The first thing Dick noticed was the color of the night.

It wasn’t Gotham-dark—steel and soot and neon. This city breathed in reds and shadows, cigarette smoke curling through alleyways like ghosts that hadn’t realized they were dead yet. The buildings were older, heavier, and the people… the people walked fast, heads down, as if the dark itself had teeth.

He landed on a rooftop that definitely shouldn’t have existed anymore, boots skidding slightly on gravel and rusted metal. His body went through the motions automatically—roll, rise, scan—while his mind lagged a half second behind, still trying to catch up with the fact that the portal hadn’t just thrown him across space.

It had thrown him across time.

“Great,” he muttered. “Bruce is never letting me hear the end of this.”

The comm in his ear was dead. Static at best. No Oracle, no Batfam, no Titans. Just him, a strange city, and a low, unsettling hum in the air that prickled against his skin like a warning.

That was when he smelled blood.

Not metaphorically. Not faintly. Fresh. Thick. Close.

Dick followed it without thinking, dropping soundlessly into an alley lit by a single flickering lamp. The scene unfolded in front of him like something ripped straight out of a nightmare—two figures pinned against a wall, their attacker moving with inhuman speed, pale hands gripping too tight, mouth lowering toward exposed skin.

The flash of red eyes sealed it.

“Hey!” Dick barked, already moving.

His escrima stick cracked against the creature’s shoulder with enough force to send it sprawling. The vampire hit the ground snarling, lips peeled back to reveal elongated fangs glistening with blood. It hissed at him like an animal cornered by fire.

Dick barely had time to process okay, vampires are real here before the air split with a sharp, resonant ring.