The night bled red over the Burnside skyline. Smoke drifted in slow coils from distant factories, coiling around the cracked bones of Gotham's forgotten east district. The city pulsed like a diseased heart beneath it all, unaware of the scream rising inside its throat.
From the rooftop of an adjacent structure, Draven watched with narrowed eyes.
Below, a corporate tower loomed—steel and glass, a cold skeleton of wealth. Its top floors glowed an eerie amber, but the lower levels were dark. Too dark. It wasn't a power outage.
It was a warning.
Beside him, Evelyn scanned the signals on her slate. The frequency was unstable—bursts of sound, flickers of video. A distress signal had piggybacked through the sprinkler system—encrypted, masked as a test alarm. Someone inside had cried for help… and knew exactly how to avoid detection.
"Something's wrong," she said. "This isn't just a hostage situation. It's a trap. Everything about it screams bait."
Draven didn't flinch. "How many?"
"At least fifty civilians. Maybe more. They're gathering them on the thirteenth floor. There's someone manipulating the wiring from inside. And there's no response from any emergency lines. Everything's dark."
"Then we go in," Draven said, already tightening his gauntlets.
"Wait." Evelyn reached out, hesitating. "This feels bigger. If this is Pulse—if he's really here—we're walking into a warzone."
His eyes met hers—storm against fire.
"Then we burn it down together."
Thirteenth Floor – Burnside Tower – 11:29 PM
Pulse stood at the center of a spiraling maelstrom.
The villain radiated heatless electricity, his very presence warping cameras, warping light, warping reality. Magnetic pulses thrummed from his suit like a digital heartbeat, vibrating through the metal beams of the building. Around him, terrified civilians sat handcuffed or unconscious—drenched in fear, bathed in his growing storm.
"You think your silence protects you," he said softly, pacing among them like a priest delivering a sermon. "But silence screams louder than sirens when no one comes."
He raised a hand. The lights flared—and then died.
The hum of power took their place.
"I was made in a lab like a dog. Trained to break systems. Designed to destabilize cities. And tonight, Gotham hears me."
That's when the window shattered behind him.
Glass rained.
Shadow followed.
Draven slammed into the room like a weapon unsheathed. His cloak burst open, smoke curling around his boots. In one fluid motion, he hurled a bola at Pulse, who sidestepped with unnatural speed—his body blinking out of phase for half a second. Sparks hissed where the bola struck the floor.
"So the ghost comes," Pulse snarled, his voice crackling through speakers embedded in his mask.
Draven charged.
They collided midair—fists and blasts, steel and lightning. Pulse's energy scorched the air, turning tiles to molten slag. Draven's strikes were surgical, relentless. But Pulse was chaos incarnate. He surged through walls, rebounded with amplified force, and sent Draven crashing into a metal beam.
"EMP burst—he's shielding his body," Evelyn said in Draven's ear. "You can't out-brawl him. We need interference."
"I'll give him interference," Draven growled.
He triggered a charge on his belt—miniature smoke bombs laced with magnetic dust. It disrupted Pulse's flow, slowed his bursts. Draven struck again, this time drawing blood through the gaps in Pulse's armor.
That's when the hostages began to scream.
The elevator opened—and with it, a new storm arrived.
A woman, bloodied but burning with quiet fury, walked out holding a shattered chair leg as a weapon. She broke her cuffs with a twist. Her eyes locked on Pulse. Then on Draven.
"You must be the infamous ghost," she said. "I've been waiting for you."
Draven paused, defensive. "Who are you?"
"Valeria Kade," she replied, tossing aside the makeshift weapon. "Codename: Nyx. I was embedded here. Deep cover. I triggered the signal."
She lifted her sleeve, revealing a hidden implant—a prototype beacon linked to an off-grid surveillance array. Evelyn, watching from afar, gasped.
"That's Halcyon tech—top tier. She's not just some vigilante. She's military-grade. Off the books."
Pulse hissed, retreating back toward the central power conduit. "No more games."
He lifted both hands—and the tower howled.
Every floor below them trembled. Screams echoed upward as a violent magnetic pulse surged through the building. Phones exploded. Lights burst. Blood trickled from civilians' ears as pressure warped their senses.
"Evac routes compromised," Evelyn barked. "Stairs are sealed. Elevators offline. He's going to drop the whole building!"
Nyx sprinted toward the hostages, dragging two toward the corridor. Draven lunged at Pulse—but Pulse vanished again, blinking through the wiring.
That's when Draven saw him.
Derek.
Pinned beneath a support beam, shielding a crying child. His face was pale, blood running from his temple.
"You came," he whispered, delirious. "You always come… but it never changes. Gotham always wins."
Draven lifted the beam with a roar, flinging it aside.
"Then we change Gotham."
They reached the backup elevator shaft with seconds to spare. Evelyn rerouted the power, sweating bullets as magnetic interference scrambled her rig. Pulse was still somewhere above, radiating power.
Then came a flicker.
A screen on the wall blinked to life.
Static.
Laughter.
Not Pulse's.
A low, theatrical laugh—crooked, echoing, painted in madness.
A white face with crimson lips and hollow eyes flickered across the screen.
The Joker.
Only for a second.
But it was real.
Draven froze.
It wasn't Pulse. Pulse wasn't the mastermind.
He was the message.
Joker was the voice behind it.
"I hate riddles," Draven muttered, turning back toward the collapsing floor.
"I don't," Evelyn whispered back through the comm. "Because I think the game's already begun."