The vision begins without warning.
No ritual circle. No chanting. No dramatic flash of light.
One moment I am standing in a safehouse that doesn't exist yet, checking wards that won't be invented for months.
The next—
Impact.
Concrete explodes beneath my boots as something hits me from the side with enough force to fold space. My Arcane Ward screams—literally screams—in my head as it loses integrity in chunks, not layers.
I roll. Instinct, not thought.
A baton whistles past where my skull was a heartbeat ago and cracks into a wall, sending spiderweb fractures through reinforced stone.
Robin.
Not the kid I remember from comics.
This one moves like a blade that's already tasted blood.
I come up on one knee, hand snapping through a sigil—
And the ground detonates.
Miss Martian.
Telekinetic force slams into me from above, pinning me like a specimen. The pressure isn't crushing—it's precise. Surgical. She isn't trying to kill me.
She's trying to stop me from moving.
I bite down hard enough to taste copper and let my ward shatter outward, converting the failure into momentum. The backlash throws me sideways as I tear free, cloak shredding where invisible hands tried to hold it.
Too slow.
Something cold clamps around my ankle.
Ice.
Kid Flash skids past in a blur of red, his grin sharp and nervous and focused all at once. He doesn't stop moving—just tags me and keeps going, dragging a ribbon of frost from Aqualad's path.
I hit the floor hard, slide, slam into a support pillar.
The pillar cracks.
The building groans.
This isn't Gotham.
This is a warehouse on the coast—Santa Prisca maybe, or somewhere like it. Salt in the air. Crates stacked high. Floodlights blown out. Moonlight cutting through broken skylights.
A covert op.
Young Justice–era.
And they are moving like a unit.
"Target still mobile," Robin snaps. "Containment pattern delta!"
I force myself up, heart hammering, thoughts racing.
This isn't a fight.
This is an arrest.
No—worse.
This is a neutralization.
I throw up a hand and snap a spell into existence without words. A translucent barrier blooms—
And shatters instantly as Superboy hits it.
Not punches.
Hits.
Like a truck made of rage and restraint.
The ward absorbs enough to keep my ribs from powdering, but the kinetic transfer still sends me airborne. I smash through two crates, wood and metal exploding around me, hit the ground in a roll that scrapes skin and tears muscle.
Pain flares.
Real pain.
This isn't a training scenario. This isn't a power fantasy.
This is reality catching up.
I scramble, throw a burst of blinding light—
Miss Martian doesn't even flinch.
Her mind brushes mine and I nearly vomit.
Not intrusion.
Assessment.
She isn't digging. She's sampling. Taking a snapshot and pulling back.
Her eyes widen just a fraction.
"Robin," she says, voice tight. "He's not lying. He really doesn't know."
"Doesn't know what?" Kid Flash asks, skidding to a halt on a crate.
"That," I snap, forcing myself upright again, "would be helpful information."
Superboy advances slowly, shoulders hunched, eyes glowing faintly. He's holding back. I can tell. The restraint is visible in every line of his body.
Which means if I push him—
I don't finish the thought.
Robin doesn't give me time.
Smoke pellets hit the ground and erupt, not normal smoke but layered—infrared disruption, sonic masking, chemical irritants. My arcane senses flare uselessly, overwhelmed by noise.
This is Batman's influence.
I hate it immediately.
I counter with a pulse of dispelling force, raw and inelegant. It clears the smoke in a dome around me—
And reveals Aqualad already mid-swing.
Water whips around his blades, pressurized, controlled. The strike hits my shoulder and sends numbing cold straight into the joint. My arm goes dead.
I hiss and pivot, launching a concussive burst point-blank.
Aqualad blocks.
Blocks.
The water hardens, diffusing the spell, redirecting it into the ground.
I stumble back, breath ragged.
They aren't overpowering me.
They're outplaying me.
"Why are you doing this?" I shout, planting my feet, magic flaring around me in a halo that finally looks impressive. "I haven't interfered! I haven't changed anything!"
Robin's voice cuts through clean and cold. "You exist."
That hits harder than Superboy's fist.
"You're an unregistered meta," Robin continues. "Operating off-grid. Advanced capabilities. No known origin. No psychic block. No League oversight."
Kid Flash tilts his head. "And you've been watching us."
I freeze.
Miss Martian's gaze sharpens.
"Not spying," she says slowly. "Observing. Like… like we're a case study."
Shit.
They know.
Not everything—but enough.
I laugh, breathless and strained. "You broke into my hideout. Dragged me into a black-site warehouse. And I'm the problem?"
Superboy takes another step forward.
"People get hurt when secrets like yours exist," he says. His voice isn't angry. It's earnest. That makes it worse.
I see it then.
Not enemies.
Not villains.
Teenagers with the weight of the world already pressing into their spines.
And me—standing apart. Watching. Calculating. Refusing to choose.
The vision sharpens.
The world slows.
And I realize this isn't happening now.
This is a possible future.
A branch.
A warning.
Robin gestures.
The team moves.
Everything happens at once.
Kid Flash feints left, right, left again—too fast to track visually, but not magically. I flood the area with localized gravity distortion, forcing him to slow—
Miss Martian counters by slamming my perceptions sideways. Not an attack. A misalignment. My spatial math goes wrong.
I stumble.
That's all Superboy needs.
He hits me.
This time without restraint.
I don't fly.
I vanish.
The world blurs into pain and noise and then slams back into focus as I crater into the far wall. Stone collapses. My Arcane Ward implodes, shards of force shredding outward.
Something in my chest cracks.
I slide down the wall, coughing, vision dimming.
A shadow falls over me.
Robin crouches, staff leveled at my throat.
"This is your last chance," he says quietly. "Stand down."
I look up at him.
At the mask.
At the boy underneath who is trying very hard to be a weapon because that's what the city taught him to be.
And I understand.
Not intellectually.
Emotionally.
I've been doing the same thing.
Watching.
Calculating.
Waiting for permission that was never coming.
I laugh again. Weak. Bitter.
"You know," I rasp, "in my world, this is usually the part where the mysterious outsider wipes the floor with the heroes."
Robin doesn't smile.
"Good thing this isn't your world."
The baton moves.
The vision fractures.
I wake up choking, wards flaring automatically, magic lashing out at empty air.
I'm alone.
Back in Gotham.
Rain tapping against broken glass.
No warehouse. No team. No broken ribs—though my chest aches like it remembers.
I sit there for a long time, breathing, replaying every moment.
They didn't win because they were stronger.
They won because they acted.
Because they coordinated.
Because they didn't wait.
And because I did.
I'd been hiding behind foresight. Behind caution. Behind the excuse of "timeline integrity."
But the future doesn't punish you for acting.
It punishes you for hesitating until others have to clean up the mess.
I press a hand to my face and laugh softly, shakily.
"Message received," I whisper.
This vision wasn't a threat.
It was a course correction.
I don't need to be loud.
I don't need to be public.
But I cannot stay a ghost forever.
Because if I don't step forward on my own terms—
Someone else will decide when I do.
And next time?
It won't be a vision.