The first patrol cars arrived expecting another violent disturbance.
Dispatch had reported possible armed intruders at a downtown office building owned by Gerald Vane Holdings. Initial callers mentioned gunshots, masked men, and screaming somewhere inside the structure. By Gotham standards, that barely qualified as unusual anymore.
Officer Rick Morales stepped out of the cruiser already tired.
Rainwater dripped from the edge of his cap as he looked up toward the towering office building. The streets outside were eerily quiet for a place supposedly under attack. No fleeing crowds. No active shooters. No visible damage from the exterior.
"That's weird," his partner muttered beside him.
Rick nodded slowly. Usually scenes like this were loud and far too chaotic. Sirens mixed with civilians yelling and security screaming over radios.
Instead—The building felt dead.
The lobby doors were unlocked when they entered. Inside, the marble floor reflected the flashing red-and-blue lights bleeding through the front windows. A receptionist sat bound beside her desk, frightened but unharmed.
"Oh thank God," she breathed the second she saw uniforms. "He's gone."
Rick frowned immediately. "Who's gone?"
The woman swallowed hard, "Batman."
That word alone changed the mood instantly. Rick exchanged a look with his partner before unholstering his weapon fully.
"Great," the other officer muttered quietly. "One of those nights."
Security personnel were found unconscious throughout the building as they moved deeper inside. None dead. Most restrained or laid out carefully against walls with broken bones and bruises that looked brutal even by Gotham standards.
The officers followed the trail downward.
Eventually one of the detectives accompanying them discovered the hidden access behind a secured office wall. The moment the doors opened, music drifted faintly upward from below.
Slow jazz.
Rick looked toward the others uneasily before pressing forwards. When the doors finally opened at the basement level, every officer inside froze.
The underground club looked like something out of another world.
Rich carpet, hanging chandeliers and poker tables.
An enormous private bar stocked with liquor that probably cost more than Rick's yearly salary.
And everywhere—People.
Wealthy men and women sat zip-tied against walls or restrained beside overturned furniture, many still wearing expensive suits and evening dresses. Some looked furious. Others looked terrified. A few appeared more concerned about being recognized than arrested.
Scattered across the tables and floor nearby sat mountains of evidence.
Drugs, Ledgers, and Hard drives.
Stacks of photographs, Financial records, Recording equipment.
One officer slowly lowered his weapon, staring in disbelief.
"What the hell is this place?"
Nobody answered immediately.
Rick moved slowly through the room, his expression growing darker with every piece of evidence he saw. Hidden cameras were mounted throughout the walls and ceiling. File folders contained detailed profiles on judges, politicians, business executives, and socialites from across Gotham.
Blackmail, and there was enough of it to bury a lot of rich men and women.
"Jesus Christ," one detective whispered.
A wealthy man sitting against the poker table immediately pointed toward the officers. "You need to uncuff me right now," he snapped. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
Rick ignored him entirely.
That only made the man angrier.
"This is illegal! Batman assaulted us! I want my lawyer called immediately!"
Another officer walked toward Rick slowly, eyes wide with panic as he looked around the room.
"Fuck…" he muttered under his breath. "What do we do, Rick?"
Rick stared at the bound socialites surrounding them.
Recognizable faces.
People connected to city government.
Corporate executives.
Donors.
People powerful enough to ruin careers with phone calls.
Then he looked back toward the mountain of evidence Batman had left behind.
Finally he sighed heavily.
"Call for backup," he said. "Lots of it."
The younger officer hesitated nervously. "Who should I call?"
"I want everybody," Rick replied immediately. "Major Crimes. Internal Affairs. The damn commissioner if he's awake." He rubbed at his forehead already feeling the headache forming. "Because I ain't dealing with this shit alone."
Across the room, another detective slowly opened one of the recovered ledgers.
His face went pale almost instantly.
"Oh," he whispered.
Rick looked toward him sharply. "What?"
The detective swallowed hard before turning the book slightly so the others could see the names inside.
Several officers recognized them immediately.
City council members.
Judges.
Wealthy donors.
Even a deputy.
Silence settled heavily across the underground club.
Then one officer muttered the thought everyone else was already having.
"Batman just dropped a bomb on us. We are so fucked."
***
Kane stood alone in his office overlooking Gotham, though the skyline beyond the glass barely registered in his mind anymore. The city lights blurred together into a haze of irritation and exhaustion as he stared down at the phone clenched tightly in his hand.
Anger seemed to radiate off him in waves.
His desk had become a battlefield over the course of the night. Papers lay scattered across polished wood, several reports half-crumpled where he had discarded them in frustration. An expensive bottle of bourbon rested open nearby beside an untouched glass. He had poured the drink nearly an hour ago and never once thought to take a sip.
He looked exhausted.
Mentally worn thin in a way that only came when too many failures collided too quickly for damage control to keep pace.
Four Court members dead.
Batman dismantling one of their most profitable blackmail operations.
Mercenary teams disappearing.
The gangs refusing to spiral into chaos the way they were supposed to.
And Maria standing at the center of every meeting questioning him more openly each time things went wrong.
Kane's finger tapped slowly against the desk before he finally shut his eyes and inhaled deeply.
Once.
Twice.
The transformation was immediate.
When his eyes reopened, most of the visible fury had vanished beneath the mask of composure he had spent decades perfecting. Only the tightness in his jaw betrayed how close he remained to losing control entirely.
He lowered himself into the chair and dialed a number from memory.
The line connected quickly.
"What can I help you with, sir?" a voice asked from the other end.
"We need to call off the plans for tomorrow night."
The silence that followed stretched several seconds longer than Kane appreciated.
Finally the man spoke again, more cautiously this time.
"Sir… that's going to be difficult. The teams were already paid, and communications went dark as planned after deployment." A pause followed. "Why the sudden change?"
Kane grimaced and leaned back heavily into the chair.
"Because overnight," he said flatly, "four Court members were brutally killed in what can only be interpreted as Escabedo retaliation."
Even saying it aloud irritated him.
The gangs were never supposed to retaliate this effectively. They were supposed to panic. Lash out blindly. Tear themselves apart while the Court quietly tightened control from the shadows.
Instead the situation kept spiraling in directions he couldn't fully predict anymore.
"And while that was happening," Kane continued bitterly, "I spent half the night reassuring hysterical families that their relatives would be released by morning because Batman decided to dismantle one of our most successful information grids."
The man on the other end stayed silent for a moment.
"Well… damn."
Kane laughed once without humor.
"Exactly."
He rubbed hard at his temple, trying unsuccessfully to ease the pressure building behind his eyes.
"I already handled the newspapers," he continued. "The arrests won't dominate headlines for long. Money still works, thankfully." His expression darkened further. "But we cannot move against Maria now. If she dies immediately after all this, suspicion will fall directly onto us."
"You think the others are already leaning that way?" the man asked carefully.
"I know they are," Kane replied coldly. "Maria has spent the last several meetings positioning herself against me at every opportunity. Questioning operations. Questioning my judgment. Questioning the rat narrative." His fingers tightened again around the phone. "Now Clemmons is dead and our infrastructure is collapsing overnight. She'll use this."
The man on the line exhaled quietly. "So we pivot."
"We have to," Kane snapped. "Batman is closing in. The gangs are suddenly cooperating instead of fighting. If we keep operating like nothing changed, we'll lose control entirely."
For a few moments only the faint sound of breathing passed through the phone.
Finally the man spoke again.
"Well… I can try reaching the team we hired. Maybe they haven't moved on the hit yet. If they already started positioning, we can still salvage this." His voice lowered slightly. "If Maria dies now, we pin it on the gangs. Especially after what's already happened tonight."
Kane frowned immediately and shook his head despite the man being unable to see it.
"It will fool some people," he admitted. "But not all."
His gaze drifted toward the city outside again.
"These people," he said bitterly, "kill in recognizable ways. The gangs want credit for violence. Fear matters to them. Reputation matters." He tapped a finger slowly against the desk again. "We didn't include anything like that in our instructions."
The silence afterward carried an uncomfortable understanding. Then the man finally asked the question both of them already knew the answer to.
"So what do we do?"
Kane's expression hardened completely.
"We burn them."
The words came without hesitation.
"If the team surfaces again, they're liabilities now. Loose ends." His voice lowered dangerously. "You'll receive an organization-wide message shortly."
Before the man could respond, Kane ended the call.
The office fell silent again.
For several seconds he simply sat there staring blankly at the desk while stress pounded behind his eyes like a physical thing.
Everything was slipping.
And for the first time in years—Kane could feel genuine fear beginning to creep in beneath the anger.
***
Night pressed heavily against Gotham as rain hammered the windows of the private hospital tower overlooking the financial district. The building catered exclusively to the city's elite. Politicians recovered here after surgeries. CEOs rented entire wings for privacy. Old Gotham families paid obscene amounts of money to ensure they never had to share a hallway with ordinary citizens.
The upper recovery floors were quiet at this hour.
Soft lighting glowed along polished hallways while nurses moved carefully between rooms trying not to disturb sleeping patients. Security remained visible at every major intersection, though recent events throughout Gotham had made even the armed guards seem more tense than usual.
Maria sat beside her husband's hospital bed staring blankly at paperwork she hadn't truly read in nearly twenty minutes. A cold cup of coffee rested near her elbow while financial reports and Court correspondence lay spread across a nearby table. Her husband slept soundly beneath the blankets, recovering from surgery that had left him bedridden for the past week.
Normally Maria would have returned home hours ago.
But Gotham no longer felt normal.
The Court no longer felt stable.
And after the arguments at the last meeting, part of her no longer trusted the people she had spent years working beside.
Several floors below, the first security guard died quietly.
The side entrance opened without force as six armed figures slipped into the hospital wearing dark tactical clothing hidden beneath rain-soaked jackets. Their movements immediately gave away professionalism. These were not gang members or desperate criminals. They communicated through hand signs, spread through the corridors with practiced spacing, and carried suppressed weapons already raised as they entered the building.
One of the guards near the service hallway barely had time to look up from his phone before a suppressed shot punched through his forehead.
His body collapsed soundlessly.
The team moved past him without hesitation.
Further inside, a nurse turned the corner carrying medical supplies and froze at the sight of armed strangers moving through the hallway toward her. For a moment she simply stood there in confusion, trying to process what she was seeing.
One of the mercenaries raised his weapon immediately. The suppressed crack sounded almost harmless.
The nurse collapsed against the wall, blood soaking through her uniform as supplies scattered across the polished floor.
The team continued deeper into the hospital.
They moved efficiently from checkpoint to checkpoint taking out security and staff before alarms could spread. A janitor pushing a cart died near the stairwell. Another guard disappeared while trying to radio for backup. Anyone who crossed paths with the attackers was removed quickly and professionally.
On the sixth floor, one of the overnight doctors finally noticed something was wrong.
Several security feeds had abruptly gone dark at once. At first he assumed it was another technical issue until he noticed blood smeared across the elevator entrance on one of the remaining monitors.
Fear hit him instantly.
The doctor rushed back toward the nurses station and slammed his hand against the emergency alarm.
A shrill warning siren erupted throughout the hospital.
By then it was already too late. The attackers were ascending toward the private recovery wing.
Maria shot upright the instant the alarms began screaming through the building. Her guards reacted immediately, drawing weapons while speaking rapidly into earpieces trying unsuccessfully to contact lower security.
"No response downstairs," one of them barked. "Lock the floor down now."
Maria felt genuine panic begin creeping into her chest as distant gunfire echoed faintly from somewhere below them. The sounds were muted by suppressors, but years around Gotham's elite had taught her exactly what gunfire sounded like.
One of her guards turned sharply toward her.
"Mrs. Powers, we need to move immediately."
Before she could answer, violence exploded in the hallway outside.
Gunfire erupted. Men shouted.
Something slammed heavily against the outer wall hard enough to shake the room.
Then the suite doors burst inward.
Armed men flooded through the entrance firing immediately. Muzzle flashes illuminated the hospital room in violent bursts while rounds tore through furniture and shattered medical equipment. Maria screamed and dropped beside her husband's bed as her guards returned fire desperately across the suite.
One guard took multiple rounds center mass and collapsed backward into the wall.
Another managed to kill one of the attackers before bullets ripped through his throat.
The mercenaries pushed aggressively into the room with frightening discipline. They moved like trained military professionals clearing angles and advancing under covering fire while Maria's remaining defenders were steadily overwhelmed.
For several horrifying seconds, Maria became certain she was about to die.
Then one of the attackers nearest the doorway suddenly jerked violently backward.
A sword burst through his chest.
The mercenary stared downward in stunned disbelief at the blood-covered blades protruding from his body before he was ripped backward into the hallway.
Screaming followed immediately after.
Another attacker spun toward the sound only for something pale and fast to descend from the ceiling onto him. The Talon hit with monstrous force, smashing the mercenary flat against the floor before driving curved blades repeatedly into his face and throat. Blood sprayed across tile and walls as the man tried uselessly to fight the creature off.
Panic spread through the attackers instantly.
"What the fuck is that?!"
The answer came from the shattered hospital windows.
Glass exploded inward as another Talon crashed through from outside, tackling one of the mercenaries hard enough to carry both men across the room. The attacker managed to fire several rounds point blank into the creature's torso.
The Talon ignored them completely.
It drove its blades through his armor and tore into him with horrifying brutality.
The hallway outside descended into absolute slaughter.
Talons moved across walls and ceilings with unnatural speed, descending upon the mercenaries from impossible angles. One attacker emptied nearly an entire magazine into a charging Talon only for the creature to continue sprinting directly through the gunfire before tearing his throat open with a savage swipe.
Another mercenary stumbled backward trying desperately to reload while staring upward at a Talon crawling across the ceiling toward him like some monstrous insect. The creature dropped directly onto him a second later, driving both of them violently to the floor before its claws punched through his tactical vest.
The remaining attackers broke almost immediately afterward.
Some tried running.
Others simply panicked.
None escaped.
Maria remained crouched beside the hospital bed frozen in horror as the sounds of killing echoed throughout the recovery wing. The Talons were not protecting her carefully or strategically.
They were exterminating threats.
Within less than a minute the gunfire stopped.
The emergency alarms continued screaming through the building while blood pooled across polished floors and shattered glass crunched beneath slow approaching footsteps.
One of the Talons appeared in the ruined doorway.
Its pale expression remained completely emotionless as dark blood dripped from the metal claws attached to its hands. The creature stared silently into the room for several long seconds before finally turning away and disappearing back into the hallway.
Maria silently thought, what would have happened if Kane didn't announce he was placing talons to protect higher up court members.
__
A/N:I feel bad because this arc has been going on forever it feels like. Truth is I didn't think it would be this long at all. I somehow overestimated and underestimated including the court into this at the same time. As I have said in some replies the next arc is a lot broader in scope (we will see more outside Gotham.) I'll talk more about that in a future authors note. Just wanted to say sorry if it feels slow.