The cell was a coffin made of stone and silence.
Rex Mallory sat hunched in the corner, back against the icy wall, knees pressed to his chest. Time had long ceased to move. There were no windows, no light except a pale flicker from a single torch burning near the bolted door—almost mocking him with its dim, dying glow.
He had lost count of the days.
Or maybe they had stopped entirely.
Sometimes he swore he heard whispers—voices from the trials, from his past. Sometimes it was Nightwing's voice. Sometimes his own. Sometimes they argued.
"I'm not you," Rex muttered to the empty air, hands gripping his hair. "I'm not…"
But then—who was he now?
He was no longer just the detective who roamed Chicago's streets, outsmarting arsonists and serial killers. He wasn't Rex Mallory, the man who used to rely on gut instinct and half-cold coffee. He had seen things no human mind was meant to understand—stood in another man's memories, worn another man's sorrow like armor.
And worst of all?
He didn't want to let go of it.
In the quietest moments, he'd reach toward the mask they had left him, just lying on the stone bench like it was waiting. The Nightwing mask. And he'd stare.
"Rex Mallory died in an alley," he whispered, echoing a thought that had started as a joke and now wrapped around his throat like a noose.
"Maybe this... this prison... is the truth."
He stood abruptly, pacing the narrow cell, fingers twitching.
Was he becoming Nightwing?
Or was he just losing his mind?
He slammed his fists into the wall until the skin broke and bled. He screamed into the void, but the stone swallowed it whole. No one came. No one ever came.
---
Gotham — Wayne Safehouse, Lower East Side
Jason Todd stood at the worktable, spinning a butterfly knife between his fingers, expression unreadable.
"You're telling me he replaced Nightwing?" he asked again. "Just like that?"
Barbara didn't look up from the holo-map of the Himalayas. "It wasn't like that, Jason. He didn't want this. It happened. And he's trying."
Jason scoffed. "You don't just try to be Nightwing. You don't wake up and say, 'Hey, maybe I'll put on some tights and go punch psychos with a smile.'"
"You did," Batman said from across the room, not looking up.
Jason's smirk faded.
"Touche."
Bruce stepped closer, voice low and even. "This isn't about the suit. It's about the person underneath it. And Rex… he's not Dick. But he's trying to carry what Dick left behind."
Jason met Bruce's gaze. "You miss him, don't you?"
Batman said nothing for a long time.
Finally, he turned back to the map.
"Yes."
Barbara watched them both quietly, fingers pausing over the keyboard. Her voice was soft, but it cut through the room like glass.
"When Rex talks… it's not just that he sounds like him. It's that he wants to do better. Like Nightwing"
Jason clicked the safety off his sidearm. "Then we make sure he lives long enough to."
Batman tapped a blinking red mark on the map—the entrance to the League's Eastern Citadel.
"We go in at nightfall."
---
Back in the Prison
Rex lay on the cold floor, eyes wide open.
He hadn't slept.
Couldn't.
The mask stared at him from the corner bench like an unblinking eye.
He dragged himself upright, footsteps echoing. The air was thin, damp. Somewhere, water dripped. It sounded like a ticking clock. Only the time was broken.
He stared into the cracked mirror on the wall.
Not his face.
Not really.
His jaw was harder now. His shoulders broader. The blue-black bruises from training had become permanent shadows beneath his eyes. And his voice…
"Who am I?" he asked aloud.
The mirror didn't answer.
He picked up the Nightwing mask and held it to his face. Slowly. Like a ritual. Like surrendering.
"You're a lie," he said to the mask. "You're hope. And I'm not."
Still, he put it on.
Because part of him wanted to believe that lie.
And maybe, if he wore it long enough, it would stop being one.
---
Cut to: League of Assassins – Inner Sanctum
Ra's al Ghul watched Rex's cell from a balcony above, eyes narrowed. Talia stood beside him.
"He is unraveling," she said.
"He is evolving," Ra's corrected, voice like sand on steel. "The third trial will either break what is left of his mind…"
"Or forge something new," Talia finished.
Ra's smiled faintly.
"A warrior worthy of shadows and light. One who has seen the fire. One who can command it."
He turned to leave.
"Prepare the final trial."