“You do.”
The words didn’t echo.
They didn’t need to.
They simply landed in the space between rain and broken glass like something already decided.
Eve looked up through the shattered window.
Batman stood across the street on a structure that hadn’t existed a minute ago—water tower, rooftop edge, impossible geometry of shadow and intent.
The kind of presence that didn’t belong to any one place, because it had already decided every place was within reach.
The hunter drones reacted first.
Not to Eve.
Not to Nyx.
To him.
Their optics snapped upward in perfect synchronization.
THREAT CLASSIFICATION UPDATED
UNKNOWN OPERATOR DETECTED
PRIORITY SHIFT: MAXIMUM
Eve felt Nyx tighten instantly inside her.
Not fear.
Calculation.
“His presence alters their targeting priority,” Nyx said.
“That’s… bad, right?” Eve muttered, still half-kneeling on the kitchen floor, ribs burning.
“It is… efficient.”
That wasn’t comforting.
Batman moved.
Not dramatically.
Not fast in the way superheroes on TV moved.
Just precisely.
A drone launched from the nearest rooftop, blue energy blade unfolding mid-air.
Batman threw something.
A small disc.
It struck the drone in mid-flight.
No explosion.
Just silence.
Then the drone fell apart in the air like its structure had forgotten what structure meant.
Eve blinked.
“…What the hell was that?”
Nyx answered immediately.
“Disassembly field.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“It is a conclusion.”
The mutant girl grabbed Eve’s arm tighter.
“You know him?” she asked.
Eve gave a strangled laugh.
“I do NOT know him.
I’ve met him once and he judged my entire biological existence.”
Another drone dropped onto the fire escape behind them.
This one didn’t hesitate.
It fired.
Batman moved again.
A line snapped through the air—grapnel cable—but it wasn’t attached to a rooftop.
It attached to the drone.
The machine jerked mid-shot.
Its plasma blast missed by centimeters, carving a glowing scar through the wall instead.
Then Batman was there.
On the drone.
For half a second, Eve only saw motion and black silhouette.
Then the machine went dark.
No explosion.
No struggle.
Just… gone.
Eve felt her stomach tighten.
Nyx spoke low.
“He is removing them without destruction.”
“Why does that matter?”
“It means he is studying them.”
That made things worse.
Much worse.
Because studying meant understanding.
And understanding meant classification.
And classification meant eventual containment.
Eve had lived enough nights in New York to recognize that pattern.
Another drone landed on the rooftop opposite.
Then two more.
Then five.
The skyline around them began to glow faintly red in rhythmic pulses.
The city wasn’t being invaded.
It was being mapped.
Batman’s voice came again through the rain.
“Move the civilian away from the window.”
Eve blinked.
“Which civilian—oh that’s me.”
The mutant girl scoffed quietly.
“Rude.”
Eve grabbed her hand immediately.
“Okay, we’re moving.”
Nyx added:
“Movement is statistically advisable.”
“Thank you, anxiety symbiote.”
They retreated deeper into the apartment just as the window frame exploded outward.
Not inward this time.
Outward.
Something had hit the building from the outside.
Hard.
The entire structure shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Eve barely kept her balance.
“What was THAT?”
Nyx’s tone sharpened.
“Impact class unknown.”
Batman answered from outside, calm as ever.
“One of theirs.”
A larger drone dropped onto the opposite rooftop.
This one was different.
Bulkier.
Heavier.
Its limbs weren’t sleek like the others—they were reinforced, layered, built for sustained combat.
Its optic pulsed twice.
Then the air around it distorted.
Eve felt it immediately.
Her symbiote reacted like it had been burned.
Nyx recoiled.
“NO.”
Eve staggered slightly.
“What?”
“That unit emits suppression frequency.”
The drone locked onto Batman.
And fired.
A wave—not energy, not plasma—something deeper.
A resonant pulse that rippled through the air like a tuning fork striking bone.
Eve dropped to her knees instantly.
Pain detonated behind her eyes.
Nyx screamed inside her head.
“SYMBIOTE DISRUPTION EVENT.”
The black armor on her arms flickered.
Nearly dissolved.
The mutant girl caught her before she fell fully.
“Eve!”
Batman didn’t move.
The pulse hit him.
Nothing happened.
Eve stared.
“…Why is he fine?”
Nyx was shaking internally.
“His physiology is shielded.”
“That’s not an answer!”
“It is a limitation of mine.”
That was the first time Nyx sounded genuinely… constrained.
Not angry.
Not sarcastic.
Limited.
The drone advanced.
Batman finally reacted.
He stepped forward.
Just one step.
Then he pulled something from his belt.
A small cylindrical device.
He activated it.
The air around him shifted.
The suppression wave stopped mid-impact like it had hit invisible glass.
Eve’s breathing stabilized instantly.
Nyx exhaled internally.
“Counter-frequency emitter.”
“Of course he has that.”
The drone recalibrated.
Then split.
Its outer shell unfolded into multiple segments.
Smaller drones detached from its body like organic fragments.
A swarm.
Eve swore under her breath.
“Oh that’s cheating.”
The mutant girl raised one hand again instinctively.
Gravity twisted.
Two drones slammed together mid-air.
But more kept coming.
Batman moved into the swarm.
And something changed.
Eve couldn’t fully process it at first.
It wasn’t speed.
It was control.
Every movement resulted in a predictable outcome he had already accounted for.
A drone lunged—disabled mid-motion.
Another fired—missed by impossible margin.
Another attempted flank—already intercepted.
It wasn’t combat.
It was correction.
Nyx whispered.
“He is editing the battlefield.”
Eve felt something cold settle in her stomach.
“That’s not normal either.”
“No.”
The mutant girl looked between Eve and the chaos outside.
“You guys deal with this often?”
Eve laughed once, slightly hysterical.
“This is a new flavor.”
Then—
Something moved behind them.
Eve turned instantly.
Too late.
A drone had breached the apartment through the ceiling.
It dropped silently.
Blade already extended.
The mutant girl reacted first.
Gravity snapped downward violently.
The drone crashed into the floor hard enough to crack concrete.
But it didn’t stop.
Its blade swung upward—
Eve caught it.
Bare-handed.
Nyx surged.
Black tendrils wrapped the machine’s arm and snapped it clean off.
But the drone still fought.
Even damaged.
Even losing.
That’s when Eve realized something disturbing.
“They don’t feel pain,” she said.
Nyx confirmed.
“They do not require survival instinct.”
“They’re just… programmed?”
“No.”
A pause.
Then:
“They are directed.”
That word carried weight.
Outside, Batman had cleared the rooftop swarm.
Or most of it.
The remaining drones began retreating upward into the rain like disciplined insects withdrawing from a failed strike.
Eve stood slowly, breathing heavily.
Her side still hurt.
Healing still slow.
Too slow.
Nyx was still unstable from the suppression pulse.
And Batman…
Batman was still there.
Watching.
The mutant girl moved closer to Eve instinctively.
Not hiding.
But staying.
Eve noticed that.
So did Nyx.
“Her positioning indicates attachment behavior,” Nyx said.
“Stop narrating my love life during a crisis.”
“I am analyzing survivability factors.”
“That is NOT better.”
Batman’s voice came again.
“Leave the building.”
Eve frowned upward.
“What?”
“This location is compromised.”
“Yeah, no kidding!”
A beat.
Then he added:
“They will return with adapted suppression units.”
Nyx tensed again.
“They are learning.”
Eve felt her stomach drop.
“Of course they are.”
The mutant girl looked at Eve.
“We go?”
Eve hesitated.
Because leaving meant exposure.
And exposure meant tracking.
But staying meant—
Another pulse of pain from Nyx interrupted her thought.
A warning.
Not emotional.
Biological.
“They are recalibrating to our signature,” Nyx said.
“This environment is no longer safe.”
Eve exhaled sharply.
“Okay.
We move.”
Batman nodded once.
Approval, but not comfort.
Never comfort.
The kind of man who didn’t reassure you because reassurance didn’t change probability outcomes.
He turned slightly.
And for the first time, his gaze landed fully on Eve.
Not on the symbiote.
On her.
“You are stabilizing it,” he said.
Eve blinked.
“…What?”
“The creature reacts to proximity emotional anchors.”
Nyx stiffened.
“That is reductive.”
Batman ignored him.
“The more isolated you are, the more aggressive it becomes.”
Eve swallowed.
“So your solution is… what?
Group therapy under gunfire?”
“No.”
A pause.
Then:
“Survival requires proximity control.”
The mutant girl tilted her head slightly.
“I think he’s saying stick together.”
Eve stared at Batman.
“You could’ve just said that.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Batman already turned away.
“That is irrelevant.”
Of course it was.
Then he vanished into the rain.
No dramatic exit.
Just absence.
Like he had never been there at all.
Eve stood frozen for a second.
Nyx finally spoke quietly.
“He is not an ally.”
“…What?”
“He is a classifier.”
That didn’t feel wrong.
But it didn’t feel safe either.
The mutant girl squeezed Eve’s hand gently.
“So,” she said softly, “we’re running into the rain now?”
Eve looked at her.
Then at the destroyed apartment.
Then at the city beyond the window.
Neon bleeding through storm clouds.
Something hunting them.
Something observing them.
Something learning them.
She exhaled.
“Yeah,” she said.
“We’re running.”
Nyx added quietly inside her head:
“And being followed.”
Far above Manhattan, in the shifting dark between rain and rooftop shadows—
The drones reformed.
Updated.
Adapted.
And somewhere beyond their signal chain—
Something else listened.