Gotham never announced its chaos. It arrived in waves, subtly at first, almost polite, giving hints through overlapping sirens, the shrill wail of a fire truck cutting through police scanners, and helicopters circling streets for hours on end as if deciding where to land. Civilians weren't surprised anymore—they were expectant, as though they had trained themselves to anticipate violence like a dull ache.
Eli Mercer noticed these things because he had to. He had survived long enough in Gotham to understand the patterns: where panic started, how fear moved, how the city's frayed edges bled into the docks he called his domain. His skin, gray and unremarkable in the dim morning light, allowed him to move unnoticed most days. Strength, as he carried it, wasn't flashy. It was weight, leverage, a careful application of physics to human flesh. The Green hummed faintly beneath his awareness, tugging gently at him, like the city was aware of the anomaly he represented.
He was halfway through unloading a shipment of crates when he felt it again. Not pain. Not words. Not even a push. It was a sensation, low and persistent, like standing barefoot on metal in a thunderstorm: subtle, dangerous, aware. His muscles tensed without reason, his chest tightening slightly, not from exertion but from the recognition that the city's skeleton had shifted somewhere he could not see.
"Mercer! You alive over there?" His foreman shouted, impatient.
"I'm fine," Eli said quietly, returning his focus to a crate that resisted him in a way it never had before. He didn't mention the feeling, didn't explain why he hesitated mid-lift. No one would understand, and if they did, it might put them in danger. His life had become one measured in avoidance and control.
The sirens began to overlap more aggressively. At first it was just a few—police, fire—but quickly they multiplied, discordant and chaotic, each attempting to outdo the other. Their music created anxiety in the air, a rhythm to which the city itself seemed to respond. It was the kind of moment where even the most confident people faltered.
Eli dropped the crate and tugged off his gloves, tucking them into his jacket. He didn't need to look; instinct was enough. The fire had started three blocks inland, in the abandoned recycling plant that had been repurposed for petty crime, for gang war, for someone's perverse art project. The smell hit him first: chemicals, burning plastic, and something acrid that reminded him too much of a laugh—the kind that never reached human ears. He started walking, deliberately, past the workers who scrambled to finish their shifts, past the confused dockhands who had no idea what they were witnessing.
The city's hum had changed. Every vibration underfoot now felt connected, not to the shipping containers or steel beams, but to something far larger, a pulse that whispered beneath the surface. The Green? He wasn't sure, and he didn't need to name it. He only knew he felt watched—not by a person, not by a camera, but by something alive in ways humans weren't meant to understand.
He entered the plant cautiously. Inside, chaos had shape: several gangs, overlapping and unaware of each other, firing at shadows and shouting nonsense. Overhead, speakers crackled to life, the distorted voice of Joker echoing, pre-recorded or live, it didn't matter.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to tonight's social experiment!" the voice shrieked.
Eli's muscles tensed as he scanned the space. Civilians screamed, ducking for cover, shoving one another in a blind panic. The first bullet struck him in the shoulder as he moved to shield a man who hadn't yet realized the danger. Pain flared sharply, but his body shrugged it off as though it were paper. He looked at the wound—shallow, bleeding—and pressed a palm to it, his gray skin smudged with dust and ash.
Not now, he thought. Not yet.
It would have been easy. So easy. To release the strength he carried like a leash and end the chaos in seconds. To let the Green push, to let the world rearrange itself by force. But that was not him. Not yet. Not ever.
Eli moved through the smoke and debris, pulling people out of harm's way, stepping over bodies without panic, and catching falling beams without thought. The pressure beneath him surged again, insistent, a reminder that he was part of something bigger than the steel and concrete above him. His hands shook slightly—not from strain, but from the choice to restrain himself.
A man collapsed nearby, laughing hysterically, holding a small pistol that had misfired. Eli glanced at him. "Leave," he said quietly. The man's smile faltered, then disappeared altogether. He ran, leaving the gun and the laughter behind.
A massive steel beam groaned and collapsed nearby. Eli moved to catch it instinctively, bracing against the weight with his shoulder and forearms. The Green tugged at him faintly, coaxing him to act, to move with force, to let instinct dictate rather than thought. Eli clenched his jaw and lowered the beam slowly, setting it aside as civilians scrambled past him.
When the fires were finally under control and the remaining gangs fled into the city's alleys, Batman arrived on the scene. His cape rippled against the smoke, eyes sharp, scanning the aftermath. He noted immediately the absence of obvious heroics: no flourish, no spectacle, just the careful, unremarkable precision of someone who had quietly turned disaster into survival.
Batman paused, studying footage later from multiple cameras. There, moving through the chaos, was a gray-skinned man, walking calmly among terrified people, never attacking unnecessarily, never calling attention to himself. Batman allowed the observation to settle. Interesting, he noted, but unknown.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Gotham, Joker watched the security footage replay over and over. He laughed until his ribs ached, an uncontrolled, jagged thing that ended with tears and sputters. "Now that's new," he said to no one. "Now that's fun."
Eli left the site before any heroes could confront him. He didn't walk triumphantly. He didn't walk quietly. He simply walked, feeling the faint pull beneath his feet, the awareness that the city itself was alive in a way few ever noticed. And for the first time that night, he allowed himself a thought: he could survive all this, but could he survive himself?