Rain has a sound in Gotham.
It isn't gentle. It doesn't soothe. It hisses against stone and steel like the city itself is whispering secrets it doesn't want overheard.
I realized that before I realized I was no longer on Earth.
I was standing on the edge of a rooftop—too narrow, too high, too wrong—while a city of gothic spires and brutalist towers stretched beneath me. Neon bled into fog. Sirens wailed somewhere far below. The air tasted like ozone, old money, and unresolved crime.
Gotham.
My first coherent thought wasn't panic. It was disbelief so complete it bordered on calm.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
The voice that came out of my mouth wasn't unfamiliar, but it wasn't mine either. Lower. Colder. Sharper around the edges. When I raised a hand, it didn't tremble. Long fingers. Callused in places they shouldn't be for an office worker. Faintly glowing lines stitched into the seams of a dark coat I absolutely did not own yesterday.
This is the Gotham—gargoyles clawing at the skyline, gothic spires rising like broken teeth, sodium lights bleeding into fog. I recognize the skyline from panels I read years ago, half-remembered and half-dismissed as fiction.
Except I'm standing in it.
And I'm not supposed to exist here.
I steady myself on a rusted fire escape, leather glove slick with rain. My reflection in a darkened window shows a boy I know and don't know all at once—sharp features, black hair threaded with silver, violet eyes glowing faintly in the lightning. Fifteen years old. A body too young for the memories it carries. Too small for the power I remember.
Valerian Nightseeker.
And… me.
The memories didn't slam into me like some stories describe. No screaming headache. No violent overwrite. They merged. Like two books sharing the same binding. I remember late nights reading comics, theory-crafting overpowered wizard builds, arguing online about spell interactions.
The memories didn't slam into me like some stories describe. No screaming headache. No violent overwrite. They merged. Like two books sharing the same binding. I remember late nights reading comics, theory-crafting overpowered wizard builds, arguing online about spell interactions.
I also remember years spent alone in towers and ruins, ink-stained fingers, wards layered so thick they hummed when I slept. Only now, I'm level 10, not the 20 I once was. My magic is sharp, but not omnipotent. My defenses are strong, but incomplete. I've been humbled by the universe, dropped into adolescence with a body that can't carry everything I know… yet.
I also remember years spent alone in towers and ruins, ink-stained fingers, wards layered so thick they hummed when I slept, facing a cultist group for the first time, meeting her. Stopping an organization that would have pushed the world to extinct.
Both are real.
Both are mine.
I exhale slowly, feeling the city watch me. Gotham always watches.
"Okay," I murmur. My voice is steadier than I feel. That helps. "Step one: don't panic."
The fact that magic answers me immediately—subtle, obedient, present—is both comforting and terrifying. I don't need to reach for it. It's already there, like muscle memory. Like breathing.
That's dangerous.
I know enough comics to know what happens when power meets arrogance in Gotham.
Batman happens.
And this is before canon. A city still raw, still bleeding. Young Justice pre-season one. Robin is still finding his footing. The city is worse back then.
Lucky me.
I move.
Not teleportation—too flashy. I slip down fire escapes, cross rooftops, stay high. Gotham is a predator-prey city; the ground belongs to crime, the sky belongs to vigilantes. I choose the third option: shadows between.
As I move, the second life settles more firmly into place. Valerian's instincts guide my steps, his paranoia overlaying my genre awareness. I automatically avoid sightlines, arcane senses brushing the edges of the world without flaring.
There are… things here. Not magical in the way I understand it, but wrong in their own way. Gotham attracts them.
I pause at the edge of a rooftop, looking out over the Narrows. Sirens wail. Somewhere below, someone is screaming.
I could help.
The thought is immediate—and dangerous.
I'm Chaotic Good, sure, but that doesn't mean reckless. Power doesn't grant moral clarity. It only magnifies consequences. If I intervene too early, too openly, I change trajectories I only half-remember.
Butterflies become avalanches in this city.
So I don't move.
Instead, I focus inward, grounding myself. Magic flows cleanly, controlled. No instability. No rejection. That means this world accepts me. That's worse than if it didn't.
I laugh quietly, the sound swallowed by thunder. "Of course it does."
Somewhere in this city are people who could kill me if they knew what I was. Others who would dissect me. A few who might try to recruit me.
And one who would never stop watching.
I need time.
Time to establish a base. Time to learn how DC magic differs from mine. Time to decide whether I'm a variable… or a correction.
The rain eases as I step back into the shadows, already planning. Gotham doesn't notice me yet.
That's good.
Let it stay that way.
For now.
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Stranded in a body too young for my power, wearing the skin of a man who mastered magic alone…
If this is a story—
Then I refuse to be a side character.