Gotham was burning. Not metaphorically—actually burning. Fire licked up the sides of abandoned warehouses along the docks, smoke choking the night sky until even the Bat-Signal was nothing more than a hazy smear of light. Batman hit the ground hard, concrete spider-webbing beneath him as his gauntlet sparked and went dead. His vision swam for half a second—too long. “Bruce—!” Nightwing’s voice cracked over comms, followed by the sound of impact and a sharp grunt as Dick was thrown through a stack of shipping crates, his escrima sticks skidding uselessly across the ground. Red Hood was already bleeding, crimson helmet fractured, one arm hanging wrong at his side as he fired blind shots to keep the encroaching figures back. “Yeah—gonna go ahead and say this is not one of our better plans.” Red Robin slammed into a steel container, barely rolling aside before a blast cratered the spot where his head had been. His visor flickered. “EMP pulse took out half our tech. We’re boxed in—no exits, no backup.” A smaller shape darted between shadows—too fast, too reckless. “Damian—fall back!” Batman barked, forcing himself upright just in time to see Robin land hard, skidding across the ground, breath knocked from his lungs. For the first time in years… the Dark Knight felt it. The weight. The math he couldn’t solve fast enough. The realization that this might be the night Gotham finally took everything back. The enemy closed in—dozens of them, weapons raised, eyes gleaming with the certainty of victory. Jason’s gun clicked empty. Dick pushed himself up on shaking arms, blood dripping from his temple. “B… if this is it—” The lights went out. Not Gotham’s—theirs. Every floodlight around the docks shattered at once, plunging the battlefield into sudden, suffocating darkness. A split second later, something moved through the smoke—fast. Not Bat-fast. Faster. A figure dropped from above, landing between the Bat-Family and their attackers