The night air was thick with smoke and tension as Draven stood atop the crumbling rooftop, the city skyline bleeding into crimson from the fires that now raged through the East District. Beneath him, Gotham's chaos unfolded like a prophecy finally fulfilled. Sirens wailed in the distance—pointless cries against the storm Pulse had unleashed.
Beside him, Evelyn crouched, bruised but steady. The kiss they'd shared earlier still lingered in his mind, like a stolen breath in the middle of war. He hadn't expected it. Neither had she. But in a world unraveling, it felt... real. Pure. Dangerous.
"I looped the perimeter cams," Evelyn said quietly, her voice hoarse. "But whatever Pulse is doing inside that courthouse—it's massive. Thermal signatures are fluctuating like crazy. It's not just a hostage situation. It's an experiment."
Draven's jaw clenched. The courthouse—the same building where Gotham once fought for law and order—had now become Pulse's stage. Dozens of civilians were trapped inside. And beneath it all... rumors said Halcyon tech was buried deep in the old sublevels.
This wasn't just a power play. It was a resurrection.
"We go in quiet," Draven murmured. "We find the core, disrupt his signal, and get those people out."
"And if it's a trap?" Evelyn asked, her hand brushing the pulse pistol at her side.
Draven looked at her. "Then we burn the trap down."
Inside the courthouse, chaos had been orchestrated into silence. No screaming. No panicked cries. Just rows of people—standing. Frozen. Their eyes glazed. Bodies twitching intermittently like marionettes caught in static.
At the center of the courtroom stood Pulse. His armor shimmered, a mesh of red-black plating and glowing veins of tech. His face—still hidden behind that emotionless white visor—tilted as he observed his "audience."
"Emotion is the virus," he said to no one, yet everyone. "And I am the cure."
From the upper balcony, Draven watched through a cracked lens. Evelyn flanked him, patching into the courthouse mainframe through a portable rig.
"These people," she whispered. "They're linked into a neural field. Pulse is using a frequency to induce stasis—he's testing Halcyon's crowd-control prototype."
Draven narrowed his eyes. "Can you disrupt it?"
"I can try. But it'll alert him."
"Do it."
She nodded and began typing, her fingers trembling but determined. Down below, Pulse suddenly paused, his head snapping up.
"Someone dares speak against the silence."
Alarms shrieked. Red lights flared.
Evelyn swore. "We're in."
Draven leapt.
He fell like a meteor, cloak flaring behind him. He crashed into the center of the room, his shockwave knocking aside the nearest drones. Pulse turned, his arms raised as magnetic fields rippled outward.
The two collided like titans.
Steel met kinetic force. Sparks flew. Pulse swung with machine precision, but Draven was faster, more brutal. He ducked, rolled, came up with a blade that sliced through the shoulder plate of Pulse's armor.
"You're a relic," Pulse hissed, his voice modulated and cold. "And relics are meant to rust."
Draven drove a knee into his chest. "Funny. I thought you were the one wearing museum pieces."
Pulse flung him backward with a force wave. Draven hit the wall hard, vision spinning. Evelyn's voice screamed through the comm.
"Draven, behind you!"
He twisted—just in time. A drone lunged, syringe ready. He stabbed upward, rupturing its core, sparks hissing.
Pulse moved toward Evelyn's position. She tried to run—but was grabbed by another drone.
"Draven!" she shouted.
He roared. Something primal. Something... Batman.
He moved faster than thought, launching himself toward her. He crashed into the drone, shattered its spine, and caught Evelyn as she fell.
Her eyes widened. "You came for me."
"Always."
Behind them, Pulse's body began pulsing—literally. His armor cracked open, revealing an energy core too unstable to exist naturally.
"He's triggering a meltdown!" Evelyn cried. "He's going to take the whole building down!"
Draven scanned the room. The hostages. The tech. No time to save both.
"Can you shut him down?" he asked.
"I... I need a minute."
"You've got thirty seconds."
She ran. He charged.
Pulse's body flared as he emitted raw energy. Every step Draven took felt like walking into a furnace. But he kept going. One more second. One more push.
He reached the core, yanked a wire, jammed it into a Halcyon device scavenged from a fallen drone.
The energy pulse backfired.
The explosion erupted inward—imploding into the center of Pulse's chest. He screamed, distorted and inhuman. The visor shattered. Beneath it... a face.
Half-machine. Half-boy. Barely twenty. Eyes terrified.
He whispered, "They made me this…"
And then he was gone.
Silence.
Evelyn limped to his side, face streaked with blood and ash. The civilians began waking—groggy, confused.
"You stopped it," she said, voice breaking.
"We did."
She looked at him. "You're changing, Draven."
He turned to her. "So are you."
And in that moment—beneath the rubble of Gotham's oldest court, in the city's darkest hour—they weren't just soldiers anymore. They were hope.
Far above, on a rooftop no one noticed, a figure laughed.
Soft. Gleeful. Amused.
Joker closed his notebook, where he'd sketched the chaos with childlike delight.
"They think it's over," he whispered. "Oh, but this... this was just the audition."