[A/N]: Before everything, this is my second ever committed fanfiction. I'm writing this with the help of the lessons I've learned in the fic that preceded this, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it's enough to build a better story than the last.
The timeline for this fic won't rigidly follow canon. Names, events, and many other things from canon will be rearranged, or removed/ignored entirely if necessary. Also note, the version of Gotham in this story will be much more supernatural than most depictions.
Yes, I'm running with the cursed city concept.
Lastly, there's no significance to the protagonist's name. I liked the original Sabretooth's name, but also didn't quite mesh with Creed, so I switched it up. That's all.
Anyway... here's Gotham's Sabretooth.
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Beeping. As always, Viktor awoke to the noise of that damn monitor hooked up to him. Or was he hooked up to it? Whatever. It didn't matter in the end.
Usually, he'd wake up in the morning when the sun hit his face. Then, he'd have to ask the nurse to shut the curtains. And then the little shit in the other bed would yell for them to be opened. Luckily for him, the nurses never listened to that one. He too obvious about being petty.
This time was different from the usual, though. It was night out. None of the blinding blue skies, none of that stupid sun that would burn black lines and dots into his vision. There was only the pale full moon, shining so bright in the sky that it painted silver along the edges of the grey clouds.
'That's... weird,' he thought. 'Is the moon getting bigger...?'
His head felt heavy like usual. Maybe it was a new symptom of whatever he had? The doctors kept reminding him, but he could never get the name to stick in his head.
Breathing grew harder. No matter how he forced his body to inhale, it couldn't. His eyes swam in their sockets, and the world around him trembled. The beeping of his monitor accelerated—though he didn't notice—and he swore he could hear someone yelling his name.
"Could you quiet down, please...?" he said, words slurring. "Makes my head hurt..."
He shut his eyes. His ears popped and, miraculously, the noises and dizziness stopped. There was still that pain in his head though, and for some reason, his body was hurting as well. He reached down to try and pull the blanket over his head, but instead of the thin sheets, all his hands managed to grab was his hospital gown.
'Wait... clothes? This is... an actual shirt. What?'
When he felt cloth in his grip, he really did expect his gown. Instead, when he opened his eyes, he found himself wearing a shirt and pants.
'And it's soaked in blood, too. What the fuck...?'
Sitting up, he inspected himself more closely. His shirt was drenched in the stuff, with six holes in them from which the blood seemed to come from. His pants had two more—one in each leg. Looking around confirmed a suspicion he had: there were eight bullets lying around, all of which were stained red.
'Is this a dream?' he wondered. 'No. Assume it's real. If it's a dream, I'll wake up eventually. Don't fuck around, Viktor.'
Heaving, he forced himself upright. It was an easier task than expected—all he'd known before was assisted movement. Getting up on his own... it felt amazing.
From there, he was faced with two options: go out and into the lit-up streets, or walk deeper into the back alleys, down into those shadows.
'I can't let people see me like this.'
He chose that dark path.
Walking into that alley, he had a single purpose: find new clothes. It took some time searching, especially as he avoided any signs of people, but he managed a set that was good enough of a fit. He snatched a tank top and pants and scurried into a far away alcove to change, making sure to wipe off any blood on his skin first.
Now feeling more secure, he went to leave those alleys and figure out exactly where he was.
...
Gotham. This was indisputably that accursed, crime-infested city from his favorite comic books. Not even five minutes after stepping out and he'd already witnessed a small gang accosting people, their faces painted like clowns and their hair dyed green. Shortly after that was a drive-by shooting on an unsuspecting group of young adults. On the news through television displays was a new case of arson in a middle-class neighborhood.
He soon accepted his new reality. Just as he did, the air shifted. More than a handful of people looked up. He followed their gazes and saw something in the sky that wasn't there earlier—the Bat-Signal.
The gang from earlier, which had grown to be a distant sight as Viktor walked, scattered like rats and retreated—presumably—to their hideouts. Some of the civilians that walked like he did relaxed. Others grew tenser and hurried along on their way.
'I really am in Gotham,' he thought. 'Shit. Okay. Stay calm.'
As much as he loved Gotham as a setting, he knew for a fact that it was one of the places that he would least want to be in. Now, that scenario was a reality. Seeing as he would be stuck here for the foreseeable future, he hatched a plan to survive.
'Okay. Okay. I have a regenerative healing factor, I know that much. The kind that doesn't leave scars. I have at least that going for me.'
He first needed to find a place to stay. Then, figure out what he can do. Once those two were over with, he'd need to find a way to sustain himself.
'... something related to fighting sounds nice,' he thought. 'I could try doing like Spider-Man did. I'm sure there's a lot of opportunities like that down here in Gotham.'
...
Viktor wandered around the city, keeping to himself. He got bad vibes from damn near everyone he met eyes with, and those that didn't put him off only seemed dejected or distracted. He picked up his pace, hurrying to find anywhere to take shelter before anything else.
While he walked without any real direction, as it had been his first time ever being out and about on the streets, he picked up quite a sum in money that people had dropped. A crumpled bill here, a dull coin there. He managed to gather enough that he could probably get something from a vending machine.
Turning a corner, he spotted a subway entrance. 'Score,' he thought. Just inside should be exactly what he was looking for. He failed to notice that nobody walked in or out those dark stairs until he was already halfway down.
'Shit. Welp. Calm down, stay alert. I'll chance it, but I'll run at the first sign of trouble...'
As carefully as he could, Viktor took uneasy steps down the grimy stairs.
The air in the station was stale and heavy. Like it was half-liquid, resisting inhalation until it was inside. Then, it would refuse to leave his lungs.
Beyond the dust and stillness, he could smell other things. With every breath, he would catch a whiff of something sour and sickly sweet, maybe a little bitter. Sometimes, he would catch odd moisture that would make his tongue shrivel and dry up. Both make him want to vomit.
'Yep. Something's dead.'
Turning the corner at the bottom of the stairs, he spotted light. Vending machines. Sadly, it didn't seem to be fated.
Beyond his goals' light were others. People. He could see their outlines faintly in the shadows, their eyes barely glinting against the machines' illumination. Turning his gaze lower, the blades in their hands glinted more strongly.
Viktor was prey caught in a trap. He wasn't even all that used to walking yet. Could he run fast enough to escape?
At the first sign of movement, his body tensed. His everything tensed. His hands did so the most, and the oddest thing happened. Something shifted from under his nails, like a switchblade being popped open. Claws.
The people in the shadows shifted.
'Shit shit shit shit shit shit—'
৹ ◎ ◉ ◎ ৹
Out in the city, a shadow moved. Heavy, yet weightless. Quick, yet lingering.
The Batman climbed up a wall and clawed at a camera that hung from a building. It pried open a panel and attached a small device to it, which would copy the contents onto a personal storage item. Once done, it restored the panel and hopped off, disappearing into the darkness.
There, it viewed the footage.
Halfway through total runtime. Nothing. Halfway between midpoint and end. Nothing.
The bat repeated this process until it found the moment an incident took place. A grown man was chasing down a boy, who was begging for his life. He hobbled on one leg, the other bleeding from a point. There was a flash of light, then the boy was on the ground, crawling with just his arms.
The man reached him and kicked him over, then seemed to yell obscenities. There was no audio playback, so the bat could only guess.
'The limitations of technology available to most people... inconvenient.'
Soon, more flashes of light filled the footage. The man shot that boy six times in the torso, after which he fled the scene. Nothing was taken from the body, and bleeding out was inevitable.
'So he didn't take the body with him? Did he come back for it?'
The bat pondered, body stock still.
'No. The disturbances in the blood would have been different. Was Robin right, then...?'
As it watched, the bat caught little specks of white in the footage. They emerged from the boy's body and toppled down onto the pool of blood beneath him. Soon after, the boy arose from death and got up to run off.
'... a metahuman. Is it simple undeath? Immortality through resurrection? Anomalous regeneration?'
The bat killed the feed and radioed his protege through the earpiece in his helmet. "Robin."
"I caught him, Batman! We're by that one crossroads we saw earlier, the one with a snowman statue!"
"I'm en route," the bat replied. "And it looks like you were right. The victim's still alive."
৹ ◎ ◉ ◎ ৹
Viktor was caught in a brawl, on his own, fighting for dear life against three full-grown men. They encircled and jumped forward in turns, in and out while trying to jab their shanks at him. He, in turn, swiped with his claws every time any one of them got too close.
The tang of blood filled the air, both Viktor's and his assailants'. Every time he got hit, he made sure to pay them back manyfold. His best shot was when one of his attackers got greedy and lunged too close. He grabbed that man's arm and sank his claws into the wrist, then swiped at the face.
He was fully prepared to sink his claws into that man's eye sockets had he not been interrupted by the others attacking in turn. He suffered three more knife wounds, but he felt gratified getting that far with no combat experience.
Inevitably, the enemies caught on. Viktor wasn't nearly as tired or injured as they were, and he couldn't be disarmed. He finally managed to catch his breath when they slinked back into the shadows, presumably to lick their wounds.
"Holy shit," he exclaimed in heavy breaths. "I made it... I'm still alive..."
Forcing himself to move, Viktor took to the vending machines. He decided against spending his hard-earned chump change. Instead, seeing as the machines were obvious bait for this trap of a station, he reared a fist back and slugged the glass panel on one of them.
It shattered gloriously into a million pieces, sparkling in the neon lights like firework effects that might show up when opening a loot chest in a video game. Viktor reaped his rewards—cereal bars, protein snacks, and various canned drinks. He pocketed as much as he could, resolving to leave as soon as possible.
"You're gonna have to pay for that," said a gruff voice, emerging from deep in the tunnel.
Viktor's head swiveled, eyes wide. He caught eight silhouettes in the darkness, but wasted no time trying to catch any details. Turning, he bolted, scrambling up the dusty stairs, nearly slipping a few times in the process. Halfway up, he stopped.
The path was blocked.
Up at the top of the stairs were many more people, all armed. They carried knives and bats, axes and blades. Every figure was disheveled, but their eyes all gleamed with clarity and intensity.
"Come back down those stairs, eh? Play along without a fuss, and this doesn't have to get ugly."
Viktor turned slowly, fixing his narrow-slitted eyes on the leading figure at the bottom of the stairs. That man's face was nothing that he recognized. It could have just been the fact that he didn't look like a comic book character by virtue of it being his new reality, but still... he had no idea who it was.
The ringleader continued to speak. "You've got potential, kid. You're like, what... fifteen? Maybe a bit older. You held your own."
Viktor gulped, unable to reply. He kept his body in tension, claws still bared.
"Here's an offer. Work for me, and we'll figure something out. Gang like us could always use someone like you. Whaddya say, eh?"
"Not like I have much of a choice," Viktor rasped out through his dry throat.
The ringleader chuckled. "Well, you're right about that. Get down from there and follow me. We'll talk inside. Oh, and you can keep the stuff you took. Bait'll be more effective now that it looks like it's been looted."
As Viktor trailed behind that man into the shadows, the mob seemed to disperse. His senses couldn't be fooled, however—he still felt their eyes on his back.
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[A/N]: And that was chapter 1! What'd y'all think? Don't expect too many updates from this one until I decide that I'm done with DC:SR, though.
However... I could be convinced to pivot my focus if get enough bribes on [ko-fi. com/ mr_ blorp]. Just make sure to send your demands alongside the moneys lel
Am I being shameless? Abso-fucking-lutely. But in this economy... eh, we could all afford to be a bit greedier.
Toodles~