Nolan is bent over the worktable when the phone starts to ring a clean, insistent sound in the quiet of the penthouse. The lamp throws a pool of light over the mess: thread, tiny screwdrivers, a roll of ballistic weave, and the suit laid out flat like a body waiting for stitches. It's black, cut close, the lapel already reinforced; a red tie lies folded beside it, a thin strip of leather sewn along the seam where a small hidden pocket will sit.
He tucks a strip of seam tape under the lapel and lifts the receiver.
"Naima?" he says.
Her voice is steady, low through the line. "Boss. Update on the Whisper corridor. We can hit a slice of their control — not the whole gang, just the node that locks the tracks in that sector. I've mapped the passages from our side; if we move in through the maintenance hatch behind the eastplatform, we can push straight into their comms and the switch control. Cut that, and their refurbished trains go dead for a twelve-block radius."
Nolan's hand stills on the needle. He digs a thumb into the map pinned to the workbench and traces the corridor with a fingertip. "How soon can you enact?"
"Mostly ready," Naima says. "We need bodies for the initial push and a couple of demolition hands to get the switch boxes. If Marcy can spare the ten veterans from the Black Mask work, we can be in position within the hour."
"Do it," Nolan says. He already has a plan half-made in his head. "Marcy should reroute ten. Naima, we take the node clean, fast we cannot let it turn into a fire fight I'm not sure where the bat is. I'll call you when to move."
"I understand." she replies. "We'll be there."
He hangs up and hits the other burner before the second thought can settle. Marcy picks up on the second ring.
"You've got ten?" Nolan asks.
"Ten and hungry," Marcy answers, voice clipped. "They were there when we fought Black Mask. They want to put useful work into their hands, not just run lookout."
"Send them to the east maintenance hatch. Naima'll use them for entry and extraction. Keep them disciplined . No glory run." The problem with survivors of such conflicts such as gang wars is sometimes they get a high and want to experience the act once more
"Understood."
Nolan lets the receiver fall back into its cradle and moves with the same calm efficiency that's built into him when something needs fixing. He slides a small vial case from the drawer — three glass tubes, their contents a pale, wrong kind of gold when the light catches them. He smooths the suit lining with patient fingers, sewing a slim channel into the inner breast that will hold the vials in padded mesh, a filter cap threaded into the lapel seam. It's a butcher's precision: a snug pocket for poison that they might need to learn to touch without losing themselves.
As he works, Kieran is already a presence in the room, not stepping into him, but perched in the corner on one of the low chairs, legs crossed, a glass of something dark cradled like a prop. Kieran watches the needle draw steady stitches and lifts an eyebrow.
"You're going?" Kieran asks when Nolan slides a vial into the lining and snaps it closed with a whisper of Velcro.
Nolan doesn't look up. "I'm dressing for it."
Kieran's laugh is soft, incredulous. "Boss, you shouldn't have to be riding point on every scrape. You build the guild; you don't wade into the gutter."
Nolan pauses, fingers finding the theatre mask on the bench. He turns it over, checks the fittings the new microfilter hidden along the rim, the voice dampener layered under the cheek. He slips two of the fear vials into the lining beside the heart. The glass is chilling under his palm.
"If we never touch the tool," Nolan says quietly, "we'll never learn its edges. We have something that can change the field of battle, Kieran. Better to have our hands on it now, to practice in a controlled strike, than let it be a hinderance that kills us later." He fastens the inner pocket, then stands.
Kieran's mouth thins. He sets his glass down and stands as well, a small, sharp movement — respect, worry, something that tastes like both. "Fine," he says
Nolan picks up the suit and slips it on like armor. The fabric sits close, the red tie a shock of color. He straps the mask to his belt, lets it hang there like a promise. He breathes once, slow, fills his lungs with the familiar chill of the penthouse night, and nods.
"Marcy sends ten," he says, pulling on gloves. "Naima moves in. Two hours ago would've been better; now will have to do. We strike smart, take the node, and lock the rails. Then we fortify."
Kieran watches him buckle the final strap and lets his voice slide softer. "Be careful. This gas—Scarecrow's playthings they're not toys." His eye looked far away remembering the pain he experienced no the fear
Nolan's smile is small and strange in his face, a crease at the corner of his mouth that isn't entirely warmth. "We'll practice," he says. "Now. While the city's a mess and the enemy is divided. That's the advantage. We take it."
He picks up the mask, fits it on, and the room tilts for a breath as the man in the suit becomes the thing that moves through alleys and tunnels with intent. Kieran falls back into the chair, watching the mask's shadow swallow Nolan's mouth, and for the first time in months his laughter is thin and brittle.
Outside, rain taps the windows like the staccato of distant gunfire. Inside, the suit sits perfect, the red tie a wound against the dark. Nolan steps toward the door, and the Underpass breathes a little easier or perhaps braced itself — as its leader moves out into the war.
Oh such fun it is to be a gothomite
***
The Bat was a shadow over Chinatown.
One moment the streets were filled with gang boys shaking down fruit vendors, the next their guns were on the pavement and their faces in brick. Batman moved like a nightmare—cape cutting the moonlight, fists breaking noses. A Hammer goon screamed as he was pulled off a fire escape by a grapnel and left dangling from the steel, choking for air.
Two dealers bolted down an alley, laughing, guns clattering in their hands until a batarang split the silence. One gun shattered in sparks. The other was knocked into the gutter. The dealers froze. A shape descended, boots cracking the asphalt, and then the screams started.
From under a leaning pile of cardboard boxes, a man watched. His eyes were wide, grime smeared across his face. He waited until the last scream cut off into silence. Then, careful as a priest opening a reliquary, he pulled out a battered flip phone. Click. The photo caught Batman's silhouette against a neon sign. His thumb sent it without hesitation.
***
Nolan's phone buzzed just as Naima finished explaining the flanking routes, her finger tracing the tunnel map in the dirt. The mask was already on his face, suit pressed black with a streak of red down the tie. He flipped the screen open.
The photo glared at him Batman, in Chinatown.
His gaze lingered, cold. Then he raised his eyes to Naima,
"We move. Now."
She gave a sharp nod, snapping her fingers to gather her soldiers. Weapons slid into hands, safeties clicked off. The shuffle of boots against the tunnel stone echoed like a heartbeat.
They moved down the dark passages, the Whispers' node just ahead. The damp air reeked of mildew and oil. Veins of rust bled down the metal doors.
Vey's voice rumbled inside Nolan's skull, then took the body whole. His stride slowed, deliberate. One hand drifted inside the coat. He drew out a vial fear gas sloshing inside, glowing faintly like liquid amber.
"Hold here," Vey whispered, raising a hand. His voice was rougher, thicker than Nolan's usual cadence.
Naima frowned. "Boss, we're at the door. Timing's—"
"Quiet."
He pulled the mask up, just enough to bare his mouth. The vial cracked in his grip with a sharp hiss. Pale yellow vapor curled into the air. He inhaled.
The world split.
His heart pounded like a war drum. Walls bent and shivered. The voices inside—Quentin's sharp tone, Kieran's calm steadying words whispered focus, focus, stay in reality.
But the visions came anyway.
Nolan, lying cold and broken in blood. Nolan, reaching for him and fading. Nolan, gone.
Vey gritted his teeth until they creaked. His fists trembled. His eyes locked on the Whispers beyond the doorway, silhouettes clustered with their rifles. And then he saw it—an aura, a shimmer bleeding off one of the men.
It pulsed. Color deep and bright.
Faye concentrated, molding it with his will. His hand twitched, pulling invisible threads. The aura thickened, darkened.
He yanked his mask back down. The gas hissed against the filters. Naima stepped forward, urgent,
"Boss I don't think it worked cmon we need to move."
One of the Whispers staggered suddenly. He clawed at his head, eyes wide. "What the what's going on?" His rifle snapped up. He wasn't aiming at the tunnels. He was aiming at his own crew.
"Invaders!" he screamed—and opened fire.
The tunnel erupted with gunshots. Muzzle flashes lit the Whispers' den as they turned on each other, confused, terrified. Bullets sparked off the walls. Screams layered over one another.
Naima froze for a heartbeat, staring at Faye, her expression caught between awe and fear.
"…Did you do that?"
Vey's only answer was a curt hand signal. Move.
They surged forward. Naima's fighters poured through the doorway, cutting down survivors in the chaos. Whispers fell on each other, screaming at phantoms, their lines broken before a shot was even fired from Nolan's side.
The node was theirs within minutes. The floor was slick, the air choked with cordite and smoke.
Vey stood in the doorway, watching the madness die down, his gloved hand flexing like he could still feel the aura twisting in his grip.
Inside, the Whisper outpost smelled of oil, smoke, and old food. A busted switchboard sat under a shelf of cigarette packs and a scavenged transistor radio. This was the control point for the block of deadcars—the closest rail-shelter cluster to the Outcasts. Take this and you not only cut a rival's reach; you give your people a network of real roofs and power.
The first room was a cramped common area: a sagging couch, a small oil burner, three sleeping cots. Two Whispers argued over a radio when Naima's fighters poured in. A quick flash of a cloth, a thud, a cuff snapped on a wrist. The words on the radio choked to static — the first thing to go.
Deeper in, a narrow maintenance corridor led to the relay closet. "Sweep left," Naima hissed. "Sting on the second hatch." Her men kicked metal panels free; a nest of wires spilled exposed like entrails. A greasy tech lunged for a hidden pistol—Marcy's veteran hit him with the butt of a rifle so hard he went silent, a smearing thunk that smelled of iron.
The Whispers tried to mobilize, disoriented from the panic that had turned their men on each other. Screams in the stairwell, boots hammering a panic that died in the wrong direction when Naima's flank sealed it. One Whisper tried to bolt for the platform; Naima's pivot shot clipped his calf. He went down into a puddle of diesel and blood.
At the relay, Vey's gloved hands found the hot box. He was calm, precise — fingers moving with the kind of mechanic's certainty that had kept him alive in worse places. He keyed a jammer into the port, cheap circuitry that Marcy's crew had soldered under deadline pressure. The lights on the board stuttered and then the main rig hiccupped: a cough, a click, then a spread of darkness as the node fell into Underpass control.
Not by killing the power to active trains—there were none—but by redirecting and owning the flow that fed the deadcars: the lamps, the space heaters, the little inverter rigs cobbled to batteries that kept families from freezing. The screens in the shack blinked to black. The transistor radio coughed and died. For the first time in months, the lights in those deadcars would be tuned to Underpass frequencies, their heaters humming to better the underpass.
From the stairwell above, Naima's overwatch silenced the last holdouts. She moved through the junkyard of sleepers and found the local Whisper boss curled by a toaster, eyes wide and wild. Naima jammed a pistol against his throat, "How many people do you have down here?"
Vey watched impassively as his people took apart the whispers outpost and his land grew.
***
[when vey breathed in the gas]
Deep inside Nolan's mind, a door sat locked and chained. Dozens of chains riddled the door unmoving and daunting.
Then suddenly one of those chains began to shake and creak, ever so slowly the links strained and snapped.
No one noticed for they were busy helping Vey focus.