DC: All for One Chapter 6 - How to Get Rid of Incriminating Evidence

Ethan walked out of the hidden basement door, sealing it behind him with a soft click that echoed in the empty Doothenhall mansion, the stale air of the abandoned estate clinging to his clothes as he slipped through the halls and out into the night. He headed to a nearby park in the area, it was well maintained as would be expected of a place in such a nice area. It also lacked security cameras, which wasn't surprising as the people who lived here wouldn't want their perverse activities being recorded.

He sat on a bench under a oak tree, its leaves rustling faintly in the breeze that ran across his skin, prompting him to lean back and stare at the overcast sky while his mind replayed the events; knocking Renee out in the burning apartment and kidnapping her had been a necessary evil but it had complicated matters.

It had escalated everything, turning a minor homicide investigation into a full-blown manhunt that would soon mobilize the entire GCPD, because once they realized Renee was missing—likely by morning when she didn't report in—they'd comb the streets, question witnesses, and piece together her last known location at Creedence's apartment; though he doubted there was any evidence left behind in that inferno. He could kill her to simplify it all, slipping back into the cell and snapping her neck while she slept, but the thought caused a hollow laugh to bubble up from his chest...

it was so boring, so final, lacking the thrill of complexity that had ignited since stealing his first power.

The laugh grew louder, turning manic as tears welled in his eyes from the overwhelming rush of frustration and exhilaration that built in his core, causing his shoulders to shake while he leaned forward and clutched his head, the sobs mixing with hysterical giggles that echoed through the empty park until he finally leaned back in the seat, wiping his face with a sleeve as the outburst subsided and left him breathing steadily again.

No, he wouldn't kill her, because she wasn't a criminal—her only "crime" was trying to make this shithole of a city safer, and ending her would close off too many paths, plus in some twisted way he respected her will to fight.

With that decided, Ethan leaned forward and started noting all the things he now knew: His hyperadrenal had a usage limit, likely linked to his cardiovascular system—the repeated activations caused arrhythmia from electrolyte depletion and muscle strain in his heart, so he'd need to continue developing the serum he'd planned, injecting it to enhance his baseline endurance and perhaps boost mitochondrial efficiency in his cardiac cells, allowing multiple surges without collapse.

The next thing he needed to fix was his versatility, because limited options had nearly cost him against Eric and Renee, so finding other metahumans and stealing their powers became priority, expanding his arsenal to handle threats like the one looming now.

The Dark Knight.

Who would almost certainly get involved once a detective went missing. Ethan wasn't a fool he knew that in an encounter with the Batman he would lose, even with his enhanced strength. One thing that had been made painfully clear to him was his lack of ability when fighting. He had only ever did it as a hobby and he never improved himself the way a true fighter would. He would need to improve in that regard not being able to fight in close quarters severely limited him, and if he couldn't fight Renée Montoya then he'd have no chance against the Batman.

He also still needed to pay a visit to the city hall server room and eliminate the camera records from the night of Creedence's death, wiping any footage that might show him in the area before the police cross-referenced it with Renee's disappearance. And he had to do most of this before they realized she was missing, ideally within the next few hours while the city slept and shifts changed at the precinct.

Ethan smiled as the plan solidified in his mind, the challenge igniting that familiar thrill that caused his pulse to quicken.

This is going to be fun.

Ethan stood up and walked out of the park heading back to Gotham proper.

...

Ethan slipped through the shadows outside City Hall, the massive stone building looming under the Gotham night sky. He had scoped the place earlier, noting the patrols and vent access points, usually he'd like to assign more time when doing something so risky but he didn't have it, scaling the side wall he made his way to the roof of the building and he pulled himself up to an exterior vent grate.

He pried it open quietly, the metal giving way without a screech, and crawled inside the narrow duct, his body contorting to fit as the confined space pressed against his shoulders and chest, the Kevlar vest adding bulk that made his breaths come shorter but it wasn't too bad.

The vent led him downward through the building, dust coating his mask and hoodie as he navigated the turns by memory from the blueprints he'd pulled earlier via a quick hack on his phone, the air growing warmer from the heating systems below. He paused at a grate overlooking the main security room, listening to the two guards inside on their break.

"Man, you see that game last night?" the first guard said, a burly guy in his forties with a coffee stain on his uniform shirt, leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk.

"Yeah, total blowout," the second replied, popping open a soda can that fizzed loudly. "Knights got robbed on that last call, though. Ref was blind or bought off."

"Nah, they just suck this year," the first laughed, crumpling a chip bag and tossing it toward the trash can, missing and letting it bounce on the floor. "Speaking of suck, you hear about that new intern in records? The one with the red hair? I'd let her file my paperwork any day, if you know what I mean."

The second snorted, nearly spitting his drink. "Dude, she's like twenty. You'd break a hip trying. Besides, my wife's got me on a short leash after that barbecue last month, remember when I danced with her sister? Thought I was done for."

"Yeah, well, keep dreaming," the first said, reaching for his radio but pausing to yawn. "These night shifts are killing me. Nothing ever happens here anyway. Might as well be watching paint dry."

Ethan waited until they both looked away, the first guard turning to adjust a monitor and the second checking his phone, before he kicked the grate loose with a muffled clang that blended with their laughter. He dropped down from the vent, landing in a crouch behind them in his dark hoodie and mask, the shadows of the room concealing his form for a split second as he rose smoothly.

The first guard spun around at the noise, his chair scraping back as he fumbled for his gun on his belt, eyes widening in shock. "What the—"

Ethan kicked the nearest chair hard, sending it sliding across the floor into the guard's legs, the impact buckling his knees and toppling him forward with a grunt as he hit the ground face-first, his radio clattering away.

The second guard jumped up, drawing his pistol with a curse, but Ethan closed the distance in two steps, delivering a powerful punch to his gut that doubled him over, the air whooshing from his lungs in a wheeze, then followed with an elbow to the back of his head that cracked against his skull and dropped him limp to the floor.

The first guard pushed up from the ground, groaning and reaching for his fallen gun, but Ethan stomped down on his hand, pinning it before kicking him in the ribs, the blow rolling him over with a pained yelp as he curled up, clutching his side. Ethan moved fast, zip-tying their wrists and ankles with restraints he'd brought, gagging them with strips of duct tape from their own desk drawer, then dragging their unconscious bodies into a storage closet at the back of the room, locking it shut with a key from the first guard's belt. He turned to the bank of monitors, the screens glowing with live feeds from cameras throughout the building, hallways empty at this hour except for a janitor mopping in the lobby far below.

He scanned the layouts quickly, pulling up a floor plan from the security terminal with a few keystrokes, his gloved fingers flying over the keyboard as he bypassed the basic password prompt using a default admin code he'd researched earlier. The server room showed up on the basement level, marked as restricted access with its own dedicated camera feed that revealed a locked door and no guards posted outside, the interior dark except for the hum of machines he could almost hear through the screen. He slipped out of the security room, moving down the dimly lit corridor with his back to the wall.

A patrol guard rounded the corner ahead, flashlight in hand, and Ethan pressed into a recessed doorway, waiting until the man passed before stepping out silently and wrapping his arm around the guard's neck from behind, applying a chokehold that cut off blood flow to the brain, the man's struggles weakening after ten seconds as his body went limp, allowing Ethan to lower him to the floor and drag him into an empty office, zip-tying him out of sight.

He continued downward via the stairwell, avoiding the elevators that might ping alerts, and encountered another guard on the lower level who was sipping coffee while checking his phone. Ethan pulled the taser he'd taken from the security room guard,and he fired from the shadows, the darts embedding in the man's back and sending volts through his body that made him convulse and drop, foam bubbling at his mouth before Ethan dragged him aside and secured him. Reaching the basement, Ethan approached the server room door, its keypad glowing red, but he used a keycard swiped from the tased guard to bypass it, the lock beeping green as the door clicked open. Inside, rows of servers stretched into the doom.

He heard voices from a small office at the back, two IT workers complaining as they typed at their consoles. "This is bullshit, man," the first said, a lanky guy in glasses leaning back in his chair. "All this overtime because some fat detective wants footage, Like we don't have better things to do."

The second laughed, a shorter man with a beard, sipping energy drink from a can. "Yeah, guy looks like he hasn't seen a gym since the '80s. Probably tripped over his own gut chasing a donut. And now we're pulling all-nighters archiving this crap? If he wants it so bad, let him come down here and dig through the drives himself."

Ethan moved silently into the office, emerging from the shadows behind them, and slammed the first worker's head down onto his desk with a crack that dazed him instantly, blood trickling from his forehead as his glasses shattered. The second spun around in shock, mouth opening to shout, but Ethan grabbed him by the collar and rammed his face into the keyboard, keys crunching under the impact as the man slumped unconscious, a tooth loosening and falling onto the floor.

Ethan dragged their bodies to a corner, tying them with zip ties, then sat at the main terminal, pulling up the footage archives with admin access from the keycard. He searched for the dates and times around Creedence's death, locating the street camera feeds that might have captured him in the area, but when he tried to delete them, the system flashed an error.

*Deletion restricted: backup restoration in progress*

He attempted again, using command line overrides and even a quick script to force it, but the files refilled automatically from mirrored drives, the interface locking him out after three tries with a warning log that would alert admins in the morning.

He narrowed his eyes, considering possible theories: Perhaps the system used blockchain-like hashing to verify integrity, or AI monitoring that flagged deletions as tampering and pulled from offsite clouds, or even hardware-level redundancy with encrypted backups that prevented local wipes... whatever it was, time was short, and he couldn't crack it here without tools he didn't have.

He lifted the lanky worker by the collar, slapping his face repeatedly until the man groaned and stirred, eyes fluttering open in confusion that turned to terror as Ethan pressed a gun to his temple, the cold barrel digging into skin. The guy nearly shouted but Ethan clamped his hand over his mouth firmly, muffling the sound as he leaned in close. "If you move or shout, I'll kill you. Try anything and I'll kill you. Do you understand?" The man nodded frantically, eyes wide with fear, sweat beading on his forehead that trickled down his cheek.

Ethan didn't move his hand but asked through gritted teeth, "Why can't I delete any of the footage?"

The guy mumbled against the palm, and Ethan eased his grip just enough for words to escape. "It... it can't be done, the system is designed that way, any deletions just get refilled from backups automatically, it's to stop evidence from going missing, like for court stuff, you can't wipe it manually."

Ethan pressed the gun harder, causing the man to whimper. "Where are the backups located?"

"All in this building," the guy stammered, "Everything's onsite for security, no cloud because of risk of remote hacks."

Ethan nodded, then cracked the gun against the man's temple, knocking him out cold again with a thud as his body slumped back. He stood there for a moment, weighing the risks, then decided he had no choice but to resort to drastic measures because partial deletion wouldn't hold, and leaving traces meant the police could still link him to the scene.

He sneaked out of the server room quietly, moving through the basement corridors with his back to the wall to avoid any late-night staff, and found the janitor's closet unlocked, rifling through shelves for materials: bottles of cleaning solvents that were highly flammable like alcohol and acetone, rags for wicks, duct tape to bundle them, and a few aerosol cans for pressure. He gathered more from a maintenance room nearby, wires from an electrical panel, a timer from an old clock radio on a desk, and fertilizer bags from a storage bin.

Back in the server room, he sat cross-legged on the floor amid the machines and constructed a bomb methodically, pouring the solvents into a large container he'd found, soaking the rags in them and threading them as fuses, then wiring the timer to a spark igniter from one of the aerosols, packing the fertilizer around the core to create a makeshift explosive that would generate enough heat and force to melt the drives beyond recovery. He couldn't help but see the irony in what he was doing; trying to cover up a crime with another crime, going from murder to a terrorist act just to erase a few videos, a causal loop of his own making that made him pause for a second with a faint smile under the mask.

It didn't take him long before it was ready, the device compact but potent, its timer set for ten minutes which gave him enough window to escape without rushing. He linked it up to the igniter with a final twist of wire, then carried both the unconscious workers out one by one, slinging them over his shoulder like sacks and depositing them on the floor above in a hallway where the blast radius wouldn't reach.

He was already out of the building by the time the explosion went off, slipping through a side exit into the alley, but the blast was bigger than he thought, a deep boom that shook the ground and sent a fireball erupting from the basement windows, shattering the first-floor glass in a cascade of shards that rained onto the plaza like glittering rain, alarms blaring immediately as smoke billowed into the sky.

_____________________________________

Harvey Bullock sprawled across his sagging mattress as he slept; it had only been a few hours since he got home and he'd collapsed almost immediately. His snores rumbled through the apartment,, until his phone vibrated insistently on the nightstand, the buzzing drilling into his skull like a hangover. He groped for it with one meaty hand, knocking over a half-empty bottle of antacids that rolled across the floor, and squinted at the screen through bleary eyes—Commissioner James Gordon's name stared back at him.

Harvey cleared his throat with a phlegmy rumble and answered. "Bullock here. This better be good, Jim, because I was in the middle of a dream about that redhead from vice."

"Harvey, it's Gordon," the commissioner replied. "We have an explosion at City Hall. I need you down here immediately. Get your lazy ass up now."

Harvey sat up slowly, the bedsprings protesting under his bulk as the words sank in, chasing away the last fog of sleep. "Explosion? At City Hall? What in the hell happened?"

"I will explain when you arrive," Gordon said firmly. "Just get here as quickly as you can. The fire department has it contained, but we have injuries and a lot of people asking questions, I've got the mayor halfway up my ass. Do not stop for coffee."

The line went dead before Harvey could mutter a retort, leaving him staring at the phone in the half-light, annoyance bubbling up like heartburn because he'd only hit the sack three hours ago after chasing dead ends on that Apostle freak. But shock overrode it fast, who the hell would just blow up city hall—well he could think of a dozen off the top of his head but they'd usually be a bit more flamboyant. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor, and stood with a grunt, his gut shifting under his undershirt as he shuffled to the bathroom.

The light buzzed to life overhead, illuminating the stubble shadowing his jowls and the bags under his eyes that looked like they'd been punched in by Batman himself. He splashed water on his face from the sink, the cold shock jolting him fully awake as droplets trailed down his neck and soaked into his collar, then grabbed a towel to scrub dry before heading to the closet. He yanked out a wrinkled button-down shirt that smelled faintly of yesterday's sweat and fast food, shrugging it on over his belly and fastening the buttons, the fabric straining across his chest. No time for any new clothing—time was wasting, and Gordon didn't call him down there chit-chat.

Down in the parking lot, his unmarked sedan waited. He slid behind the wheel, the engine coughing to life after a turn of the key, and pulled out into the deserted streets, the headlights cutting through the fog rolling in from the bay. The drive took twenty minutes of weaving through red lights he ignored, his mind churning over what psycho would do this. He fished a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with the dash lighter, the smoke filling the car as he inhaled deep, the nicotine steadying his nerves while the radio crackled with dispatch updates: "All units, City Hall incident, possible terrorist activity, stand by for further."

The plaza came into view like a damn war zone, squad cars forming a perimeter that flashed blue and red across the street, firefighters were also there putting out the test of the fires that had managed to spread. A crowd had gathered despite the hour, reporters mostly who tried their best to get past the police lines as well as a few dozen employees of city hall.

Harvey parked crookedly on the grass and got out before flashing his badge at a rookie who waved him through without a word, and pushed into the throng, ignoring the shouts of "Detective! Any leads?" as lenses clicked in his face.

"O'Sullivan," Harvey called, clapping the man on the back hard enough to slosh coffee over the rim. "You look like you just crawled out of a dumpster. What the hell dragged you into this circus?"

O'Sullivan winced and wiped his hand on his pants. "Gordon's call, Harvey. Said it was priority one. You know how he gets, won't take no for an answer."

"Yeah, well, neither will my bed later on," Harvey grumbled, but he managed a half-smile. "Ramirez! You pulling all-nighters now? Thought you had that cushy desk job lined up."

Ramirez rolled his eyes, adjusting his tie. "Cushy until Gordon dials. Fire chief says it's contained, but the basement's a meltdown."

Harvey nodded and pressed on, weaving past techs in hazmat suits cataloging debris, until he reached Gordon near the entrance.

"Harvey," Gordon said, turning with a nod and pressing a Styrofoam cup of coffee into his hand—black, steaming, the way Bullock liked it. "You made good time. Drink this; you'll need it."

Harvey took a swig, the bitter heat burning down his throat and chasing away the last sleep-fog. "Thanks, Jim. So, fill me in, what the hell happened here?"

Gordon's face remained grim. "The explosion originated in the basement server room at approximately 2:45 AM. It blew out the first-floor windows and caused structural damage, but the building held. Fire department contained the blaze within twenty minutes, but the servers are destroyed. Our techs estimate weeks to recover anything, if we can at all."

Harvey whistled, scanning the shattered building where smoke still curled from the windows. "Arson? Who hits the town hall at night? Damn place is a ghost town?"

"Deliberate, no question," Gordon replied. "Bkmb squad think it's a Homemade device. Placed right in the data core. Two IT technicians found unconscious on the floor above, zip-tied with minor concussions. Security guards in the same state, locked in a closet. Lucky there were no fatalities."

"Footage?" Harvey asked, his mind already turning to leads.

Gordon shook his head, jaw tightening. "Gone. The system kept everything onsite for security, there are no offsite backups to prevent tampering. Ironically, that's what got us now. Internal cams cut off after 2:30 AM."

"Witnesses?" Harvey pressed, draining his coffee and crumpling the cup in his fist.

Gordon gestured toward the ambulances parked at the curb, where paramedics tended to bandaged figures. "The guards and techs are stable. I want you to question them, Harvey. Build a profile on this intruder. We need a face or a trail fast."

Harvey nodded, pocketing the crushed cup. "On it, Jim. I'll squeeze out what I can."

He trudged over to the ambulances, the debris crunching under his shoes as he approached the first pair; a couple security guardss, wrapped in blankets on the tailgate. The burly one nursed a bandaged hand; the younger sported a lump on his forehead. Harvey flashed his badge. "Detective Harvey Bullock, GCPD Homicide. You gentlemen mind if I ask a few questions? I promise I'll make it quick."

The burly guard straightened slightly. "Go ahead, Detective. We aren't banged up too badly. We're just glad to be breathing."

Harvey pulled out his notepad. "Walk me through it from the start. What were you doing when this clown showed up?"

The younger one spoke first. "We were on break in the security room, sir. Talking about the Knights game from last night. Then... this asshole drops from the vent like he's the famn batman himself. Black hoodie, mask over his face. Scared me nearly half to death."

Harvey scribbled notes, his pen scratching audibly. "Build? Height? Anything stand out? Did you manage to catch his face?"

"About six feet tall, lean I'd say but built like he lifts," the burly one said, flexing his injured hand. "Moved like a professional if I've ever seen on. Kicked a chair right into my legs, sent me falling to the ground. My partner went for his gun, but the guy punched him in the gut, then elbowed his head and dropped him cold. Kicked me while I was down for good measure. Zip-tied us, gagged us with tape, dragged us to the closet. Didn't say a word the whole time."

"N he didn't say anything? No demands?" Harvey probed, glancing up.

"Silent as the grave," the younger confirmed. "Sat at the console for maybe a minute. Then he was gone."

Harvey thanked them with a nod and moved to the IT techs on the next rig, both with ice packs pressed to their skulls, looking shell-shocked under the paramedic's flashlight. "Morning fellas I'm Detective Bullock. You two the overnight crew?"

The lanky one with glasses nodded gingerly. "That's us.

Bullock nodded before he brought his pad up. "Can you go over what you were doing when you encountered the perp?" He asked.

The first one out his ice pack down. "We were in the server pulling footage for... well for you detective. Bullock, right? Your request came in late afternoon."

Harvey's pen paused mid-stroke. "My case? The Creedence Upshaw murder?"

"Yeah," the bearded one said, wincing as he shifted. "We were archiving street cams around the alley, getting them ready to transfer. Then this guy bursts in—slams my head on the desk before I even see him. Woke up upstairs, tied up like a Christmas turkey."

"Any of you get a description'?" Harvey asked.

The second one nodded. "He woke me up after he knocked me out so I managed to get a look at him."

Harvey raised a brow. "What did he want?

"He couldn't figure out how to delete the footage on the server and asked me how to do it, I told him that it couldn't be done and he just knocked me out again," the guy replied.

"Get a good look at him? What did he sound like?" Harvey asked.

"I know he had these crazy blue eyes, like really blue... damn near made me shiver, but the rest of his face was covered. His voice though... it felt cold... like... I don't know like I was talking to a robot," the guy said before nursing his head again. "I'm sorry detective I don't remember anymore."

"No problem fellas, you guys get some rest and I'll contact you if I need to follow up," he said with a smile before turning back around and walking off.  Harvey closed his notepad with a snap, his mind clicking like a lock tumbler as he lit a cigarette, the smoke curling up into the night. The timing gnawed at him—he'd filed that footage request just yesterday afternoon, and now the servers housing it were ash. No accident. It had to be someone covering tracks.

"Shit," Harvey muttered to himself, exhaling a plume that caught the breeze.

Ethan Kane... I have no proof that you are involved in this, but every instinct I have developed over twenty years on this job tells me that you are.

He needed Renee's take, she had a nose for patterns like this. Spotting a uniformed officer directing gawkers, Harvey waved him over. "Officer, have you seen Detective Montoya on scene?"

The kid shook his head, adjusting his cap. "No, sir. Haven't spotted her all night. You want me to radio around?"

Harvey waved it off. "Nah, I'll handle it." He pulled out his phone and dialed her number, pacing a few steps as it rang through to voicemail, the generic tone beeping in his ear. He tried again, letting it ring longer this time, but no answer, just the same automated message looping back. "Lazy broad," he thought, pocketing the phone with a frown, figuring she was probably asleep by now.

He headed back to Gordon, pushing through a knot of reporters who thrust notebooks at him—"Detective, is this terrorism?"—which he ignored with a glare that sent them scattering. The commissioner stood where he'd left him, now on the radio with the fire chief, his free hand gesturing at the building's facade. "Jim," Harvey called, stepping up. "Got profiles from the witnesses, seems like whoever did this was a pro."

Gordon clicked off the radio and nodded, his mustache twitching as he sized up the smoldering entrance. "Good work, Harvey. The fire chief just cleared the structure. It's stable enough for us to go inside. Come on, we need to see the damage up close."

Harvey fell in step beside him, the two men ducking under the caution tape and weaving through clusters of firefighters. "Listen, Jim," Harvey said as they climbed the steps. "I think this ties to my case. I put in a request yesterday afternoon for CCTV footage around Creedence Upshaw's murder. Street cams, alley angles—the works. And now the servers holding that stuff are gone? That's no coincidence."

Gordon paused at the shattered doors, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at Harvey. "It's an odd timing, I'll give you that. But Gotham has more than its share of psychos who pick targets at random. This could be any number of psychos with a grudge against the city. We cannot jump to conclusions without more."

"Yeah, but how many of those psychos would hit and run without sticking around to gloat?" Harvey pressed, his gut tightening as they stepped through the lobby. "Most of them love the spotlight. They kill a few clerks, leave a manifesto, or at least carve their name in the wall. This? It feels personal, like someone's scrubbing a trail."

Gordon grunted, his hand resting on the butt of his revolver as they navigated the hallway. "Your point is noted, Harvey. We can look into that lead another firm. For now, focus on the witnesses' profiles. And build us a suspect."

They reached the basement stairs where they descended to the server room. Harvey whistled as they approached, the scaleof what happened hitting him full forc; racks of servers reduced to molten husks, drives warped and fused, the air still smoky and a little hard to breath.

"Jesus Christ," Harvey swore, his voice echoing off the ruined space as he shone his flashlight over the devastation, the beam catching globs of hardened slag where data cores had liquefied. "How the hell does a homemade bomb do this much damage? Looks like a damn airstrike in here."

"The person responsible knew exactly what he was doing," a voice echoed from the shadows behind them.

Both men turned sharply, Harvey's hand dropping to his holster while Gordon's stiffened, the flashlight beam swinging wild until it caught a silhouette towering in the doorway. The figure filled the frame, broad shoulders casting a shadow that swallowed the light, his presence sucking the air from the room like a vacuum, the faint creak of leather gloves flexing at his sides the only sound besides their breathing. "Batman," Gordon said, his voice laced with relief as he straightened. "I am glad you are here. What do you make of this?"

The eyes on his mask seemed to glow blue for a moment as he approached the crime scene, his boots silent on the debris, while the cape swirled faintly in the draft from the vents. "The bomb was a composite device," Batman replied. "Solvents from supplies commonly found in janitorial closets; acetone, alcohol—mixed with ammonium nitrate fertilizer for the primary explosive yield. Wires from maintenance panels served as the detonator, timed with a scavenged clock mechanism. Everything was combined in perfect ratios to maximize thermal output without structural collapse. This was not the work of an amateur. The perpetrator possesses extremely advanced knowledge of chemistry."

Harvey snorted, crossing his arms over his belly as he eyed the Dark Knight warily. "Yeah, well, if he's such a genius, why not just hack the damn thing? Sounds like overkill for a damn tape."

"Shut it, Harvey," Gordon snapped, shooting him a glare that silenced the retort, though Bullock's jaw tightened in irritation.

Batman turned his head slightly toward Gordon, the lenses unblinking. "Commissioner, do you have any leads?"

"I should be asking you that," Gordon replied. "You have resources we don't exactly have on hand."

"The explosion did an exemplary job of removing traces," Batman said, his voice dropping an octave. "No fingerprints, no fibers survived the heat. The security room upstairs yielded nothing. Whoever this is... is a professional."

Batman shifted his focus to Harvey then, the lenses narrowing as if dissecting him. "Detective Bullock, repeat the theory you were telling the commissioner."

Harvey cleared his throat, feeling exposed under that stare like a suspect in interrogation. "Well, it's like this. I filed a request yesterday for CCTV footage tied to a homicide I'm working; the Creedence Upshaw murder in the east end. I was trying to get footage of the area surrounding the alleyway where he died. . And now the servers holding that exact data are melted slag? Feels too neat. Like someone's tying up loose ends."

Batman absorbed it silently for a moment, the cape settling around him like a shroud. "It could be a coincidence. But there are no other leads at present, and no other probable suspects who would execute something this surgical without claiming credit or leaving dead bodies."

Harvey nodded slowly, the words landing heavy as his mind circled back to Ethan Kane, the kid's calm eyes during questioning, the too-perfect alibi that didn't sit right. He opened his mouth to voice it, the suspicion bubbling up, but doubt clamped down hard; if he was wrong, he'd be unleashing the Bat on some scholarship punk from the academy, giving the kid a fright for his life on a hunch.

No, he needed proof, something solid before siccing the Bat on a boy.

"I will be in touch, Commissioner," Batman said, his form already blending into the shadows as he turned, the cape swirling once before he vanished into the adjacent corridor.

Gordon exhaled slowly, holstering his flashlight. "That man will be the death of me one day. But if anyone can find this bomber, it's him."

Harvey grunted in agreement, lighting another cigarette as they headed back upstairs, the smoke curling toward the hole in the ceiling. "Yeah, well, let's hope he does it before breakfast. I'm starving."

_____________________________________

Ethan boarded the early-morning train out of Gotham Central Station just as the first gray light of dawn bled over the skyline, the platform still half-empty with commuters huddled in coats against the chill, their breaths fogging the air like ghosts. He knew departing so soon after the City Hall blast—and Renee's disappearance—would cast suspicion if anyone pieced together his schedule, but without hard evidence, the GCPD couldn't touch him, and by the time they knocked, he'd be back with new toys to play with.This was more important anyway.

Power shopping.

He settled into a window seat near the back of the car, pulling out the brand-new laptop he'd bought with cash from a electronics shop in the East End the night before, it was a sleek black machine with specs that screamed overkill for a high schooler, its screen flickering to life as the train lurched forward, rattling over the tracks toward the bridge spanning the bay.

Ethan cracked his knuckles and connected to the school's Wi-Fi network remotely via a VPN tunnel he'd set up, the signal weak but stable as it piggybacked off the academy's secure line without tripping alerts. From there, he accessed the science lab computer, the one where his background program still ran, scraping forums, social media, and obscure chat logs for whispers of metahumans—posts about "weird accidents," "impossible recoveries," or "voices that weren't mine."

The list had grown overnight: dozens of potentials scattered across the East Coast, from Jersey to Blüdhaven, but Ethan filtered most of them out for now. He couldn't vanish from Gotham for weeks; the weekend was his window. Out of the hits, he shortlisted the most useful, though he made sure they were all clustered in Metropolis. The city of tomorrow that was just across the river, a damn near paradise compared to Gotham and home to the most dangerous man in the world. He'd need to be careful not to draw his attention otherwise he'd find himself in a jail cell.

Ethan cast those thoughts away before looking at the list he had made.

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Jesse Nash: Voice Imitation. The guy could mimic any tone, accent, or timbre after one listen.

Albert Heinz: Scent Masking. He is able to completely erase his own scent at will, a useful trick when dealing with the k9 department.

Lucy Canon: Regenerative Saliva. Her saliva is able to heal small wounds and infections, even going so far as to close up stab wounds.

David Helbaum: Enhanced Agility. Moves like a gymnast on steroids, is able to intuitively move his body in almost any way he can imagine.

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Ethan smiled, leaning back as the train picked up speed, the city receding in the window like a bad dream. Soon he would have four more powers to play with and then he'd go back to Gotham and the game could really begin.

The train announcer's voice crackled over the speakers. "Next stop: Metropolis Central. Metropolis Central arriving on your right."

(AN: So Ethan is finally going to expand his repertoire of abilities, I know they may seem lacklustre at the moment but I'm going for a more mental game of wits at the beginning of this story, this will be where he builds up his base and discovers what he wants to do with his powers. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)