A New Player Shakes Gotham!

Behind them came Penguin's despairing wails and the roar of his lavish palace burning and collapsing.

Police sirens converged from every direction, growing louder and more numerous, like a funeral dirge for a fallen king.

"Sweetheart! We've got to go! If we don't, the cops will have this place surrounded!" Harley waved her arms excitedly. The wound on her arm was still bleeding, but her eyes shone brighter than ever.

"Not yet." Link remained calm. Taking Harley with him, he headed not downstairs but up the stairs to the roof. "The front door is for losers."

They pushed open the heavy iron door to the roof. Gotham's night wind swept over them, damp and cold after the storm.

Below lay a city glittering with neon. The red and blue lights of countless police cars sealed off the streets around the Iceberg Lounge, forming a vast, pulsing ring when seen from above.

"Wow, that's quite a turnout." Harley leaned over the edge and whistled. "Who are they trying to catch? Batman?"

Link did not answer. He crossed to the other side of the roof and pulled a steel cable wrapped in oilcloth from behind an inconspicuous air-conditioning unit.

One end was anchored to a load-bearing pillar. The other held a custom pulley handle.

The cable ran to a lightning rod atop another skyscraper several hundred meters away.

He had set up this escape route before they ever broke in.

"Hold tight." Link handed Harley the pulley handle.

Harley looked at the cable swaying slightly in the night wind, then at the drop of at least a hundred meters below. Instead of fear, she let out an excited shriek.

"I love this!"

She clung to Link's back like a koala, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist.

Link clipped the pulley onto the cable. He did not hesitate.

With Harley in his arms, he leaped from the roof.

The weightless plunge drew a piercing cheer from Harley.

An instant later, the pulley caught the cable. Like an arrow through the night, they hurtled over the heads of countless police officers and reporters at astonishing speed.

Someone on the ground noticed movement in the night sky.

"Look! What's that?"

"Two people! They're flying!"

Searchlight beams swung toward them, but Link and Harley were too fast. A moment before the lights could catch them, they plunged into the shadow of the opposite building and vanished.

They had made it.

They had escaped right under the noses of Gotham's entire police force, leaving behind the Iceberg Lounge engulfed in fire and chaos—and a blurry image that would soon become an urban legend.

Meanwhile, at Gotham City Police Department headquarters.

The place was in an uproar.

Phones rang one after another. Uniformed officers rushed back and forth, shock and exhaustion written across every face.

"Commissioner! At least twelve explosions and arson attacks have hit the west side! Every target belongs to Penguin!"

"The fire at the Iceberg Lounge is out of control! We found Oswald Cobblepot inside! He's alive, but both his legs are broken!"

"Commissioner! The Federal Tax Service and the Financial Crimes Investigation Division are getting flooded with calls! Someone using an anonymous IP address exposed Penguin's entire Black Money Network! Every transaction, every name—it's all there!"

Commissioner James Gordon stood in his office, gripping his pipe so tightly it was nearly crushed.

He looked out at the city in chaos. It felt as though someone had struck him in the head with a sledgehammer.

This was no gang war.

This was no terrorist attack.

This was a meticulously planned strike, precise as surgery.

First came the diversionary attacks, then the assault on the heart of the operation, and finally the financial blow that brought it all down.

Every step connected to the next. Nothing had been left to chance.

Whoever was behind it had more than formidable firepower. They had elite hacking skills and a tactical mind that bordered on artistry.

Penguin had loomed over Gotham's Underworld for more than twenty years. In a single night, he had been uprooted.

"One person... or an organization..." Gordon murmured, breathing out a thick cloud of smoke. "Who are they? What do they want?"

No one could answer him.

But that did not stop the night's events from sending a massive shockwave through Gotham's Underworld.

At the Falcone Family Estate, the aging godfather Carmine Falcone listened to his subordinate's report. After a long silence, he said only, "Tell our people to lie low for a while."

At Sal Maroni's casino, the hot-tempered crime boss smashed a bottle in excitement. "That idiot Penguin finally went down! His territory is ours!"

Across the city, a man in a black skull mask watched the report on the Iceberg Lounge and burst into a manic laugh. It was Roman Sionis, Black Mask.

"A new player? Interesting... very interesting..."

Fear, greed, excitement, suspicion.

Every kind of emotion brewed in Gotham's darkest corners.

But everyone understood one thing.

Gotham's old rules had been broken.

A mysterious, powerful, ruthlessly efficient new player had announced his arrival with Penguin's blood and screams.

He had no name yet, and no banner.

But his very presence was a declaration.

Gotham's throne stood empty.

And the new hunt had only just begun.