The giant corpse must've sensed the incoming attack — it barreled straight out of the black mist, roaring, following the direction of the arrow.
Thea glanced down.
Her arrow lay snapped on the ground.
Perfect. Wonderful. Didn't even scratch him.
No hesitation — she turned tail and ran.
But she had underestimated just how fast a three-meter undead tank could move.
With that much muscle packed into its frame, even its sheer momentum was terrifying.
It rounded corners without slowing, plowing through concrete like wet clay.
At that rate, it would catch her in seconds.
Thea split off another clone and sent it sprinting the opposite direction, buying herself time.
As expected, the monster hesitated — its half-rotted brain trying and failing to decide which Thea to chase.
She couldn't afford to play tag in these narrow tunnels.
She needed open air. Now.
Spotting a corroded gas main along the wall, she shot upward, aligning her board above the pipe.
Then she loosed a flame arrow straight into it.
No, that wasn't enough.
Just to be sure, she tossed a black-mist charge down the passage — another blind zone for the brute — and created yet another clone.
This one she armed with a pistol and pointed toward the pipe.
"You handle the fireworks," she ordered.
The real Thea blasted backward, putting as much distance between herself and the bomb as possible.
Moments later, the world erupted.
From above, Felicity's sensors registered a tremor that rippled through half the city.
The explosion tore open the gas line, carving a crater twenty meters deep and thirty wide in the Arkham district.
Out of the inferno burst Thea, soaring skyward on her board — and behind her, exposed for all of Gotham to see, the towering corpse of Solomon Grundy.
"Whish! Whish!"
Two arrows streaked through the air — one frozen blue, one burning orange.
Both hit dead center. Both did nothing.
The flames didn't scorch.
The frost didn't freeze.
The thing was immune to everything.
Bullets, blades, fire, water — useless.
It was a wall of rotting flesh and impossible power, with only one flaw: it couldn't fly.
Thea stayed low, keeping just out of reach.
Her goal wasn't to kill it — it was to drag it out of the city.
"If I can lure it into open terrain, maybe Swamp Thing can help… or Batman can bring the cavalry," she muttered, weaving through the skyline.
She patched into comms.
"Batman, I've got your 'secret weapon.' Pulling it out of Gotham now."
Both Batman and Gordon immediately approved — anything to move that thing away from civilians.
But the moment she described the monster's size and strength, the line went silent.
Even Batman hesitated to believe her.
To his credit, the old man didn't panic.
His voice stayed calm, steady.
"Maintain distance. Keep it occupied. We're on our way."
"Yeah, right," Thea muttered. "You and Bane will be hugging it out for another hour."
Counting on Batman's "immediate" response was wishful thinking.
She'd have to rely on herself.
Every so often she slowed down, firing a few arrows back to keep Grundy's attention.
None of them did any damage, but at least it stopped him from turning around and rampaging back toward the evac routes.
After a dozen minutes of cat-and-mouse, Thea noticed something strange.
For all his strength, the monster wasn't smart.
Legend painted Solomon Grundy as a tragic, half-conscious brute — slow but cunning in battle.
This one was barely sentient.
It followed her like a wind-up toy, smashing anything that moved, completely unthinking.
Still, its sheer power was frightening.
Every step cracked asphalt and shattered cars; streetlights bent under the shockwaves.
She led him south, out of Gotham's core — past the old industrial zone and into the southern marshlands.
The same swamp where her fate had changed only days ago.
She circled twice, hoping the Swamp Thing would intervene.
Nothing.
The marsh lay still and silent — no vines, no rumbling earth, no emerald giant.
"Guess you're off duty today," she grumbled, steering the fight westward.
Thea led the chase out of the swamp, skimming low over the water as Grundy thundered behind her, each step sinking into the mud.
When she tried luring him toward the eastern shore, he balked at the sight of the open ocean.
He took a few steps into the waves, realized it was seawater, and stomped angrily back to land.
"So much for washing you away," Thea sighed.
Left with no better plan, she veered west again, radioing for backup.
The first reinforcements to arrive were A.R.G.U.S. gunships.
They'd held fire earlier in the city, but now — out in the open — they didn't hesitate.
Eight anti-tank missiles streaked through the night sky and slammed into Grundy's chest.
The explosions lit up the horizon…
…and when the smoke cleared, he was still standing.
Untouched.
The hulking corpse bellowed at the helicopters, the roar so deep the pilots' instruments shook.
One of the gunners swore he could feel his teeth rattling.
Thea clenched her jaw.
"Scared now, huh? Try chasing him for forty minutes, then we'll talk!"
She dove between the gunships, firing off a few flame and frost arrows to drag Grundy's attention away before he swatted anyone out of the sky.
Back in the city, Batman was growing frantic.
He could hear the chaos through the comms — the thunder, the roars, the detonations — but Bane refused to let him leave.
The brute had learned from last time.
No venom enhancements this round; just pure, disciplined combat.
He knew his orders — stall the Bat, no matter what.
Their duel was brutal and grinding.
Batman attacked cautiously, his guard unbreakable — four parts offense, six parts defense.
Bane, remembering the insanity of his last overdose, fought conservatively too.
He didn't need to win.
He just needed to keep Batman busy.
But Batman wasn't fooled.
He saw the pattern, the restraint, the smug confidence — and made his move.
A smoke pellet clattered to the floor.
Bane's instincts kicked in.
He lunged, thinking Batman was retreating — a grappling-hook getaway, same as always.
Instead, Batman stepped into the charge, left hand snapping upward — seizing the mask that fed venom into Bane's skull.
"You've relied on this long enough."
With a savage twist, he ripped the mask free.
Bane's scream rattled the chamber.
The device wasn't strapped — it was grafted to his nervous system.
Tearing it loose shredded muscle and skin alike.
He stumbled out of the smoke, face a ruin of blood and torn metal, eyes dull with shock.
Batman didn't hesitate.
He tackled him to the ground and pummeled him unconscious.
Seconds later, he was on comms.
"Thea — report!"
Thea's "report" came between ragged breaths.
"Still alive… mostly. But this thing? It's immune to everything. Don't bother unless you want to sightsee."
By now, she and the A.R.G.U.S. gunships had developed a grim rhythm — she'd bait Grundy north, they'd unload rockets, he'd shrug them off, repeat.
They'd dragged the monster from the southern swamps all the way to Gotham's western outskirts, and now he was heading north again, tearing a path of ruin as wide as a freeway.
Through the comm link, she could hear Batman's engines roaring to life.
Within minutes, the Batwing sliced through the night sky, its afterburners glowing blue.
When Batman finally saw Grundy with his own eyes, even he froze for a moment.
"This… isn't man-made," he murmured. "It's… natural. Like something the earth coughed up."
He didn't doubt Thea's warnings about its invulnerability, but he had to confirm it himself.
The Batwing's cannons opened fire — a thunderous, precise burst of kinetic rounds.
A cloud of dust enveloped Grundy—
—and when it cleared, the undead giant was still there, roaring up at the sky.