Rex stood alone before the obsidian door.
No torches this time. No hooded assassins. Just the voice of Ra's al Ghul echoing through the black stone chamber like a god speaking from the abyss.
"You have faced the man you were," Ra's said, "and the man whose shadow you now wear."
A rumble shook the floor beneath Rex's boots. The door split open with a sigh of ancient stone.
"Now… you will face what lies beneath it all."
Rex looked back, but the hallway he came from was gone. No path to retreat. No chance to prepare. He stepped forward.
The door closed behind him.
And time shattered.
---
The First Century — Year 1 to 30
It began with fire.
A burning building. A woman screaming inside. He saw himself—Nightwing—rushing in, only to find the source of the cries was a child, cradling the body of her dead mother. Rex moved to lift the girl.
Too late.
The roof collapsed. Flames swallowed them both.
The scene changed.
Now he stood in a rain-soaked alley. Blood on his hands. A mistake—a decision he made that cost a hostage her life. He screamed, punching the wall until bones cracked, until it all dissolved again.
Endless failures.
In each new memory, he watched himself lose someone.
Barbara. Alfred. Bruce.
One by one, each death a new scar. Every action he took—every punch thrown, every second of hesitation—led to someone dying.
And he couldn't stop it.
He watched crime scenes play like a reel of horrors: murders he failed to stop, friends he couldn't save. He saw Batman die again. He saw the Titans fall apart. He saw a Joker laughing over the ruins of Blüdhaven, the city once under his watch.
"Why are you showing me this?!" he shouted, voice breaking.
No answer. Just more.
---
Year 31 to 60
The villains changed. The cities. The faces. But the guilt remained.
He watched himself become cruel.
The Nightwing in these visions stopped smiling. Stopped talking. The hopeful blue of his suit turned dark, then black. He began killing—not out of rage, but because he believed it was more efficient.
He watched himself slit Slade Wilson's throat. He shot Joker through the mouth. He strangled Two-Face in the Batcave.
And the people around him?
They stopped calling him "hero."
They started calling him "monster."
One by one, Gotham turned its back on him. The Bat-Family dissolved. Even Bruce, aged and bitter, left him behind.
"You're not Dick," that older Bruce whispered in one of the visions. "And you're not Rex anymore either."
"I'm… trying," Rex whispered, knuckles white.
But the world in these memories didn't care.
He saw himself become a dictator of the night, ruling Gotham with fear. He burned bridges with people who once called him brother. In one haunting memory, Barbara pointed a gun at him, tears in her eyes. "This isn't you," she cried. "You were supposed to be better than him!"
He didn't answer. He just turned and walked into the darkness.
---
Year 61 to 99
Time wore him down.
He wandered the Earth, ageless, alone.
He watched the League burn cities to the ground. He saw Superman fall. Diana disappear. Bruce die—again and again.
The vision twisted. He wandered a Gotham filled with corpses. A city buried under ash. And on every wall, written in blood:
"YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS."
He dropped to his knees, eyes hollow.
"Why… why are you doing this to me?"
The sky rained ash. A whisper in the dust said, "Because you must see everything you could become... before you choose what you will be."
A final door appeared.
He stepped through.
---
Year 100 — The Forgotten Truth
Rex found himself in a Chicago apartment. Familiar. Home.
His breath caught.
It was his place.
Before Gotham. Before the League. Before the stabbing in the alley that started it all.
Sunlight streamed through the window. There was jazz playing on an old radio. The smell of coffee.
A girl stood by the kitchen counter.
Lena.
Rex's heart stopped.
She turned and smiled. Just like she used to.
His hands trembled.
"Lena…"
But something was wrong.
The scene froze. Her smile faded.
And then—
The walls began to bleed.
Her body twisted. The light died.
"You left me," her voice echoed.
Rex stepped back, horror in his eyes. "No—no, I tried. I looked for you. I called—"
"You ran," she said.
The room flickered, transforming into the crime scene he had buried in the back of his mind. Blood splattered across the wall. Her body, cold on the floor.
He had never solved this case.
Lena—his fiancée.
The one he failed to protect.
He had buried that pain so deep that even death couldn't pull it up.
Until now.
He dropped to his knees in front of her illusion.
"I wasn't strong enough," he whispered.
Her voice changed—softer, as if now it came from within.
"You don't have to be perfect. Just be better."
A final light consumed the room.
---
The Chamber
Rex collapsed to the floor, trembling. The illusion ended. The visions faded. But the pain remained—etched into his soul like scripture.
He couldn't breathe.
A door opened.
Ra's al Ghul stepped through, expression unreadable.
"You have passed," he said.
Rex laughed. It was dry, broken. "Passed what? You showed me that I'm worthless. That I'm no hero. I'm a failure."
Ra's kneeled beside him.
"No, detective. You have passed because you saw the truth and did not run. Others deny. Others blame. You endured."
Rex stared into his own bloodstained hands.
"I don't want to be him anymore. I don't want to be Nightwing."
"Then be something more," Ra's said. "Forge your own name from his ashes."
---
Meanwhile, in Gotham
"Clock's ticking," Jason said, leaping onto his cycle.
Batman, Barbara, and Alfred watched from the rooftop as the stealth carrier powered up.
.
"He's almost through," Bruce muttered.
Barbara turned to him. "Do you think he'll survive?"
"I think," Bruce said, "he's already someone new, we just need to hope that he is still on our side."
Jason revved the engine
"Then let's go get him back".