Axel Voss slipped into the Wayne Group building like a hurricane in a suit. Gotham's hottest corporate sharks had tried to take advantage of the chaos he'd caused at Wayne Manor, but they'd miscalculated. Now Bruce Wayne had taken back the company, squeezing every last ounce of power into his own hands.
Bruce hadn't planned to do that. With the weight of the Wayne name, he could have controlled everything quietly — from the shadows. Let others handle the headlines while he pulled strings behind the curtain.
But Axel changed the game. Axel robbed Wayne Manor, and more importantly, he took Alfred. Permanently. If there was ever a moment for Bruce to stop waiting, it was now.
After ruthlessly expelling the dissenters in the boardroom and restoring maximum equity to himself, Bruce's influence over Wayne Group was so absolute he could have taken it private — pulled it off the market entirely if he wanted to.
His power was enormous, but his priorities had shifted. After dealing with those greedy opportunists like bugs under a boot, Bruce didn't even pause — he went straight to the underground R&D lab.
Inside, Lucius Fox was buried in experiments. When Bruce entered, exhausted and tense, Lucius peered up with concern.
"Bruce, are you sure you don't need a break? You just flew from Nepal to Gotham, sent me nonstop data from the plane, and then stormed the headquarters as soon as you landed. Now you want to keep working?"
Bruce shook his head without hesitation. "If I die tomorrow, fine. Eternal rest will come eventually. Right now I'm still breathing, so I make every second count."
Lucius sighed and pointed toward a centrifuge humming quietly in the corner. "The blue flower you brought was surprisingly simple to analyze. I extracted the core and made a sample. These tubes contain it. If everything goes according to plan, we just heat the reagent until it vaporizes and attacks the nervous system. It's not fear gas in the old sense. It's a straight neurotoxin — it doesn't induce fear so much as collapse the nervous system."
He handed Bruce a crude, cylindrical device with a reagent vial inside.
"I haven't built a final casing yet, but this heats the reagent into gas in under three seconds. And I even made an antidote."
Bruce examined the device with a grim expression. "Since there's an antidote… can I try it?"
Lucius nearly choked. "Absolutely not. This thing doesn't make you afraid — it shuts your nervous system down. It can drive a person into a breakdown or straight to brain death. For you, the worst triggers would be decades of memories, failures, losses... I won't let you put yourself through that."
Bruce fell quiet, understanding immediately. He had already faced worse forces — the League of Assassins had once used similar blue flowers to torture him with illusions, forcing him to relive the alleyway where he lost his parents night after night.
He swallowed hard and set the sample aside.
"Since the toxin is essentially complete, let's focus on the sonic enhancer. We still need to—"
Before Bruce could finish, the lab phone blared with urgency. Lucius grabbed it and put it on speaker.
"Mr. Fox," a voice stuttered on the other end, "Gotham's — Gotham's Wraith is inside again. We can't stop him. Nothing penetrates his skin, no bullets, no sedatives! He's right in front of me — ah!"
The call cut off abruptly. Then a teasing voice took over.
"Hello, buddies, Axel here, finally! Why are you all silent? Is Bruce himself on the line? If so, tell me where you are so I can come find you. If I don't get a proper answer, a whole lot of the wrong people are gonna die today!"
Bruce froze. Lucius blinked. Axel spoke as if he was chatting with someone in a bar, not terrorizing a corporate tower.
Bruce said, clipped and controlled, "This is Bruce. I'm in the underground R&D department. Give the phone to whoever is closest. I authorize them to lead you here."
He hung up before Axel could respond. Axel grinned.
"He's got an attitude," Axel said, then picked out one of the receptionists who still hadn't screamed herself into a panic.
"Come on, Sister. Bruce authorized you. Take me to the lab."
Then he turned and addressed the security team like he was about to host a seminar.
"See, guys? Bruce and I are friends. He gave authorization. There was no need to tussle. Next time, remember — rather than stopping someone who can't be stopped, let the taller guy handle the heavy lifting."
As Axel headed toward the elevator with the receptionist, one guard finally mustered the courage to shout at him.
"Wraith! You killed my father!"
Axel paused, eyebrow raised. "Which one did I kill?"
The guard sputtered, veins popping, but Axel simply kept walking into the elevator.
Once inside, Bruce and Lucius stood waiting. Axel waved the receptionist's phone in the air.
"Follow me on Instagram, Sister."
The young woman stood frozen, phone shaking in her hand.
Bruce stepped forward, voice low and cold. "Go back to work. Axel is my guest."
Axel clapped the receptionist on the shoulder.
"From now on, you're one of the women Bruce protects. Thank me, Sister. Without me, he wouldn't even glance your way."
He laughed and stepped up to the bench where experimental data glowed on monitors.
"You must be Lucius? What are you working on exactly? Looks like a foreign language to me," Axel said, picking up the silver cylinder.
He pressed the button.
The device vibrated. Then it began to emit gas.
Lucius and Bruce both cried out, horrified.
Axel sniffed the cloud casually, then inhaled deeply, like smoking a cigarette.
"Inhale… exhale!"
He blew the vapor out, eyes distant for a moment, memories flickering behind them.
Bruce and Lucius were gone — replaced in his vision by shelves from the supermarket Axel once ran, the place from before everything changed.
"Fear gas," Axel mused, voice flat. That was his trigger — not fear itself, but the feeling of being trapped back in the old life he thought he'd left behind.