Chapter Thirteen: Eyes Wide, Fists Ready
It was snowing again.
Nelson Kent stood across from Kane in the quiet grove behind the house, hands folded behind his back, eyes calm but unblinking. The snow didn't touch him—it parted around his aura like it didn't dare.
"See," he said.
Kane's eyes glowed faintly. "I'm trying."
"Don't try. Do."
Kane inhaled. Focused.
The grove bent—not literally, but in subtle ways. He saw the eddies in the wind, the magic soaked into the roots of the trees, the faint cosmic thread that ran through Nelson like a candle burning in a hurricane. Every time he focused, it became clearer.
Not just the world.
The layers beneath it.
"You've already felt it," Kent said. "Presence from beyond. But what you need now is insight. A blade's useless if you can't tell what you're cutting."
Kane nodded, golden light flickering in his pupils. "They're moving again. I can feel it."
Kent's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"The Empty Hand?" he asked.
"No," Kane said. "Something... smaller. But faster. Closer. Here."
---
By nightfall, the snow had stopped.
But the sky was wrong.
Not black—bruised. A purplish hue that rippled in waves, like a pressure system moving through dimensions.
Kane stood at the tree line.
He wasn't scared. Just... aware.
"You're early," he said aloud.
Something stepped through the trees. Five of them. Not constructs. Living. Pale skin, eyes like cracked glass, robes that shifted colors like oil on water.
Empty Hand's agents.
They didn't speak.
But Kane heard them anyway.
He sees. He learns. He slips through the script.
Break him.
They moved fast—two flickering toward him, their limbs folding and snapping back in ways bones shouldn't move.
Kane reacted.
Not with brute force.
With clarity.
A shield snapped into place, not conjured—designed. Each glyph etched with meaning, reinforced with intent. It didn't just block—it unmade what it touched.
One of the agents hissed, arm partially erased.
Another dove toward him—jaw unhinging, voice screaming with layered tones that tried to unravel Kane's thoughts.
It didn't work.
He reached into that frequency, twisted the thread—and turned their scream into silence.
---
He didn't kill them.
But he wasn't being merciful either.
He'd learned that from John: never give fear an opening.
Three more came from the side, weaving together some form of null-field—designed to suppress power, cut connection to cosmic flow.
It nearly worked.
But Kane saw it coming before it activated.
He wasn't alone in his mind anymore. The presence of Nelson's training, Raven's focus, Zatanna's spellwork—they'd layered him in more than just shields.
They'd built in warning bells.
He snapped his fingers—three counter-sigils burst in the air, intersecting the null-field mid-cast.
It fizzled out.
The agents blinked.
Then a fist punched one of them clear into a tree.
---
"Late to the party?" came the voice—rough, sardonic.
Kane turned.
Jason Todd.
Red Hood stood with smoke curling from the barrel of a scorched pistol, helmet glinting with red lenses.
"Figured I'd come see what the cosmic fireworks were about," he said, ejecting the magazine, reloading mid-sentence. "Didn't expect demon cryptids."
Kane blinked. "You knew?"
Jason shrugged. "I didn't know. I guessed. Gotham's boring lately."
Another agent lunged.
Jason kicked it in the sternum, then double-tapped it with anti-magic rounds that left glowing burns.
"These guys don't like being shot," he noted. "Which means I like them even less."
---
Together, they moved through the remaining attackers.
Kane's strikes grew sharper—not because of fear, but because now, he trusted what he saw. His vision danced between layers. Physical, magical, conceptual.
He didn't just react. He anticipated.
When the last agent fell, dissolving into ash that hissed like static, Kane turned to Jason.
"Why are you really here?"
Jason pulled off his helmet, dark hair damp with sweat, eyes clear.
"Zatanna called in a few markers," he said. "Said you were drawing attention from the kind of people who rewrite reality like it's a bad first draft."
He looked Kane up and down. "You're glowing, by the way. It's subtle. Creepy. But subtle."
Kane exhaled.
"More are coming," he said. "I can feel them. This was just a poke."
Jason nodded. "Then it's good you've got backup."
He slid the helmet back on.
"And if you don't? Then it's a hell of a last stand."
---