"When the world forgets mercy, strength must learn to remember it."
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The rain never really fell in Gotham. It bled. Thin, oily streaks poured from the gargoyles' mouths, dripping onto alleyways already drowned in shadows.
I staggered down one of those alleys, lungs burning, the smell of copper in my throat. My reflection stared back at me in a puddle: broad face, hard eyes, the scarlet slash of blood trailing down my cheek. I didn't recognize the man looking back — a hulking figure with King's face from a manga I used to binge-read back in my old life. A joke, right? Some cosmic prank.
But the claws weren't a joke.
The thing that had lunged at me was no mugger. Too tall, too fast. Its nails gleamed like steel hooks as it barreled out of the shadows again. My shoulder screamed where it had grazed me earlier, a line of fire across my back. I wasn't fast. I wasn't trained. Not yet.
"Move, damn it!" I tried to run but my body felt sluggish. I wasn't a superhero. Just a guy trapped in Gotham, wearing someone else's skin.
The creature hissed, a mutant or some Arkham freak escapee. It leapt—
A shadow dropped between us.
Steel met claw. A flash of green, red, yellow and black. A boy, shorter than me but moving with precision I couldn't follow. A blade hummed in his hands, deflecting strike after strike. His cape snapped with each pivot.
"Pathetic." The boy spat, eyes narrowing beneath his mask. "You couldn't even dodge that?"
Robin. But not the wisecracking one. This was Damian Wayne the cold one, the one trained by assassins.
The mutant lunged again. Damian shifted low, blade cutting deep, severing tendon. The thing shrieked and collapsed into the wet asphalt. Without hesitation, Damian buried twin shuriken into its throat. Silence fell, save for the rain.
I blinked. "You— you killed—"
"It would've killed you first." Damian said flatly, wiping his blade clean on his cape. His eyes flicked over me, assessing. "You're bleeding."
I touched my face. My hand came away red. The left eye. The claws had slashed across it, missing the eyeball but carving three wicked lines. A scar that would never fade.
My knees buckled. Damian caught me before I hit the ground. For someone so small, his grip was iron.
"Why save me?" I rasped.
"Because Gotham doesn't need another corpse cluttering its streets." Damian replied. "And… because you don't look weak. Not completely."
There was something in his voice — not kindness, not yet. A challenge.
As my vision blurred, I clung to that spark. In another world, King was feared without lifting a finger. Here, I was nothing. But I could change that.
The scar burned as I blacked out, Damian's voice echoing like a vow.
"Get stronger or next time, you won't be worth saving."
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