The warehouse air was thick with dust, oil, and the scent of rusting metal. Steel beams crisscrossed the ceiling like the bones of some long-dead industrial beast. The only light came from a flickering security lamp, swinging from a broken chain.
Batman and the Black Panther stood motionless for a breath two kings of shadows, warriors trained at the highest levels of discipline. Then Panther moved.
Fast. Blindingly fast.
He surged forward, claws slashing. Batman barely blocked with his forearm guards, the impact rattling his bones. A kick to his ribs followed crack sending Batman tumbling into a stack of crates.
Panther didn't wait. He was already on him, slashing, striking, relentless.
Batman rolled to avoid a swipe that would've gutted him. He dropped a smoke bomb, vanishing into mist.
"You hide behind tricks," Panther said from the smoke, calm but sharp.
"Only when I'm buying time."
Batman triggered the explosive gel he had sprayed along the support beam behind Panther.
BOOM.
The blast sent Panther flying backward, debris collapsing in a wave. Batman emerged, launching a sonic batarang mid-stride. The screech forced even the Black Panther to stagger, his enhanced hearing overwhelmed.
Batman charged. Fist met claw.
The two collided in a flurry of strikes, blocks, counters. Panther landed two blows to Batman's torso armor cracked. Batman shocked him with electric gloves, momentarily shorting the suit's energy distribution.
Panther responded with a spinning kick that sent Batman flying into a pillar. Blood in his mouth. Breathing labored.
"Give up, Bat," T'Challa said, stepping through the rubble. "This is not your fight."
Batman responded by lobbing a freeze grenade. It exploded at Panther's feet with ice creeping up his legs, locking him down.
"Then stay out of my city."
Panther growled, slicing himself free with a pulse of violet energy. Before he could strike again
Red and blue lights painted the walls.
Sirens howled outside. GPD
Panther turned his head slightly, then back to Batman. "This isn't over."
And in a flash of movement, he leapt through a skylight, vanishing into the night.
Batman collapsed to one knee behind a stack of crates. He tapped his comm.
"Alfred," he wheezed.
"I'm here, sir," came the butler's calm voice. "You sound like you were just run over by a bullet train."
"Something like that. Turns out… the Panther still has claws."
"I trust you left an impression?"
Batman winced, pulling a shard of metal from his gauntlet. "Oh, I did. Just not sure it was a good one."
Rain slicked the skyline, thunder echoing in the distance. Batman emerged from the fire escape, cape whipping behind him as he landed on the rooftop with a grunt. His ribs throbbed. His armor was dented.
He paused for a moment, breathing hard, the wind cutting across his jaw like a blade. Then….
"Nice of you to drop in, freak."
Batman turned.
Crossbones.
Red skull patch. Tactical armor. Combat knife in one hand, knuckle-dusters on the other. A brawler with a kill streak and no sense of subtlety.
"I was hoping I'd catch you limping," Crossbones snarled, cracking his neck. "Black Mask's paying triple for your head."
Batman said nothing.
Crossbones took a step forward.
That was all he got.
Flick. Batman's gauntlet twitched and a shock charge launched from under his wrist.
CRACK. The bolt hit Crossbones square in the chest. His body convulsed, limbs locking mid-stride, eyes wide behind his helmet.
THUD. He dropped like a sandbag.
Batman stepped over him, glanced down, and tapped his comm.
"Alfred, call the cops."
Then he launched his grapnel and soared into the night.
The Batwing landed in the Batcave, and Bruce walked out, barely walking, then collapsed in his chair and threw his mask down.
"I was outclassed and outdone, and if the cops didn't arrive, I would've been killed."
Alfred's gaze didn't waver. After a long moment, he spoke quiet, but firm:
"Then thank God they did. But if you're waiting for me to tell you you're invincible, I won't. Because you're not."
He stepped forward, his voice tightening with emotion.
"You're a man, Bruce. Not a myth. And every time you walk into hell dressed like a monster, you tempt fate. I don't patch up myths. I patch up flesh. Bone. Blood. You break, you bleed. And one day, if you're not careful, you won't crawl back through that cave."
Bruce looked down, jaw clenched.
Alfred's voice softened.
"But do not mistake defeat for failure. You faced someone stronger and you're still here. That means you outlasted them. That means you learn. That's what separates you from the men you fight."
He placed a hand on Bruce's shoulder.
"You don't have to win every battle, Master Wayne. You just have to survive long enough to win the war."
Bruce looked at Alfred with a determined look and went into his Batwing, pulling out a crate.
Alfred asked, "What is this?"
Bruce opened it. "Vibranium."
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to do with it?"
Bruce looked at Alfred. "To make something to help me survive a war."
They built a new Batsuit with a titanium alloy and Vibranium. After they finished, they heard an alert go off with a flaming bat signal.
Bruce knew who it was. "Elektra."
Bruce suited up in his new suit, then decided to hop in the Batmobile and ride off, Alfred watching with a smile.
The moon hung low, casting pale silver light over the rotting wood and rusted steel of the old Chicago shipping yard. Fog curled off the river like a ghost. Batman moved like a shadow between the containers, his cape trailing behind him, weighted by rain.
She was waiting for him.
Elektra.
Perched atop a rusted crane, crimson scarf billowing behind her, twin sais gleaming in her hands like fangs. Her eyes narrowed as he approached, slow and steady. No words at first only silence, heavy and charged.
Batman stopped at the base of the crane, speaking up into the darkness.
"You trained me to survive."
Elektra dropped, landing in front of him with catlike grace.
"I trained you to win, Bruce. But you twisted it. You turned it into a shield."
Her voice was venom and heartbreak.
"You use what I taught you to save people who should be dead. You show mercy to monsters. You disgrace every blade I ever taught you to hold."
Batman didn't flinch. "Mercy isn't weakness."
Elektra's jaw tightened.
"Then why are you still breathing?"
And then she struck.
She moved like a storm fast, surgical, relentless. One sai came in low toward his ribs, the other toward his throat. Batman blocked with a reinforced gauntlet, sparks flying as steel scraped against armor.
He countered with a batarang, flung to force distance but she spun aside, closing the gap again with a roundhouse that cracked into his side.
Batman grunted, slid back, cape whipping as he rolled. He tossed a smoke bomb and the dock vanished in white mist.
Too slow.
Elektra burst through it, piercing the smoke with an upward slash. Batman ducked and countered with a shock gauntlet, hitting her square in the gut.
She screamed part pain also part fury and drove a sai into his shoulder armor. It didn't break the plating, but it threw him off balance.
They crashed into a shipping container.
Batman drove a boot into her midsection, flipping her over. She landed on her feet, spun, and kicked him across the face.
His head snapped back, blood in his mouth. He dropped to one knee.
She stood over him, sai at his throat.
"End it. Like I would."
He looked up at her defiant but unwavering.
"No."
"Why?" she screamed. "Why do you keep sparing them? Why won't you let yourself cross that line?"
Batman rose, slowly. Blood dripping from his lip, breath heavy, but gaze locked onto hers.
"Because once you cross it, there's no going back."
She trembled, every muscle coiled, fingers tightening around the hilt of her sai.
"They deserve to die, Bruce. Every last one. You know it. I see it in your eyes. You've wanted to. So do it. Kill me. I betrayed you. I hunted you. I tried to drive a blade through your heart."
Batman stepped forward, calm but firm.
"You're right. I've wanted to. I've looked monsters in the eyes and almost pulled the trigger. But I didn't. Not because they deserved mercy but because I deserve better than becoming one of them."
He let his cowl retract just enough for her to see his bruised face human, not myth.
"You trained me to fight. But I chose what I fight for."
She staggered back, suddenly small against the fog.
"Then you're weaker than I thought."
He picked up her fallen sai and handed it to her not as a weapon, but as a gesture.
"Then why are you still alive?"
Elektra turned away, vanishing into the mist without another word.
Batman stood alone beneath the broken crane, lightning flashing overhead, rain starting to fall once more.
In his ear, Alfred's voice crackled through the comm.
"Sir… are you all right?"
Batman didn't answer right away.
Finally, he muttered, "I'm still standing."