Ash Point was never meant to be seen.
Tucked beyond the derelict rail lines and surrounded by chemical runoff and slums too broken to complain, it was a black site masquerading as a water treatment plant. But tonight, the truth would be peeled open.
Draven crouched atop a rusting freight crane, watching the facility from above as searchlights swept the grounds. The hum of generators echoed through the skeletal yard. Selene sat beside him, loading a fresh clip into her pistol.
"You sure this is the place?" she whispered.
"I decrypted the last 17 logs. Grieves, Falcone, even remnants of Black Hollow—they all converge here," Draven replied. "This is where they buried Project Halcyon."
Selene scanned the area. "What do we do when we find it?"
Draven's voice was low, certain.
"Expose it. Burn it. Bury the Ash Circle in the ashes of their own sins."
A sudden metallic whine sounded. Behind them, Commissioner Gordon climbed onto the platform, flanked by a few loyal officers in unmarked gear.
"We go in clean," Gordon said. "Broadcast the evidence. If we just blow it up, they'll say it was sabotage."
Draven handed him a drive.
"Then record everything. But don't get in the way."
Inside Ash Point.
Guards in black armor patrolled the corridors. Men in lab coats whispered into radios. Beneath the façade of a utility plant lay hallways with stained tiles, padded cells, and half-finished blueprints for neural reprogramming devices.
In the heart of the compound—Room Theta—dozens of unconscious test subjects floated in tanks of green liquid. Tattooed numbers covered their skin. Burn scars across their chests bore the same brand: Ω.
A scientist turned in panic as alarms blared.
"They're here."
The breach was brutal.
Draven crashed through the south gate using a modified battering ram truck. The explosion hurled steel and smoke in every direction.
Selene dropped three snipers before they could radio for backup.
Gordon's team split off to retrieve evidence, planting surveillance beacons and hardwiring the server rooms.
Draven went deeper.
Room after room fell behind him—his fists crushing windpipes, his blade tearing through armored limbs. He didn't stop. The facility was a maze of horrors. Incinerators that never stopped burning. Echoes of screams recorded and played back through the air ducts to disorient prisoners. An entire chamber of infant incubators—empty.
Then he reached Room Theta.
And froze.
The bodies inside the tanks weren't just prisoners—they were enhanced. Subjects fused with tech, bone reinforced with carbon, nerves wired for override.
And in the control booth, watching calmly with bloodied gloves, stood Dr. Elias Crome—one of Halcyon's original architects.
"I always wondered when you'd come," Crome said. "They said you were a myth. But no… you're very real."
Draven stepped forward, eyes burning. "You built this?"
"I perfected it," Crome replied. "Halcyon wasn't just about mind control. It was about engineering obedience. Loyalty at the genetic level."
Draven lunged.
Crome pressed a button.
The tanks exploded.
A new enemy emerged—Subject 09, a twisted experiment resembling a man only by shape. Its voice crackled through torn vocal cords.
"Kill…"
Draven was thrown across the room.
Selene arrived just in time, lighting the room with bullets that barely slowed Subject 09 down. The creature tore through steel walls like cardboard. Draven rolled, landed on his feet, and slammed a pressure detonator beneath its ribs.
Boom!
The monster screamed. Still moved.
Only when Selene vaulted off a railing and fired a bolt into its exposed spine did it finally drop.
Draven, bloodied, approached Crome again.
This time, the doctor didn't run.
"You think this ends here?" Crome sneered. "The Ash Circle has layers. Even in death, we multiply."
Draven raised his weapon. "Then I'll bury every layer."
One shot. Crome collapsed.
Behind him, alarms triggered a self-destruct countdown.
Meanwhile…
In a hidden studio beneath the ruins of Gotham Theatre, Joker finished recording a video message. He sat behind a children's puppet stage, lit by a single flickering bulb. Beside him, two of his new disciples wore severed GCPD badges as necklaces.
He held a marionette dressed like Draven in one hand… and one resembling Gordon in the other.
He made them dance.
"Gotham's losing her mind," Joker said to the camera, smiling wide. "And I'm just here to help her find it."
He pressed SEND.
The video went live on every screen in Gotham—hacked into news broadcasts, phone alerts, highway billboards.
"When the masks fall, who's the real villain?"
The city screamed.
Outside Ash Point.
The facility imploded, fire consuming the sky.
Gordon dragged the drive from the wreckage. "We got it," he rasped. "Everything. Names, locations, blueprints."
Selene limped out with Draven, her arm bleeding, eyes wild.
They watched as flames lit the night sky—fire alarms echoing for miles.
Draven said nothing.
He didn't have to.
Tonight, Gotham had witnessed war. And it had chosen sides.
As the three escaped into the shadows, helicopters buzzed overhead. The media would spin the story, but not fast enough. Gordon had already begun uploading the files to a secure feed, broadcast live to trusted underground networks.
Below the city, in the sewers and forgotten tunnels, graffiti spread—a bat wreathed in flame.
People whispered.
A rebellion was forming.
And Joker, watching it all from his crumbling sanctuary, whispered one word as he placed the finishing touch on a chessboard littered with pieces shaped like Gotham's elite.
"Check."