"Silence on a journey speaks louder than confession at its end."
---
The departure for the journey
The hangar of Wayne Enterprises slept under the dim light of dawn. The air hummed faintly with the echo of turbines. Alfred, as always, was already waiting beside the sleek black Wayne jet — its surface gleaming like liquid shadow under the hangar lamps.
He checked the flight systems one final time, his movements precise, calm, deliberate.
Damian approached first, his hood drawn low. Behind him walked Nika — Pulseheart now — her silver coffin clips catching the faint light and then Maya Ducard, her posture a blade's edge, every movement controlled but shimmering with tension.
Alfred looked up and smiled softly. "Your flight has been set to autopilot. Coordinates entered. Fuel topped off. And yes, Master Damian, I packed extra rations — no complaints about lack of food this time."
Damian allowed himself a small, almost imperceptible smile. "Thank you, Pennyworth."
Alfred's eyes softened. "Do try to come back with fewer bullet holes than last time, Master Damian."
Nika chuckled, glancing toward the jet. "No promises."
Maya said nothing. She simply boarded, her eyes scanning every corner like a soldier entering foreign territory.
As the hatch closed and the engines purred to life, Alfred stood alone in the hangar, watching the vessel rise into the bleeding light of dawn.
"Godspeed." Alfred murmured to the disappearing speck of metal and memory.
The Sky Between Them
The hum of the engines filled the cabin — steady, rhythmic, almost hypnotic.
None of them spoke for the first half hour. The silence was thick enough to cut with a blade.
Maya sat near the window, staring into the endless blue-gray expanse of the sky.
Damian sat across from her, his arms folded, his expression unreadable.
Nika sat between them, legs crossed, eyes darting between the two like a referee no one asked for.
Finally, she sighed — a long, theatrical sigh that shattered the tension.
"Okay, this silence is killing me." She said. "Someone talk before I start humming Soviet marching songs again."
Maya blinked, caught off guard. "You… sing Soviet songs?"
Nika smirked. "Only the cheerful ones about tanks and heartbreak. Keeps me centered."
That earned her the smallest hint of a smirk from Maya.
"So," Nika leaned forward, elbows on knees, "what was your dad like? Henri Ducard, right?"
Maya hesitated. "Morgan Ducard." she corrected softly. "Henri was my grandfather."
Nika's eyes widened. "Ah, sorry."
"He was… everything to me," Maya began, her voice low but steady. "He trained me since I could walk. Said the world didn't deserve mercy — that compassion was a weakness."
She stared out the window again. "And I believed him. Because he was my father. But sometimes…" She paused, her expression softening.
"…sometimes I'd hear a woman's voice in my head. Not a hallucination — just… something. Like a whisper that said I was more than a weapon. I think it was my mother's voice. I never knew her."
The words hung heavy in the cabin.
Nika's tone turned gentler. "You must've felt alone."
Maya nodded once. "Still do, most days."
Nika looked down at her hands. "Yeah. I get that."
She took a breath and looked up. "When I first met Damian — it was during the Lazarus Tournament. I was just Flatline back then, obsessed with death, thinking power and pain made me whole. I killed because that's what I was trained to do. But after King… after he tore the world open and made me see…"
Her voice trailed for a moment, soft as smoke.
"He told me something I didn't want to hear: that death doesn't define you. What you do after it does. And somehow, Damian didn't give up on me. He helped me face my parents and mend the broken bridges of our family. He gave me a chance to stop running."
Damian said nothing, but his gaze softened slightly.
Maya studied Nika with quiet curiosity — the kind that comes from recognizing a mirror in someone else's scars.
"You talk about him like he saved you." Maya said quietly.
Nika smiled faintly. "He did. Just not in the way I expected."
The hum of the engines deepened as the jet began its descent. The automated voice crackled through the cabin:
"Destination reached: Subaqueous Vault. Prepare for descent."
Damian stood, tightening his gloves. His tone was calm but weighted.
"We're here."
Nika and Maya exchanged a glance.
Maya asked, "This place… what is it?"
Damian looked toward the hatch as the ocean spread beneath them like an abyss.
"One of the places where my sins sleep."
The jet angled downward, slicing through clouds toward the restless sea.
Descent
The ocean swallowed them in silence. The world outside turned from blue to black as the jet entered stealth submersion mode.
Through the glass panels, flickers of light — bioluminescent fish, shifting shadows — ghosted by like wandering spirits.
Nika pressed her hand against the glass. "Creepy… but beautiful."
Maya whispered, "Like most truths."
Damian keyed a sequence into the control panel. In the distance, lights shimmered — the faint outline of an abandoned submarine, half-buried in coral and rust.
"Vault Seven." Damian said quietly. "Where I kept trophies from the Year of Blood. And later the names I swore I'd never forget."
The jet's floodlights illuminated the structure — a silent grave of steel.
Maya exhaled slowly. "Then this is where it begins."
Damian nodded once. "This is where it all begins."
---
Read 66 chapters ahead on P.A.T.R.E.O.N
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