarity and speed that wasn't possible moments ago. He can feel the difference.
It's like going from seeing the world through a foggy window to suddenly having perfect vision
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