Batman had seen alien invasions before.
That was the first problem.
The second problem was that the anomaly in New York did not behave like an alien invasion.
It behaved like contamination.
Silent.
Adaptive.
Emotionally reactive.
And somehow—
Hungry.
High above Gotham, inside the cave beneath Wayne Manor, holographic displays rotated slowly through darkness while fragmented dimensional readings crawled across multiple screens.
Red alerts pulsed quietly across the Batcomputer.
UNKNOWN SYMBIOTIC SIGNATURE DETECTED
MULTIVERSAL RESONANCE ACTIVE
CROSS-DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY: GROWING
Batman stood motionless before the central monitor.
Cape still.
Expression unreadable.
Behind him, Alfred Pennyworth calmly placed a cup of tea beside the console.
“You’ve been staring at those readings for three hours, sir.”
Batman didn’t look away from the screen.
“The energy pattern changed again.”
“That would explain the concerning amount of property damage in Manhattan.”
A blurry surveillance image rotated slowly on the monitor.
A young woman standing beneath neon rain.
Black tendrils extending from her arm like living shadows.
Eyes glowing faintly silver.
Evelyn Carter.
Beside her appeared another image.
A fragmented dimensional silhouette captured during the apartment breach.
Broad shoulders.
Cape.
White lenses.
A reflection from another world.
Batman zoomed further inward.
Not on Eve.
On the symbiote.
The substance covering her body wasn’t identical to any recorded version of Venom.
Its cellular reactions were different.
Too synchronized.
Too emotionally integrated.
Almost as if—
“It’s evolving alongside her,” Alfred observed quietly.
Batman finally spoke.
“Yes.”
That single word carried weight.
Concern.
Because most symbiotes adapted physically.
This one adapted psychologically.
Which made it unpredictable.
And unpredictable things crossing universes tended to become catastrophes.
The Batcomputer emitted another soft tone.
A new scan appeared across the screen.
Multiple mechanical entities moving through Manhattan rooftops.
The hunter drones.
Batman enlarged the footage.
Smooth black metallic bodies.
Energy signatures not native to either universe.
Tracking patterns focused on Eve’s movements.
“Interdimensional retrieval units?” Alfred asked.
Batman’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“No.”
Another image appeared.
A damaged drone recovered near Queens after Spider-Man’s earlier attack.
Its internal systems contained impossible architecture.
Not built.
Grown.
Batman finally reached one conclusion.
“They were designed specifically to hunt symbiotes.”
Silence settled briefly through the cave.
Then Alfred spoke carefully.
“And the girl?”
Batman stared at Eve’s image again.
“She’s the variable.”
Not the source.
Not the invasion.
The variable.
A living convergence point between two unstable systems.
Human emotion.
Symbiotic evolution.
And now—
Dimensional fracture exposure.
Which meant things could escalate very quickly.
Batman activated another screen.
Spider-Man’s profile appeared briefly.
Young.
Reactive.
Morally driven.
Already investigating the anomaly independently.
Useful.
But emotionally impulsive.
Unlike Batman.
He zoomed back toward the apartment footage from earlier.
Eve laughing faintly beside the mutant girl.
Body language relaxed.
Guard lowered.
The symbiote’s aggression levels reduced during close emotional contact.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Alfred noticed it too.
“The creature stabilizes around emotional intimacy.”
Batman nodded once.
“Attachment regulates it.”
“Then emotionally isolating her would likely worsen the situation.”
“Yes.”
Another silence followed.
Then Alfred gave him a very specific look.
“The expression you currently possess suggests you’re about to monitor a traumatized twenty-year-old through illegal satellite surveillance.”
Batman remained perfectly serious.
“I already am.”
“Of course.”
Back in New York—
Eve could not stop thinking about the eyes.
White.
Emotionless.
Watching her through fractured reality.
Batman hadn’t said anything.
Hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t threatened her.
But somehow that made the encounter worse.
Because the look in those eyes wasn’t confusion.
It was assessment.
Like she’d already been categorized.
Nyx remained unusually tense beneath her skin.
“He is dangerous.”
“You think?”
“He observed us for less than two seconds and immediately analyzed synchronization patterns.”
Eve sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
The mutant girl sat nearby flipping through one of Eve’s college textbooks with visible confusion.
“You highlighted three pages,” she said.
“I was going to study eventually.”
“There are doodles in the margins.”
“They’re emotional support doodles.”
Nyx interrupted:
“One appears to be Spider-Man being punched into traffic.”
“He started it.”
The girl smiled faintly.
Eve immediately forgot what they were discussing.
Again.
This was becoming a serious issue.
The mutant girl closed the textbook slowly.
“You’re distracted.”
“You watched Batman appear through a hole in reality tonight.”
“Fair.”
Eve rubbed both hands down her face.
Her apartment still smelled faintly like ozone from the dimensional distortion earlier.
Nyx hadn’t relaxed once since then.
Neither had she.
Every sound outside now felt sharper.
Every rooftop movement suspicious.
The hunters were still out there somewhere.
And now apparently Batman was observing her from another universe like an emotionally unavailable cryptid.
Fantastic.
The girl leaned back against the wall beside the bed.
“You’re thinking too loudly again.”
Eve blinked.
“…That’s not a real thing.”
“It is with you.”
Nyx agreed immediately.
“She spirals internally with impressive efficiency.”
“Thank you both for bullying me.”
“We are supporting you,” Nyx replied.
“That sounded sarcastic.”
“I learned from you.”
The mutant girl laughed softly again.
Eve’s nervous system betrayed her instantly.
Nyx noticed.
Of course he did.
“You continue reacting to her vocalizations.”
“She laughed.”
“You respond as though exposed to mating pheromones.”
Eve grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it.
The girl raised an eyebrow.
“…Should I be concerned?”
“Yes,” Eve muttered into the pillow.
“No,” Nyx answered simultaneously.
A pause.
Then:
“She is structurally fragile but emotionally tolerable.”
The room fell silent.
Eve slowly lowered the pillow.
“…Nyx.”
“What?”
“That may somehow be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about another person.”
“I am adapting.”
The mutant girl looked genuinely fascinated now.
“You really are changing.”
Nyx became quiet.
Not defensive.
Thoughtful.
Finally he answered:
“Yes.”
That single word shifted the atmosphere slightly.
Because Eve felt it too.
The difference.
At first Nyx had been instinct.
Violence.
Survival hunger wrapped in personality.
Now—
Now he hesitated sometimes.
Observed things quietly.
Reacted emotionally even while pretending otherwise.
And most concerning of all—
He cared.
Not just about survival.
About her.
About the girl sitting beside them.
That realization lingered heavily in Eve’s chest.
The mutant girl studied her carefully.
“What does it feel like?”
Eve looked up.
“The bond.”
Silence.
How could she even explain it?
Nyx answered first.
“Like sharing a nervous system with an unstable disaster.”
“Rude.”
“You kicked a vending machine yesterday.”
“It stole my chips.”
The girl smiled again.
Dangerous.
Eve forced herself to focus.
“It’s…” She hesitated.
“Imagine someone constantly existing at the edge of your thoughts.
Not hearing voices exactly.
More like… feeling another person breathing inside your instincts.”
The girl listened carefully.
Eve continued quietly.
“At first I hated it.”
Nyx stayed silent.
“But now…” Eve swallowed slightly.
“Sometimes I can’t tell where my emotions end and his start.”
The confession settled heavily between them.
The mutant girl’s expression softened slightly.
“Does that scare you?”
Yes.
Terrifyingly.
Because Eve no longer knew if Nyx was changing her—
Or if she was changing him.
Before she could answer—
Nyx suddenly reacted violently.
“Movement.”
Eve stood instantly.
The window rattled softly.
Not from wind.
Impact.
Something had landed outside.
The mutant girl rose too, tension snapping immediately into her posture.
Eve crossed toward the fire escape carefully.
Rain poured beyond the glass.
Neon reflections bled across wet metal.
Empty.
Then—
A shape unfolded from the darkness above.
A drone.
Black metallic limbs clinging upside down to the fire escape framework like a mechanical insect.
Its crimson optic locked directly onto Eve.
TARGET CONFIRMED
The apartment lights died instantly.
“Aw, come ON,” Eve groaned.
The drone attacked immediately.
The window exploded inward.
Glass scattered across the room.
The mutant girl ducked instantly while Eve transformed on reflex.
Black armor surged across her body in violent waves.
Tendrils snapped outward.
The drone fired first.
Blue energy screamed across the apartment.
Eve dodged sideways barely in time as the wall behind her detonated apart.
Nyx snarled through her nervous system.
“ELIMINATE.”
Tendrils launched across the room.
The drone moved unnaturally fast, limbs folding mechanically as it dodged across the ceiling.
The mutant girl raised one hand sharply—
Gravity twisted.
The drone slammed violently downward into the floor.
Eve blinked.
“…Okay that’s HOT—”
Another energy blast nearly removed her head.
She retaliated instantly.
A blade formed from her right arm and sliced through the drone’s weapon system in one motion.
Metal screamed apart.
But the machine kept moving.
No hesitation.
No pain response.
Its damaged optic flickered red.
ANOMALY RESISTANCE CONFIRMED
BEGINNING CAPTURE PROTOCOL
Multiple red lights suddenly appeared outside the apartment building.
Eve froze.
“…Oh that’s bad.”
Nyx’s voice dropped dangerously low.
“They found the nest.”
Three more drones climbed across nearby rooftops.
Then six.
Then ten.
The mutant girl stared through the shattered window.
“That’s not normal.”
“In this city?!” Eve shouted while dodging another plasma shot.
The apartment wall exploded beside her.
The drone lunged.
Eve caught it midair.
Nyx erupted violently through her arms.
Black biomass crushed inward around the machine.
Metal bent.
Cracked.
Collapsed.
The drone emitted one final distorted signal.
CONVERGENCE ACTIVE
Then self-destructed.
The explosion launched Eve backward across the room.
She crashed hard into the kitchen counter.
Pain burst across her ribs instantly.
The mutant girl ran toward her immediately.
“Eve!”
“I’m okay,” Eve lied automatically.
Nyx corrected:
“She is not.”
The girl grabbed her arm carefully.
“You’re bleeding.”
Eve looked down.
Black symbiotic matter shifted around a deep cut across her side.
Healing.
Slowly.
But not instantly anymore.
That realization unsettled Nyx immediately.
“Our regeneration efficiency decreased.”
“WHY?”
No answer came.
Outside—
Something moved above the rooftops.
Not a drone.
A silhouette.
Massive.
Cape spreading through rain.
Watching silently from a distant gargoyle-shaped water tower that absolutely should not exist in Manhattan.
Batman.
Even from this distance—
Eve felt it.
That terrifying stillness.
The hunter drones shifted too.
Their sensors redirected upward briefly.
Threat recognition.
Interesting.
Batman analyzed the battlefield silently.
The girl.
The symbiote.
The hunters.
The synchronization levels.
And most importantly—
Eve protecting civilians before herself.
Not predatory behavior.
Protective.
That changed things.
One drone suddenly redirected toward the mutant girl.
Batman moved instantly.
A black projectile cut through rain.
The drone’s optic exploded apart.
Eve stared upward.
“…Did Batman just save us?”
Nyx sounded deeply offended.
“We did not require assistance.”
Another eight drones emerged onto surrounding rooftops simultaneously.
Batman’s voice finally came through the darkness.
Cold.
Calm.
Absolute.
“You do.”