Freaks
A/N: Batman and all related characters mentioned in this story are the property of Warner Brothers and DC Comics.
He slunk through the dark alleyways of Gotham City, his gun held loosely and uncertainly in his hand.
Once upon a time, things had been different. Once upon a time, his kind ruled these streets. They had spread their reign to every corner, every shadow of this dark and gothic metropolis. Gotham had lived under the rule of the gun. Their guns.
In those glory-days of corruption and depravity, he, and many like him, had ruled these streets. He would not have slunk then through the streets, he would have prowled. The gun would not be held with uncertainty, it would have been held with confidence, with conviction.
There was a time when policemen looked up to his kind with fear. With respect. With an eerie sense of reverence even. The few so-called 'idealists' too would freeze in their tracks and beg for mercy. And the ordinary man, the 'innocent citizen' of Gotham…he too would worship them as Gods and empty his wallet as a generous offering to them.
But things had changed now. Forever. There simply was no going back.
Change had come in the form of a devil. A Messianic creature of the night. A manifestation of terror. Big…black….terrible….a BAT-MAN!
The Batman had put the fear of God in their kind! He had exposed them before the suggestible eyes of Gotham's gullible residents. He had stripped them of their armor…unmasked them as a cowardly and superstitious community of pathetic weaklings, living a futile existence in a corrupt world defined by slippery and easily malleable 'rules'.
But that was not why he felt that his kind was on the verge of extinction. Why he felt that the time had come for him to call it a night, drop his gun, and meekly surrender himself to a mortal existence.
The Batman was merely an obstacle. Like any other his kind had faced over the decades. No. A mere obstacle could not destroy this legacy of crime. A single embodiment of fear could not destroy an entire class of individuals who had thrived on fear since time immemorial.
In fact, if there was one thing which would destroy the legacy which had inspired someone like him, a common criminal in Gotham City, it was redundancy.
The Batman may not have destroyed them. But he had inspired an army of 'competitors', strange men who had truly crossed the barriers of criminality to become real monsters…
It had started with the crazed 'homicidal maniac' who called himself the Joker. With a few drums of gasoline, and some bullets and knives, the 'killer clown' had plunged the city into chaos for weeks in ways which even the entire criminal 'family' of Gotham could not have succeeded in doing in years.
The Joker may have been stopped, eventually, but before long, others too began to follow his example in their own unique ways…
There was this man who robbed bank and left riddles and puzzles at the scene of the crime. The police or the Batman would invariably solve the riddles and the mastermind was invariably captured…but somehow, he always escaped and started down the same path again and again…
Then there was another wacko who was obsessed with two things: birds and umbrellas. He always had to do something with birds or umbrellas. He would use eagles or magpies to rob a jewellery store. And he would carry an umbrella with a hidden gun or a grenade launcher even! Adding on to the effect, he had a deformed bird-like nose which earned him the oddly appropriate nickname of the 'Penguin'.
A crazier nutcase was the guy dressed up as a scarecrow. This one was smart, unlike the others. Some said he used to be a psychiatrist or psychologist or something like that. A man dedicated to the study of fear and who manipulated the fears of others with a strange 'Fear Toxin' of some sort. A madman who left people trapped in their own nightmares, begging for death.
Another really screwed up specimen of the new age 'psychopathic brigade' was this smartly dressed man in a suit with half his face burned with acid who needed to flip a coin before he decided to kill someone. Word on the street was he used to be Gotham's DA.
The women were not far behind. There was a femme fatale in tights with a cat-shaped mask and a whip who ripped off from mob bosses! There was a redhead dressed in leaves of all things, who could fatally poison men with a kiss! There were even rumors that the Joker had gotten himself a girl, dressed up as a Harlequin of some sort!
All you needed was an idea…to unleash your own brand of insanity. It was the only means of survival in this bold new world of renewed chaos and anarchy. These 'freaks' ruled Gotham now. They were the only ones who could survive in the new hostile environment created by the Batman and the new breed of 'good cops' represented by James Gordon. They were the only ones who could prosper in the new Gotham.
For people like him had thrived in a world with rules. Rules defined by the criminal and the corrupt, but rules none the less. But the Joker, and others who followed him, had created a world without rules. And in such a world, the common criminal, the thug, the mugger, the mobster, had two choices…either to become a mere stooge to one of freaks who now ruled Gotham…or retire from the once-grand stage of this dark city forever…