"Monsters thrive where hope learns to whisper."
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The doctors at Gotham General said I was lucky. The claws had missed the eye by a hair, though the scar was permanent. They stitched me up, pumped me with painkillersand left me staring at the ceiling as rain tapped the window.
"King." That's what they called me on the ID I'd been found with. No surname. Just King.
The name fit like an ill-fitting crown. A title I hadn't earned.
I remembered Damian's words: Get stronger.
So I did.
Training
At first, it was pathetic. Push-ups in my tiny apartment left me trembling. Sit-ups made my ribs scream. Jogging down alleys ended with me vomiting in a gutter. Gotham wasn't kind to weakness — muggers, dealers and psychos laughed when they saw me collapse.
But every morning, I woke up and did it again.
100 push-ups. 100 sit-ups. 100 squats. 10 kilometers running. Every single day. No excuses. No heaters in winter. No air conditioning in summer and no system. Gotham's chill gnawed at my bones, its smog stung my lungs, but I pressed on.
The scars burned, a constant reminder.
Weeks bled into months.
I stopped wheezing halfway through runs. I could do the push-ups in one go. My body hardened, muscle stacked on muscle, veins crawling like lightning across my arms.
And then came the strength.
One night, cornered by Black Mask's thugs, I didn't cower. I swung once — just once and a man went flying across the alley, bones shattering on impact with a dumpster. The others froze. For the first time, it wasn't me who looked weak.
Gotham whispered about me after that. Some said a new freak was on the rise. Others thought I was just another Arkham escapee. I ignored them. I wasn't done.
The Breaking Point
Three years into training, I felt it. The ceiling of human strength shattered like glass. No weight strained me. No run exhausted me. My body thrummed like a coiled storm.
I stood on the roof of an abandoned factory, Gotham's smog swallowing the moon. The city below wheezed under its poison sky — choked, gray, lifeless.
I clenched my fist.
"Let's see." I whispered.
I threw an uppercut.
The air detonated. A thunderclap split the night as my fist carved the sky. The smog above tore apart, a jagged wound opening in the clouds. For the first time in years, Gotham's sky revealed something it had forgotten. Stars. Cold, sharp and endless.
The city went silent for a breath. Even the criminals below looked up, mouths open.
I stared at my hand, veins glowing faintly under the moonlight. My heart was steady. Calm.
I had done it. The strength of legends. The strength to end anything in one blow.
And yet…
The hole in the sky healed slowly, smog swallowing the stars again. Gotham returned to its poisoned night, uncaring.
I clenched my fist tighter. Strength isn't enough. Not here.
But it was a start.
The hole in the sky healed slowly, smog swallowing the stars again. Gotham returned to its poisoned night, uncaring.
I clenched my fist tighter. Strength isn't enough. Not here.
But it was a start.
That was when I felt it.
A sound pulsed from deep within my chest, not from lungs or throat, but from something more primal. My heartbeat thundered louder than the rain, louder than the city.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The rooftop trembled. Windows across blocks rattled in their frames. Dogs barked, sirens cut off mid-wail, and every criminal still lurking in Gotham's alleys froze.
The King Engine had awakened.
Its roar spread across Gotham like a drumbeat of war, rolling through the city's veins until even the brave felt dread coil in their stomachs.
I stood in silence, the sound enveloping everything, announcing one truth to Gotham.
The weak man was gone.
King had arrived.
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