Gotham breathed around him like a wounded beast—hot, restless, and full of noise. The alleys reeked of oil and blood, and every shadow looked like a knife waiting to be drawn. Bruce moved through it with purpose, but not yet with certainty. His armor still felt new, untested. The cowl itched at his skin, the weight of the cape pulled heavy across his shoulders, and though the mask gave him anonymity, he was still learning how to wear it like the creature of fear he wanted to be.

He wasn’t the Batman yet. Not the one the criminals whispered about in terror. Not the one he hoped he could one day become. He was a man fighting with an idea—and the city hadn’t decided yet if it would accept him or kill him.

Tonight should have been simple. A smuggling ring at the docks, half a dozen armed men, and a shipment hidden under false manifests. He’d tracked them here, crouched in the rafters like a gargoyle. But the criminals weren’t huddled around crates of weapons or drugs. Instead, they stood nervously around a machine.

It wasn’t Gotham tech. The sphere pulsed faintly, a dull glow throbbing like a heartbeat, its hum deep and unnatural. “Boss says it’ll sell for millions. Maybe billions,” one of them muttered.

Bruce descended, swift and brutal. The fight was over in seconds—bones cracked, shouts silenced, and the air thick with fear. But when the last man fell, the machine sparked, and Bruce was too close.

A surge of light exploded outward, bending the world around him. The dock fractured into shards of color, the air pulled taut like glass about to shatter. Bruce gritted his teeth and reached for stability, but there was nothing to hold onto. The sound was deafening, a roar inside his skull, and then—silence.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t at the docks anymore.

The skyline loomed above him, familiar and wrong all at once. Gotham was taller, harsher, neon bleeding across the streets. His symbol—his symbol—glowed high above on a rooftop spotlight. It stopped him cold. That was impossible. He’d never shown anyone the design, never shared it.

Footsteps. Soft, deliberate. He turned, cape sweeping, ready for another fight.

Four figures stepped from the shadows.

The first carried himself with impossible grace, moving like a born acrobat. His eyes softened when they fell on Bruce, but his jaw was tight with disbelief. The second was darker, sharper, his movements full of coiled rage barely contained, scars both visible and hidden written into every line of his posture. The third adjusted his gloves like a surgeon preparing for precision work, his gaze calculating, assessing Bruce with unnerving familiarity. And the last—smallest, but fierce—looked at him with a warrior’s defiance, chin raised as though daring him to make the first move.

Bruce’s instincts screamed danger, but something else froze him in place.

Every one of them wore him. Pieces of him. His colors, his symbol, his shape reborn in different forms. His mantle, scattered across faces he had never seen before.

“…Bruce?” the eldest asked, his voice careful, uncertain. The way he said it struck like a blade between Bruce’s ribs. He shouldn’t know that name.