At five in the morning, Gotham's sky was still pitch-black.
"Woooo-!!!"
An unbearably shrill air-raid siren erupted without warning from the loudspeakers surrounding the campus. It was so loud that even the condensation on the dormitory windows shook loose and trickled down.
Boys' Dormitory Building Two.
Within the first tenth of a second after the alarm sounded, Jason Todd's muscles moved before his brain did.
Roll over. Hit the floor.
He had slept in unfinished buildings in Gotham's East End for ten years, jolted awake countless times by gunfire from gang shootouts. To him, that sound meant death was knocking.
Jason flung aside his blanket and instinctively reached beneath his pillow with his right hand. Nothing. Only then did he abruptly remember that he was no longer sleeping under a bridge. There was no rusty crowbar beneath his pillow.
Bang! Jason kicked the lower bunk's frame, making the iron structure shake violently.
"Get up! Something's happening!" he barked coldly at Gap-Tooth and Skinny Monkey, who were still snoring.
Gap-Tooth rubbed his eyes groggily. "Boss... it's not even light yet. Is something on fire...?"
"Fire, my ass! That's an alarm! Get dressed!" Jason grabbed his uniform jacket and pulled it on in a few quick motions, his eyes fixed on the corridor like an alert wolf.
Boys' Dormitory Building One.
Dick Grayson slept on the top bunk. The instant the alarm sounded, he didn't panic. Instead, he sprang straight out of bed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Without a moment's hesitation, he leaped down, twisting gracefully at the waist in midair and scooping up the jacket hanging from the iron railing at the head of his bed.
Tap.
His toes touched down without a sound. His jacket was already neatly on.
He even had time to flick