Bruce Wayne read the Daily Planet article at 6:14 AM over his first coffee of the morning.
The article was small. City section, not front page. Lois Lane's byline, which meant it was accurate and meant something was there even if the something wasn't fully visible yet.
He read it twice. Then he pulled up the two MCPD incident reports he'd flagged three days ago.
Three data points. Enough to open a file.
Incident one: convenience store, Garrick Street, Southside. Armed robbery disrupted by an unidentified non-human figure. Large, fast, capable of significant speed. One witness. Figure gone before police arrived.
Incident two: alley, warehouse district. Three minors reported being startled by an unidentified large figure. Four arms. Dark red. Duration: seconds. Figure absent when officers arrived.
Incident three: Lois Lane's article. Both previous incidents plus a third possible sighting near the freight yard perimeter. One additional detail the police report had missed after the non-human figure disappeared, a young male in a dark hoodie had briefly been present. The shopkeeper hadn't connected the two.
'Two distinct physical forms across two confirmed incidents. Same operational pattern both times. Intervene, neutralise, disappear. No unnecessary damage. No civilian injuries.'
He ran the descriptions against every catalogued species in the Justice League database. The first form returned seventeen possible matches, none conclusive. The second returned nine, also none conclusive. Whatever this was, it wasn't something they'd formally documented.
He ran the operational pattern instead. Reactive, not proactive. Targeted threat neutralization. Immediate withdrawal. No communication with authorities. No attempt at identification.
'Intelligent. Cautious. New to this city or new to this kind of work. Possibly both.'
Both confirmed sightings within six blocks of the same location. Either the entity was based near the freight yard or using it.
He created the file. UNKNOWN ENTITY: METROPOLIS SOUTHSIDE. Flagged it active. Set an alert.
Then he sent a line to Clark's personal frequency.
*Something new operating in your city. Non-human, at least two confirmed forms, reactive pattern. I'm watching it.*
Clark's response came back in four minutes. *I know. I saw it handle the scaffolding collapse on Hob's Street last week. Fast, disciplined, gone before anyone got a good look. I'll keep an eye out.*
Bruce typed: *Two forms confirmed in the Southside. The scaffolding collapse was a third. I'll need better descriptions.*
A longer pause. Then: *Understood.*
Bruce closed the exchange. Three confirmed forms. Same entity. Metropolis. Watching.
....
Wednesday at school was the worst kind of bad the kind that looked completely fine from the outside.
Devon wasn't ignoring Silas. He was present, talking, sending a meme during third period that was genuinely funny. On the surface nothing had changed.
But the way Devon used to turn toward Silas mid-conversation, like something Silas said had caught him that was gone. He was still there. He just wasn't quite facing the same direction anymore.
'He's not angry. He's recalibrating. Figuring out what I am to him now that I looked him in the eye and lied.'
Silas ate his lunch and laughed at the right moments and felt the distance like a slow ache that didn't have a clean solution. He'd made the call. He still thought it was right. He also knew it was costing something he might not get back easily.
"You coming to Marcus's thing Friday?" Devon asked over lunch, not looking up.
"Can't. Tutor's coming," Silas said.
"Every Friday now," Devon said.
"Yeah," Silas said.
"What subject?" Devon asked, in a tone that was almost casual.
"Physics mostly," Silas said.
"You got an A in physics," Devon said.
"Advanced stuff," Silas said.
Devon ate a forkful and said nothing. The almost-casual tone had been a question and they both knew Silas's answer wasn't an answer.
'He's keeping score. Not going to bring it up again. But keeping score.'
....
Thursday afternoon. The freight yard.
Silas had been putting position three off. The silhouette was broad and geometric and he'd been prioritizing forms that opened up new sensory experiences or movement modes first. But position three had been waiting long enough.
'Crystal, looks like. No idea what that actually means from the inside. Just go.'
He pressed the dial.
The form that arrived was seven feet tall and built like architecture. Deep blue-white crystal, semi-translucent in the thinner sections, fully opaque at the core. Not rough crystal cut crystal, every surface faceted, angled to catch and redirect light. When he moved, the freight yard's ambient light fractured across the cracked concrete in shifting prismatic patterns that were beautiful and also, he noted, would make tracking him visually a genuine problem.
'Oh. Okay. That's visually striking. That's the most visually striking thing I've been yet by a long way.'
He raised one arm and looked at it. The crystal was dense he could feel the mass of it, distributed evenly through the body like he'd been poured into a mold and set. The hand had four blunt faceted fingers that he could feel reshaping if he applied the right intention. Extending into a blade along the forearm. Compressing into a compact striking surface. The material responded to need.
He pressed his palm against the loading bay wall. The concrete cracked in a starburst pattern around the contact point. He pulled back quickly.
'Strong. But different from Brawler this isn't muscle, this is material. You're not hitting hard, you're hitting as something very hard. Different thing.'
He tested the defensive capability. Pressed both forearms together in front of his face. The crystal surfaces locked seamlessly, forming a barrier that felt genuinely impenetrable. He held it and felt the solidity of it and thought about what it would take to get through this and concluded: a lot.
Then he tried something unplanned. He focused on the right forearm and felt for the reshaping quality and pushed it outward. The forearm extended, crystal growing in a controlled column, six inches of reach added, sharp at the tip.
'You can grow the material. It's not fixed. That's that changes the whole tactical picture.'
He retracted it. Extended again. Retracted. The control was instinctive once he found the mechanism. He spent four minutes on that alone.
The timer pulsed its warning. He stood in the freight yard, a seven-foot crystal figure in the afternoon light, prismatic patterns shifting across the concrete around him, and thought about what to call it.
Precise. Geometric. Light-refracting. Near-indestructible. Reshaping without losing integrity.
'Prism. It's a prism.'
He reverted. Sat on the concrete. Wrote the profile. Then at the top of the page: PRISM. Position three.
Then underneath: *Durability is the primary strength. Not the hardest hitter Brawler hits. Prism holds. Different tactical role entirely.*
....
Hamilton arrived at 6 PM with a new piece of equipment. This one a flat panel he set up on the kitchen table and aimed at the Omnitrix with the methodical focus of someone who had decided this week was going to be different.
The panel got a reading. Hamilton looked at it. His posture shifted forward slightly the lean Silas had learned to read as Hamilton finding something.
"It's reading the camo shell," Hamilton said.
"You're in active mode but it's choosing to show me the camo profile regardless."
"So it decides what you see," Silas said.
"Apparently," Hamilton said.
He ran two more configurations. Both returned the same pharmacy watch reading. He set the panel aside and picked up his tea.
"How are things generally?" Hamilton asked.
"Fine," Silas said.
"The sleeve situation seems resolved," Hamilton said, nodding at the camo watch face.
"Yeah. Using it every day now," Silas said.
"Any new observations about the device?" Hamilton asked.
"No," Silas said.
Hamilton nodded. Wrote something. Did not push.
"Pulse patterns," Hamilton said.
"Still working on those?"
"Still working on them," Silas said.
"Right," Hamilton said. He capped his pen.
"Same time next week?"
"Same time," Silas said.
Hamilton packed his equipment. Paused at the door.
"You know you can share more than you do," Hamilton said.
"I know," Silas said.
"And you know why you don't," Hamilton said.
"Yeah," Silas said.
"That's fine," Hamilton said.
"I'm not going anywhere."
He left. Silas stood in the hallway after the door closed.
'I know you're not. That's kind of the whole point of you.'
He went to his room. Added two more entries to the pulse pattern page. Seven confirmed now. Three unknowns still.
He was getting there.
(Image)