The sniper rifle was held in her well-manicured hands like a benediction—a promise of salvation.

  Dar Win exhaled, seated behind the window of an abandoned office building overlooking the Gotham Academy for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Through her scope, she watched the pyground stir to life. Children with white and red canes and pyful movements lined up to go outside.

  They ughed. Unaware. Unburdened.

  "You're welcome," she whispered.

  The bullets would be quick. A mercy. She would start with the boy in the yellow hoodie, and the girl with the uneven gait. Her finger rested lightly against the trigger guard.

  She hesitated.

  A memory from her childhood echoed in her mind.

  "Knock, knock," her little brother Jack had once said, voice bright and full of mischief.

  She hadn't responded. He always forgot the punchline anyway.

  Jack was born with Down syndrome. Her parents called him "our happy little jokester," as if that name could protect him. Dar loved him—at first. But as she grew older, so did her contempt. The way people stared. The way they patronized him.

  Making up ways to justify his existence—saying things like "he's just pure love. God's little gift to the world." What a joke.

  You shouldn't protect defects. What she was about to do—what she had done through the years—was the truest love a person could give someone like them.

  Her purpose was pure. It was right. It was true.

  She had smothered her little brother Jack when she was a teenager—a pillow over his face during a power outage. No one suspected a thing. An accident. Her first act of love and mercy for someone she cared about.

  "Taken too soon," friends of the family had said. "The Lord needed him back. He was too pure for this cruel world."

  Now, she wore fancy purple dresses and a loving smile, spoke at charity gas, and donated millions to organizations for the disabled.

  No one knew. The *true* help she gave to those she advocated for.

  No one but her. She was fine with that.

  Doing the right thing is its own reward.

  "I swear, if Cleopatra steals another one of my bracelets—talk about being a furry little cat burgr—I am going to advocate for an Arkham for naughty kitties," Selina said pyfully, setting a bag of lunch on Bruce's desk.

  "She's just cataloging your jewelry for you," Bruce replied with a grin, opening the brown paper bag and removing a sandwich from it.

  "I guess she's just like you."

  "Mr. Blind and Organized? I don't know what me and Ace would do if we didn't have you two in our lives—making sure everything has its pce."

  "You're welcome. We try."

  Bruce ughed. His face, handsome and lightly scarred, shone with amusement at their back-and-forth banter. The soft whir of cssroom computers hummed in the background. Students would be out for recess soon.

  At his feet, his guide dog Ace rested with perfect stillness, one ear twitching.

  He had sensed it earlier this week—the strange woman. Dar. She had smelled like polished steel and wrongness. Her hands were too smooth. Her voice was too sweet. She had touched Bruce's shoulder like she was marking him.

  Ace didn't like her.

  Today, her scent had returned. Carried faintly on the wind through the cracked-open window.

  In a nearby diner, *he* sat at a table, watching through the cameras of his drones—connected to his mind through the Elevation.

  He wasn't Batman anymore. Not since he left his own world, traveling the multiverse in search of answers. He had seen thousands of versions of himself—broken, triumphant, monstrous, even normal. But none quite like Gotham's Bruce.

  Blind, Content. Teaching coding to children with disabilities. Living with his girlfriend Selina Kyle, a cat, and a dog. A man who didn't need the cape.

  Ultimate Bruce Wayne had learned that this Bruce's parents were still alive. They hadn't died in Crime Alley like his parents had. His father had tried to protect his family from being raped. This universe's Bruce got shot in the face—causing him to lose his vision.

  He made a mental command, causing the drone to zoom in on the building across from the school.

  There was movement. A gun. A scope. A woman.

  His stomach dropped.

  "No."

  Recess began.

  Children filed out into the warm pyground. Cane tips tapped along the concrete. One of them tripped and ughed. Children being children.

  Ace stood.

  Bruce noticed. "What is it, boy?"

  The dark shepherd's fur bristled. He sniffed the air. His ears focused on the distant building.

  The scent was stronger now. Metallic. Wrongness.

  He growled low.

  Without warning, he bolted out of the cssroom—teeth bared, cutting through the hallway like a streak of bck lightning. Selina called after him, but Ace was already gone, barreling down the steps, out the school doors, into traffic.

  Darwinian was focused.

  The boy in the yellow hoodie now pyed tag with a cssmate.

  She exhaled.

  "I give you mercy," she said aloud, pcing her finger on the trigger. "I love you all."

  The window shattered behind her.

  A blur of dark fur and fury smmed into her back.

  She screamed—once—before Ace's teeth tore into her throat. Her finger pulled the trigger, but the bullet flew skyward. Her body thrashed, blood spshing the dust-covered floor.

  Then… stillness.

  Ace stood over her corpse, chest heaving.

  Justice, covered in fur.

  News vans clustered outside the school. Police reports detailed a thwarted massacre. A sniper. A phinthropist turned monster. No one knew who stopped her. There were no witnesses.

  Only blood. And a body.

  Inside his apartment, Bruce sat quietly on the couch, petting Ace, who y with his head on Bruce's thigh. Selina sipped wine, watching a news anchor rattle off praise for a "mystery savior."

  Bruce tilted his head. "Funny. Ace's been acting strange."

  Selina shrugged. "Maybe he's just tired of Cleopatra's attitude."

  From the top of the television, the cat gave a slow, silent blink toward Ace.

  A wag of the tail.

  Ace closed his eyes, alert beneath the calm.

  In his mind, Ultimate Bruce watched the footage again. The angle from his drone captured it perfectly: the leap, the kill, the unspoken loyalty.

  A dog. Not a man. Not a symbol. Just protection and love.

  " Maybe this city didn't need a Batman," he said. "They had a Bat-Dog."