Day three of captivity crawled through the concrete bunker like a wounded animal. Matt had spent the night working methodically on his chains, creating microfractures in the metal that would soon yield to the right application of force. His wrists were raw and bloody, but pain was an old friend he'd learned to ignore lifetimes ago.
Across the room, Eliza huddled in the corner. Her heartbeat had developed an irregular stutter from dehydration and shock. They'd given her water once since Eric's execution, barely enough to keep her alive. Matt knew that wasn't an oversight. The Joker understood perfectly how to extend suffering.
When the guard by the door nodded off, Matt seized his opportunity. He tapped his chains against the concrete floor in a deliberate pattern. Morse code, something Eliza would recognize from their shared cryptography elective.
S-T-A-Y S-T-R-O-N-G W-I-L-L G-E-T Y-O-U O-U-T
He heard her shift, the chains around her wrists clinking lightly as she positioned herself to respond.
H-O-W
T-R-U-S-T M-E
The guard stirred, cutting off their communication. Matt settled back against the wall, extending his senses throughout the facility. Something had changed since yesterday. New heartbeats had arrived overnight. Disciplined ones with the distinctive rhythm of extensive physical training. At least thirty of them, positioned strategically throughout the building.
Not police. Not Batman. Something else entirely.
An hour passed before the door swung open again. The Joker's scent preceded him, that distinctive cocktail of chemicals and madness that made Matt's stomach turn. But today he wasn't alone. Beyond the usual thugs, a new presence accompanied him. Someone who moved with perfect economy of motion, whose heartbeat maintained an unnaturally steady cadence despite the horrors surrounding him.
"Good morning, class!" Joker announced, his voice artificially bright. "I hope everyone slept well. We have a very special guest joining us for today's lessons."
Matt tracked the newcomer's movements as he entered the room. Male, approximately six feet tall, athletic build maintained despite advanced age. The scent of exotic herbs and something else, something ancient, clung to his clothing. Most telling was the subtle hint of mineral water with distinct chemical properties.
"May I present our distinguished visitor," Joker continued with mock formality, "the illustrious Ra's al Ghul. Immortal mastermind, eco-terrorist extraordinaire, and apparently, a fan of our little educational program."
"Spare me your theatrics," Ra's replied, his voice carrying the subtle accent of centuries spent across continents. "I came to observe the subject as agreed."
"Subject!" Joker clutched his chest in feigned offense. "Matthew is our guest of honor, not some lab rat. Show some respect for the educational process."
Ra's ignored him, approaching Matt with measured steps. "This is the boy? The one who survived the Ace Chemical exposure mixed with Lazarus compounds?"
"The very same," Joker confirmed, bouncing on his heels with barely contained excitement. "Though 'survived' is an understatement. He thrived. Evolved. Transformed."
"Interesting," Ra's murmured finally. "The blindness should have been the least of the damage, given the concentration of chemicals. Yet you say this boy is special?"
"More than special," Joker corrected.
"And you can demonstrate this?"
Joker's heartbeat accelerated with delight. "That's today's lesson plan! So glad you asked."
He clapped his hands, and two thugs entered dragging a metal cart covered with a stained sheet. The distinctive clink of surgical instruments underneath made Matt's jaw clench.
"Originally, I planned a straightforward demonstration," Joker explained, pulling back the sheet to reveal an assortment of tools that wouldn't be out of place in a medieval torture chamber. "But you've inspired me to elevate our curriculum. Why settle for mere pain when we can conduct proper scientific inquiry?"
Ra's maintained his dispassionate expression, but Matt detected the slight acceleration in his pulse. Not fear. Interest.
"You mentioned drawing out the Detective," Ra's said. "That was our arrangement. This 'experimentation' wasn't part of the agreement."
"Bats will come," Joker assured him, selecting a scalpel from the tray. "But while we wait, why not make the most of our time? The commissioner's son has such fascinating abilities. Wouldn't you like to see them in action before Batman crashes our little party?"
Matt tensed, testing the weakened chains. Almost ready to break. Just needed the right moment.
"Very well," Ra's conceded, stepping back. "Proceed with your demonstration. I will observe."
Joker's grin stretched impossibly wide. "Excellent! Now, where to begin? So many options, so little time."
He approached Eliza, who shrank against the wall, eyes wide with terror.
"No," Matt growled. "You want to test me. Leave her out of it."
"Such nobility," Joker mocked. "But that's not how this works. You see, to truly understand the limits of your darkness, we need to create the proper conditions."
The scalpel gleamed in the harsh fluorescent light as Joker crouched beside Eliza. "Nothing personal, my dear. You're just a necessary component in our scientific method."
"Stop," Matt demanded, straining against his chains. "I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt her."
"Music to my ears!" Joker exclaimed. "But here's the thing, Matty. I want you to hurt. I want you to feel everything. That's the only way to unlock your true potential. The only way to make you...like me."
The first cut was shallow, a line across Eliza's forearm that beaded with blood. Her scream pierced Matt's enhanced hearing like a physical blow.
"Fascinating," Ra's observed from the doorway. "His pupils dilated despite the blindness. A vestigial response, or something more?"
"Let's find out," Joker replied.
What followed was methodical cruelty designed not just to cause pain, but to elicit specific responses from Matt. Joker broke Eliza's left leg first, the sickening crack of bone echoing through the room.
The second leg followed, then her right arm. Each break precisely targeted to cause maximum pain while avoiding fatal damage. Eliza's screams gradually faded to whimpers, then to an eerie silence punctuated only by ragged breathing.
Matt pulled against his chains, metal biting into flesh, blood slicking his wrists. "I'll fucking kill you for this," he promised, voice low and deadly serious. "Not just stop you. Kill you."
"Oooooo....There's the fire I remember!" Joker clapped delightedly. "The blind boy who broke my ribs and crushed my men's bones like they were made of glass. Tell me, are you angry?"
Instead of answering, Matt focused everything on the weakened chain link. Blood vessels burst in his forearms as he exerted inhuman pressure against the metal.
"I think we're approaching a breakthrough," Joker observed, returning to Eliza. "One final test should do it."
He raised a heavy wrench from the cart, tapping it thoughtfully against his palm. "You know, there's a delightful symmetry here. Your sister's spine. Your friend's skull. Poetry, really."
"D-Don't," Matt pleaded, genuine desperation cracking through in voice. "Please....PLEASE!"
"He begs!" Joker announced to Ra's. "Isn't that charming? So human, despite everything that makes him special."
Ra's didn't respond, his attention fixed on Matt with disturbing intensity.
"Now, for our grand finale," Joker continued, theatrical to the end. "A lesson in inevitability. No matter how much you try, no matter how special you think you are, you can't save everyone."
The wrench descended in slow motion. Matt heard every molecule of air it displaced, traced its trajectory with perfect clarity. Eliza's final heartbeats hammered in his ears, a desperate rhythm of fear and realization.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," Joker sang, as he swung the wrench in a deliberate arc.
"NOOOO".....
The impact shattered Eliza's skull with a wet crunch that echoed through the chamber. Brain matter spattered across the concrete. Her heartbeat stuttered, fluttered, and stopped.
Something broke inside Matthew Gordon. Not toward madness, as the Joker clearly hoped. Not toward uncontrolled rage. But toward a cold, terrible clarity that obliterated the last vestiges of his carefully constructed identity.
He had been a fool. A complete and utter fool to think he could live a normal life. That he could suppress who and what he truly was. This world, with its casual cruelty and senseless violence, had never allowed such luxury. Not in Hell's Kitchen. Not in Gotham. Not anywhere.
The realization settled over him like a shroud, smothering the last embers of hope for normalcy. In its place rose something darker, colder, more focused. The essence of what he had become in his final days as the leader of the Hand. A monster stripped of all hesitation and mercy.
As Matt fell silent, the Joker's excitement turned to confusion.
"Hello? Earth to Matty?" He waved the bloody wrench before Matt's face. "This is where you scream, threaten, or otherwise emote in an entertaining fashion."
Matt didn't move. Didn't speak. His breathing slowed to an unnatural rhythm, heart rate decreasing despite the violence he'd just witnessed.
They deserve what comes next. The guilty are irredeemable.
The voice whispered through his consciousness, familiar yet alien. Krahllak, the demon that had possessed him during his Shadowland days. But something was different. The entity wasn't controlling him as it once had. Instead, its essence seemed integrated with his own consciousness, a darkness he'd carried with him across universes.
Your power was never gone. Merely dormant. Reclaim what is yours. Make them kneel. Beg for forgiveness.
"I think you broke him," Ra's observed dryly. "A pity. I had hoped for more substantive observations."
"Nonsense!" Joker protested. "He's processing. Transforming. This is the beautiful chrysalis stage before our butterfly emerges." He prodded Matt with the bloody wrench. "Isn't that right, Matty? You're in there somewhere, becoming what you were always meant to be."
Matt remained motionless, but inside, something ancient and terrible uncoiled. His senses expanded beyond his normal capacity. He hadn't felt this way since his time wielding the power of the Beast.
"Perhaps we should move to the next phase," Ra's suggested. "My men report increased police activity in the surrounding areas. The Detective won't be far behind."
"Fine, fine," Joker grumbled. "We'll transport him to the secondary location for the real fun. You three, get him ready to move."
Three thugs approached, unlocking Matt's chains from the wall while keeping his wrists bound. They hauled him to his feet, expecting the resistance of a weakened prisoner.
Matt remained unnaturally still, head bowed, giving no indication of the storm brewing within. The men exchanged nervous glances, unnerved by his silence.
"Let's go," the lead thug growled, shoving Matt toward the door.
Joker turned to Ra's, lowering his voice. "Meet us in the main chamber. I want to conduct the next phase with proper... theatrical elements."
Ra's nodded curtly, striding from the room with the fluid grace of a man centuries younger than his actual age. The Joker followed, pausing only to cast one last gleeful look at Eliza's broken body before skipping away, humming tunelessly.
The three thugs marched Matt into the corridor, unaware they were already dead men walking.
The moment the door closed behind them, Matt struck. No warning. No hesitation. Just brutal, efficient violence.
His right hand shot up, shattering the weakened chains as if they were made of glass. Before the nearest guard could register the sound, Matt's fingers found the pressure point at the base of his skull. The man's nervous system short-circuited, blood vessels in his brain rupturing instantly. He collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The second guard managed half a scream before Matt's palm connected with his sternum, driving bone fragments into his heart. The third reached for his gun, only to find his arm bent backward at an impossible angle, joint dislocated and radius splintered through skin.
The entire encounter lasted less than four seconds.
Matt stood motionless among the fallen men, his senses expanding outward, mapping the facility in perfect detail. The building was larger than he'd initially estimated, some kind of abandoned military installation with multiple levels and numerous hallways branching like arteries from a central chamber.
And in that central chamber, he detected them. Joker's erratic heartbeat. Ra's al Ghul's controlled rhythm. Talia's presence nearby, her breathing pattern betraying tension. Deathstroke's steady pulse, unnaturally regulated by whatever enhancements flowed through his system. And others, so many others. League assassins. Mercenaries. Joker's thugs. All gathered like an army.
One hundred and eighty combatants stood between him and those responsible for Eliza's death.
He moved silently through the corridors, bare feet making no sound on the concrete floors. The first patrol he encountered, four of Deathstroke's mercenaries, died before they realized he was there. No wasted movement. No mercy. Just precision strikes to vital points that left nothing but cooling bodies in his wake.
Something had changed within him. His senses had sharpened beyond anything he'd experienced before, even in his previous life. He could perceive the electrical impulses firing in human nervous systems, could detect the subtle differences in blood flow that telegraphed movement before muscles even received the commands. The Beast's gifts, dormant since his rebirth in this world, had awakened fully.
A squad of League assassins turned a corner, spotting him instantly. Their heartbeats spiked, but their training held. They attacked as one, a coordinated assault that would have overwhelmed most opponents.
Matt was not most opponents.
He moved through them like smoke, striking with inhuman precision. The first assassin fell with a shattered spine. The second's heart stopped mid-beat from a perfectly targeted blow. The third and fourth died simultaneously as Matt swept their legs, sending them crashing to the floor with enough force to fracture their skulls against the concrete.
Blood splattered across Matt's white dress shirt, transforming it into a grotesque canvas. He paid it no mind, continuing his inexorable progress toward the central chamber.
An alarm blared suddenly, echoing through the facility. Someone had discovered the bodies.
Matt didn't alter his pace. Let them know he was coming. Let them prepare. It would make no difference.
Another group of mercenaries appeared, these heavily armed with automatic weapons. They opened fire without warning, bullets tearing through the air where Matt had stood a millisecond earlier. But he was already moving, diving beneath their line of fire, rolling across the floor, and coming up in their midst.
What followed wasn't combat in any conventional sense. It was slaughter. Matt's hands found pressure points, nerve clusters, vulnerable arteries. Men fell screaming, or silently, or begging for mercy that never came. Blood slicked the floor, making footing treacherous for anyone but him.
The voice spoke to him once more....
FORWARD!
____________________________________
In the central chamber, chaos erupted as reports filtered in.
"He's loose!" A mercenary burst through the doors, face pale with terror. "Gordon's kid, he's killing everyone in his path!"
Joker looked up from where he'd been arranging a collection of torture implements on a metal table, his painted face splitting into a delighted grin. "AHAHAHAHAHAH...Is he now? How absolutely marvelous!"
Ra's al Ghul's expression remained impassive, but his eyes narrowed slightly. "How many casualties?"
"Twenty-three confirmed dead. Another dozen critically injured. He's moving through the east corridor now."
Deathstroke's hand moved to his sword. "Impossible. The boy is resourceful, but he's just one blind teenager against trained killers."
"Apparently," Ra's observed dryly, "your assessment of his capabilities was flawed."
Talia approached her father, voice low. "The chemical contamination from the Lazarus compounds must have affected him more profoundly than we realized. Perhaps this is why you sensed something unique about him."
"Perhaps," Ra's agreed. "Or perhaps he is something else entirely." He turned to address the gathering of League assassins positioned around the chamber. "Form a perimeter. I want him alive."
Joker cackled, spinning in place with childish excitement. "This is even better than I hoped! Our little butterfly isn't just emerging, he's setting the chrysalis on fire!"
Deathstroke moved toward the main entrance, signaling his remaining mercenaries. "Reinforce the outer corridors. Use lethal force if necessary, but attempt to subdue him first. The contract specified alive."
The chamber, a vast concrete space that had once housed military vehicles, now resembled a fortress preparing for siege. League assassins positioned themselves strategically throughout, weapons ready. Joker's men clustered nervously near their boss, while Deathstroke's mercenaries established defensive positions with military precision.
One hundred and eighty fighters against a single blind teenager.
The first screams reached them minutes later. Distant at first, then closer. Always closer.
...
....
....
Matt left bloody footprints as he walked calmly down the final corridor leading to the central chamber. Bodies littered the path behind him, some moaning in agony, others silent in death. He hadn't killed indiscriminately. Those who'd surrendered or fled were merely incapacitated. But those who'd fought, those who'd chosen to stand with the monsters who murdered innocent people.. murdered...Eliza... they had received no mercy.
One hundred and twenty-seven combatants remained in the central chamber, their hearts racing with a cocktail of emotions: fear, anticipation, determination, bloodlust. They had formed a gauntlet, believing numbers and weaponry would prevail where their comrades had failed.
Matt paused at the entrance, head tilted slightly as he assessed the opposition. His bloodied dress shirt hung in tatters from his frame, revealing the lean, corded muscles beneath. His dark glasses had been lost in an earlier confrontation, exposing lifeless eyes that somehow still conveyed terrible purpose.
"He's here," someone whispered unnecessarily.
Matt stepped forward into the chamber, and the world exploded into violence.