Robert looked down at his phone, the picture of Elizabeth there reminding him why he was doing this. Why he'd gone and honed his hand to hand combat abilities, why he'd pushed his mind and body to their pinnacle. The world wouldn't lose any more Elizabeths. He vowed he would keep everyone safe so no one would know the loss he felt. The white ski mask was pulled tight over his face, tucked into a blue shirt along with white sweat pants. He thought he should have put more thought into what he was going to wear, but he heard this on his police scanner and decided it was time to make his entrance.
Some thugs had managed to steal some rather high end equipment from Wayne Enterprises. It was something big, but there was something strange. He hadn't heard it on normal police frequencies, he'd found a rather strange frequency that had been getting some use recently. He heard a man say "They've stolen that prototype, the one you said to keep a close eye one. Well it seems someone else has been keeping a close eye on it as well. Our security system got hit for a good three minutes and everything went dark while they took it." Another, darker, deeper voice replied. "I'm on it." Robert lucked out that it was so close to his apartment, he managed to find the thugs in an abandoned building nearby. Gotham was full of those things, he wondered why they weren't demolished or renovated.
"Aww come on man let's see what's inside! It's gotta be wicked sweet for how much that Luthor guy is payin' us!" one of the thugs said, the three gathered around a box. "Nah man. You heard him yaself'. Ain't nobody gonna open it or else no pay and big consequences. You don't piss off a guy who ain't even scared of Super Man." The third thug nods. "Yeah. I'm just tryin' to get paid. I don't need no trouble." Robert then speaks out loudly, deepening his voice to sound more commanding. "You won't as long as you hand that over to me." The thugs all draw their pistols and look around, the rather large old room that had once been a storage facility was big and dark, which held the perfect cover for a rather heavy and large old VHS player to be hurled through the air right into the skull of one of the thugs, knocking him out cold. "Shit! He got Tommy!" One of the thugs fires out a few shots. "Who the fuck are you!? Are you the Batman!?" there was silence before one of the thugs was knocked far away into a pile of furniture by a far flung drop kick, Robert then rolling on the ground and kicking up, knocking the gun out of the third thug's hand. He sprung up to his feet. "I'm not the Batman. I just want justice against devils and villains that walk the Earth and think they can harm the innocent." Robert scowls beneath his ski mask. The thug panics and grabs the large and heavy case that they stole. "You want this case!? You got it pal!" He bashes Robert over the head with it, breaking it and causing the small device the size of a quarter to fall from the case. It lands on the back of Robert's neck on the base, immediately fusing with it on contact and bonding with his spinal cord and his nervous system. It was rather shocking and painful and causes him to pass out, hitting the ground unconscious.
"Woah... I really hit him hard..." The thug says, looking down at him. "I gotta get the fuck outta here!" He turns around to put his nose directly in Batman's chest. He slowly looks up, his eyes growing wide with fear as he looks into the whited out eyes of the Batman. "You're not going anywhere." His low voice growls before a swift punch sends him into dreamland. Batman then walks over to Robert and looks down at him, putting his fingers to his ear. "Lucius, I was too late. It bonded." He said, kneeling down to inspect the device. "Well don't take it out, you'll more than likely kill whoever it attached to. We still don't really understand that organism you brought us. We were able to develop the catayst in the device to focus the connection to the host more efficiently, and without the added side affect of mental deterioration. But still... beyond that who knows, we don't even know if it is sentient or can think." Batman pulls the mask off Robert, the batcomputer automatically running a scan of his face and showing his information on Batman's visuals. "Robert Martins, age twenty five. He's a young lawyer trying to become a prosecutor, and it looks like he's actually clean. Why would he get mixed up in being a vigilante...?" Lucius looks out the window, the Gotham night skyline filled with lights. "Well to everyone else it doesn't make sense for a billionaire playboy to be running around in a mask at night either does it?" He couldn't argue with that, this young man certainly had more to him than surface value. "I'm going to get him home and keep an eye on him, see what happens to him." Batman says before carrying Robert to the batmobile outside and putting him in the passenger seat. He then drives him home, bringing him up to his bed and laying him in it. Ever cautious, he places hidden cameras around the home and in Robert's car before leaving the home, heading back to his own.
Robert awoke the next day with a splitting headache, the worst he'd ever had in his life. "Oh god..." He says as he gets up and sprints to the bathroom before immediately throwing up. It felt like a hangover from hell fucked the flu and then gave birth to a baby of suffering. "The hell... happened to me..." He thinks between violent vomiting. After several moments it subsides, as does the headache. He slowly gets up to his feet, groaning while he walks over to the mirror. When he does, he was quite shocked as he found his eyes were glowing blue. "Aaaah!" He screamed and jumped back before rubbing his eyes and then looking up to find they were normal again. "That... that was weird..."He says before turning and walking back into the bedroom. He sighs as he begins stripping off his clothes. He wondered how he got home. The last thing he could remember was getting knocked over the head by that case, and the next second he was in horrible pain before he passed out. He looks down to find little bits of blue light breaking out of parts of his body. "The fuck!?" He screams as he falls over backwards, seeing the blue light pulse around his body. "Oh god what is happening!? I need help!" He tried grasping at the light but it was, after all, light, and he didn't have much luck. "Calm down. You won't be hurt." A very soft voice says. It was hard to discern what gender it was, it sounded like it could be either and was very pleasant to listen to. It immediately calms him down. "Who... who are you? Where are you?" He asks while looking around his apartment. "I don't know. I don't think I have a name. There are things about me that... I do not remember. But I do know that I do not wish to harm you and neither will the energy. It is yours to control, and I will help you." Robert was very confused now. "What do you mean... control? You mean I can make little light shows or something?" The voice chuckles. "Nothing so trivial as that. You will be able to do great things, especially if you allow me to work through you." The energy all moves to his hands and glows around him, a blue light energy that seemed to both have mass and yet not. "Do you see? This is not mere light. It is pure energy, it can take on any form you like, and it is yours to command. Just focus your mind on it and it will obey." He frowns a little. "There's no way..." Slowly, the energy morphs and transforms into a small figurine. It looked just like a one foot tall high Elizabeth made out of light. "This is... incredible.." He touches it, finding it to be smooth and warm. "This light can be pleasant or painful. You can use it to heal or to harm. The choice of how it is applied will be left up to you." The figure disappears as Robert leans back in the bed. "I can use this for good. I can protect this city as a warrior of light. You and I will work together to become something great, a symbol of good and justice." The voice asks a question, sounding a little amused but curious. "And what, pray tell, would this thing be called?" Robert looked down at the cross he bore around his neck. He believed, but he wasn't devout. Not like Elizabeth was. She would lay with him and tell him stories her grandmother told her about the angels of heaven and their strength. About how there were those who were great divine warriors who fought for the light. "We will be called Archangel, and we will bring light to the darkness."
Paul sat at his desk, giggling as he hacked into a white supremacist website. He enjoyed some good old fashioned trolling in his spare time, and he loved having good targets. He smashed right through their system defenses and quickly linked it to a popular interracial gay porn site. "Is there not a challenge for the great and powerful Paul!?" He stood and posed, the out of shape bearded man looking rather comical standing there in his boxers. His phone suddenly begins to ring. He looks down and sees Robert's name. "Oh hey Rob, how's it going man?" Paul sat back down, leaning back. "We gotta talk man. Like, in person. I'm coming to your place, and make sure you're wearing some fucking pants when I get there this time." Robert hung up as he drove over, quickly getting to his friend's and getting inside. "Paul, you have to see this." Paul raised an eyebrow. "See what man, like what's so important you can't just tell me over the phone or text me or something?" Robert extends his hand and shoots a beam of light out of his hand, going to the wall before bouncing around the room and stopping just before it hits Paul. "Dude, cool light show. Where'd you get the tech?" Robert scowls. "It's not tech dude. It's me! And it's not just light!" The light moves forward and hits Paul roughly in the stomach, then dissipating. He groans and doubles over holding himself. "OW... dude what..." He coughs a few times, then looking up angrily. "Why did you do that!?" Robert shrugs. "Well... you wouldn't believe me otherwise. I mean... until it just hit you I didn't even really believe it." Paul rubs his stomach. "Well damn... That's some crazy shit... You got super powers bro! So are you gonna like... be all Batman and shit now?" Robert shakes his head. "Not like Batman. He hides in the dark. I don't want to do that. I want to be a warrior for light, in the light." Paul grins. "Cool man, well I've always wanted to be a side kick. I could like... be your tech guy or whatever. Oh and you are so letting me design your suit." Robert gives him a smirk. "Well you would finally be putting that useless art degree to use." Paul shoots him a death glare. "Shut up."
Several hours and thousands of stitches later it was done. He'd taken a jacket with a collar on it and dyed the leather a light yet deep blue, the chest white with columns extending down his stomach and diagonally downwards on each side. The pants were some thicker polymer, like leather but tougher. It was dyed blue with white along the insides. His boots were combat boots and gloves were made of black gauze tape, tightly woven to be thick and provide padding. Finally his mask was white save for around the eyes where it was blue. It covered all of his head except for his hair, and the centers of the eyes came with special white coverings that both protected his eyes and had special nanocameras built in to provide a feed. Robert looked down at his costume, rather impressed. "Damn dude, maybe art degrees aren't useless after all." Paul shrugs. "I mean financially, yeah. Pretty useless. But with awesome shit like this hell nah they aren't."