Edward braced himself with a green walking cane, stepping across slick rocks carpeted with moss that felt more like slime than vegetation. Beneath his feet lay the accumulated filth of decades.
His brow was furrowed in concentration as he held a notebook, stopping every few meters to jot something down or sketch a quick diagram.
"Too dirty," he murmured. "This isn't normal, Otis. Body dumps usually happen in places like landfills because they're convenient and remote. But every site we've visited today..." He gestured at the thick layer of trash coating the rocks. "This level of filth is excessive, almost deliberate."
Otis followed a few steps behind. Out here, far from the noise of the city, there was only the monotonous crash of waves against rock and the low moan of wind passing through abandoned drainage pipes. A few seagulls circled overhead.
"Mr. Nygma," Otis couldn't help saying. "This place feels wrong. It's too quiet." He glanced around nervously. "We should've brought backup. A couple more guys, at least."
Edward lifted his head from his notes and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looking at Otis.
"Psychological discomfort often stems from vigilance toward unfamiliar environments. It's an evolutionary instinct. But logically speaking—"
Otis didn't argue. He also didn't really understand what Edward was talking about. But he trusted his instincts, and his instincts were screaming at him to get the hell out of here.
While Edward continued his search, examining tide lines and drainage patterns, he made a decision. He let out a low, soft whistle.
Nothing happened for a few seconds.
Then the rocks seemed to come alive.
Dozens of rats emerged from cracks between stones, behind piles of trash, and even the mouths of rusted pipes. They moved silently, gathering at Otis' feet in a loose semicircle. Bastien poked his head out of Otis' jacket pocket and scrambled down to join them.
"Good boy, Bastien," Otis crouched down and whispered to the big rat. "Take your friends and scout the area. If anything feels wrong, come back immediately."
He pulled a large chunk of cheese from his satchel and set it on the ground. The rats swarmed it, devouring it in seconds. Then they scattered, disappearing into the shadows.
He straightened up, feeling slightly better.
That's when he noticed Edward watching him.
"Mr. Nygma, I can explain..."
"It's alright." Edward waved a hand dismissively. "Marco already told me about your ability. But seeing it in person is completely different from hearing about it second-hand. Truly remarkable, Otis."
There was no disgust or fear in his tone.
"This isn't simple animal training," he continued, tilting his head slightly. "It's more like... resonance? Symbiosis? Can you understand their language, or is it that they understand your intent? What kind of information-transfer mechanism is at work here? Some form of infrasonic communication we haven't identified yet? Or perhaps a combination of pheromones and learned behavioral cues?"
Faced with Edward's rapid-fire questions, Otis felt embarrassed. He scratched the back of his head.
"I don't know. It's just... I feel like I can understand them, and they're willing to help me. Bastien's been with me the longest. He's the smartest."
"Incredible. If we could identify the underlying mechanism, it might lead to breakthroughs in neuroscience, inter-species communication, even..."
He stopped abruptly.
The rats came flooding back, moving three times faster than they'd left, squealing in panic, their small bodies trampling each other. Bastien shot up Otis' leg, scrambling up his jacket and onto his shoulder. The rat's eyes were wide, and he kept looking toward the pitch-black opening of a main sewer outlet about twenty meters away.
The opening was easily three meters across.
"Bastien!" Otis' face went pale. "He says... there's something in there."
Edward felt it too. The shoreline had felt quiet before. Now it felt still. The wind had died. The waves seemed muted. All that remained was the sound of water deep in the sewer and the increasingly loud pounding of his own heartbeat.
"We should—"
BOOM.
A massive shadow exploded out of the sewer opening, bringing with it a gust of fetid wind. The thing was huge and its arms spread wide like tattered wings as it launched itself toward Otis.
"GET DOWN!"
Edward didn't retreat. Instead, he thrust forward the ordinary cane he'd been carrying, his thumb slamming down on a concealed button near the handle.
CRACK... ZZZZZT!
A web of blue-white electrical arcs exploded from the tip of the cane, forming a brief, dazzling net of electricity.
"AAAAGH!"
The massive body jerked to a halt in midair, smoke rising from where the electricity had struck.
Startled and hurt, it abandoned the attack. Its hind legs kicked against the rocks, sending shards of stone and filthy water flying. Under Edward and Otis' gazes, the enormous figure vaulted upward into the air.
What Edward had mistaken for tattered fabric weren't wings at all.
They were membranes. They beat violently, producing a sound like old leather being ripped, churning the foul coastal air as the thing rapidly gained altitude.
The two men instinctively looked up.
The dying sunlight caught the creature perfectly as it climbed into the sky. For one moment, Edward could see it clearly.
It was humanoid. Roughly. It had a torso, limbs, a head. But the arms were too long, the legs too muscular, and the entire body was covered in damp, dark fur. The head… an elongated snout, and pointed ears that swiveled independently.
It was a bat. A giant, human-sized bat.
It didn't fly high, maybe ten meters at most, but it moved with terrifying speed, shrinking rapidly as it headed toward the distant glow of Gotham's downtown. Within seconds, it vanished into the silhouettes of buildings and the gathering dusk.
The shoreline fell into silence.
Only the faint hiss of Edward's cane broke the quiet.
Otis' legs gave out. He collapsed onto the slick rocks, catching himself with one hand, gasping for air. Edward wasn't much better. He gripped the cane.
"Humanoid... bat?" he whispered, as if saying it out loud might make it make sense. "The skeletal structure and muscle distribution of chiropteran species can't support an individual of that size performing sustained flight. The wing loading alone would be... this violates basic aerodynamics. This isn't possible."
"Mr. Nygma! Please. Please. We need to go. Right now. I can't... I don't want to stay here another second."
Edward snapped out of his trance. He looked at Otis, then scanned the bay.
"Let's go."
He grabbed Otis by the arm and hauled him to his feet. The two of them stumbled toward the car parked on the access road, moving as fast as the slick rocks would allow.
---
They made it to the car in record time. Otis threw himself into the passenger seat, slamming the door and immediately hitting the lock button. The click of the locks engaging made him feel a bit safer.
Edward slid into the driver's seat, his hands shaking slightly as he fumbled the keys into the ignition.
"How can something that big even fit in Gotham's sewers?"
He turned the key. The engine caught with a reassuring rumble.
"Now that is a question you're asking the right person. I used to travel through those tunnels all the time when I was clearing out rat infestations. Nobody knows how many kilometers they actually stretch. Some of the main lines are wide enough to drive a truck through. And every time you think you've reached the end, you find another junction leading even deeper."
"Fascinating." Edward's mind was already trying to process what he'd seen. "Have you ever encountered anything like that before?"
"No." Otis shook his head. "The worst things down there were rats, roaches, and the occasional decomposing body. Nothing like that. At least not in the upper levels."
"Upper levels," Edward repeated thoughtfully, steering the car onto the main road. "Meaning there could be..."
"I don't know and I don't want to know," Otis cut him off. "Mr. Nygma, could that thing be that vigilante everyone's talking about? Batman?"
"No. I've heard Marco's description. Batman is just a man in a costume. What we just saw was..." He trailed off, searching for the right word. "Biological. That wasn't a costume. That was real."
After a long moment of silence, he spoke again.
"Honestly, Otis... don't you think Gotham is becoming more and more interesting?"
Otis stared at him like he'd lost his mind.
"How could you possibly think that?! No! Absolutely not!"