CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: PART OF THE TEAM

A box was waiting for her.

It sat on the table beside the weapons rack, matte black and unmarked. Unassuming. 

Taylor hesitated before moving, her boots making no sound on the stone floor as she crossed to it. The others gave her space. No one spoke.

Batman stood off to the side too, arms crossed. Watching. Waiting.

She opened the box.

The suit inside was unlike anything she’d worn since coming to Earth—almost minimalist in design and streamlined. Matte black fabric, seamless and unadorned, stretched over reinforced paneling designed for speed over spectacle. It was lightweight, form-fitting, and textured like carbon weave, flexible without sacrificing protection. 

There was no cape. But there gauntlets—stitched and reinforced for impact—and a close-fitting cowl shaped to frame her features. 

The suit was beautiful. A statement. The kind worn by someone who didn’t need to be seen to be felt.

Her eyes drifted to the chest plate.

No gleaming accents. No crest on the chest.

Just black.

Taylor stared at it for a long moment, her reflection barely visible in the armor’s surface. 

Batman stepped forward. His voice was low, yet not unkind or judgemental. “You’re not one of us.”

She didn’t flinch.

“Not yet.”

“But you’re working with us now,” he said. “This is yours.”

It wasn’t a gift. It wasn’t even permission.

It was a choice.

Taylor nodded once and lifted the suit from the case. It was heavier than it looked—but not in weight.

Expectation.

. . . . .

The plan was simple. Brutally so.

Mayor Nakano, like all men who had stayed in power too long, had enemies. But tonight’s enemies were not disgruntled activists or rival politicians. They were trained killers—League assassins, working under the cover of opulence, targeting the ballroom at the top floor of the Nakano estate during a charity gala with a thousand flashing lights and a hundred cameras.

Security was tight, but not tight enough. The League had already embedded themselves inside.

The mayor was the obvious target. High-profile, public, symbolic.

But Taylor had learned enough about the League of Shadows to know they didn’t deal in single moves. Assassination wasn’t just about removing a figurehead—it was about the ripple effect.

Destabilize the political structure. Sow panic in the institutions that held the city together. Undermine the public’s faith in safety, in control, in leadership. A dead mayor wasn’t just a corpse—it was a message.

Not chaos for its own sake, but transformation through collapse. 

Burn down the system, and see what rose from the ashes.

That was where the Bat-family came in.

Barbara coordinated from the Cave, feeding them real-time updates from tapped security feeds and drone sweeps. Dick and Stephanie would take the north wing, intercepting any movement near the service entrances. Damian was stationed—grudgingly—on the roof, watching for evac routes and sniper nests.

Taylor went with Batman.

She didn’t say anything as they slipped through the upper floors, her new suit adjusting to each shift of weight and pace. It moved with her—no drag, no resistance. The boots absorbed each impact smoothly. The gloves insulated grip. The grappling line embedded in her forearm activated with a thought and deployed with pinpoint accuracy whenever necessary.

It all felt... intuitive. Like she’d been using it for years.

They encountered the first pair near the atrium stairwell—dressed like caterers, but wrong in every way that mattered. The way they moved. The way their eyes tracked the crowd, not the service tables. Batman didn’t hesitate. Taylor followed. Two takedowns. Quiet. Efficient. No alarms tripped. No one noticed.

Another on the mezzanine—handled before he even drew his blade.

In the reception hallway, Spoiler disarmed a League agent mid-sentence with a flashbang bluff and a sweep to the legs.

Nightwing vaulted a railing and took down a saboteur in three clean moves, barely breaking stride.

Damian intercepted another near the ballroom’s power grid. His strike was brutal—controlled, but only barely. He didn’t stop hitting until Batman’s voice cut across the comms with a sharp, “Enough.”

And then it was over.

By the time Taylor reached the edge of the ballroom, the guests inside were still sipping champagne. Music played. Laughter drifted from the open doors. A thousand sparkling lights glinted off glasses and jewelry and absolutely no idea of what almost happened.

Clean. Coordinated. 

No civilian casualties.

Not this time.

Taylor exhaled through her nose, chest rising with a quiet sense of something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Not peace.

But control.

A win that didn’t taste like blood.