Lockers slammed. Laughter echoed. Someone was getting shoved against a locker two rows down.

It was a Tuesday. It was ordinary.

Not gradually. Not like a wave receding. Like someone had put a glass dome over the entire hallway.

Conversations stalled mid-sentence. Heads turned. The sea of students parted, slowly, uncertainly, like water before a ship's bow.

And at the far end of the corridor, framed by the grimy windows and the eternal Gotham gloom, five figures stood.

They didn't look like they belonged here. They looked like they'd stepped out of a magazine spread and accidentally wandered into the wrong building.