Talia didn't seem to hear Batman's warning at all.
She brushed past him without hesitation, walking toward the edge of the rooftop where there were no railings. The sound of gunfire and mechanical bats still echoed up from the lower levels, but it was fading now. She stopped at the very edge, her boots hanging over empty space, and slowly spread her arms wide like she was embracing the city sprawled out before her.
"This city, me, all these vermin I brought with me..." She tilted her head slightly, casting a sidelong glance back at him. "We're all here, right in front of you."
Batman didn't move. Water streamed off his cowl, dripping from the pointed ears.
"The solution is simple, isn't it? Just like that crude justice you've always believed in. That black-and-white morality you cling to like a child's blanket."
She turned to face him fully.
"Kill me. Right here and now. Then go down there and kill everyone I brought with me. Leave no one alive. Wipe us all out."
She took a step toward him.
"As long as you do it, Gotham will be safe tonight. You can wash away all this evil with our blood. Isn't that what you want, deep down? To erase all the evil in the world, no matter the cost?"
Batman's fist clenched until the reinforced gauntlet creaked. Behind the cowl, he felt the old, dark impulse stirring. It had been born in an alley beside two bodies bleeding out on the pavement. It was the part of him that wanted to hurt and break, to make sure no one ever felt that kind of pain again by removing anyone who might cause it.
He forced it down.
"This isn't justice, Talia. This is murder. And I won't let you turn me into an executioner."
Talia smiled. "You're still so idealistic. Even after everything."
Her body shifted backward, her heels already hanging over the edge again.
"Since you won't stain your hands with our blood... Then let me do it for you. For what we had... and for what we could have been."
Before the last word finished leaving her mouth, she tipped backward and dropped off the edge.
"Talia!"
Batman moved on instinct. The grappling gun was already in his hand, firing upward toward a support beam as he launched himself off the rooftop after her. The hook bit into steel, and the line went taut as he swung out into open air.
The wind and rain hammered against him. His cape whipped violently, straining to tear itself loose. Below him, Talia was falling into the darkness. He could not let her die. Not because of what they had shared. That history was complicated and messy. He had to save her because of what would follow if she died.
Ra's al Ghul would burn Gotham to ashes. The League of Assassins would unleash hell on the city, and there would be nothing he could do to stop them.
The grappling gun's motor screamed as it paid out line. Batman converted his forward momentum into a downward arc, sweeping through the rain. Talia was fifteen meters below him.
Ten.
Five.
At the last possible moment, he reached out and caught her around the waist.
The sudden addition of her weight sent a jolt through his shoulder, but the grappling gun held. He triggered the retraction mechanism, and... That's when she moved.
Her right hand came up fast. She drove dagger toward his chest with everything she had.
CLANG!
The blade skipped off the armor, throwing sparks, and her eyes went wide. That blow should have tore through kevlar. It should have buried itself in his chest. Instead, it had bounced off like she'd tried to stab a tank.
Batman didn't even flinch.
The grappling gun's motor kicked into overdrive and hauled them upward faster than they had fallen. The acceleration was brutal, with crushing g-forces pressing down on both of them as the line reeled in at maximum speed. Talia's stomach lurched as the world spun.
They hit the rooftop.
The moment Batman's boots touched the concrete, his arm tightened around her waist. A heartbeat later, he hurled her across the rooftop.
Talia spun through the air, managing to twist mid-flight and land in a crouch about four meters away. Water splashed up around her boots. She straightened slowly, one hand still gripping the dagger.
Batman stood between her and the edge, the grappling gun already retracted into his gauntlet.
"You know I didn't really want to kill you." She let the dagger clatter to the ground. "But you were already prepared for me, weren't you?"
"No. I was just field-testing it. You happened to be a convenient test subject."
Batman knew her too well. He understood her loyalty to the League and her obsession with earning her father's approval. He knew she would use any means necessary to achieve her goals.
But he'd anticipated everything.
His gaze shifted downward. The fighting below had ended. The mechanical bats were scattered across the ground. League operatives lay unconscious or worse, sprawled in the rain.
Still room for improvement on the design, he thought.
He looked back at Talia.
"You're after the girl."
"Yes." Talia seemed to realize tonight's operation was a total loss. She nodded slowly. "The Church of Blood placed an order with the League."
Batman's expression did not change, but beneath the cowl his brow furrowed. Zandia was a theocratic microstate that functioned more like a cult than a country. The Church of Blood ruled it as their personal domain, filled with human trafficking, ritual murder, and worse.
"They'd better be worth dying for," he said. "Now get out of this city."
He turned his back on her, his cape billowing as he strode toward the edge of the building. Without breaking stride, he fired his grappling gun. The line caught, and it pulled him into the rain-soaked night.
Talia stood alone on the rooftop, and bit down on her lip until she tasted copper.
---
East End Precinct, Holding Area Command Post.
Edward sat in front of a bank of monitors. He wasn't wearing his usual forensic examiner's whites or his CSI windbreaker. Tonight, he'd changed into a green suit with his cane leaning against the desk beside him.
His fingers moved across the keyboard, cycling through camera feeds.
Rooftop: clear.
East stairwell: clear.
Second floor corridor: secure.
He was about to switch to the next...
Wait.
Something flickered at the edge of one of the feeds. The cafeteria corridor, near the back storage area. It wasn't interference from the electrical system. And it wasn't a glitch in the camera.
His fingers froze on the keyboard. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he leaned closer to the monitor, enhancing the image.
"It's not electromagnetic or thermal. This doesn't fit any known physical model..." He muttered to himself. "Spatial distortion? Dimensional instability?"
He looked up sharply, about to call out.
"Marco!"
The chair next to him was empty.
Of course. Marco had gone Raven to the cafeteria a few minutes ago. Something about ice cream.
He looked back at the monitor. The distortion was growing larger, the purple light intensifying.
"Damn it."
He grabbed the radio.
---
East End Precinct Cafeteria.
The lights overhead flickered, struggling to maintain power after Edward had rerouted half the building's electrical grid to support his trap network. The cafeteria was empty, silent except for the hum of the industrial freezers.
Raven stood in front of one of the open freezer units, cold mist rolling out around her ankles.
Marco leaned against the doorframe, his eyes constantly scanning the room.
"Pick one already. We don't have all night. How about we each grab one? I'm thinking strawberry."
Raven reached out slowly toward a pint of chocolate ice cream.
The air next to her tore.
That's the only way Marco could describe it. The air didn't shimmer or warp, it ripped. The tear was about half a meter wide.
Inside the hole was pure darkness.
"Get back!"
Marco's training took over. He grabbed Raven by the shoulder and yanked her behind him, bringing his rifle up to aim at the portal.
A claw emerged from the darkness.
It was covered in rough, dark-red skin that looked more like scales than flesh, with curved talons at the end of each finger. The claw gripped the edge of the portal, and something pulled itself through.
The thing was about the size of a Rottweiler, with short, twisted horns jutting from its malformed skull. Its eyes were yellow and slit-pupiled. Its mouth opened, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.
He fired.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Four shots, center mass, so fast they sounded almost like full-auto. The demon jerked with each impact, dark ichor spraying from the entry wounds. It tried to scream, but all that came out was a bubbling hiss before it collapsed backward into the portal.
Its body began to dissolve immediately, melting into thick black sludge that bubbled and smoked as it seeped into the cracks between the floor tiles.
"Fuck! What the hell—"
SPLASH. SPLASH. SPLASH.
Three more portals tore open simultaneously around the cafeteria. More demons poured through, some the same size as the first, others larger, with compound eyes and extra limbs.
They all turned toward Raven.
"PROTECT THE CAPTAIN!"
Darnell burst through the cafeteria door with two other officers from the tactical team, all three of them carrying shotguns. They opened fire without hesitation.
At close range, shotguns were brutal. The first volley of buckshot tore through two demons, shredding them into chunks that splattered across the floor and walls. The second volley caught another mid-leap, blowing it apart in midair.
"Goddamn it, this kitchen's done for!" Darnell shouted over the gunfire, pumping his shotgun. "Hope you boys like breakfast at Burger King, 'cause that's what we're getting tomorrow!"
"You buying?" one of the other officers yelled back, firing into another portal as demons tried to squeeze through.
"Hell yes I'm buying! Now light 'em up!"
But they kept coming. Every demon they killed, two more crawled through the portals. The floor was covered in dissolving corpses and black ichor.
Marco's rifle clicked empty. He dropped the mag, slapped in a fresh one, and kept firing. His shoulder was going to be bruised as hell tomorrow from the recoil, but he didn't care. All that mattered was keeping those things away from Raven.
"There's too many!" he shouted. "Get her out of here! Back to the holding area!"
"Captain—"
"Move!"
That's when Raven raised her head.
Her eyes had changed. They were glowing now. She raised her right hand, fingers spread slightly apart.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
The air around her detonated.
A massive wave of dark-blue energy exploded outward from her body, washing over the cafeteria.
The three portals shrieked and collapsed inward on themselves.
The demons that had already come through froze in place. Their bodies began to glow from the inside.
Then they shattered.
---
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