Gotham's Southern Industrial Sector – 11:52 PM
The explosion painted the skyline in fire.
Draven's boots thundered across the half-collapsed support bridge, wind and smoke roaring past like the breath of a dying god. Every heartbeat was borrowed time.
The entire sector was a warzone.
Metal groaned beneath his feet as he sprinted toward the edge of the broken highway, Evelyn's limp form slung across his shoulder. She was bleeding—badly. A sliver of rebar had nicked her side during the blast. Her breath came in shallow, panicked gasps.
He could barely hear her over the wailing storm and the crumbling steel of Gotham's bones.
And still, underneath it all, came the sound.
That low, eerie hum.
A sound that didn't belong to nature, or machines, or even war.
It belonged to Pulse.
Draven ducked behind a twisted barrier of crushed transport vehicles, gently laying Evelyn down. She stirred, fingers twitching.
"You with me?" he asked, voice strained.
"Define… with," she rasped.
Draven tore off a piece of his cloak, pressing it against her wound. "You're not dying here."
Her eyes flickered open, searching his. "You look like hell."
"I've seen worse," he muttered, brushing dust from her face.
The barrier they crouched behind groaned under pressure—then crackled as the air around them pulsed violently, the electromagnetic field distorting.
Draven turned sharply, blades in hand.
And then Pulse stepped into view.
He didn't rush. He didn't shout. He simply stood there, surveying the battlefield he had helped create. The black armor shimmered with residual energy, each movement emitting faint blue trails of kinetic radiation. Sparks followed in his wake. His eyes—cold and synthetic—zeroed in on Evelyn.
"I did not anticipate her presence," he said, his voice like static scraping against steel. "Unexpected variables require immediate recalibration."
"You're not taking her," Draven growled.
Pulse cocked his head slightly. "Incorrect. I'm not here to take. I'm here to test. Observe. And ultimately, correct."
He raised his right arm—and the gauntlet on it began to charge.
Draven leapt forward just as Pulse unleashed a focused blast of compressed kinetic force. The shockwave ripped through their cover, obliterating the wall of crushed vehicles and launching Draven backward.
He slammed against a rusted pillar, coughing blood.
Pulse advanced, unhurried.
From the shadows, Evelyn crawled toward a comm unit, fingers trembling as she activated a distress beacon she and Draven had rigged earlier.
"Come on… someone… anyone…" she whispered.
Static. Nothing.
Pulse knelt beside her, his gauntlet twitching with charged energy. "Fascinating. You've interfaced with Halcyon signal patterns before. Your bio-electric feedback is unstable. Adaptive."
Evelyn spat blood at him. "I'm not your experiment."
Pulse stared at her, then to Draven, who was now forcing himself up with bleeding knuckles.
"Incorrect," Pulse said. "You both are."
Draven lunged again, this time throwing a reinforced shock baton—only for Pulse to catch it mid-air and crush it.
But that was the distraction.
A modified EMP grenade activated just beneath Pulse's feet—Evelyn's doing.
It detonated, sending a jolt of white light through the space and causing Pulse's systems to glitch. Sparks danced across his suit. His visor blinked rapidly.
Draven tackled him, driving a blade deep into the shoulder joint.
Pulse retaliated with a brutal backhand, slamming Draven into a steel girder.
Both combatants paused—wounded, breathing heavily.
Then—
A sonic boom echoed overhead.
A black hoverbike roared through the sky, its rider clad in scavenged gear and cybernetic armor. She descended with a sharp turn, clearing debris with twin side cannons.
Alyx Veil.
Dead to most. Alive to few. A legend whispered in Gotham's darkest places.
"Need a ride, Knight?" she called out.
Draven didn't hesitate. He grabbed Evelyn and the terrified child still hiding in the wreckage. Alyx opened the rear compartment of the hoverbike.
Pulse tried to recover, but his systems were still rebooting.
"You delay judgment," he warned.
Draven narrowed his eyes. "We rewrite it."
The hoverbike vanished into the shadows just as Pulse unleashed another wave of sonic destruction, tearing the rest of the bridge apart behind them.
Undisclosed Safehouse – 2:03 AM
The lights were dim. The rain outside poured like the city weeping.
Evelyn lay on a cot, her wound cleaned and bandaged. Her skin pale. But her chest rose and fell—alive.
Draven sat at her side, silent, fingers wrapped around hers.
She stirred slightly. "You could've left me."
"I did… once. A long time ago," he said, voice barely a whisper. "I'm not making that mistake again."
Her eyes fluttered open. "You're not as cold as you pretend to be."
He didn't answer. Instead, he brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. "You're stronger than you think."
In the shadows, Alyx watched silently from the doorway. "She's changing, you know," she said. "Whatever Halcyon did to her… they didn't finish."
Draven looked up. "Then we find out what they started. And we end it."
Alyx nodded grimly. "You'll need allies. More than just me."
"We'll find them," Draven replied. "Before Pulse does."
Meanwhile – Halcyon Observation Facility
Pulse stood inside a cold chamber, his armor recharging, surrounded by frozen bodies.
A screen flickered to life. A voice—distorted, distant—spoke.
"You failed."
Pulse didn't flinch. "No. I learned. The variable bonds with him. That is her flaw."
The screen showed an image of Evelyn… then of Draven.
Then—
Another feed.
A figure in a cell. Silent. Laughing to himself.
The Joker.
Still a pawn. Still forgotten.
But his smile had grown wider.
He whispered to no one in particular:
"It's always the noise before the silence that breaks the world."