Jump City streets were already busy and noisy long before the Titans arrived.

The A-rank gate had opened right in the middle of a downtown intersection, a towering distortion of reality. blue and violet energy spiraled upward. Emergency barriers had been set up, but they were almost meaningless, crowds had gathered anyway.

Phones were out. Cameras were rolling. Livestreams were already trending.

For most civilians, gates were no longer just disasters.

They were almost entertaining events. And for Jump City, this one had become the event of the day.

"This is insane," Beast Boy muttered, staring at the crowd from behind the cordon line. "People really treat apocalypse portals like concerts now."

Blue Beetle shifted uneasily beside him. "It’s... kind of worse when you say it like that."

Cyborg crossed his arms. "They’ve seen enough hero work on livestreams that they think this is normal."

Raven stood a step behind the group, eyes scanning the gate with quiet focus. Starfire stood beside her, calm and alert, observing the energy fluctuations.

Robin, meanwhile, was focused entirely on the perimeter.

And Arthur...

Arthur stood slightly apart from the group.

He wore dark tactical armor layered over a sleek combat suit, reinforced plates etched with almost invisible runes, and a mask concealed most of his face, only his ashen white hair and faint glow of violet eyes gave anything away.

A sword rested at his side and no one in the crowd recognized him.

A nearby reporter adjusted his microphone, trying to stay professional while clearly distracted by the group.

"And... uh.... ladies and gentlemen, we are currently witnessing the Titans of Jump City preparing to enter an active A-rank gate in downtown territory," he said quickly, voice steady but intrigued. "A rare sight, as most gates of this classification are handled by registered guild hunters."

He glanced down at his notes, then looked up again.

"But... there appears to be an additional individual with them."

The camera zoomed slightly.

Arthur didn’t move.

The reporter squinted at the screen feed, trying to focus.

"Uh... I’m being told this individual is not on any official registry. He appears to be wearing modified tactical armor with unknown insignia, carrying what looks like a... sword."

The crowd murmured instantly.

"Is he a new Titan?" someone in the audience shouted.

"Is that a Justice League recruit?" another voice added.

"He doesn’t look like a hunter," a third said. "No badge, no guild mark..."

Raven exhaled slowly, already anticipating the chaos.

Arthur tilted his head slightly toward Robin.

"This was a good idea, I guess," he said calmly. "The armor’s not bad either."

Robin didn’t look at him.

"Yeah," he replied flatly. "We don’t need you showing up here as yourself after Japan made you half the planet’s favorite conspiracy theory."

Arthur gave a quiet hum of amusement.

"And yet here I am, contributing to global confusion anyway."

Robin continued, lowering his voice slightly.

"This armor was made by your Shadow, by the way."

Arthur paused.

"...Hephastus?"

"Yeah," Robin said. "I still don’t understand how your shadow is better at many things including engineering than half the world’s defense contractors."

Arthur’s tone was almost proud. "Hephastus is a smithgod afterall, consider him my gift to the world."

Cyborg snorted. "That thing is singlehandedly crashing magic weapon markets worldwide."

Robin nodded slightly. "Wayne Tech is still being credited for all of it. Bruce’s idea. Keeps your name out of the supply chain. The actual profits are going to Blackwynd Corp."

Arthur glanced toward the distant skyscrapers.

"My brother is terrifyingly efficient when he wants to be."

Raven’s gaze stayed on the gate.

"So this is an A-rank?" she asked.

Cyborg checked his scanner. "Yeah. Should be quick."

Beast Boy sighed. "You say that like we haven’t said that before every near-death experience, I’m still not used to this man.."

Arthur stepped forward slightly.

"Well then," he said simply, "I’ll be back."

Robin turned sharply. "Wait, we need a formation..."

Arthur didn’t wait, he walked straight into the gate.

The distortion swallowed him instantly.

Beast Boy blinked. "Did he just really..."

"He did," Raven said quietly.

Blue Beetle rubbed his face. "He always does that."

Starfire watched the gate calmly. "It is... concerning, we should enter too."

Raven stopped her and said "Wait star, he’ll return shortly."

Ten seconds passed.

Twenty.

Thirty.

The crowd outside began whispering louder.

"Did he go scouting?"

"Is that normal for The Titans? This is not how Hunters usually enter the dungeon gates..."

"Who is that guy?"

Then, the gate rippled violently.

A burst of pressure hit the air like a shockwave.

Arthur stepped out, blood streaked across the blade in his hand and the mask, it was still intact, but his violet eyes burned brighter than before, steady, unbothered.

He looked almost bored.

"Done," he said.

The entire crowd went silent.

Even the reporter stopped mid-sentence.

Arthur continued calmly.

"It was a Cerberus variant. One of the mutts the dead beast monarch, nothing too crazy."

He tilted his sword slightly, letting the blood drip away into shadow.

"I retrieved core fragments, and all the magical items of value."

Robin stared at him.

"That took... less than a minute."

Arthur shrugged. "It wasn’t difficult."

Blue Beetle blinked. "That’s an A-rank gate."

Arthur nodded once. "Correct."

Beast Boy leaned toward Raven. "I don’t like how casual he is about this."

Raven, despite herself, let out a small laugh. "Get used to it."

Arthur sheathed his sword.

"We shouldn’t linger. I want to see the S-rank."

Robin opened his mouth again,

Arthur already turned back toward the gate.

And raised a hand, the gate trembled.

The distortion began collapsing inward like it was being erased from existence.

The crowd outside exploded instantly.

"WHAT IS HE DOING?! IS HE DELETING IT?! GATES SHOULD STAY OPEN EVEN AFTER COMPLETION FOR A WHOLE HOUR!"

"NO WAY...THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! ARE YOU SAYING HE JUST COMPLETED ONE IN UNDER A MINUTE?!"

"WHO IS THAT GUY?!"

The gate folded in on itself, collapsing into a single point of black light before vanishing completely.

Silence hit harder than any explosion.

Arthur turned away like nothing had happened.

Then he extended his hand slightly.

A portal opened behind the Titans, dark and stable.

Robin stared at it for half a second, then exhaled.

"...Right."

Beast Boy pointed at Arthur. "I am never getting used to this."

Arthur glanced back once.

"Try not to get left behind."

And the Titans stepped through.

The portal swallowed them.

The street was left behind in stunned silence.

Phones still recording, Reporters still frozen.

And a crowd of people all thinking the same thing,

Whatever that was... It wasn’t just a Titan.

.

.

.

.

Across the country, gates fell the same way.

Even in the smaller cities that barely had time to issue evacuation warnings before the Titans, and the masked figure with them were already inside.

What was supposed to be a structured system of "dungeon raid protocols," guild formations, ranked entry teams, and carefully documented monster clears... stopped resembling any of that the moment Arthur joined them.

Reports flooded in live.

"A Titan unit has entered another A-rank gate, and they are not following standard dungeon procedures.."

"They’ve already cleared all of them, how did they even locate the bosses of the dungeons that fast?!"

And every broadcast had the same unsettling detail,

A masked man moving with them and not a registered hunter.

Not a known hero.

Just... a man. News anchors started hesitating mid-sentence.

Some stopped calling him "unknown."

Others stopped calling him "human."

By the third city, a few analysts were already whispering the same conclusion on live television.

"That’s not a support member... he seems more of the leader of the group."

By the time they reached Metropolis, the entire country was watching.

The S-rank gate was in the heart of the city.

It was larger than the others, with a larger pressure, Emergency barricades formed a wide perimeter, but it barely mattered. Crowds had gathered anyway, phones raised, security struggling more with curiosity than control.

Police drones hovered overhead.

News helicopters circled like vultures. And the Titans stood at the front of it all.

Arthur stood slightly ahead of them, he tilted his head slightly toward the gate.

His eyes glowed faintly through the mask.

"This is a red one," he said.

Robin immediately stepped closer. "Are you certain?"

Cyborg’s scanner beeped rapidly as he stared at readings. "Red? That’s not what I have here... how can you tell before we even enter?!"

Arthur didn’t look away from the gate.

"Your systems classify by output and instability thresholds," he said calmly. "This is beyond that scale, it is not something that you can predict with tools or technology because it changes the moment we enter."

Beast Boy frowned. "So... like, this is bad bad?"

Arthur’s lips curved slightly under the mask.

"There is an entire different dimension inside," he said. "It will be... interesting."

Raven’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Interesting is never a good word when you say it Arthur, but I’m ready eitherway."

Robin crossed his arms. "Well in this case we should follow red gates procedure."

Arthur finally turned his head slightly toward him.

"You can do that," he said, "or you can just follow me and we can finish this nice and quick, I just want to see what an S rank red gate really holds."

Beast Boy muttered, "Only you can say something like that like it’s normal..."

Starfire watched the gate carefully. "This one really feels... dangerous."

Even Robin paused for half a second.

The crowd was reacting in real time.

"Why is that masked guy leading them?"

A reporter near the barricade adjusted his microphone, voice tight with tension.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently observing an unprecedented situation. The Titans of Jump City, alongside an unidentified high-tier hunter or metahuman operative, are preparing to enter what officials are classifying as an S-rank gate."

He hesitated, watching Arthur carefully.

"However... what we are witnessing today is unprecedented. The Titans have already cleared multiple A-rank gates across the country at a speed and efficiency that, frankly, surpasses standard hunter guild operations by a wide margin."

He swallowed, glancing at the masked figure among them.

"With their record so far... we can safely say we are looking at a team we can count on."

/-\

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