Amy Hester was undoubtedly the best choice Bruce could secure for this case.

Judge Amy Hester, born into a modest family and a graduate of Columbia Law School, was 42 years old. After a car accident left her unable to have children, she and her husband adopted two daughters. Over the years, she had consistently donated to fund the education of disabled children.

When presented with the preliminary details of the case, she did not hesitate to accept the invitation.

While Gotham City had its own judges, well—it was Gotham City, after all.

Judge Hester expected challenges during the trial, but she didn’t anticipate trouble right from her arrival.

May 29, evening: She checked into the Wayne Grand Hotel.

May 30, 1:00 AM: A group of assailants disguised as room service staff broke into her suite.

Before they could strike, Batman emerged from her bathroom. At the same moment, the ventilation cover popped open, and a petite girl wearing a black cape leaped out. However, before either could act, a bullet shot through the room at an angle. It ricocheted off a metal decoration on the wall and struck one of the assailants in the shoulder, sending him to the ground with a groan.

GCPD officers, lying in wait outside, stormed in to drag the attacker out.

Judge Hester stood speechless, her gaze shifting between the two unexpected defenders. The girl didn’t even greet her; she opened the window and leaped out, her fluttering black cape making her resemble a wounded bird struggling through the darkness. When Hester turned back, Batman had vanished as well.

Commissioner Gordon entered shortly after and politely explained, “Batman tends to operate this way. I’m afraid you’ll need to relocate to another room for safety reasons—the hotel will cover all expenses.”

1:10 AM: Meanwhile, Vivi White, riding a horse on the roof of another building, finally caught up with the shooter. She hesitated between kicking him off his bike or pinning him down with a water pipe.

Fortunately, the man stopped his bike on his own.

“Why are you chasing me?” asked the Red Hood.

“Would you consider testifying as a witness at the hearing?”

Red Hood scoffed. “Didn’t the police already recover the surveillance footage from the mine?”

“That footage hasn’t been made public,” Vivi shrugged. “So, it was you who hacked the system, wasn’t it? Never mind. That’s not important. I just think having more eyewitnesses would strengthen the case. Tal can’t testify since he’s involved in the investigation.”

Tarl White’s identity was too precarious to withstand scrutiny. His entry into law enforcement wasn’t exactly above board. If his testimony ended up exposing ties to the Court of Owls, one case could snowball into another massive scandal.

“And when I step off the witness stand, the Blackgate prison van will be waiting outside for me, right?” Red Hood said, giving her a warning glance. “I’ll think about it. Stop chasing me.”

Not long after, Batman descended from the sky and landed beside Vivi—though she suspected he initially aimed to perch on a nearby gargoyle and missed his mark.

“You’re letting him go?” Batman asked.

“He helped out in the mine,” Vivi replied. “And recently, he’s been assisting with investigations into the nightclubs. A criminal who’s cracking down on drugs harder than the police? Honestly, how’s it going with finding out who’s under that hood?”

Batman’s gravelly voice carried skepticism. “The Joker used that alias before. I suspect there’s some connection between them.”

Vivi frowned at the implication. The Joker was currently detained in Silent Nights, and she retorted, “You’re not suggesting I go study that lunatic, are you?”

The Joker, deprived of his “playmate” Batman, was already bored out of his mind. Fortunately, the gargoyle creatures observing him were impervious to his madness.

Before disappearing into the night, Batman advised, “Stay far away from him.”

From his trajectory, it seemed he was off to pursue the Red Hood. Vivi knew where Red Hood was thanks to her map system but chose not to reveal it to Batman—repaying a favor from the mine.

3:00 AM: Judge Hester, having barely managed two hours of sleep, woke up and propped herself up against the headboard, poring over case files she had read countless times.

Meanwhile, at the Winsy Grand Hotel, the defense lawyers hired by the Smith family were also pulling an all-nighter, meticulously preparing their strategy. This trial was immensely challenging, as the outcome would determine whether the case could be confined to Gotham.

The defense’s goal was to reframe the narrative. Instead of the entire town of South Hinckley being involved in drug trafficking and human trafficking, they aimed to present it as a large-scale drug operation orchestrated by Gotham’s crime lords and their subordinates.

If successful, this narrative would create legal grounds for extraditing or transferring the case to another state.

While the masterminds like Harold Smith and Robert Smith would still face certain execution, their deaths would shield the real puppetmasters—figures like Black Mask and his international partners—from exposure.

The lead defense attorney, already regretting taking the case, knew he couldn’t back out. A group of desperate enforcers had approached his team, making it clear that failure would be met with a cold gun barrel pressed to his head—and then, “Bang.”

This battle, the lawyer knew, was one he had to win.

“Well, at least I’ve had ample time to prepare,” he muttered, gazing at the hazy night sky beyond the window. His voice was icy. “And Gotham? Gotham is a rotten city. No one trusts it.”

If he succeeded, this case could become a landmark victory that skyrocketed his career. After all, Batman was just a glorified urban legend—nothing more than a criminal who hadn’t been caught.

5:00 AM

Jane woke from a restless sleep.

Since being rescued from the mine, she hadn’t had a single night of peaceful rest. Pain was one cause, but anxiety was the other.

Am I truly free? She wondered. What if this is all just a cruel illusion?

Whenever these thoughts took hold, she would shuffle to the hospital’s lounge and stare out the window, greedily soaking in the sight of the gargoyle statues outside. They gave her courage and a sense of safety. Sometimes, she would see one of them spread its wings and fly away, and she would stare at the empty spot, feeling strangely forlorn.

Once, she caught sight of something rarer—a gargoyle descending from the sky with a girl astride it. She remembered the girl’s green eyes, and how the girl cast a curious, slightly puzzled glance in her direction.

Jane never greeted her. Instead, she would retreat into hiding until the girl was gone. But she had overheard nurses gossiping about the girl. She was often accompanied by a stern, beautiful woman—Gotham’s newly appointed mayor, Anna Alek.

Unlike many of the other survivors, Jane wasn’t plagued by hesitation or doubt. She believed the new mayor would deliver justice. But if the trial failed…

Her hand tightened around the memory of those gargoyle statues. She’d find some explosives, embrace a gargoyle’s neck, and take those scumbags down with her.

I have no future anyway.

Jane hadn’t contacted her family back in Philadelphia. She didn’t know what kind of life awaited her beyond the hospital. Would she, with her frail body, just be a burden on the city’s taxpayers?

I have no future.

Four years had passed since she last saw the sun. And as for her child… she hadn’t even given him a name.

Her child had once been her anchor, her reason to endure. She had nothing else. But now that she was free, she felt utterly alien to this world. She, and the others like her, had no future.

She lay in her bed, wide awake, waiting for dawn—and for the start of the trial.

She would testify.

7:00 AM

Jim pulled his car up to a warehouse near Gotham’s courthouse.

No, not Commissioner Jim Gordon. Just another Jim—a name as common as pigeons in Gotham. This Jim was a cab driver. His wife had died in a mob-related explosion, leaving him a widower raising a two-year-old son.

There were already people waiting at the warehouse. Jim jumped out of the car to help his friends unload its contents from the back seat.

One of these friends, Charlie, was a bar owner. After years of drinking himself into oblivion, Charlie had finally decided to turn his life around. He started working out, attending church prayers, and volunteering.

Charlie’s wife had also died in an accident. She’d gone to the hospital for a simple cold, only to be caught in the merciless blast of one of the Joker’s bombs.

These were people bound by a shared grief—friends united by the senseless loss inflicted by Gotham’s criminals.

They had marched in protests, railed against the government’s inaction over drinks at Charlie’s bar, and wept bitterly in the church’s confessional booths. But none of it had changed Gotham. The city was too deeply mired in its rot.

Then came Anna Alek.

Politicians often craved public support but dismissed the public as ignorant sheep, easily deceived. And yet, a rare few citizens knew better. They had learned the name of their new mayor, even if she’d only risen to power after her predecessor’s assassination.

Sometimes, in his drunken musings, Charlie thought that the old mayor’s death had been a blessing.

“If he hadn’t died, Anna wouldn’t have come.”

Anna had done so much. The people didn’t care if she had made deals with devils—they saw the changes she brought. The mobsters were going to jail, and they weren’t escaping. The East End was safer, cleaner, and gun-free. Even the scent of roses wafted through its streets every morning.

Maybe they saw fewer bats in the sky these nights, but Gotham had gained a new urban legend: the gargoyles.

When Charlie and Jim drank together, they sneered at the media’s grim reports about Gotham.

“All they see is how terrible this city is,” Charlie scoffed, pointing at the paper. “Because, yeah, it’s terrible. But why don’t they flip the script? If they reported on Gotham’s improvements, they’d get even more attention.”

Jim patted his shoulder. “Government mouthpieces don’t do that. They think they’re heroes for saying the things the government ‘won’t.’”

They had to do something. They couldn’t allow the trial to fail. With the growing storm of rumours and the attention from so many powerful interests, this trial would be watched by a wide audience. Like the case with the Penguin, it would even be live-streamed online.

Charlie, Jim, and their small circle reached out to their acquaintances. To their surprise, their network included Emily, a nurse at Gotham Central Hospital, who happened to have access to the mayor. Emily connected them with her “colleagues” and even more people.

They didn’t want to organize a march. But they had to do something only they could do.

9:00 AM

The trial would take place in Gotham’s courthouse at 10:00 AM, with limited seats available for spectators.

Jeff, a reporter for The New York Chronicle, had been loitering outside the courthouse for a while, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mayor Anna Alek. After confirming she wouldn’t arrive early, he reluctantly went inside.

This trial allowed photography but strictly prohibited questions, interruptions, or any influence on the proceedings.

The rise of digital media had been steadily squeezing the life out of traditional print journalism. While newspapers weren’t vanishing entirely, their relevance and timeliness couldn’t compare to the speed of online reporting.

Cities like Gotham, with its slower pace and Gothic architecture straight out of the last century, still supported a culture of citizens buying a paper to read at home. But in fast-moving metropolises like New York, the space for print media was shrinking.

For The New York Chronicle, a local paper with limited international reach, the stakes were even higher. That’s why Jeff’s editor had sent him all the way to Gotham to cover this trial. After all, Gotham’s mayor, Anna Alek, hailed from New York—it was enough of a connection to make the story relevant.

Jeff had one goal: get the scoop.

He didn’t particularly care about the trial’s outcome. He was simply waiting for the moment when he could seize his headline.

The clock’s hands slowly crept toward 10:00 AM.

The trial was about to begin.