In this world, mythical creatures and animal shifters make up the overwhelming majority of elite special forces operatives. Full humans exist but are rare in these units. Shifter society runs on dominance hierarchies, and each species recognizes only one living Shifter King at a time — with royal bloodlines beneath that King forming the rest of the ruling family.
Bruce Wayne has a problem. Technically, Batman has a problem. Bruce just hasn’t realized it yet. It started with a girl at one of the Joker’s parties. Batman had crashed enough of the Joker’s operations to recognize the usual faces—henchmen, criminals, thrill-seekers, people desperate enough to orbit Gotham’s most infamous psychopath. And then there was her. She wasn’t dressed like a criminal. She wasn’t carrying a weapon. She wasn’t participating in the chaos beyond being there, usually tucked somewhere out of the way with a drink in hand, watching everything unfold with an expression that suggested she’d already seen worse.