CHAPTER ONE
The cave was dark, silent and cold. It had a look of depression, the colors were dark, there were barely any sources of light, and the light that did manage to penetrate the thick walls was faint, almost non-existent. The river at the bottom, the architect of this great room, made noise that was barely audible, even to the most trained ear. Rats scurried around the chasm, and sometimes bumped into a loose rock, and sent in free falling into the river, piercing the almost complete silence. But it was not a rock that pierced the silence on this occasion, many years ago. It was not the river, or any other thing of that sort. It was a voice.
The voice of the loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
"At this rate, Master Bruce, you won't have enough blood to last you the next month!" Alfred, Bruce Wayne's happily overworked butler, exclaimed in his happy British accent.
Bruce Wayne was seated upright on the Batcave's medical table, as Alfred, who was also a fine doctor, picked out the remains of a 9mm bullet lodged in the young billionaire's right shoulder.
"Alfred, I've been at this for five years, if I don't have enough blood, I can just call the blood bank in the morning and ask for another loan," Bruce replied, always in the mood for a joke, even a bad one, "Jesus Christ!" Bruce exclaimed as Alfred pulled out the bullet.
Bruce was tall, about 6'3", and was 205 pounds of pure, lean muscle. Sweat matted his jet-black hair and dripped into his deep brown eyes, but no matter, he has been through much worse than a gunshot to the shoulder, and both he and Alfred knew it.
The cave the two long time friends were occupying was situated underneath Wayne Manor, the largest private place of residence in all of Gotham City and the surrounding suburbs. Bruce Wayne was the owner of the estate; it was passed on to him after both of his parents were killed when he was just a young boy. Bruce's grandfather was the founder of Wayne Enterprises, which had helped amass a substantial family fortune, enough to make Bruce the richest man in Gotham by a long shot.
When Bruce came-of-age, he became president of the company, and was given the final say on every business venture. But it was at this time that Bruce disappeared. He was gone for years, no one but he knew his whereabouts. The only thing that the public and his team of advisers knew was that he returned a changed man.
He no longer was wild, happy to live off of the fruits of years of hard labor his ancestors had done for him. Now, at the still young age of twenty-five, he wanted to build the fortune up even higher. This newfound focus brought himself and Wayne Enterprises wild economical success, and it was only after three years of record profits did Bruce Wayne decide to step back from the family business and focus on his own personal ventures.
One personal venture received most of his focus.
One that he had to use a large amount of money to finance, but he also had to keep it completely off the books. His partners in this venture were his accountant, Samuel Freeman, and his trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Freeman's job was to keep any money going to Bruce's personal activity secret, which was one of the hardest jobs any person has ever faced. Alfred's task was to keep up with Bruce, which was the hardest job any person has ever faced.
Alfred shook his head at Bruce's joke and began to sew up Bruce's wound, "May I ask how you came to acquire this injury?"
"A few punks tried to rob Jared O'Malley's liquor store, one of them had a gun and I got careless," Bruce told of his adventures as if they were boring legends, and had been told hundreds of times for hundreds of years.
You could make the argument, however, that his adventures were the stuff of legends.
A young boy, traumatized by the senseless killing of his family that happened right before his very eyes, makes a silent promise to avenge them, and that this will never happen to another person again. The way he went about fulfilling his promise is what makes his story legendary, almost mythological in a sense, but it was the truth. When night fell over the city of Gotham, Bruce Wayne donned cape and cowl, transforming from the billionaire businessman the public saw, into the protector of the good, and punisher of the evil.
He became the Batman.