Below the Arkham Ruins – 11:03 PM
Dust swirled as Draven descended into the forgotten underbelly of Gotham. The tunnel entrance beneath Arkham Asylum had been buried for years, sealed off by concrete and bureaucratic amnesia. Now it stood open, the crude red sigil on the steel door glowing faintly, like blood pulsing in iron.
His boots echoed against the stone steps, every step downward colder than the last.
"Draven… if you're hearing this…"
Evelyn's voice, recorded in a moment of vulnerability, still echoed in his commlink. He'd played it again. And again. Her courage was iron—forged through pain. Even now, trapped within Halcyon's core, she was resisting.
That's what scared him the most.
He wasn't sure if she'd survive long enough for him to reach her.
Evelyn's Mindscape – Halcyon Neural Grid
The world was fractured code and flickering fragments—false memories, fabricated emotions, bleeding firewalls crashing against raw identity.
Evelyn stood at the center of it all, her breath ragged. Her digital avatar flickered like a candle in a hurricane. She clutched a fragment of Draven's voice—his whisper during the Ash Point escape. A memory. Not corrupted. Untouched.
"You said you weren't backup," he'd told her once. "You were right."
She closed her eyes, and that single line became her anchor. They'd tried to erase everything else—her name, her pain, her fight. But they hadn't taken him.
Not yet.
A figure emerged in the virtual mist—The Harbinger. His mask was shattered now, revealing half his face. "Still clinging to the ghost of your knight?" he taunted. "He'll die before reaching you. Or worse—he'll join me."
She gritted her teeth. "Then you haven't seen him angry."
Deep Under Arkham – Red Sigil Corridor
Draven moved like a ghost through ancient passageways chiseled by forgotten hands. Stone gave way to steel. The further he walked, the more the symbols changed—sigils blending into circuitry, into Halcyon glyphs.
He stepped into a rotunda where flickering monitors lined the walls.
Footage. Not just surveillance—memories. Evelyn's childhood. Her graduation. Her last day in the GCPD. All stored, dissected, analyzed.
And at the center?
A glowing chair. Neural Bridge 01.
She had been the first test subject.
Draven froze.
Evelyn had never told him this.
A tremor shook his fist, rage boiling behind his calm.
"She wasn't just caught in this war," he murmured. "She was the war's beginning."
Flashback: Evelyn's Memory – Age 9
A sterile room. White walls. Gentle humming. A scientist in a Halcyon badge coaxed young Evelyn to sit in a chair.
"You have a special mind, Evelyn," the woman said. "You can help fix people."
Then the electrodes came.
Then the screaming started.
Present – Halcyon Mainframe Core
Evelyn stumbled to the edge of the central node—her sanctuary, her prison. She bled from her nose, even in this mental space. The system was overriding her consciousness. Harbinger was no longer alone. Joker's code had started rewriting the very architecture of the network.
It laughed in pulses. In distortion.
"Let me in, Evie," it whispered.
"He'll fail you, like they all do."
But she clung to the audio loop of Draven's voice, and now, somehow—she heard his breath. Not a memory. Not playback.
Real. Alive.
Below Arkham – Red Sigil Core Vault
Draven stood before a vast containment cylinder. Wires, red liquid, suspended pods—four of them, each holding a mind-linked "host." And one central console broadcasting encrypted neural data.
He placed Evelyn's decoder shard into the port.
The console screamed.
Alarms blared. The entire vault surged with crimson light.
"She's fighting from inside," Malik's voice came through the comm. "You've got a five-minute window before the system fries her brain to seal her off."
"Then I'll do it in four."
He ran to the cylinder and slammed a charge against the base. Sparks flew. A guard patrol descended from above—but Draven was already mid-air, cape slicing downward as he smashed two into the floor.
Three minutes.
He tore open the panel beside Evelyn's pod.
Two.
She was inside, frozen but alive. Neural cables drilled into her spine, her fingers twitching as if typing commands no one could see.
He reached through the shield—electricity arcing into his skin.
"Stay with me," he whispered. "You don't get to leave yet."
She opened her eyes.
For a second.
Long enough to whisper: "I knew you'd come."
Halcyon Collapse Protocol – Activated
The vault began to implode. Joker's virus, sensing its prey was escaping, triggered a failsafe.
Draven grabbed Evelyn and vaulted through falling debris. Flames erupted around them as the lab began to crush itself, walls shaking, memories burning.
Malik's evac drone arrived just as they burst from the tunnel mouth.
The doors sealed behind them.
Safehouse – Hours Later
Evelyn stirred, coughing.
Draven sat beside her, bandaging her arm. He didn't speak. Not yet.
She opened one eye. "That bad, huh?"
"You always looked worse in the mornings," he replied.
She chuckled weakly. "Still not backup."
"No," he said softly. "You're the one thing I can't lose."
Their eyes met. Silence stretched. But it wasn't uncomfortable.
It was real.
Meanwhile – Gotham Dockyard
Joker watched the fire consume the vault on a screen made of broken GCPD monitors.
Harbinger stepped behind him, face half-burned, trembling.
"We lost her. She's out."
Joker tilted his head. "Not lost. Freed."
Then he grinned, wide and sharp.
"Now we see what she becomes."