The skin on my hands vanishes first, dissolving into black mist, tendrils curling and drifting like smoke off a dying fire. I don't feel pain. I don't feel anything. My reflection ripples, distorts. My face… gone. There's no mouth, no nose, no eyes—just a churning void, a storm of shadow held in the shape of a man. My voice, if I speak, echoes like it's being dragged from deep underground.
The clothes become part of me—tactical, featureless, matte black, like a silhouette cut from darkness itself. The air around me hums, unnaturally still, like the world holds its breath when I move.
My new form, given to me by the Curator. I lived my life wearing a mask on the job, no-one knowing my true identity and now with a single thought it would be truly impossible to know who I was.
The air in the Convergence tasted of failure and ozone, a sickly union of Gotham's perpetual grime and New York's frantic energy. It clung to the back of my throat, metallic and bitter, as I moved through the lower arteries of this impossible city. Here, where fire escapes snaked like veins up the sides of buildings born of two universes, the shadows were thick.
A whimper, then a sharp cry, quickly stifled. Not the usual background noise of this place – the distant sirens, the rumble of elevated trains, the low growl of predatory engines. This was distinct. Human. Distress.
My pace didn't change, not immediately. I processed the sound, triangulating its origin.
The alley opened slightly ahead, a brief, narrow canyon between towering, anonymous bricks. The sound source was there. I slowed, melting deeper into the existing darkness, the shadow-veil around my head seeming to drink in the ambient light.
Through the shimmering blackness, I saw them. Three shapes, large and aggressive, pressing in on a fourth, smaller figure huddled against a graffiti-scarred wall. A girl. Young. Her voice, when she cried out again, was raw, laced with terror.
"Leave me alone! Please!"
One of the shapes, bulkier than the others, laughed – a wet, unpleasant sound. "What's the rush, sweet cheeks? Got somethin' for us, yeah?"
Another grabbed her arm. She struggled, a desperate, futile movement. The third man moved behind her, cutting off any potential escape.
The scene registered. Common street thugs. Opportunists. Low threat level. Strategically, the calculation was swift: ignore and proceed. It was a distraction.
But then, a different kind of calculation happened. One that didn't involve angles of attack or escape routes or mission parameters. It was a flash image, superimposed over the scene in the alley: a small face, framed by dark hair, looking up at me with wide, hopeful eyes. Sarah.
The girl against the wall stumbled, her plea choked off by a rough hand clamping over her mouth. Her eyes, wide with panic in the dim light, mirrored the hypothetical fear in the flash image. The similarity was a jolt, physical and sharp, like an electric shock through stagnant water.
Anger. It was a sensation I rarely acknowledged, a variable I usually suppressed with brutal efficiency. It was a weakness, a cloud on judgment. But this... this wasn't the cold, controlled rage I sometimes used as fuel. This was hot, immediate, and protective. It surged from a place I kept locked down, buried under layers of discipline and detachment. It was illogical. Emotions like this just get in the way.
The cold, analytical part of my brain screamed protest. Inefficient. Unsanctioned. Emotional. But the image persisted. Sarah. Vulnerable. Threatened.
Decision made.
I pushed away from the wall I'd been using for cover. My boots made little sound on the damp concrete, but the air around me grew colder, the strange hum emanating from the shadow-veil intensifying slightly.
The thugs were focused on the girl. Their backs were partially to my entrance into the alley. A strategic advantage. I didn't rush. There was no need for a dramatic charge. A slow, deliberate approach was often more unnerving.
I cleared the narrow mouth of the alley. The closest thug, the bulky one who had laughed, was the first to notice the change in temperature, the shift in the atmosphere. He turned, his smirk fixed.
Then he saw the shadow.
Not me, not a man, but the absence where my face should be. A vortex of blackness, swirling and dense, outlined by the faint light reflecting off the wet pavement. My body, clad in dark, practical gear, was a solid anchor for this impossible void.
His smirk faltered, replaced by confusion, then a flicker of unease. "The hell...?"
The other two turned. The one holding the girl's arm instinctively loosened his grip, distracted. She scrambled back slightly, putting a sliver of distance between them, glancing toward me with a different kind of fear now, away from her immediate tormentors.
The third thug, younger and prone to overcompensation, recovered his bravado first. He puffed out his chest. "Hey! Beat it, freak! This ain't your business!"
He took a step towards me. The bulky one, the leader, seemed to regain some composure, stepping up beside him. The one who had held the girl's arm stayed back slightly, wary.
"Yeah, go on," the leader sneered, though his eyes kept darting to the shadow that was my head. "Run along, 'fore you get hurt."
Cocky. Predictable. They saw a single figure, someone who looked... wrong, but still just one person. They outnumbered me three to one. To their primitive minds, that was advantage enough. They didn't see the weapon standing before them. They saw a target.
"You have... three seconds," I stated, my voice low, level, devoid of inflection, amplified slightly by the strange resonance of the shadow veil. "To disengage and leave."
The sound startled them more than the words. Coming from the featureless blackness, it was unnatural.
The younger thug laughed again, a nervous, high-pitched sound. "Three what now? You counting? You think you're-"
He didn't get to finish. Three seconds had passed
Action. Pure, unadulterated efficiency.
The younger thug was closest. As he stepped forward for his aborted taunt, I moved. Not a lunge, but a controlled explosion of motion. My lead foot slid fractionally forward, weight shifted. My hand shot out, not for a punch, but to intercept his extending arm. A quick, sharp twist against the elbow joint, putting pressure where ligaments were weakest. A grunt of pain from him, his arm twisting uselessly.
Simultaneously, my other hand snapped out, palm heel striking upward under his chin. Just enough force to snap his head back, disorienting and disrupting balance. He stumbled, clutching his arm, gagging slightly. He was no longer a factor. Efficiently neutralized.
The second thug, the leader, reacted. He threw a wild haymaker, telegraphed and slow. I didn't block. Blocking absorbed impact, wasted energy. I shifted inside the arc of his swing, ducking just enough. My shoulder brushed past his chest. As I moved past him, my elbow came up, a sharp, upward jab into his diaphragm. The air evacuated his lungs with a wheezing cough. He doubled over, clutching his gut, his face contorted in pained surprise. Incapacitated. Two down. Less than two seconds.
The third thug, the wary one, finally understood. He saw his companions crumpled or incapacitated. He saw the impossibly still figure with the face of night. Fear, cold and pure, replaced his wariness. He turned to run back the way he came.
He was fast, but prediction was faster. My mind had already mapped his likely escape route the moment I entered the alley. It was instinct, ingrained from countless scenarios where every variable had to be accounted for. As he turned, I took two rapid steps, closing the distance. There was a stack of overflowing garbage bags near the alley mouth, slick with unknown fluids. I didn't tackle him. That was messy, unpredictable. Instead, I hooked my foot behind his ankle as he pushed off the ground, a subtle tripwire.
He went down hard, sprawling onto the wet, garbage-strewn concrete. As he tried to push himself up, dazed, I was already there. No unnecessary violence. A single, precise strike with the side of my boot to his temple. Not enough to kill, but enough to ensure he wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Lights out.
The alley was silent again, save for the ragged gasps of the first two thugs slowly trying to recover, and the soft, persistent hum from the shadow-veil around my head.
It was over. Clean. Efficient. Three threats neutralized without a single hit taken. It felt... routine. The brief, disorienting surge of paternal fury was gone, replaced by the familiar, cold calm that usually defined me. It reminded me of my youth. Taking out idiots like this.
I stood still for a moment, assessing the scene. The thugs were down, incapacitated. The girl...
She was still pressed against the wall, but now she was staring at me. Her eyes, wide and reflecting the faint city lights, held no trace of gratitude or relief. Only pure, unadulterated terror.
I hadn't used excessive force. I hadn't drawn a weapon beyond my own limbs. I hadn't even touched her. By any standard, I had saved her from a very bad situation. Yet, she looked at me as if I were the monster, more terrifying than the men who minutes ago intended to harm her.
I took a step towards her. Not to comfort, not to explain. Comfort wasn't in my skillset. Explanation was unnecessary. Perhaps... perhaps just to see if the flicker remained. If the sight of her, safe now, would rekindle the unusual warmth, the echo of Sarah.
As I moved, she flinched violently. A small, whimpering sound escaped her lips. She didn't look away from the featureless darkness where my eyes should be, but her body language screamed 'flight.'
And then she ran.
Not towards me, not past the incapacitated thugs. She ran deeper into the alley, towards the other end, towards the unknown dangers of the Convergence night, propelled solely by the need to escape me.
I watched her go. The sound of her frantic footsteps faded quickly. The emotional blip, the strange connection, evaporated entirely. It left behind... nothing. Just the usual emptiness.
The feeling was familiar. It didn't sting. It was simply a fact. My attempt, however subconscious, to connect, to act on something resembling a normal human impulse, had only reinforced what I was. An entity of brutal logic and efficient destruction. A ghost.
I turned away from the empty space where she had been.
The shadow-veil pulsed faintly, a silent confirmation of my identity. I melted back into the deeper darkness of the alley mouth, becoming one with the oppressive night. The sounds of the city, the sirens, the distant hum, the rain beginning to fall again – they all returned, filling the space left by the girl's fleeing footsteps.
It wouldn't happen again. There was no room for Sarah, or sentiment, or anything remotely human in the decisions that kept me alive and effective.
After two years of trying to build across the gap between us, it was time to tear it down. For both our sakes.