The safehouse is quiet.
That's how I know it's secure.
A small apartment three floors above an abandoned tailor shop. Windows blacked out. Cameras hidden in burned-out streetlights. My laptop hums soft on the scratched table in front of me.
It took me a week.
One week to infiltrate systems that would take teams of cyber specialists years.
The FBI.Multiple government archives.Black-budget task forces that technically didn't exist.
All of it sits open before me.
Not stolen.
Unlocked.
The system made sure of that.
I scroll slowly, absorbing everything.
Crime statistics.
Meta-human incident reports.
Early sightings of vigilantes.
Batman. Flash. Green Arrow. Zatanna. Names the old me loved as fiction — now appearing as classified files.
I lean back in my chair.
"I guess I'm really here."
The system doesn't respond.
It rarely does unless I speak to it directly.
"I'm going to play along," I murmur.
The thought had settled in days ago.
If some god, or cosmic idiot, dropped me into this world just for entertainment… I wouldn't run from it.
I'd outperform the script.
I'd become what it wanted — and more.
I tap the keyboard, bringing up my registered new identity.
Alias: L
Just one letter.Clean.Perfect.
If the system wanted me to be this world's "L," then I'd do it properly.
Not as a copy.
As an upgrade.
This version of the DC universe is… strange.
A blend of realities.
Mostly Young Justice: the League active, the Team operating in secret.But there are traces of darker timelines, comic influences, cinematic brutality.
A beautiful mess.
That makes it easier.
I don't need order.
I just need patterns.
I open another file.
Gotham Crime Heatmap.
Red clusters bloom across the screen like infected wounds.
Black Mask territory spreads.Penguin influence resurfaces.Intergang weapons smuggling.And something else…
A quiet trend.
Disappearances.
Teenagers.
Not just random.
Clustered around old subway tunnels and abandoned Wayne industrial projects.
I zoom in.
My eyes narrow.
"This isn't street crime."
This is organized.
Predatory.
And fresh.
The system flickers in the corner of my vision.
[QUEST AVAILABLE]
The text burns softly blue.
[INVESTIGATION TYPE: MISSING PERSONS — META-TINT DETECTED][REWARD: POINTS + UNKNOWN LOOT]
I smile slightly.
First case.
Real stakes.
Real blood.
Gotham's welcoming present.
I close the laptop and stand, slipping a black hoodie over my head.
I don't need a mask.
Not yet.
I slip on gloves.
Check a small concealed pistol I hope I won't have to use.
And whisper into the darkened apartment:
"Let's see why they're vanishing."
The screen fades to black behind me.
Somewhere deep under Gotham…
Someone is about to be investigated.