CHAPTER I


I still remember that night down to the last detail. It was just me and my parents, seeing a movie for my birthday. It was two days after my actual birthday… if only it wasn’t. Maybe it was some cruel twist of fate that caused us to go out through that alley. Maybe it was just idiocy on our part. Either way, the result can’t be changed.

The guy seemed harmless enough at first. We just figured he would ignore us. WHY did we ever think that? Again, it seems cruel. Because then he pulled out a gun. Now that I think back on it, it might have been a Magnum. He demanded for money. My dad tossed him his wallet.
We thought it would stop there.

But it didn’t. The guy demanded for jewelry. My mom gave him her pearls, earrings, bracelets, and rings. We thought it would stop there. But it didn’t. It stopped when the guy looked over his shoulder as if he was looking for someone. The funny thing is, I thought I saw someone too. Then the guy pulled the trigger. Twice. Ten feet from my parents. Each bullet went right through. I still think, “Would it have been better if all three of us died that night?”

It would’ve saved me from the very image that haunts my waking mind to this day. The image of the bullets piercing the bodies of Martha and Thomas Wayne, their blood spurting on the walls, on the ground, and…on me. Some went up my nose.

He didn’t shoot me. He ran off. I screamed. I screamed for fifteen minutes, maybe in some vain hope that it would wake my parents up. Only 3 hours later did a patrolling police officer discover me, still crying silently, stricken, over my parents. He said he was Jim Gordon, and asked my name. I of course replied that I was Bruce Wayne. Jim called in some other officers to help set up a crime scene.

After taking my statement, Jim offered to take me home. I accepted, and in twenty-five minutes, I was back at Wayne Manor. I was greeted by my faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Then he noticed the police officer. Jim assumed a solemn expression, one I have yet to see matched. I wasn’t really paying attention to what he said. All I knew was that Alfred was in tears. I had never seen Alfred crying until that day.

That night, the only things that emerged from my mind were the red streams exploding out of my parents. I can see them there, being propelled backwards by the bullets. It was that night that convinced me that this city was broken. Living in such a big mansion my entire life, I had no idea what it was like in the lower parts of Gotham. The days at my house seemed longer, and darker. The sound of cheerful laughter didn’t come from the dank halls.

Alfred made up for it though. He always helped me when I got hurt. He always made me the best birthday cake. And most frequently, he comforted me when I ran inside, away from some bat. I hated the fuzzy little freaks. It was a relationship reminiscent of that between Indiana Jones and snakes. They lived in a cave located on the grounds.

There was one thing he couldn’t protect me from, though. I was 14. I decided to take a walk that day, due to a nightmare the previous night. I eventually wandered into one of the more seedy areas of Gotham, about a block from Arkham Asylum. Two guys approached me. They recognized me as Bruce Wayne. The taller one of the two looked at me and said, “You see that?” I looked at the other guy. He was obviously stoned. I nodded. The taller guy continued, “That, my good man, is the high produced by our experimental form of heroin. It makes you feel happy for hours on end. Not only that, but it can substitute bad memories for good ones. That effect is the reason you will love this. We call it Halcyon.”

Of course, I’d always been told to stay away from any kind of drug my whole life. But I felt as if it was the only way to get rid of the pain. There was one corner of my mind, screaming EVERYBODY HEARD ABOUT YOUR PARENTS DYING! THESE GUYS ARE TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! I didn’t care at the time. And so it went. I arrived home with a single shot of Halcyon. I tried it. It felt heavenly. I forgot that night, and just imagined myself hugging my parents, telling them how much I’ve missed them. But in a couple of hours, I returned to the desolate state I’d been in before.

The next day, I went back to those guys, and got more. I stuck myself again. I felt happy again. And then I fell back into Hell. It was a vicious cycle, and all of it involved lying to Alfred. He knew something was wrong, but I was stupid enough not to tell him.

It made school harder than it already was. I was high in the middle of class, at lunch, even in after-school clubs! I got moved from school to school, and even though I was a smart kid, the Halcyon did nothing for me in the long run.

My vicious cycle ended when I was 18. I overdosed on Halcyon. It shocked me into realizing how broken my life was. I was sent to jail for possession of illegal drugs. Fortunately for me, Alfred paid bail. And of course I got chewed out after arriving home. I decided to travel, to get away. After months of what could at most have been called rambling, I landed in Japan. I liked the peaceful atmosphere up in the mountains. I met a man by the name of Kirigi. He taught me how to defend myself, after, of course, beating me up and telling me I had “great potential”. He taught me other things, like different healing methods from around Japan. He even taught me all the things I would’ve learned in college. It had an overall beneficial effect. I came back when I turned 29. My arrival exploded all over the Internet and the news. I discovered that in my absence, Wayne Enterprises had been slightly declining. I took the position of CEO, but it felt really unfulfilling. So, I put my dad’s old friend Lucius Fox in the position instead. Things calmed down for a couple weeks.

About nine months before my 30th birthday, Alfred came to me and said, “The man who killed your parents has been caught. His name is Joe Chill…Master Wayne, he said that he would only speak to you. The next time he gets to speak to anyone is Wednesday.” I thought about it. Would Chill just mock me? Would he grovel for forgiveness? I had no idea. But I found myself saying, “Alright, I’ll speak to him.”

When Wednesday came, I felt nervous, because the guy who killed my parents would be within make-out distance of me in a few minutes. At the same time, I was nervous because the guy who killed my parents would be within strangling distance of me in a few minutes. As I sat down at the table, the same raggedy wretch that I saw almost twenty years ago was in front of me again.

Chill began, “I’m not going to ask forgiveness. I just want you to know what happened that night.” I felt fury well up inside me. “I already know what happened,” I said. “You killed my parents, you coward! You already had what you asked for! Why didn’t you just leave?” I found myself crying. I felt the same way I did all those years ago: confused, angry, missing my parents. Chill looked at the floor and continued. “You don’t think I feel sorry,” said Chill. “Well, I do. You know, I grew up without parents too. At least, without real ones. I was a foster kid. You don’t know how much I didn’t want to put another kid through that.” My anger multiplied. “It seemed to come pretty easily to you that night,” I said. “Look,” said Chill, “They had my foster parents. They said they would kill them if I didn’t do it.” I didn’t know how to respond. On the one hand, I was still mad. How could he kill them, even if his parents were being threatened? On the other hand, how couldn’t he?

I was still stuck on this internal debate when Chill started talking again. “You know,” he said, “the guys who made me do it, I overheard them talking about other people. I only caught a few names, but I wrote them down.” He slid a folded piece of paper across the table. I unfolded it. There were four names. I recognized the first one: Harvey Dent. I heard that he’d become the D.A. while I was gone. The second name, I’d never heard of: Bane. It was simple, yet frightening. The third name I knew as a local college professor: Dr. Jonathan Crane. He’s the youngest professor at the local college at the age of 24. The final name had pretty much no effect on me: Solomon Grundy. It just seemed like the name of some average guy, which raised a question.

“What’s the significance of these names?” I asked. “I don’t know,” replied Chill shakily. “What I do know, Bruce, is that you have to keep your eye on them, and if you can, stop them.” “Who are they?” I asked aggressively. “I don’t know that either,” said Chill. “The truth is, I don’t really want to know.” A guard walked up and said, “Alright, inmate, time to go back to your cell.” I left that day with Chill’s plead. Stop them, he said. I will, I thought.

Now I’ve woken up. It was all a dream, recounting all the events of my life thus far. I reached over to my bedside table, picking up the paper that Chill gave me. I had to know what these names meant. I wanted to honor my parents by taking down the people who killed them. My mission began that day. Little did I know where it would take me.

CHAPTER II

It started with a simple scouring of the public records. Since I already knew who Harvey Dent and Jonathan Crane were, all I needed to know was the identities of Bane and Solomon Grundy. Bane seemed like he might be more significant. I looked him up. He wasn’t from Gotham. That made the search harder. It took a lot of digging, but I found that Bane was a guy who was born in a Mexican prison. His mother was a guard, and she was raped. She died giving birth. Before she died, she named him Perdición. That translates to Bane. The funny thing was, there was no last name. They had a current picture of Bane. He was a skinny guy, not at all what you’d expect someone named Bane to look like. He can’t be a big threat, I thought. He had no record. He had good grades. I couldn’t see why these people would want him. Then again, looks could be deceiving.

After that, it was child’s play to find Solomon Grundy. This one was even more puzzling than Bane. Why? Because ol’ Solomon died in ’94 at the age of 68. The only other things they had on him were a couple of D.U.I.s, but that didn’t seem to be of any consequence. I got wrapped up in this whole thing, wondering what any of these guys had to do with the people who killed my parents. Maybe they wanted Crane to use my past against me. Maybe he wanted Dent to wage some kind of propaganda war. Any motives they could have for wanting Bane or Grundy escaped me.

Eventually I decided that if this wasn’t getting me anywhere, I should find a job. That’s why I went to the HQ of the Gotham Police Department. After getting through all the hurdles involved with getting into a police force, I finally began my stay at the academy.

I graduated top of my class. I was excited to start police work. It started out great. We stopped a few thefts here, solved a couple homicides there. But then, one event changed everything.

It was a hostage situation. The guy had people inside his house, threatening to kill them if his demands weren’t met. I saw that the guy was obviously nervous. There were two possible outcomes if we went inside the house: he would either start firing immediately, or the shock would be enough to stop him from doing so for a few seconds. Neither one occurred, because the captain on duty didn’t want to take any chances. We got the guy with no casualties, but I figure that it could’ve been over faster.

So I quit. Their methods were too cautious. I wanted to take chances. That’s the only way I would stop these people. I went back to discovering all I could about the people on the list. Dent was spotless. Crane only had one small point of interest. According to his students, he was also an amateur chemist.

I started to despair. The police didn’t work, the info on the names didn’t work. I fell into a slight depression. It got worse when I saw something on the news: another kid had seen his parents killed. The victims were Frank and Mary Grayson. They left behind a son, Dick. He was only sixteen when it happened. Apparently, his parents were beaten to death by a crime boss after Frank and Mary refused to pay them money. Dick said he hid behind a sign, and saw the whole thing. On the news, he looked like me, all those years ago, a kid who just lost his parents to the evil in this city. And the story after that didn’t do me any favors, either.

The night before, a jewelry store had been robbed by some guy calling himself the Red Hood. The name was scarier than the man himself. The only thing that seemed to indicate such a name was a red ski mask he wore. What a nuisance, I thought.

Alfred had just entered the room. I asked him, “Alfred, why do you think this city is so broken?” Alfred thought about it. He sighed and said, “I can tell you honestly, Master Wayne, that I’ve no earthly idea. I suppose there wouldn’t be any point to us learning, would there?” “Yeah, I guess not,” I said. Then I had a thought. “Alfred,” I said, “the police didn’t work out for me, so…what if I…with all my training…protected the city myself?” Alfred was taken aback. “I don’t see why you should endanger yourself, Master Wayne,” said Alfred. I laughed. “But Alfred,” I said, “I’m OK with that. If I have to give my life trying to save this city, then I will.” Alfred seemed flustered. “Bruce,” he said, “if you do this, don’t expect any help from me.” I looked straight at him and grinned. “Alfred,” I said, “I’m not sure I’d want such an old man fighting crime. It might not be good for your joints.” Alfred rolled his eyes. “You should be glad I’m your butler,” he said.

I searched on eBay for anything that would help me wage a war on the crime in this city. Of course, the list had to include some kind of disguise, so I bought a black ski mask. Along with that, I bought climbing gloves, combat boots, cargo pants, and a tactical vest, all in black. I went to town on any training dummy I could find.

One day while I was training on one of these said dummies, Alfred came to me with a suggestion that would change the course of my little crusade. “Master Wayne,” he said, “Although I’d rather you not do this, shouldn’t you come up with some kind of name?” “A name?” I asked.

Alfred sighed. “Well,” he said, as if I was a blithering idiot, “you can’t very well just jump out at these rogues and say, ‘I’m Bruce Wayne!’” I stopped hitting the dummy for a few seconds. “That’s actually a valid point,” I said. “Good thinking, Alfred.” I went back to hitting the dummy. “How about, uh…the Crusader,” I said. Alfred shook his head. “I don’t think that’ll work at all,” said Alfred. “The name has to make the criminal fear you. What about Batman, Master Bruce?” I stopped hitting the dummy again, this time regarding Alfred as the blithering idiot. “Batman? OK, Alfred, seriously, what the heck kind of name is that? I know I can’t tell them my name, but I wouldn’t feel any better saying, ‘I am the Batman! Fear me! Urrrrrr!’” I laughed. “Sorry, Alfred, but I don’t think that would work. Besides, you know I hate them.” “Alright, fine,” said Alfred as he left the room, “But I just thought that since they were your childhood fear, maybe you could find a way to turn that fear onto your enemies. What would you like for dinner, Master Wayne?” I thought about it. “I haven’t had a good pizza in a while,” I responded. As Alfred walked away, I was deep in thought. Batman. Meh.

Two weeks later, I went out into the streets of Gotham for the first time in my…uh…costume, we’ll go with costume. But this wasn’t a mission to find a criminal. I still had a lot to prepare before I started attempting anything like that. This was to hone my skills with a grappling hook (courtesy of Lucius Fox. When asked, I said it was for rock climbing. Did he believe me?). I found a nice warehouse where I could swing from the rafters. “Alrighty then,” I said while swinging the grappling hook. It took me several tries to get it to one of the rafters. The warehouse had a lot of crates, giving me materials to build a place to swing from and to swing to.

After building these makeshift staircases, I got up on the first one, tugged on the rope to make sure it was secure, and swung. The adrenaline rush was glorious, better than Halcyon could ever have been. It was this moment that I knew this was the right choice.


Unfortunately, I missing the landing, and swung back and forth for a few minutes (just in case you’re wondering why Kirigi didn’t teach me anything on this subject, he didn’t believe in such things). Frustrated, I started yelling in gibberish, along with a few curses.

I stopped when I heard someone outside. I checked, but I didn’t see anyone. After that I realized I should be more careful. I tried again, this time restraining my urge to yell.

I mounted up on the crates and swung. This time I made it, but I had too much forward momentum and fell off, breaking my wrist and almost my face. I pulled out my phone. “Alfred,” I said, “Can you pick me up? I can’t feel the right side of my face.”

After getting home and getting bandages, I decided I should do something entertaining to take my mind off of things. At first I attempted to play Halo, but despite my frequent bragging, it turns out I can’t take out a Brute Chieftain playing with one hand. “Why do you play that silly game, Master Wayne?” asked Alfred when he walked in. “I personally believe Call of Duty is better.” “Are we really going to start this?” I asked. I saw Alfred smile. “Oh, I see what you’re doing, you sly dog, psyching me out, huh?” I said, also smiling. “Ah, whatever, I guess I’ll see if there’s anything good on TV.”

I turned the TV on to the news. There wasn’t that much, apparently. One of the first bits, though, was a guy who claimed to hear a ghost yelling and cursing in a warehouse. I suppose I can’t ever train there again. Of course, there was more news of the Red Hood. This time he broke into some city official’s house. I’m going after this guy first, I thought. But then, the news anchor announced a headline that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end: “GOTHAM PRISONER JOE CHILL MURDERED.” I kept watching in grim fascination. The anchor came back up and said, “The next few images should NOT be seen by our more sensitive viewers.” The sight that followed made my stomach lurch: Chill’s neck had been slashed, and his blood was used to write this on the cell wall: “STOP LOOKING”.
CHAPTER III

I was shocked. They had gotten to him. It was that moment that I realized just how dangerous these people were. Alfred looked on in horror. “Now, who would kill someone in such a monstrous way, and why?” he said. “Dead men tell no tales,” I said. I left without saying another word, leaving a puzzled Alfred.

Questions swirled in my mind. How did they get into Arkham? Why did they kill him now, and not before he met with me? Do they need me for something? I had no valid answer.

For some strange reason, this turn of events didn’t discourage me. It spurred me on. Of course, I couldn’t do anything with a broken wrist. So I waited. Through the weeks that it took for my wrist to heal, the Red Hood got away with more and more robberies. He seemed to be getting better at pulling these things off, but not much better.

Though this irked me, I still had to prepare just a little bit more. After my wrist healed, I got the grappling hook down (I found another warehouse), but I still needed some kind of long-range weapon. I went to Lucius Fox again. When I got there, I asked Lucius, “Hey, do you have any boomerangs, or anything like that?” Lucius looked at me and smirked. “Is this for rock climbing, too, Bruce?” he said. I paused, taken off guard. “Um…” I said. Lucius sighed. “Bruce,” he said, “I respected your father and I respect you. That means I won’t pry into whatever you’re doing with all this.” I looked at him. “How could you respect me?” I asked. “You’re Lucius Fox, inventor and CEO of Wayne Enterprises. And then there’s me, Bruce Wayne, rich but seemingly lazy, and a former drug addict!”

Lucius was even more serious now. “Yes,” he said, “But you got past all of that junk. And besides, if you were lazy, how is it that you look like you could snap me in half?” I looked down at my arms. I do look pretty good, don’t I? I laughed. I stopped myself and said, “Lucius, even if you’re not going to pry, I’m going to tell you. I…am going to try and protect the entirety of Gotham under the guise of a hero named…I haven’t decided on the name yet, actually.” Lucius smiled, then doubled over laughing. I joined in. Amidst violent convulsions due to this, I said, “Yeah, it sounds kind of stupid when I say it out loud, huh?” Lucius stopped. “Wait, you’re serious?” he asked. I stopped too and looked at him a little indignantly. “Well, yeah,” I said.

Lucius nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Seriously?” I said. “Just like that, you accept that I’m going to be beating up Gotham’s criminal underground?” “I may as well,” said Lucius. “It’s not like I’d be able to stop you.” I felt a sense of gratitude toward Lucius. “So,” I said, “about those boomerangs.” “Ah,” said Lucius, “They’re not quite like boomerangs, but they should serve your purpose. Come with me.” I followed. Eventually we came upon sheets of metal. “This, my friend,” said Lucius, “is a modified form of steel that is designed to have virtually no drag in the air. They should help you. You can make them into not a boomerang, but more like a blunt throwing knife. And since you have that grappling hook, I’ve got something more compact.” We walked deeper into the building, shortly arriving at a shelf with a small gun. “The grappling hook you have right now is a bit cumbersome, don’t you think?” said Lucius. “Yeah, I guess,” I said. Lucius continued, “It shoots individual grappling hooks that can be detached once fired. Do you want to try it out?” “Sure,” I said. Lucius handed me the gun.

I found a nice rafter to shoot at. After firing the grappling hook, I successfully swung on it. “There is one more feature,” said Lucius. “What?” I asked. “Push the button,” he said. He frantically added, “But don’t hold on!” I had already pushed the button, though. I found myself being pulled to the ceiling. I swung to a nearby set of shelves and detached the grappling hook.

When I got down, Lucius said, “Now, that’s all I can give you right now. It’ll take a few days to make something out of that metal. Meanwhile, I guess you could start protecting this place.” Lucius smiled.

That night, I decided it would be best to begin, after all. I needed more info before I could start with the Red Hood. I suited up and headed to the police HQ. Not many people were there, so it was relatively easy to sneak through the window in the commissioner’s office. Apparently, though, I didn’t do a good enough job of sneaking. The commissioner had his gun out. He stepped out of the shadows, and I saw a face that was aged, but definitely the same one as the man who took me home over 20 years ago.

“Gordon?” I said, surprised. “Yeah, that’s my name,” said Jim. “What’s it to you?” I thought of an answer, and none came to me. I panicked. I then proceeded to lunge forward, knock the gun from Jim’s hand, and punch him in the face. “Sorry, Jim,” I said. I searched his office for something, anything, on the Red Hood’s operation.

I turned the place inside out, looking over and over again. Jim stirred, and I knew I didn’t have much time. I looked one more time, and found a couple of files concerning the Red Hood. I didn’t have time to look it over at the police HQ, so I quickly headed home.

Upon arriving, I went inside to see about these files. The first one had info on the Red Hood and his gang. The Red Hood’s real name hadn’t been found out yet, but there was solid info on his henchmen.

The first one was Masashi Ryukyu. He was a former member of the Japanese gang called the Katana. He was excommunicated from the group after various failings. The second was Harold Barren. He was a former soldier who came back with PTSD. Both of these guys started going around with Red Hood after they all met in a bar. The third was Joseph Wellsley. He was a Brit whose hobby was taking out rich people with a sniper rifle. He got in league with the Red Hood when, after coming to the U.S., was caught. The Red Hood, Barren, and Ryukyu intercepted his transport to Arkham, freeing him.

All these guys were experts, which raised a question: why hasn’t the Red Hood and his gang gone for bigger targets? I was bewildered. But I had to take a look at the other file. It contained all the records of his robberies. There were a few injuries here and there, but no deaths. That could’ve been one reason for his holding off. A smaller and less important building means less people, and less people means fewer casualties. It could’ve been that the Red Hood didn’t want to kill anybody.

The second file also contained details of an undercover cop who was put into the Red Hood’s gang 5 days ago. He had recently discovered that the next robbery was going to be a small bank near a chemical plant owned by a company called Augere, Inc. That detail didn’t seem significant at the time, but it would that very night: the night of the robbery.

I managed to perch myself on the roof of the bank (after 15 minutes of annoying finagling with the grappling gun; I still wasn’t used to it). The Red Hood showed up 5 minutes later, getting in and getting out in 5 more minutes. In that time, the undercover officer stole the getaway car and called the police. I knew they would be there too late. So I dropped down from the roof, just as the Red Hood came out with his henchmen.

The Red Hood just stared at me for a second. He finally said, “Who the heck are you?” I frantically searched my mind for some name, but only one popped into my head. “I’m…Batman,” I said. The Red Hood started laughing. “Get him, boys,” he said. Ryukyu rushed me, which I responded to with a punch to the gut. At the same time, I nailed Wellsley with a kick in the head. Finally, Barren nearly took off my head with a bullet. I body-slammed him, taking him down and punching him repeatedly. The Red Hood stood there, petrified.

He ran. “Oh, no, you don’t!” I shouted. I chased him down the street. Eventually, we came across an alley, which the Red Hood attempted to go through. A car suddenly blocked his path, causing him to go further down the street, towards the chemical plant. Any alley we came across was blocked immediately by a black car. I didn’t have time to wonder about these, though.

We ended up at the chemical plant. Vats filled with a strange green liquid were directly inside. I had a bad feeling about them. The Red Hood ran inside. “No!” I shouted. But it did no good. The Red Hood went inside. He slammed the door and locked it, sealing his fate.
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I ran in, with Batman standing outside, yelling at me to stop. I didn’t. After closing the door, I felt jubilant and triumphant, until I heard someone coming into the room. He was dressed like a preacher and was wearing a gas mask. I heard hissing as well.

The man looked at me and said, “Do you hear that? I know you’re wondering what it is, so I’ll just tell you. The vats are being rapidly heated, which will eventually cause the chemical inside them to revert to its gaseous state. After that, there is nothing that will stop you from inhaling it. Oh, look at that, it’s already there.”

I could feel it. The gas enveloped me. I started laughing, without knowing why. I couldn’t stop. The man looked on, seemingly satisfied. The last thought I had before blacking out was: Only a clown would laugh this much.