Vey rose slowly, the moment with Blade settling somewhere beneath the surface rather than leaving him entirely. He let go only when he had to, placing the man's hand back down with a care that stood in quiet contrast to everything else they had just done. Then he turned, shifting his focus back to the room.
It was… ordinary.
That was the first thing that stood out.
For something buried this deep beneath Gotham, tied to something as old and secretive as the Court, the space looked almost mundane. A supervisor's office, stripped of personality and reduced to function. A metal table sat near the center, surrounded by a few reinforced chairs bolted loosely to the floor. Off to one side, a coffee pot rested on a small counter, half-full, the liquid inside long since gone cold. The faint smell of it lingered in the air, recent enough to suggest this place hadn't been abandoned for long.
Computers lined the far wall, mounted into a series of workstations. Some screens were still active, casting a dim glow across the room, while others had gone dark. The hum of power was steady but subdued, like the system was running on a reduced load rather than fully active.
Filing cabinets stood along the right side, a mix of older steel drawers and newer reinforced units, each one labeled in tight, precise handwriting or printed tags. Nothing was sloppy. Nothing was out of place.
It was organized.
Controlled.
Vey let his eyes move across it all, taking in the details, the layout, the intent behind it.
"Look around," he said, voice steady. "Take photos of everything. Shout if you find something important."
His people moved immediately, transitioning from combat to collection without hesitation. Weapons were slung but not stowed, kept within reach as they began working through the room. One pulled out a phone, already snapping photos of the workstation screens. Another moved to the filing cabinets, opening drawers carefully, documenting contents before touching anything.
Vey stepped further in, then paused, glancing sideways toward Batman.
"You'll share if you find anything?" he asked.
Batman didn't look up.
He was already at one of the terminals, gloved fingers moving across the interface with a speed that didn't quite make sense unless you were watching closely. Windows opened and closed in rapid succession, security layers bypassed almost as soon as they appeared. What would have taken most people minutes—or hours—was reduced to seconds.
He gave a single, short nod.
Vey watched him for a second longer than he intended to.
There was something about the way Batman worked that was… precise in a different way than his own team. It wasn't just efficiency. It was the way he moved and acted, even when he wasn't trying to be intimidating he still carried an air of authority.
Vey looked away before it lingered too long.
"Cabinets," he said, gesturing slightly. "Start cataloging."
He moved toward the nearest set himself, pulling open a drawer with a quiet metallic slide. Inside, folders were arranged in tight rows, each one labeled with dates, project codes, and location markers. Some referenced excavation zones, others supply chains—shipments of equipment, materials, things that didn't belong underground unless you were building something substantial.
He pulled one free and flipped it open, scanning quickly.
Blueprint fragments.
Not complete structures, but sections—cross-cuts of the underground, expansions mapped out in layers. Some areas were marked as completed. Others were still in progress.
He took a photo, then another, making sure to capture both the page and its label before returning it exactly where it had been.
Around him, the others did the same.
Drawers opened and closed in controlled rhythm. Papers were lifted, documented, replaced. Screens were photographed, angles adjusted to avoid glare. One of the men moved to the coffee pot, snapping a quick picture of it, then the surrounding counter—small details, but details that might matter later.
Robin worked one of the side stations, scrolling through partially active displays, his expression tightening slightly as he took in whatever data was still visible. Every so often he'd pause, snap a picture, then continue.
Batman, meanwhile, was already deeper.
The surface-level systems were gone. He had moved past them almost immediately, digging into something buried beneath the visible interface. Lines of data flickered across the screen faster than most could track, his posture completely still except for the precise movement of his hands.
Vey noticed. He didn't say anything and most importantly didn't show anything on his face. He was beginning to understand how Batman operated and he couldn't help but feel a tinge of respect.
The room filled with quiet, methodical activity as they worked, the urgency of the fight replaced by something colder, more deliberate. Every piece of information mattered now. Every document, every screen, every small, overlooked detail.
They worked the room until there was nothing left to take that didn't require time they didn't have.
Photos were double-checked. Drawers were returned exactly as they had been found. Screens were captured from multiple angles. Even the smaller details—the kind most people would overlook—had been documented. It was thorough, but it wasn't endless.
Vey straightened from the cabinet he had been working through, rolling his shoulders once as he looked around the room. His eyes moved over his people, over Robin, then finally to Batman, still working through layers of the system with quiet intensity.
"We can't stay here forever," Vey said, his voice cutting cleanly through the low hum of electronics. "If we want answers today, we keep moving."
A few of the men glanced up, already anticipating the call.
"Once the Court realizes we've been down here," he continued, "they'll tighten everything. Security goes up. Operations shift. Anything worth finding gets buried deeper or moved entirely."
That was the nature of organizations like this.
They adapted fast.
Which meant hesitation cost you the truth.
One of the men near the filing cabinets turned suddenly, a sheet of paper in his hand.
"I found something, sir."
Vey looked over. "What is it?"
The man stepped closer, glancing down at the paper like he was still second-guessing himself. Vey noticed he was a dockyard dog man. Not everyone he brought was from the underpass.
"I didn't think it mattered at first," he admitted. "Just looked like logistics. But… it kind of gives away what they're pulling out of the ground."
That got everyone's attention.
He turned the paper so the group could see it. Rows of numbers, dates and output columns.
Bi-weekly production totals, broken down with clinical precision. Finally he spotted it, the label Electrum.
The word sat there, repeated over and over again in neat, consistent entries. Quantities rising steadily over time.
Vey took the paper, eyes scanning it quickly, then slowing as the implication settled in.
"Electrum," he said under his breath, almost tasting the word. "Haven't heard of it."
He looked up, shifting his gaze toward Batman.
"How about you?"
Batman didn't answer immediately.
His hands slowed over the keyboard, then stopped entirely as he processed the name. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint hum of the system and the distant, almost imagined echo of movement far below.
"I spoke to Dr. Haas," he said finally, his voice low and measured. "She was involved in creating the Talons."
Vey's attention sharpened slightly at that.
"She told me she didn't know what made them… nearly immortal," Batman continued. "Not completely. Not the final component."
He turned slightly, just enough for his voice to carry more clearly through the room.
"But during my investigation, I found something inside their bodies."
"In their bone structure."
The room seemed to tighten around that statement.
Vey's eyes dropped back to the paper in his hand, scanning the word again. Electrum. Production numbers. Mining operation. Talons that refused to stay dead unless dismantled properly.
The pieces began to line up.
"You think it's the electrum," Vey said.
Batman didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
The silence carried more weight than confirmation.
Vey exhaled slowly through his nose, folding the paper once before handing it back to the man who had found it. He gazed out of the observation glass, "That's a lot of immortality stone."
"Well let's keep going." They moved deeper into the labyrinth
***
Deeper in the labyrinth, only a short ways away from the chamber Vey's team had just fought through, the air changed.
It was colder here, but not in the same way. The chill didn't come from open space or moving air—it settled into the stone itself, seeping upward through the floor and walls like something buried far beneath was bleeding into the structure. The tunnels had narrowed again, giving way to a more refined section of the Court's domain. The stonework here was older, cleaner, and well maintained.
The chamber they stood in was circular, its walls lined with carved recesses that held old lantern housings—some replaced with modern fixtures, others left untouched as relics of an earlier design. The center of the room was dominated by a reinforced access point, a sealed panel set into the floor with thick locking mechanisms and cable lines feeding into it from multiple directions.
Around it stood four men.
Each wore an owl mask.
Not identical, but close enough—variations in carving, slight differences in the curvature of the beak or the depth of the eye sockets, but all unmistakably part of the same tradition. Beneath the masks, they wore tailored coats over more practical clothing, a blend of old-world ceremony and modern utility.
One of them turned slightly, his posture stiff with impatience.
"Have you heard from the team we sent out?" he asked.
Another shook his head, arms crossed loosely over his chest.
"I wouldn't worry about it," he replied. "Probably just heard some rocks shifting from the mine. This whole place echoes weird."
He glanced around the chamber, the mask tilting slightly as if the walls themselves unsettled him.
"What we should be worrying about is finishing this so we can get out of here. This place is… different when it's not a meeting."
There was a faint edge in his voice now.
"Creepy as hell."
A third man let out a quiet scoff, leaning back slightly against one of the reinforced supports.
"It's not that bad," he said. "You get used to it."
His tone carried a touch of arrogance, like he was trying to convince himself as much as the others.
"Just finish up. Next meeting's going to be a war zone anyway. I don't even know why he's got us down here doing this."
The fourth man shifted his weight, glancing between them.
"We're too small to be asking questions like that," he said. "I'm just glad I got the invite. The Court's opened a lot of doors for me."
There was something almost eager in his voice.
"Same here," another added quickly. "So what if we have to place a few taps? That's nothing. He's going after the real competition. Not people like us."
The first man tilted his head slightly, considering that.
Then he asked, quieter now, "So you don't believe him?"
A pause.
"The part about there being a rat."
For a second, no one answered.
Then one of them laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to break the tension.
"Look around," he said, gesturing vaguely at the chamber, the sealed access point, the cables running into the floor. "Look at what we're doing down here and tell me you actually buy that."
Another chuckle followed, softer this time.
"Yeah," someone muttered. "If there was a rat, we wouldn't be the ones sent down here to play maintenance."
The group settled back into their work, the conversation fading as they focused again on the task at hand.