They gun him down and are about to slaughter the rest of the people, when they are suddenly pulled out of the room and the door slams behind them. The police look outside and see an army of Party Animals headed for them. Adult Beth Tezuka (Barbara Gordon) says they should secure a perimeter and opens the door, but to her shock sees Midnight on the other side, who tells her to shut the door and stay inside. From his vantage point, Dyme tells his superiors that Midnight has arrived, and they order him to engage if Midnight disrupts intelligence gathering. Dyme watches Midnight fight off the Party Animals despite being outnumbered and outgunned, impressed by his combat skills. Midnight defeats the initial assault and, rather than shoot him, Dyme decides to watch and see how he handles the larger second wave. As Midnight fights, Dyme notes how he is deliberately frightening but also idealistic; as his attacks are superficially brutal but non-lethal. A huge Party Animal armed with a cleaver forces his way to the front of the crowd and orders Midnight to stand aside, but Midnight calmly pulls out an axe and severs his hand at the wrist. He then screams at the crowd to get out of his way and after a moment's hesitation they run.

Dyme silently approves of his performance, but reflects that if Midnight really knew what he was doing he would have set up a trap for the fleeing Party Animals, only for them to run into an explosive trap Midnight placed just where he would have put it. Dyme’s superiors directly order him to take Midnight out and he jumps down to ground level. He sneaks up behind Midnight, levels his custom automatic shotgun at his head and orders him to stand down. However, Midnight easily knocks him down, disarms him and escapes with the gun. Dyme quickly deduces that Midnight is Brick Redmond, matching the design of the wings on Midnight’s cape to Brick’s winning entry of a collapsible bridge to a student engineering competition in the fifth grade. He then pieces together Brick’s life story: the prize for the competition was a trip to the zoo for his class. Brick’s father and teacher Thomas Redmond chaperoned the trip, and sacrificed himself to save his students when the zoo was attacked by a mass shooter. After spending his teen years as a delinquent, Brick buckled down, got good grades and went to the best university in the state on an athletic scholarship; however, he faked an injury to get out of playing and studied all the subjects he would need to be a crimefighter. When he returned to Goodnight, he worked as a utilities engineer to learn every inch of the city, interns at city hall to learn about municipal politics, and finally starts working construction.