Present Day

That is what shaped the parts of me that were jagged and raw into the man I am today. I slipped on the gloves and boots and placed the utility belt and harness over the grey combat wear. I was finally ready, after 10 years of training I was fully equipped to take on the black heart of Gotham’s corruption. 

I grabbed some listening technology from a drawer inside the trunk and placed a pair of grungy street clothes into a backpack. Next, I headed to the garage and picked out the dirtiest, grungiest bike we had. That was expertly hard considering Alfred kept everything in such working order.

I took the bike and rode off, heading straight into the heart of Gotham. I thought the filth would be harder to see at night, but the corruption of Gotham lit up the night like a neon sign. I rode just past Gotham City Police Station and parked it in a place where it wouldn’t get stolen. Then, I opened my backpack and pulled out my listening devices. I turned them on and set them to listen into the conversations happening inside GCPD. I sat in the darkness observing Gotham’s finest at work.

The usual bustle of cops was present hustling from one place to the next. I saw Gotham’s police commissioner, Gillian B. Loeb, smoking a Cuban cigar, one he certainly couldn’t afford on his salary. As I continued to observe one man stood out to me.  

This man was unassuming, he didn’t make everything about him. He wore a long trench coat and had a mustache that was perfectly maintained, like he had pride in knowing that was one thing he could control. Some officers came up to him, so I fine tuned my devices to listen in to their conversation.

“Hey boys!” One of the cops, a blonde-haired idiot, motioned to the surrounding cops, “Gordon here thinks your all corrupt. Imagine that.” He waved his gun in the air, as the other cops let out a laugh.

The man with the mustache, Gordon, they called him spoke back, “I don’t mean to insult but you and your friends certainly don’t hide your payoffs very well.” He points to the blonde cop and continues, “I mean come on Flask, we are just supposed to believe that you can afford a Porshe.”

The blond cop, Flask was his name looked angry, “Hey! I saved up a long time for that.”

“Sure, we all believe that. Anyways, I’m going up to the roof for a smoke.” Then Gordon pulled out a pipe as he walked away.

Flask got one last comment in before Gordon was gone, “You even smoke old, old man.”

Gordon made his way up to the rooftop and let out a puff of smoke from his pipe. I waited patiently in the shadows as he did. He stood next to a broken spotlight covered in cobwebs and started talking to himself.

“Some change you got her. Chicago to Gotham. Supposed to be a fresh start. A place to do some good.” He took another puff from his pipe, shaking his head as he looked out on the Gotham skyline.

I stepped from the shadows, “I can help you do some good.”

Gordon in an instant had his gun raised and pointed directly at me, “Don’t move. Your trespassing on police property.”

That was not how I planned for this to go, so I threw down some homemade smoke pellets and made my escape. Gordon was good, though and managed to follow me through the smoke. I had to get away, so I made a daring move, jumping across a rooftop to escape.  

The roofs were father apart than I judged, and I slammed into a fire escape on my way down. I heard a loud crack as I fell sustaining some injuries, but thankfully my training taught me how to deal with such pain. I made it back to my bike, where I changed out of my stealth gear and into a hobo disguise.

I hobbled down a street of Gotham, notorious for its adult activities. I saw two men outside of a truck, they had large knives strapped to their belts and they were wheeling out pallets of what looked like meth.  

I thought to myself, “This is what I trained for, this is what I am here to stop.” I took a few breaths and centered myself, getting ready for the fight that was to come.  

I took the first man down by hitting a pressure point on his wrist that made him drop his knife and he turns toward me, only to see my fist collide with his face. He crumples to the cries of agony filling the street.  

“Hey! That guy just took out Johnny.” One of the goons said. “Get him!”

I pulled a pair of ninja stars from my pockets and started throwing them. This allowed me to bring down the first two goons that were charging me. The others though started to corner me, so I took them down one by one as they approached.

Then, I felt a whip hit my back and wrap around my leg pulling me down. I hit the ground and saw a woman scantily dressed in black leather stand over me.

“Hey, boys, you dropped something.” She said the heel of her shoes digging straight into my ribs.  

“Get out of our way, girl. Your pimps not here to protect you.” One of the goons said, shoving her aside.

Then the whip cracked and wrapped around his neck, “Do I look like I need protecting?” She said choking the man out. “I thought I would help you boys out and make get a cut but no you can’t have girl helping you now can you.”

I stood up getting my breath back, I was going to have to deal with this woman now too. As I stumbled to my feet, the woman without taking her eyes off the goon delivered a kick straight to my face. I caught it and twisted. But she managed to roll with the flip and kicked me with her other leg, breaking another rib in the process. Then she kneed me in the gut.

I got back up again, fighting against the pain. That’s when I noticed her and the goons must have come to an arrangement because she had stepped aside, and I was facing a shot gun. I attempted to dodge out of the way, but I still caught some buckshot in my side. As the goon reloaded, I threw a ninja star into the barrel causing it to backfire. I made a hasty retreat, as I limped back into the shadows.

I made it back to the manor and I stumbled into the study room, where a large portrait of my parents stood gazing down at me, as I lay against the wall bleeding out from injuries.  

“I’m sorry” I took my head in my hands not able to face my parents’ portrait, “I thought I could do it. I thought I could protect this city. I wanted to help the people of Gotham not live in fear. I spent all those years training to be the best and I was taken down by some common thugs.”

I looked up, locking eyes with my father, his portrait staring back at me with cold, lifeless eyes. Just like the lifeless eyes he had that night in the alley.  

“I’m so injured, I could just let go and join you. Everything I spent my life on is useless. I wanted to honor you and protect this city you loved. But maybe it was just a foolish boy’s dream, one that will die tonight.”  

I looked over to a button that activated the intercom service in the house, “I can push this button, Father, and Alfred will come running and he will fix me up. But if I don’t Alfred won’t find me till the blood loss has taken me.”

I looked back at his portrait, pleading in my voice “Please, Father. Telling what I should do.

Give me a sign that I am on the right track.”  

At that exact moment, a bat came crashing through the window of the study. It perched on the mantle below my parents’ portrait and stared at me with black beady eyes.  

“Yes, Father”, I said locking eyes with the bat, “I will become a bat and strike my fear of them into criminal’s hearts.” I reached for the intercom button and pressed the buzzing sound ringing through the manor. That was the last sound I heard before, everything went black.