A/N: Hello all you readers! So, I will be adding to the small number of Batman and RWBY crossover stories! Now the thing with my story... I won't be showing Batman's side of things, I'm going to try and write him the way the people of remnant see him. As such, I will try my best to make Batman quite terrifying.
Also, if you're wondering which version of Batman I'm using, I don't think I should be revealing much about him. And not knowing which one he is adds to the mystery that is... The Batman! Enjoy the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or RWBY, but imagine the possibilities if I did!
"So, we still need more dust?" The question was posed by a faunus clad in black and white clothing. A red wolf head atop three red claw marks rested on the back of his white sleeveless jacket, the mask of a grim upon his face, and a black hood pulled over his head. The question was directed to his similarly dressed comrade as he halfheartedly filled up his canister, obviously bored with stealing all this dust lately.
"I guess so." His friend replied, looking back at the counter to make sure the clerk was still unconscious... he was. He looked around to see if his comrades were still helping out with the dust gathering... they were.
The two of them were too distracted with their talking that they failed to notice the yellow gas entering the room through the vents. The next thing that was heard was a hissing sound, causing everyone to grab their weapons and look around the room. They of course, didn't see anyone. While they were still looking around, the room began to instantly fill with smoke.
"Is everyone okay!?" One of the members shouted out.
They all replied with a, "Yeah!" or a, "Yep!"
"Which one of you idiots did this!?" The same one shouted out again, apparently blaming one of his buddies for the smoke.
"It wasn't me!" They all replied.
"Then what the he-" The man didn't even finish his sentence. All that was heard, was what seemed to be the fluttering of wings through the air.
"Um... Boss!?" One of them called out to him, the worry and fear quite obvious in his voice. "Boss, are y-" It was his turn to be cut off by that very same fluttering of wings.
"James!?" Another one shouted. "Both of you, this isn't funny. Stop messing around!" All of the people in the room were obviously spooked a little, but they were still trying to chalk it up to a prank by the two who had stopped speaking. Most probably to keep things interesting. If their goal was to scare them, well, they definitely succeeded in that.
"AHH!" They all heard the screaming of another of their comrades, followed by flashes of light within the smoke, and the sound of gunfire echoing in the room. It had continued for a few seconds before it ceased, accompanied by the very same flapping of wings they'd heard earlier.
"Will!?"
The two that had been talking earlier, now stood very close to each other, quite fearful to be alone. Had fear not been clouding their minds, they would've made a mad dash for the exit. The two of them were cautiously walking around in the smoke, trying to find who or what was responsible for all of this. If it was the two of them against this thing, they would surely win... right?
As they were walking, they saw a figure within the smoke, not even thinking, only reacting, they immediately opened fire on this figure. As soon as it noticed the bullets coming for it, it jumped onto the ground to avoid their gunfire.
"Hey! Stop!" The figure shouted. They recognized the voice, it was the voice of one of their comrades.
The both of them immediately stopped firing, allowing the man to stand up. He walked closer to them, allowing them to see him semi-clearly. His hands were on his hips, and even though he wore a mask, one could tell he was narrowing his eyes in anger at them.
"Are you trying to kill me!?"
"We're sorry, Jeff!" One of them held their hands up as they apologized. "We just thought you were... well, I'm not sure what we thought you were..."
"Do you know what's going on?" The other one of the two asked Jeff.
Jeff put his hand to his chin in thought.
"I'm not too sure. But maybe thi-"
All of the sudden, Jeff's entire body was lifted off the ground and pulled back... into the smoke. All they heard were his loud screams. They could barely see anything, all that they could see, was Jeff's shadowy figure lying on the ground his hands up in front of his face. And on top of Jeff... a huge beast with two horns on its head. They instantly began shooting at the figure, screaming the whole time.
Eventually, they had used up their whole magazine and had to reload, and that's when they noticed it... they no longer heard Jeff's cries. They slowly walked forward to where they had seen Jeff's body earlier, only... his body wasn't there. They frantically looked around, but his body was nowhere to be seen.
The smoke started to dissipate, allowing them to see. There were bullet holes all over the room, in the walls on the shelves, luckily though, none of them had hit any dust. Had they done so, they would have been blown up, but then again... that would have probably been the preferred fate. What they didn't see... was the bodies of their missing allies.
"Who are you!? Why are you doing this!?" One of them tried questioning whatever it was that was hunting them, but... no reply ever came. All they got was that very same flapping of wings.
The two of them were guarding each others back to ensure they wouldn't be sneaked up on.
"George."
"Yeah?"
"On my mark, we're going to make a mad dash for the exit, got it?"
…
There was no reply. There was, however, another flapping noise, causing the man's eyes to widen.
"George!" He turned around, but his friend was not there. He looked all over, but he didn't see him anywhere.
In fear, he slowly backed up until his back hit the wall, but...
'Wait a minute,' He thought, 'The wall wasn't this close to me.'
He slowly turned around, seeing a gigantic beast towering over him. It had pure white eyes that shimmered in the darkness, its face was inhuman, and its body... it was enveloped in a shadow that covered its body and nothing else around it, it also possessed two long horns on its head unlike any faunus he had ever seen. He had never seen anything like this creature before.
He immediately fell backwards, shooting at the creature. Unfortunately for him though, the bullets just passed harmlessly through its body. He continued shooting at the creature while the creature just stood there, absorbing the bullets.
A click signaled the end of the bullets, the end of any protection the faunus may have had. The creature stepped closer to him, in turn, the trembling faunus threw his gun to the side and began to crawl away. When the faunus turned his head back to check on the creature... it was gone? No, it wasn't. He realized it wasn't gone when his body bumped into something...
The faunus looked up at the monster above him. A small hole opened in the shadow covering the beast's body, and out of the hole came a monstrous arm... The monster picked the faunus up by his collar, pulling him close to its face. Its eyes tore deep into his soul, exploring every corner of it, ripping through all the darkness, and finally, arriving at the very core of his being.
"W-W-What are y-you?" The faunus asked with tears in his eyes, trembling within the beast's grasp.
The monster pulled him closer to its face. It opened its mouth and very quietly, it whispered...
"I... am Fear..."
The last thing to be heard, was the screams of that faunus...
"Last night, the police stopped yet another attempted robbery by the White Fang. So far, this is the fifth robbery the Fang's attempted that has been stopped. The authorities have yet to reveal the Fang's motives for stealing all this dust recently, we can only assume they are plotting something big... In other news-" The news report was cut off by a young girl in a red cloak closing her scroll.
"Can you guys believe the police are taking all the credit?" The young girl asked her friends, who were sitting at a table eating lunch with her.
"Well... there's no one else to give the credit to, Ruby." A blonde girl, several years older than the previous one, answered.
"Uh huh! It was... the Batman! The mysterious protector of vale!" They all buried their faces in their palms, groaning at the girls exclamation.
"Ruby, there's no such thing as a 'Batman'." It was a black haired girl who spoke this time.
"Yes there is! If you look on the internet-" Ruby was cut off by her white haired friend.
"Those people on the internet are either crazy or trolls. The whole 'Batman' thing was started by some kid who thought it would be funny, and then everyone decided to join in on the joke. Everyone giving this thing credit for these acts, don't actually believe there's a 'Batman'."
"Jaune, tell them the Batman is real." Ruby looked to a blonde male, her arms folded and a small smile on her face.
Jaune rubbed the back of his head, looking away from the girl as he replied...
"Look Ruby, I'm a huge comic book nerd, and as much as I want it to be true... It isn't. There really isn't a 'Batman' out there."
"Ren, Nora... Pyrrha?" The girl looked to her other friends, seeking their assurance. In reply, they all shook their heads.
"Yes there is! Look at this picture of him!" The girl took out her scroll, pulling up a blurry image and showing it to them. "See! This is the Batman!"
They all leaned closer to the scroll, squinting.
"I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I'm pretty sure it's something you shouldn't be looking at Rubes." The blonde girl stated, taking a bite of her sandwich. The others nodded in agreement with her.
Ruby looked at the image, tilting the scroll left and right. She looked up at her blonde friend and...
"What else could it be Yang!?"
"Oh, so innocent," Yang pulled her into a hug, patting her on the head. "So, so innocent."
"Stop it!" She yelled, pulling away and smacking Yang's hand off of her head.
"Okay Ruby, what would this 'Batman' even be? If it's a grimm, why isn't it attacking indiscriminately like it should?" Yang asked.
"I don't know! Maybe it's a good grimm!"
"You know there's no such thing." Her black haired friend replied to her claim.
"Ruby, there's no such thing as 'The Batman'."
The young girl's shoulders slumped down. Although they denied its existence... some of them actually thought it would have been cool if it was real, while some of the others were relieved it wasn't. After a few moments of silence, one of them changed the subject from 'The Batman', to something else.
The young girl opened her eyes with a couple blinks. She sat up, rubbing one of her eyes. She looked down at the papers sprawled across her bed.
"Oh, right... I was studying..." The groggy girl muttered, realizing she had, once again, fallen asleep while studying.
She looked around, seeing her teammates had long since decided to turn in for the night.
"Coffee..." She whispered, quietly climbing out of bed so as not to disturb her sleeping friends.
She had managed to make it to the dining hall in her half asleep state. She immediately woke up completely when she saw someone else was already in the dimly lit room. She took slow steps, entering the room.
"Hello." She called out to the person.
The person turned around at her greeting, revealing themselves to be a man, probably in his thirties, wearing a baseball cap, a jumpsuit, and holding a broom.
"Hello." The man greeted.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the janitor... Thomas." He introduced himself with a smile.
"We have a janitor?" She questioned, holding her index finger on her chin and looking up. At seeing the frown on his face, she held her hands up and, "Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to imply you're not worth noticing."
"It's fine, you're not the only one. Seven years I've been working here... no one ever notices that there's a janitor. I guess they all just assume the place is magically cleaned without explanation." He explained with a smile.
Ruby let out an awkward chuckle as she rubbed the back of her head.
"Well Thomas, I'm Ruby. Nice to meet you." She held her hand out for him to shake.
He walked over to her with a very noticeable limp, grabbing her hand and shaking it.
"Nice to meet you." He said.
"What's wrong with your leg?" She blurted out. Quickly realizing what she had just said, she quickly apologized. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to just blurt that out! I just accidentally spoke my thoughts out loud!"
He let out a soft chuckle.
"It's fine Ruby. It's from an injury I suffered in the past." He explained.
"Why didn't your aura heal it?"
"Sadly, an aura can't heal every injury." He spoke with a bitter smile as he gripped his wounded leg with one of his hands.
"Oh... I'm sorry." She whispered.
"It's fine kid." He ruffled her hair. "So, what brings you here at this hour?" He asked, turning and walking back to his earlier spot to continue sweeping.
"I came to grab a cup of coffee. I still need to finish studying, so..."
"Ah! You're working pretty hard, huh?"
"Yeah..." She let out another awkward chuckle.
"Well, I got a fresh pot already brewed. Go help yourself to as much as you want."
"Thank you!" She was about to go prepare herself a cup before realizing she had another question. "Oh yeah, why are you cleaning this late at night?"
"Hm?" He turned his head looking at her for a brief moment, before turning his head back and replying with a shrug. "It's actually quite common for a janitor to work late."
"Oh... Interesting." She went to prepare her drink after saying that.
It was a sweet drink... cream and five sugars... a really sweet drink... After getting the drink all ready, she gave Thomas a "Goodbye", and started her journey back to her room to study.
A/N: And that's the end of this chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it! As you all can see, Ruby is the only one to believe in 'The Batman'. I figured it made sense for her to, because of two reasons, A) Her personality, and B) She's still a kid.
Okay, so I'm going to pretty much leave everything about Batman a mystery to you all, but I will reveal this. In the beginning of the story, the yellow gas coming in through the vents was scarecrow's fear toxins. Everything else about Batman... either make guesses or use whatever knowledge you have on Batman to make educated guesses.
This chapter is short, but don't worry, the other ones will be longer! And you can expect the next chapter to be out sometime next week... maybe.
Well, until next time...