The sun was beginning to sink, staining the sky a dirty shade of orange.
The air around the estate was thick yet clean… as if no one had breathed it in years.
For miles, rusted chain-link fences kept Terry company until he reached the main gate—just as corroded, worn down by time and weather alike.
He stopped before it, lifting the visor of his helmet toward the old camera embedded in one of the posts, revealing his dull eyes in their dust-shadowed sockets.
Terry said nothing. He waited, and a few moments later…
The gate swung open with a long, rasping creak, as if the estate itself hesitated to let him in.
He moved forward slowly, barely twisting the throttle. On either side, the Wayne family grounds stretched out like a dead relic, trapped in time—overgrown weeds, statues drowned in moss, leafless trees that stood like silent sentinels.
When he finally reached the main mansion, he saw it just as he'd imagined… or worse.
Imposing, yes. But sorrowful. Cracked. Almost abandoned to its fate.
The front door was ajar.
A black dog stood waiting in the doorway. Massive. Silent.
It looked like some unholy cross between a Rottweiler, a Doberman, and a mastiff—resulting in a giant beast with jet-black fur and a silhouette as intimidating as it was elegant.
Terry killed the engine and dismounted with measured calm, setting his helmet aside. As he placed a foot on the first stone step, the dog let out a low, vicious growl, baring its teeth. It didn't bark. It simply tensed, every muscle coiled, as if ready to lunge.
Terry didn't stop.
He moved forward, step by step, never breaking eye contact. When he stood before the animal, he spoke without raising his voice:
"Shut it, furball."
The dog didn't back away, but its growl faded. Its ears dipped—not in fear, but in a strange mix of confusion and respect. Finally, it tilted its head… and stepped aside.
Terry pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The first thing he noticed was the cold. Not the kind that came from the weather, but the kind that lived in the air itself—like every window in the house had been left open, letting the wind wander freely through the halls.
"Hello?" he called out.
The echo was the only reply.
Everything was draped in white sheets: the furniture, the paintings… even the mirrors.
No lights. No sounds. No sign of life.
"Is anyone here?" His voice carried on, bouncing off the high ceilings.
Again… only the whisper of wind threading through cracked marble answered him.
The dog followed silently as he made his way toward the only door left ajar—just like the front one.
Crossing the threshold, he stepped into a study where dust floated in suspension, dancing in the amber shafts of light filtering through a wall of tall windows.
Shadows stretched long across the wooden floor and over a towering, multi-level library crammed with old volumes.
Terry could only imagine their worth… especially after the Datakrash—the massive loss of digital archives and the ensuing wars that destroyed so many originals, sending the value of relics like these soaring.
He moved through the room, nearly devoid of life save for a single armchair, a table, and an open bar. But what held his attention most was the kind of view only the rich could afford: the full skyline of Neo Gotham, etched in silhouette against the setting sun.
It was then, as he surveyed the room, that Terry noticed something strange about the tall grandfather clock at the far end, beside a grand piano draped in cloth.
It seemed… off-kilter, the way its shadow cast an odd, misplaced line that shouldn't have been there.
Terry stepped closer, running his hand along the frame and feeling a thin draft whistle between his fingers.
The clock was slightly ajar.
Not by accident.
It had been left that way—like the rest of the doors. Like an invitation.
Swinging it fully open revealed a natural fissure in the stone and a staircase descending into darkness.
As he set foot on the first step, that thick blackness spat out a flash of fangs, pitch-black eyes, and pointed ears.
If he'd been a child, fear might have driven him back. But Terry was far too broken to be afraid of a bat.
He turned his head just in time to let it dart past, feeling the brush of its wings graze his cheek, and kept descending without looking back.
—
The air grew colder and heavier with every step down. The darkness swallowed each stair he left behind, revealing only the next beneath his boots.
At the last step, he found himself facing a vast cavern buried in absolute shadow.
So dark, Terry couldn't tell if his next step would take him to solid ground… or into a void.
"Wait!" he called out, instinctively reaching toward the dog that had been following him—just in time to see it leap forward and vanish into the black.
"Tch… damn it."
With no other choice, he took a cautious step, probing the ground with the tip of his boot—only to be interrupted by a faint electric hum slicing through the silence, its vibration crawling along the walls.
And then, in that darkness…
Slowly, seven armored glass capsules began to glow to life, one after another, as if waking from a long sleep.
Their faint glow barely reached the ground nearby and part of the natural rock walls, reinforced with blackened steel plates.
But it was enough for Terry to catch glimpses of the unsettling shapes within the cavern: something circular and massive hanging from the ceiling, jagged jaws frozen in an eternal roar, and other, stranger silhouettes he barely registered—his attention drawn instead to the cases now fully lit…
And to the suits preserved in silence, displayed like sacred relics.
The first he saw—black and gray, the silhouette of a bat spread across the chest, a heavy cape draped over the shoulders like that of some ancient knight—made Terry stop in his tracks, stunned.
"He was real…"
For his generation—and for many before—nothing had remained. No images. No recordings from the eras that preceded the current Corporate Age. No archives to prove that those names were anything more than exaggerated tales, told by old men who swore they'd seen them.
After the Datakrash, it had all dissolved into rumor… and fiction.
Taking a step back, his eyes sweeping over the rest of the capsules, he corrected himself: "They were real!"
Slowly, he moved past each case, as if each suit demanded its own moment.
In the second case was a sleeker, tighter design with no cape, its lines marked by a stylized wing emblem glowing in blue, stretching from the chest to the shoulders.
Beside it, a feminine counterpart to the first suit—similar in cut, but with a short cape and yellow accents that stood out against the black-and-gray ceramic plating of the armor.
Next came an imposing presence: heavy armor, plates reinforced and crowned by a crimson helmet with a fierce expression, its surface catching a faint, dull reflection in the light.
Beside that, a red aerodynamic suit, its structure suggesting folded wings tucked beneath the sleeves instead of the traditional cape.
And finally, a uniform in deep red and green, clearly designed for someone younger, covered by a short, hooded mantle.
And then Terry saw it.
At the far end of the gallery, set apart from the others, stood a suit darker and simpler than any of them. It didn't look woven, but sculpted from shadow itself, swallowing even the light from the display. On its chest, the bat emblem burned a deep, fierce red… and for a moment, Terry could have sworn it was looking right at him.
Before he realized it, he was standing before the case, unable to look away—when behind him came a…
Tap… tap… tap…
The echo of a cane rang through the cavern, just before a low, gravelled voice broke the silence—each word sharpened by years of disuse.
"You asked who I am…"
From the shadows emerged a man with broad shoulders, though slightly stooped under the weight of his years. He wore plain, dark clothing; his slicked-back, graying hair framed a face etched with deep lines.
His eyes, however, were twin blades that had never lost their edge.
"There it is," he said, pointing with the tip of his cane toward the first suit, the one bearing the bat's symbol. "That is my true identity, a whisper of the past. Bruce Wayne is just a mask… not so different from yours, Terry McGinnis. Student at Hamilton Hill. Boyfriend. Brother."
The black dog walked at his side, hostility gone, head held high like a soldier beside his commander.
"Why was I at your mother's funeral?" Bruce asked, resting both hands atop the metal head of his cane—before answering himself…
"Because your story… rhymes with mine."
Without lying, yet without revealing the whole truth.
And then, as if to confirm his words, for the briefest fraction of a second, his expression shifted.
The firm, contained mask cracked just enough to reveal something older, more broken… an expression marked by the same loss and anger the young man before him carried.
It was so brief it could have been mistaken for a blink—but for Terry, it was enough to feel that same strange familiarity he'd felt the first time he saw him at the cemetery.
Watching him with an intensity that bordered on unsettling, Bruce added, "I've been investigating you… spent a long time debating whether I should show you this path."
He moved slowly toward a massive screen that flickered to life beside the display cases. "But after recent events, it seems fate is every bit as cruel as she says. And it's already made the choice for me."
The screen filled with images the media had never shown from the Night City massacre—not out of principle or respect for the victims, but because they'd never had access.
The grotesquely muscled figure that haunted Terry's nightmares stepped down from an armored van and, without warning, unleashed his destructive cyberware on a group of Valentinos drinking in a bar parking lot.
There was no distinction—cars erupted in flames, bodies were charred to ash… and civilians were caught in the crossfire.
"If my theory is correct," Bruce said, "this isn't just a matter of Cybersycosis or gang wars. I believe—"
"—Someone's paying to cover up a deliberate killing in the middle of the slaughter," Terry finished, watching the footage from a distance.
Bruce studied him carefully. "How do you know that?"
"Haven't you been investigating me?" Terry shot back, locking eyes with him.
"He told you himself?" Bruce pressed, fully aware of the boy's visits to Arkham—but not of their content.
Though he had hacked the Mega-prison's servers more than once, the recordings always vanished… mysteriously.
Terry stated, fists clenched, never taking his eyes off the suit before him. "After years… of taunts and provocations, I finally managed to turn his morbid nature against him—long enough for him to slip up… and say more than he should."
Impressed by the young man's stubbornness, a faint smile formed on Bruce's face—a gesture of recognition, having done the same himself in that situation. Even if it had been torturous.
"I'm not sure whether my mother was the real target, or just another one of Viper's provocations," Terry went on. "But just like in the Night City case, I'm certain someone was. And the rest of the victims… were nothing but camouflage."
Bruce nodded in agreement and pressed a key.
As the display case in front of Terry slowly depressurized and unlocked, Bruce added.
"Then… go hunt him down."
Now, with the suit standing before him—no glass between them—Terry felt his body stir on instinct. The most broken part of him wanted to put it on and stop thinking… to stop being the victim.
And yet… instead, he took a step back. "You're serious… old man?"
Bruce shot him a sidelong glance, the faintest trace of a reproachful smirk on his face."You seemed pretty determined when you were riding that motorcycle of yours like a suicide mission."
"I'm not talking about that." Terry gestured toward the suit, its surface seeming to swallow the light. "One look tells me this… isn't normal. Why would you trust something like this to me?"
Bruce rested both hands on his cane and, for the first time, spoke with complete candor.
"Because I've seen it."
Terry frowned. "Seen what?"
The old man watched him in silence. "Since you lost your mother… you clenched your teeth… and kept moving forward. You didn't break the way the man you thought was your father did. You hardened."
He stepped forward, the cane striking against the stone.
"You endured a schedule that would've crushed anyone—when you were barely a kid. No rest. No complaints."
His eyes sharpened.
"Despite the exhaustion, the grief, and the anger you carried inside… you never crossed the line. You never committed a crime, never took the easy way out.
And the one time you exploded… it was as predictable as it was inevitable."
Bruce tilted his head, recalling.
"Even then, you learned from it. You didn't let the dark passenger born that day take control of you. You mastered it. Shaped it. Used it to make a living… and to support the one thing that matters to you—your brother. Just as your mother asked you to."
Terry stared at him in disbelief. 'How does he know?' He stepped back, the last words his mother spoke echoing in his mind.
Unsure how to react to such an obvious violation of his privacy.
And yet… despite the anger, the shame, the exposure, a knot rose in his throat.
Like a child—like his younger brother—moved because his hardships and misfortunes had been recognized and valued… not by just anyone, but by the very Legend of Gotham.
Bruce stepped closer. "I don't trust you because we've talked… or because we've spent time together. I trust you because I've witnessed your life. Because I know who you are."
Drawn in by that feeling of recognition, Terry asked quietly, meeting his eyes: "And who am I?"
Bruce set a hand on his shoulder, the shadow of a smile crossing his face for an instant as he replied:
"The next Batman."