"There should be a surface tunnel somewhere nearby. You… try to find it."
Batman's voice came through the comms, broken and uneven — enough to make people wonder what exactly he was doing.
Of course, the old man still had his dignity. The labored breathing wasn't from anything indecent — just from the fact that Bane was proving to be one hell of a workout.
Half the officers split off to search for an exit, while the rest cobbled together makeshift stretchers to carry the wounded and the weak.
Thea and Catwoman sat off to the side, catching their breath, watching Gordon scurry about giving orders like an overworked commander.
It didn't take long for the scouts to find something — though "exit" was a generous term.
It was an old, abandoned sewer line.
The tunnel was huge — wide and tall enough to drive a truck through — clearly built in an era when Gotham saw a lot more rainfall. The masonry was still solid, but the floor was caked in filth and decades of grime. No signs of recent activity.
Thea, Catwoman, and Gordon all hesitated.
The place was pitch-dark, rank with mold and rot. If there was an ambush waiting inside, it'd be a massacre.
"The height's fine. I'll go in first on the hoverboard."
As their strongest combatant, Thea had no choice but to take the lead — the kind of dangerous, thankless job no one would ever remember later.
Catwoman felt guilty for letting her go alone, but she knew she wasn't as agile.
"Be careful," she murmured, pulling Thea into a quick, firm hug.
"I'll signal once it's clear," Thea promised, lighting a torch and pocketing a few incendiary sticks before gliding into the darkness.
A few minutes later, when the light behind her had faded completely, Thea activated her bloodline ability.
"Shadow Clone."
From her body, a ghostly silhouette peeled away — faint for a moment, then solidifying into a perfect duplicate. Same face, same clothes, same expression — like looking in a mirror.
The sensation was bizarre — one mind, two bodies, two perspectives overlapping.
The clone could mimic her gear, but the replicas were purely cosmetic. When she tested the sword it held, it couldn't even cut paper.
"Fine," she muttered, handing it a torch instead. "You scout ahead."
The clone gave her a very human eye-roll before trudging forward into the dark.
"Much safer this way…" Thea whispered, gliding a short distance behind. No way she'd put her real self on the front line if she could help it.
Ten minutes later, she radioed the all-clear.
"Tunnel's disgusting but safe so far."
"Selina, you take the rear. I'll lead from the front," Gordon ordered, still full of old-school gallantry despite being nearly sixty.
He led the first group of officers in, descending the access shaft himself.
With only Thea's scattered torches for light, it took almost twenty minutes for the entire column to file into the sewer. Once the last of the civilians had entered, Catwoman followed, sealing the hatch behind them.
The rescued Gotham citizens — over a thousand of them — were mostly young, strong men.
Though weak from captivity, adrenaline and the instinct to survive kept them moving.
The comms stayed quiet. Each hero was busy fighting their own battle elsewhere.
Catwoman, impatient with the pace, was just about to ask how much farther they had to go when—
"Ah—!"
Thea's voice cracked through the earpiece, sharp and startled.
Everyone froze.
"What happened?!" several voices demanded at once.
"Oh my god! I'll draw it away — you guys move! Hurry—!"
Her words cut off mid-sentence, swallowed by a violent explosion that echoed through the underground.
"—Thea?!" Catwoman shouted.
No response.
Above ground, Batman's growl cut through the comm channel, rage flaring.
"What are you planning, Bane?!"
Bane didn't answer — he only sneered, hammering another crushing blow into the Dark Knight's armor. Batman had no choice but to focus on surviving the onslaught.
Then — a thud, followed by a deep rumble.
The ground itself shuddered. The tunnels trembled like an earthquake.
"—Ssshhhkkk— Thea just blew open the surface!" Felicity's voice came in, urgent and panicked. "She must've hit a gas line! Something's chasing her— something big!"
Something big enough to chase Thea Queen.
That thought alone made everyone go still.
There weren't many beings in Gotham capable of forcing Thea to run.
"Oh my god…" Felicity whispered again, eyes wide at the feed on her screen. "It's… it's a humanoid monster — at least three meters tall!"
The description didn't help much.
Three meters, humanoid, terrifying — that could describe half the rogues in Gotham.
Then Thea's voice returned, ragged but alive:
"Huff… huff… this thing's too strong. I'm luring it out of the city — just go! Get the civilians topside!"
She barely had time to explain what had happened.
One moment she'd been gliding behind her clone, bored and relaxed.
The next, the clone had vanished — snuffed out like a candle.
Then, out of the shadows, lumbered a giant — over three meters tall, skin iron-gray, muscles like stone, hair long and ashen, and eyes glowing a hellish red.
A corpse — but alive.
"Solomon Grundy…?"
Her brain short-circuited.
That wasn't possible. He wasn't supposed to wake up for years!
And yet here he was — the walking dead titan who, by all accounts, could fight Superman to a standstill.
"Nope," she muttered, already activating her board. "Absolutely not."
This had to be the "secret weapon" Talia had warned them about — the Court of Owls must've revived the undead brute early, setting it loose as an ambush.
Thank god she'd sent a clone ahead.
If her real body had been at the front… she'd already be paste on the tunnel wall.
Thea had zero intention of fighting Grundy underground.
With a flick of her wrist, she activated the black mist dagger, unleashing a thick, unnatural fog that swallowed the monster whole.
The darkness was absolute — even light seemed to vanish inside it.
To test it, she spawned another clone and had it circle the fog's edge.
It worked: Grundy, blind and furious, swung wildly in every direction, smashing pillars and walls but hitting nothing.
Perfect.
Thea shot upward, skating past him through the air, the whistle of her board echoing off the concrete.
Once she'd put thirty meters between them, she risked a glance back.
If this thing found the evac team, the result would be a massacre.
She had no choice but to draw him away.
She raised her bow, nocked an arrow, and pulled the string back to full draw.
No need to aim — the target was enormous.
The arrow sang as it flew, streaking straight into the heart of the black mist.