The Batcave Trial
The Batcave hummed softly, monitors glowing against stone walls as Damian stood near the main platform, arms folded, eyes sharp with quiet anticipation. The upgraded Sandevistan module rested on a matte-black display stand—sleek, compact, deceptively simple. No exposed ports. No spinal interface. No permanent implantation.
Bruce Wayne stared at it in silence.
"This," Bruce said slowly, "is the emergency version?"
Damian nodded. "Detachable. Modular. It integrates into the Batsuit's neural feedback layer but doesn't overwrite your nervous system. You can take it off anytime."
Nightwing leaned closer, whistling low. "So… no chrome skeleton, no cyber-psychosis, no 'welcome to the dystopian future'?"
Damian shot him a flat look. "Correct. I fixed those flaws."
Barbara rolled her chair forward, already running scans. "Power draw is insane—but stable. You somehow solved latency desync."
"I didn't solve it," Damian replied. "I bypassed it."
That earned a look from everyone.
Bruce finally spoke again. "Explain."
Damian tapped a control, and a holographic overlay bloomed—time dilation curves, neural impulse graphs, predictive combat modeling.
"The original Sandevistan forces the body to keep up with the mind," Damian said. "That's what breaks people. This version lets the suit absorb the stress. The user perceives time slowdown, but the burden is distributed through layered systems—AI prediction, kinetic dampening, and preloaded motion paths."
Batman's jaw tightened. "Meaning?"
"You won't tear muscles. Your heart won't spike. And you won't lose control."
Silence followed.
Then Bruce stepped onto the platform.
"I'll test it."
Damian didn't argue. He simply handed over the activation band.
Bruce suited up, the Sandevistan locking seamlessly into the cowl and chest plate. No sparks. No alarms. Just a soft tone.
"Heart rate normal," Alfred's voice echoed from the comms. "Neural activity elevated but within safe parameters."
Bruce took a step.
Then another.
"Activate," Bruce said.
The world… stopped.
From Bruce's perspective, the cave froze into a living photograph—dust motes suspended midair, water droplets hanging like glass. His thoughts were clear. Too clear. He turned his head slowly, watching Nightwing blink at a speed that felt geological.
From everyone else's perspective—
Batman vanished.
A shockwave of displaced air rippled across the platform as Bruce reappeared behind the Batmobile, then atop the cave's highest ledge, then back at the platform in less than a second.
Bruce deactivated it instantly.
The cave went dead silent.
"…Wow," Nightwing finally breathed.
Barbara's hands were flying across her keyboard. "No spinal overload. No neural backlash. Bruce, your vitals barely spiked."
Bruce removed the cowl, eyes narrowed—not in fear, but in calculation.
"This changes everything," he said quietly.
Damian met his gaze. "It's for emergencies only."
Bruce nodded once. "Agreed."
Tim, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "You realize if this ever gets out—"
"It won't," Damian interrupted. "No blueprints leave this cave."
A pause.
Bruce looked at his son—not as Batman, but as a father.
"You didn't build this to prove something," Bruce said. "You built it to protect us."
Damian looked away. "…Yes."
Alfred cleared his throat gently. "Shall I log this under 'things that terrify me but I approve of'?"
Nightwing laughed. Tension eased—just a little.
But deep beneath the humor, everyone understood the truth:
This wasn't just new tech.
It was a line crossed.
And somewhere out there—Lex Luthor revising theories, Artemis grappling with Cheshire's new reality, gods whispering about The Last Stand—the world was already adjusting to the fact that Damian Wayne was no longer just preparing for the future.
He was shaping it.