Wind scuttled through the alleyways and mucky streets below as the gentle rays of the moon caressed the folds of his armour. In the distance a glowing golden beam of light, a distinct bat shape dangling amidst said beam, painted itself upon the roiling dark clouds that clung to the sky above Gotham's harbour district.
Chatter and laughter echoed dully from below as the night finally got into full swing. The people below were sheep in his opinion and yet they were infinitely important in the fact that they ensured that humanity continued. Perhaps, at some point in his life, he would have considered human life valuable and important. That wasn't him anymore. Life was expendable, brief and pleasurable, but ultimately finite. His fight with bane a few years ago had sunk that value into the marrow of his bones... Some could say it was broken right in his spine. He scoffed softly though the voice changer in his armoured suit warped it into a baritone grunt.
Ever since his mother and father had been taken from him he had lost an anchor to humanity that others usually possessed. Perhaps good old Jason Todd now named Red Hood was right in that he was a monster merely covering himself in the veneer of a hero. A guise he had possibly taken upon himself to cover for that gaping hole inside his soul. Bruce Wayne was merely a coat, a skin, that he covered himself with to hide his true self... The Batman. No, he knew his former Robin was correct.
He acknowledged that he had made many errors in his life but no matter the weight from those mistakes, there was a weight greater... A weight that made his muscles tense and his veins pulse with frustration and regret. The weight of a father. He had failed his son Damian so many times throughout the last few years. Damian had been trained from young to be a killer and when he finally gets separated from that life The Batman drags him into herodom. To risk his life for the countless humans who prattled and whined about their comfortable lives and problems. Oh, he would save them from the darkness. He would pull them away and shield them from the terrors of the world... Yet, he'd watch it all burn if it could grant his son even an ounce of the childhood that had been denied him. Unfortunately that was a wish impossible to come into fruition.
A growl escaped his mask as he sighed, his eyes lamely tracking his prey for the night. They were just some thugs distantly connected to Joker's crew but he needed to start again somewhere. The weight of his mantle cloistered to his shoulders as he rose to his feet, his cape billowing in the air as the breeze from the nearby docks onerously meandered through the streets of Gotham. Dealing with Johnny Storm and 'The Thing' was tiring work and had finally finished not but two days ago. Now they would be on their way to Australia. A growl escaped once more as he flung those thoughts to the back of his mind.
'Matters for another time. I must be getting old...'
He fell forwards into a dive as his hands snapped out under his cloak, grabbing the handles of his makeshift glider system. The whistling of wind passed his ears as the murmurs grew to an ever growing shout before his 'wings' fully deployed and he drifted over the heads of the crowd. His form disappeared into the shadows of an alleyway as the thugs below talked about their whores and drugs.
The wind was soon snuffed from his cape as he softly landed on a set of metallic stairs. Old mildewed food and the toxic smell of alcohol filled the alleyway, dumpsters that had never been emptied festering along the walls of bars and nightclubs. He wasn't sure but he wouldn't be surprised if the wet smacking sound somewhere deeper in the alleyway was a couple getting it on. Rolling his shoulder he decided to get this over and done with.
...
"Ay, Garry, what ya think about tha raid tonight?" Garry, the man dressed in a blazer with torn pants and a cigarette hanging from his mouth opposite him, shrugged whilst leaning back against an alley wall. A cigarette dangled in his right hand languidly.
"Eh... It was a'right." The original questioner nodded whilst knocking back his drink, his afro billowing in the wind a touch. After a moment he dropped his head back forwards and gasped out in satisfaction.
"Well, I just think we'd be better off, ya'know, hitting banks or y'know, maybe robbin some rich cunts' houses." Garry blinked in the man's direction before sucking in on his smoke, his lungs imbibing the nicotine.
He coughed as the remainder of the smoke escaped his lips, his answer coming out in a choked wheeze. "That's... The stupidest fuckin thing... I've heard all night!" The man leaned over and seemed to be spitting out a lung, or perhaps his spleen.
"Wha, what yah mean!? It ain't stupid!" Garry rolled his eyes.
"Of course it's fuckin stupid ya numbskull... The boss'd kill us for tracting batsy like that."
The man opposite Garry flinched a touch and receded back into himself, his neon shirt and nose studs crumpling with the movement.
"Fine. Ya have a point."
Garry nodded in minor triumph whilst flicking his cigarette away into a pile of trash piled next to a dumpster. A minor fire started as the flame touch cloth and wooden shards, but maintained its relative small size.
"Besides, the boss pays'us descent money. Even if he's a bit batshit insane." Garry commented dryly as he pulled out another of his nicotine inducing sticks.
"Oh? Do tell." The raspy metallic voice, foreign to both of them, echoed out into the brief silence that usually meant someone was waiting for a response.
Immediately the two thugs recoiled, Garry pulling his right hand to his shorts as the afro-guy fumbled for his own weapon; though he'd forgotten that he'd left it at home. Their fast movements availed them of little however as the looming figure in the ever present darkness surrounding them wove in and out of corners and hidey holes. The two scanned their environment in paranoia as the figure ensured he was barely even noticed.
"What ya want!? Come out with ya hands out or eat lead!"
"How about, no?" The voice whispered in his ear before the sound of crunching bone and the wetness of blood splattered across his face. Garry was down in two seconds flat whilst his friend panicked and began running, his destination a minute or so away.
He didn't make it that far as a sharp sting stabbed him in the back and he felt lightning surge through him, or what he thought lightning would feel like. In seconds the two experienced thugs were slumped onto the ground groaning, in the case of Garry, or have a seizure, as was the case for the afro.
"Tell me where your boss's operation is." The shadow's voice spoke with all the cadence of a grinder biting into metal.
"Don't know! I don't know!" A growl cascaded into the alleyway as Garry started whimpering. Afro had since gone unconscious.
"Not likely... Tell me then, where is the safehouse you use." The thug gulped and tried to look up, receiving a metal boot to his jaw for the effort. Teeth went flying as crimson slobbered to the alcohol stained pavement below.
"I... I's bwe nwear the dwocks! Wrarehouse fworty wone!" The shadow grunted before the metallic boot struck the man's temple and he fell cold into a mix of his own blood and the refuse of the alley.
The shadow, Batman, paused for a while until he heard sirens coming.
'The docks, I see. Maybe he has the triad on his side?'
He grasped a grappling hook that sat on his belt and targeted the rooftops, the device yanking him forwards and upwards into the wall. Clinging to the wall he soon climbed to the top and stood looking out over towards the docks.
"I have a bad feeling." His words met no other ears atop this roof.
...
Emma Frost slowly exited her private jet as the eerie lights of Gotham shone in the distance. Ice softly formed over her lips before melting with the heat of the night. In her hands she held a suitcase filled with proposals to the city's local government. The USA was changing and more than that the world was. She sought to make Gotham a beacon much like New York, if she could manage it.
Stark had begun building his tower in said city, his arrogance shining through with the designs he had published to the architectural committee of New York. Gotham was where she would make her own stamp, or at least attempt to. The Hellfire club had asked her to visit this city, to bring it to heel, but she had higher goals than that.
Frost International would own this city. Every sector of industry would be hers. Every seedy element would kneel before her. All of the city's wealthy and rich would tremble at her presence. Now she would just need to equal Wayne Enterprises in scale and self-sufficiency. A grin emerged on her face as her phone rang, the number being that of Peter Parker, the boy no doubt asking for her help on a raid or something such.
...
Inside Arkham Asylum, in one of the numerous dark a dreary cells, a veritable collage of greens and browns grew up the walls and across the floors. In this cell a collection of rare jungle flowers and vines coiled around a woman of shocking red hair. Like a cacoon the nature wrapped around her body and cradled her plush body.
She smiled beatifically as the air inside the cell murmured to her. The planet was singing a melody, a melody of hope and renewal. It was strong, insistent, persistent and gleamed with the beauty of nature itself. The winds spoke of Australia, of a woman with the heart of a beautiful phoenix but the history of an assassin.
"Mmmm... Wonderful... Perhaps she can help us?" A faint energy flickered through her vines much to her giggling delight.
...
Yuna shivered a little despite the heat of the day as she matched each blow from her instructor. Maybe today she would defeat him? A fist delved into her kidney and she fell to the floor in the momentary laps of concentration.
'Fuck everything.'
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