I Know This Well

Shane looked at the cheerful Dick Grayson standing before him, his left hand hidden in his pocket subconsciously rubbing the Golden Apple inside.

The cool touch reminded him that his current primary goal was indeed to find a magician who could help him.

The city's neon halos blurred into mottled patches of color in the standing water, and every part of this city exuded a restless filth.

And Gotham City was certainly not a place whose pulse an outsider like him could easily figure out.

"Thanks for your willingness to help, Mr. Grayson."

Shane maintained a polite tone that was just right.

Knowing how to utilize the power of others was a strategy for efficiently achieving one's goals.

Especially since the other man was one of Batman's most trusted confidants and a native ground-snake born and bred in Gotham.

Dick waved a hand, hung his motorcycle helmet on the handlebar, and leaned against the vehicle frame with a smile.

"Just call me Dick. 'Mr. Grayson' sounds too distant. Since Batman asked me to help you, just tell me all the details. There are very few dark alleys and dead ends in Gotham that I don't know about."

Shane nodded, slowly beginning to recount the brief file Batman had given him.

Dick's brow twitched slightly at the word "Grey Robe", and then, with Shane's supplementary details regarding certain aspects, a look of understanding crossed his face.

He tapped his fingertips on the motorcycle seat cushion.

"I know her. She's definitely an anomaly in Gotham."

He raised his head to look at Shane, his tone carrying a hint of amusement.

"Batman has been keeping an eye on her for almost a year, yet he hasn't even managed to snap a single direct photograph."

"You have to understand, even someone like Catwoman—who can stroll around the entrance of the Batcave and escape unscathed—is a breeze for Batman to track down. But this Grey Robe seems to have completely melted into Gotham's shadows, her whereabouts extraordinarily secretive."

Pausing, Dick's tone softened a fraction, his gaze sweeping over a beggar huddled by a trash can on the street corner.

"Though personally, I don't think this girl is worth watching."

"A place like Gotham is like a stinking pool of sewage, full of villains who murder, burn, and pillage. She just steals a bit of bread and milk to fill her stomach, and even shares her food with starving vagrants..."

This was spoken with candor, lacking Batman's extreme vigilance and need for control, instead exuding a kind of outlaw-style clarity.

Shane could hear the empathy in Dick's words.

"I'm not looking for her for anything else. Right now, I'm tangled up in a troublesome matter, and she might be able to help me."

"Is that so? Then don't you worry, leave it to me."

Dick patted his chest, his gaze sharpening. The easygoing manner from just moments before faded, replaced by the sharp efficiency unique to Nightwing.

"Since she often helps beggars, she definitely can't be far from the slums of the Old Town."

"Gotham's vagrants all have their own little circles; we can start from there. But she only operates at night, so we'll need to prepare to stake the place out."

For the next three days, Gotham's nightlife served as the best cover for the two of them.

Dick brought Shane shuttling between the dark alleys and rooftops of the Old Town, leveraging the connections he had cultivated at the bottom rung to extract Grey Robe's recent movements from an elderly vagrant.

She usually appeared around midnight, favoring areas near bakeries and supermarkets, and would vanish deep into the alleyways the moment she succeeded.

Naturally, she also left half a loaf of bread behind for the old beggar guarding the street corner.

On the first day of the stakeout, the two of them waited on a bakery rooftop until dawn, only for their efforts to be rewarded with a few scurrying rats and the wail of sirens in the distance.

On the second day, they changed posts, hiding behind a cargo container next to a supermarket, only to spot a suspicious-looking thief whom Dick subdued in a couple of moves and dumped at the entrance of the Gotham Police Department.

Until the third day late at night, just as Gotham's clock struck twelve, a faint fluctuation drifted over on the wind.

Perhaps because he had been in continuous contact with the Goddess of Discord and Doctor Fate over these past few days, Shane's body had actually memorized the unique fluctuation of magic.

"It should be her."

The Viltrumite's acute perception allowed Shane to instantly lock onto the source of the fluctuation.

In a nearby alley entrance, a slender grey-robed figure was standing on tiptoes, climbing out from a shattered supermarket window.

She clutched several bags of poorly packaged biscuits and milk to her chest, her movements as light as a feather.

"Steady, take it easy."

Dick lowered his voice, raising a hand to signal Shane not to act rashly while he quietly crept toward the other side of the alley entrance, attempting to form a pincer movement.

His movements were fluid and decisive, clearly the mark of a veteran who had roamed the darkness for years.

He even used several complex gymnastic maneuvers to bypass obstacles without making a single sound.

Yet the Grey Robe seemed to sense an abnormality, her posture halting abruptly as she instinctively hugged the food in her arms tighter.

She did not turn back; a faint purple magical halo instantly flared around her entire body, and complex runes began to surface on the ground beneath her feet, clearly preparing to use magic to make her escape.

"Don't let her run!"

Dick gave a low shout, his figure instantly accelerating as he lunged toward the Grey Robe.

Yet his speed was ultimately a step too slow; the moment the purple halo surged violently, the Grey Robe's figure had already turned transparent.

Dick suffered a wipeout, spat out a mouthful of air, and scrambled up from the ground.

"Magical teleportation! Now I finally understand why Batman couldn't handle her."

Shane, however, stood up blankly from his spot, his eyes narrowing slightly as if sensing the air.

"No, this isn't teleportation."

The next second, Shane whipped around, locking onto a direction in the darkness.

"It's just invisibility plus short-range translocation. I can still sense her location!"

He abruptly abandoned the dumbfounded Dick, the energy within his body erupting instantly as his form morphed into a blurred afterimage, the boom of breaking the sound barrier echoing through the alley.

His speed far exceeded Dick's expectations, catching up in the blink of an eye to the Grey Robe who had already escaped hundreds of meters away into the darkness.

Dick's jaw dropped. He knew Viltrumites had superpowers—Batman's file had mentioned it.

Yet firstly, Shane hadn't displayed an ounce of it in front of him over the past three days, and secondly, Dick hadn't expected Shane to be this ridiculously strong.

Feeling the delayed gale-force wind from his passage, Dick muttered to himself.

"Is Viltrum a distant cousin of Krypton?"

Dick watched Shane's figure grow increasingly distant, pursuing helplessly for two steps.

Yet after those two steps, he simultaneously lost track of both the Grey Robe and Shane entirely.

"Superpowers—this is just no fun at all."

Amidst the darkness, Shane hurried forward and reached out, his fingertips precisely grasping the hem of the Grey Robe's garment.

The fabric was coarse, carrying the damp chill of the night's dew, but the moment he made contact, a powerful magical backlash surged up through his fingertips. An unfamiliar and bizarre stinging pain caused him to instinctively apply a fraction more force.

The Grey Robe's translocation was interrupted by this yank, and she staggered, causing the hood of her grey robe to be pulled down by half.

The moment the fabric slipped away, Shane recognized who this young girl was.

Unlike Dick that grown man, this... was far too familiar.

Short silver-blue hair clung to her cheeks, and while her skin was pale to the point of near transparency, it seemed to shimmer with a faint dark purple hue.

Between her brows was an adornment shaped like a red rhombus gemstone.

Raven.

At this moment, she was merely struggling to survive alone in Gotham's darkness, barely making ends meet with stolen food while simultaneously helping out those as homeless as she was.

Yet the instant Raven saw Shane clearly, the calmness in her eyes abruptly turned fierce, her pupils churning with rich fury and wariness as her voice carried a youthful crispness and icy rejection.

"Trigon's lackey! How dare you chase me all the way to the mortal realm!"

Shane froze, a blank expression appearing on his face.

Who was Trigon again?