At the far end of the corridor stood rows of statues alongside muskets and sabers mounted neatly on the walls for display—trophies of the Wayne ancestors' distinguished past, according to the old butler.
This section of the manor was unfamiliar territory even for Dick and the others, let alone Thea.
"Please, come in." The butler produced a key and unlocked a heavy door. The group filed inside one by one.
The lights came on. The drapes were pulled off the portraits. Even among people renowned for keen eyes, both the young visitors and the old butler immediately sensed something was wrong.
"This one—this one—and this one... They look too alike!" Damian pointed at several portraits, his voice edged with disbelief.
His unease was entirely justified. The Wayne ancestors in those portraits shared the same broad face, strong jaw, and solemn gaze. Allowing for the painter's style, each looked strikingly like Bruce. The implication was deeply unsettling.
Genetically speaking, a father and son might share similar features—but for that resemblance to persist across four or five generations? That was beyond explanation. This wasn't asexual reproduction—once maternal genes entered the line, noticeable divergence would appear within three generations. Yet these ancestors looked as though they'd been cast from the same mold.
What did that mean? The young group stared at the portraits, a chill crawling up their spines.
Thea grimaced. What should have been a stable chain of cause and effect had been thrown into complete chaos by the Omega Effect. Adrift in a fractured timeline, Bruce had lost his memories—yet some instinct drew him toward his own bloodline. His extraordinary leadership had allowed him to hold the Wayne family together through crisis after crisis across multiple generations, until he effectively became the family patriarch. He had turned himself into his own ancestor and been written into the history books. That was the problem facing them now.
"This man is holding a book with a bat symbol on the cover." Tim pointed at a portrait that looked almost saintly, his voice hushed in surprise.
"This one has a bat emblem on his coat."
"This one too..."
The evidence mounted. Even without his memories, Batman had left breadcrumbs everywhere—partly to guide his team to him, partly as a lifeline for himself. He just didn't know that in doing so, he was unraveling the entire timeline.
"Why is there a blank space here?" Damian pointed to a conspicuous gap on the wall.
"That was Thomas Wayne—a man of the same name who lived in the 1760s. He was a notorious cult leader and was formally struck from the family record," the butler recalled.
"That can't be right. The Wayne family patriarch in the 1760s was Joseph Wayne. I'm certain of it," Tim Drake said, puzzled.
"Joseph?" The butler thought for a moment. "You must be misremembering, Master Drake. The only Waynes named Joseph in the eighteenth century were three men—none of whom ever served as patriarch."
The butler was confident. Tim had been certain at first, but now he wavered, his conviction dissolving into uncertainty—maybe there had been a Joseph, maybe not.
Damian gave a dignified little cough to redirect their attention back to the missing portrait.
The butler, ever attentive to this serious young heir to the Wayne name, dropped the Joseph debate and moved on.
"The family records say very little about this Thomas. Only that he seemed to be attempting to summon a demon—something called Bar-something," the butler said, now uncertain whether these memories had always been his or whether, as Thea had suggested, they had materialized in his mind along with the shifting timeline.
"Barbatos?" Thea asked, her expression calm. The Wayne family's entanglement with the Dark Multiverse ran deep—far deeper than anyone here realized. My father is Thomas? She almost laughed at the name. Couldn't have picked a better one.
The butler snapped his fingers. "Yes—Barbatos. Said to be a demon of some ancient tribe... a bat demon..."
The word bat made him shudder. Batman and a bat demon—had all of this been fated since the eighteenth century?
"So Bruce traveled to the past, left countless bat symbols behind, and in doing so actively shaped the Wayne family's reverence for the bat?" Dick was the calmest among them, and his conclusion was bone-chilling. "Is that what you're saying, Miss Thea?"
"More than that, Dick. If I'm right, the cave Bruce fell into as a child—the one swarming with bats—was the very ritual site that this man prepared over a hundred years ago when he tried to summon his demon."
There was something else Thea didn't say aloud. Her memories held references to demonic activity in Gotham, and she'd once asked Barbara and Catwoman about it when she first arrived. Both had denied knowing anything. Now that she was a New God and immune to the timeline's upheaval, she suspected that if she asked again, their memories would tell a different story.
But there was no reason to pile more onto their already burdened minds. Barbatos was still far removed from this universe. She addressed it lightly: "In Eastern thought, karma is about cause and effect. In this case, Bruce is both his own cause and his own consequence. His fate was sealed the moment time began to move. I hope this serves as a warning: don't go digging into things you don't understand."
"Right. I'm heading back. The world is quiet for now—Gotham can't stay in chaos. You have three days. Get everything back to normal."
As she opened a portal to leave, a voice called after her.
"Sis!" It was Damian. The boy hesitated. "Can I go look for him?"
Thea had always had a soft spot for her eldest student. She ruffled his hair. "If you step into the timestream, the Wayne family's situation gets a whole lot worse. Trust me—I'll figure something out."
She stepped through the portal and returned home.
Her clone was still searching the timestream. The drain on her mental energy was considerable, and her true body couldn't do much else. She bathed, then collapsed into bed.
The Bat-family moved quickly. Dick Grayson donned the Batman suit and returned to Gotham's streets. Damian suited up as Robin—the fifth to carry that name.
Batman's deterrent effect was no joke. Within two days, the criminals quietly stood down and went home.
A week after order was restored in Gotham, a gravestone was placed in the Wayne family cemetery—right beside the markers for Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne. A small, unassuming stone.
No name. No dates. No funeral. Just an ordinary piece of rock, silently bearing witness to the greatest human hero who had ever lived.
For the sake of secrecy, those closest to him paid their respects in staggered visits. Thea didn't go. She was still searching the timestream—and if it came to it, she might have to be the one to end his life there. Her presence at the grave would have been grotesque. She sent Diana in her place.
Tim Drake couldn't bear sitting idle. Once his injuries healed, he declared himself Red Robin and left Gotham alone.
Six thousand years before her true body's present, on the American continent, Thea (clone) and an elderly Booster Gold were sprinting through uneven terrain, a pack of fur-clad warriors in hot pursuit.
"Wululu!" The warriors let out cries that Thea couldn't begin to parse. The one leading the charge—a towering giant, easily six and a half feet tall, built like a boulder—hurled a sharpened spear directly at them.
"Hey—have you actually been to this time period before? Where exactly is this cave you keep talking about?" Thea called out as she ran. Her stats kept her from tiring, at least.