Batman Steampunk: Origin

First Night: A boy named Bruce

Gotham City was beautiful at twilight. As the coal smoke rose from the stacks and the steam from the deep underground steam-works rose it gave the usual light orange look of sunset a more blood orange look. The amazingly dark city was built upwards in three hierarchal structures, and those who lived in the lower city slums or the steam-works would head to the upper-city at twilight if only to catch a glimpse of their usually smoke drenched city. A sombre peaceful moment the city's people would come together.

For Bruce Wayne this was his favourite time of day. He stood at the window of his room fixing his cravat, the Wayne manor looking out over the city from the outlying hills. At ten years old he already knew a lot about the city and had already made judgments about Gotham. He didn't like the Coal factories or the mines on the other side of the city, or how dirty the city looked during the day. He was nervous, though more excited, about tonight. It was the first time he'd spend time with his father ever since Doctor Thomas Wayne had started a business for the betterment of Gotham's population three years ago. Wayne Enterprises helped create work, built hospitals and homes, and was worth the Wayne's mansion's weight in gold. A fact the newspapers never let the Wayne family forget.

Thomas stepped into the room as Bruce has lost himself in the view, the blood orange colour slowly turning into a deep red.

"Like a prince surveying his new kingdom," He breathed. Bruce snapped back to reality and smiled at his father.

"That makes you King of Gotham," the dark haired child responded.

"No, a King rules, I'm a servant to the people."

"But a great King is a servant to the people, they always come first." Thomas laughed at Bruce's reply, he was always impressed with how smart he was, laying a hand on his son's hair and messing it up.

"Never forget that Bruce, those with money and power should always use it to benefit others." Bruce smiled again and returned to the view. Thomas place a hand on his hand's shoulder, as Martha cleared her throat and tapped her foot on the ground. She smiled at her well-dressed boys, and they walked past the beautifully dressed woman and out of the mansion to the waiting car.

Water was all around him, the air in his lungs beginning to burn as he held on to it for as long as he could. Finally his face was ripped from the water's embrace back to the surface for air and twelve year old Bruce was thrown to the stone floor.

For a moment he didn't move and then he coughed the water from his throat and sucked in as much air as he could and turned on his side to look up at the stone covered walls, up to the stone roof where a small square was to let in sun light.

"Mister Wayne?" a venomous voice cooed, "You almost died, Mister Wayne." Bruce closed his eyes and then opened them as he was pulled to his feet. He stood before a thin, tall man, wearing a dark blue police uniform and staring down his long nose at the boy, and being held up by two big men. They were the warden and two of his guards of Blackgate Prison, a large off shore prison made of stones and human waste. His cell was one of hundreds like it, tiny and designed for him to cut off from any kind of human connection and to break the spirit.

With his head drooping he managed to look up at the man, "Two years you have been with us, isn't that right Mister Wayne?" Bruce didn't answer. The Warden leisurely looked around the tiny cell, polishing some dirt off the buttons down the front of his uniform.

"Two years in one of our Luxury suites and not once had the courtesy to thank us," The guards laughed, more out of fear of reprimand than anything. Bruce just rolled his head, his long matted black hair sticking to his face, he coughed once more. The Warden sniffed the air, sighed and nodded to the guards. They dropped Bruce where he stood, the child hitting the ground with a grunting thud, then proceeded to kick him once, then twice, before leaving the cell and locking it. Bruce was cold, wet, in pain and completely alone. Silently he began to sob to himself, before blacking out completely.

Bruce wasn't sure how long he had been out for, until recently he wasn't even sure how long he had been incarcerated. His so called sleep was disrupted by murmuring, talking, and not quietly. He slowly shifted along the uneven stone floor and looked at the most curious sight he had ever seen, a man.

The man was tall and thin, salt and pepper hair on his head and staring at the far wall of the cell talking to himself, Bruce though he had finally gone insane and was imaging someone else in his locked cell. He finally got to his knees and looked at the ground to make sure it was still there and then up, back at the man. He came face to face with a withered and unshaved smile.

"Do you know which way the water is?" The man asked, pushing his nose against Bruce's.

Bruce's eyes moved to the side of his head, looking at the stone trough he had been dunked in earlier.

"No! No! No!" The man replied, "The water! The sea!" he ran up to the wall he had been looking at before, pressed up against it like he was giving it a big hug, "The ocean, my boy…"

Bruce shook his head, not taking his eyes off the older man for one moment. The man continued to ramble on, tapping at the stones in the wall, up and down he went. "Who…" Bruce began to ask before…

"The wrong way, I must have gone the wrong way!" The man ran into a hole in the opposite wall, and 'wait… hole?' Bruce thought, rushing to his feet, nearly falling over and standing at the entrance of the hole. He could hear the old man's mutterings echo back to him. He looked around his cell, hoping he wasn't crazy, and took a step but stopped. What was he doing? Following some crazy man? What if the warden decided to come back to finish him off and found him gone? Found the hole in the wall? What if the warden came back to finish him off? What if the old man would finish him off? Bruce took a step back from the wall, looking at the metal door. Bruce couldn't figure it out, it was all too much.

"Excuse me?" the man stood over Bruce, clearing his throat, "you look like you need some time away from this room."

Second Night: A Man Named Alfred

"The Bat Cave," Bruce exclaimed, staring up at the roof instead of the parchment in front of him. Alfred hit him in the back of the head with a tattered rag; Bruce winced at the sudden attack and looked back down at the mathematics on the table before him.

The room they were in wasn't a cave at all, but a sealed off room once used as a storage space, besides the holes between Bruce and Alfred's cell there was no way in or out, and yet since the day Alfred had found it bats had been coming and going through an unknown exit.

It had been over two years since Alfred had carved a hole into Bruce's cell and decided that the escape route was the wrong direction. Ten years of Alfred's time at Blackgate had been digging through stone trying to find a way out, which had led him to Bruce.

"Can't we go back to fighting training?" Bruce asked; eyes fixed on the parchment.

"You know the deal, Bruce. If you want me to teach, you must teach both body and mind. A strong body…"

"I know, means nothing without a strong mind…" Bruce finished the sentence Alfred had been telling him since the day after they met. The two had been lonely for a long time, and needed company. Bruce had told Alfred how he had gotten to the prison, his parent's murder, and in turn Alfred told him that he used to be a spy for another country, but was betrayed and locked away. He took pity on the child and made a deal with Bruce, he'd teach him everything he knew and Bruce would help the older man to escape. Ever since Alfred had kept digging while Bruce studied mathematics and economics as Alfred had known them, he'd get him up early and make him do push-ups, sit-ups, move heavy stones around the room. Alfred also, at certain times, taught him to fight. Not boxing or anything honourable in society, but a fighting style that you could kill a man bigger or stronger than you with. Of course he was careful only to teach a small amount every time, forcing Bruce to redo basic steps and attacks over and over.

Alfred stopped digging, leaning back against the wall and looked up at a bat hanging from a wooden beam. 'Bat Cave' seemed almost appropriate, and he chuckled to himself as he always did at Bruce's outbursts before closing his eyes. He always longed to feel the sun on his face, fourteen years was a long time. When he reopened his eyes Bruce was standing in front of him, holding the parchment in his face. Alfred took it, read it over and handed it back.

"Good," He paused, "Now do them again, and after each write in what business they'd be applicable too."

Bruce's jaw dropped, Alfred smiled, his unshaven whiskers glowing in the candle light and with that Bruce stormed back the table, writing on a new piece of parchment. As they continued their work, they were unhindered by the Warden. It was almost as if they were finally forgotten to the entire world, and the world they knew, that Bruce studied, was nothing more than a fairy tale.

The years moved slowly, as Bruce grew older, Alfred taught him more. Advance fighting, moving without making the slightest sounds. Anytime Bruce held back, slacked off, or didn't do as good as he could Alfred made him do it again until Bruce collapsed. Anytime Bruce completed a cycle of study or working out, Alfred would tell him to do it again only better, faster, and more complex. The entire time Bruce never helped Alfred dig the tunnel, He did it alone.

At one point Bruce had climbed up into the beams just below the roof, to figure out where the bats where coming from, finding a crevice in the wall, a hole about the size of his fist. This also led to a beam collapsing under his weight, and Bruce falling and breaking the table. Alfred then chose to teach Bruce how to distribute his weight evenly on smaller surface, especially since they now had no table.

One evening Bruce's body ached terrible, it was late and he crawled his way up the tunnel, and into his cell. He placed a large stone the entry way, to keep it hidden if by chance a guard or the warden decided to drop by, which hadn't happened since he was ten. Finally, and at last, he dropped onto a bundle of hay and cloth in one of the corners that he had used as a bed, drifting away into black nothingness.

Ten year old Bruce was hiding in a door way and peered into the long alleyway. It was a stone covered alley, with a small stream of water down the middle, only the water was now glowing a dim red as it drained away. Bruce was shaking, tears streaming from his face but not making a sound. The red was draining from the walls of the alleyway, as Thomas and Martha Wayne lay on either side. Between them stood a sinewy man with a revolver, looking around frantic as if he had missed something.

Thomas shifted on the ground and the man's eyes widened, how was he still be alive? Thomas raised his head, looking right in the eyes of his killer and breathed, "I know who sent you," The man raised the revolver to Thomas' head, and Bruce's eyes screamed as the sound of the gunshot reverberated throughout the alleyway.

Third Night: A Chance for Freedom

The sound seemed more real than it usually did in his nightmares and Bruce's eyes flashed open before large arms grabbed him and pulled him out of his bed. He struggled, groggy from sleeping, and was held down on the cold stone floor of his cell. The guards seemed smaller than he remembered, older and balding, with pot bellies for stomachs, but still with giant gorilla arms. A man stood over Bruce; he was bigger than the guards, dressed in a police uniform that seemed two sizes too small for him. His hair was slicked back by oil and his square jaw was unshaven. Bruce had never seen this man before.

"I just had to see it myself," The man spoke, "Let me guess, you don't know who I am?"

Bruce just laid there, eyes wide while being held down.

"I'm the new Warden, your predecessor was unfortunately stabbed by an inmate some years ago, and well they only just replaced him with me." He sucked in the air, looking around the cell and snorted out the breath, "I just had to see if it was true, if they fabled last heir of Wayne was hidden down here. Everyone thinks you're dead, I mean it's been fourteen years since you were locked away."

He knelt down at Bruce's feet, "and now that you're here pretty boy, I think… I'm going to teach all you pompous rich brats a lesson by making you my personal bitch." Bruce froze as the Warden began unbuckling his pants and nodding to the guards. The guards lifted him up to turn him over when Bruce kicked the Warden in the chest. The guards held him upright to get a better grip, which was what Bruce wanted.

With his arms held back, he bent forward, his legs coming upwards and donkey kicked the two guards in the face. They left him go and he fell onto his face. The Warden grabbed him by his long matted hair, when Bruce rammed one fist upwards into the man's elbow as he hammered downwards on his wrist with the other. There was a loud cracking sound as the elbow broke, and punching upwards into the Warden's nose, another loud crack, and the Warden fell backwards.

The guards rushed Bruce, he took a step back, kicking one in the groin, bringing his arm across and smacking his hand between the man's jaw, ear and neck. His head slammed into the stone wall as Bruce grabbed the other guard's arm when the guard punched at him. He twisted under the man and with all his might ripped the arm from its socket. Bruce followed up by punching the man in the same shoulder as the arm went limp, and punched him across the face, slamming the head against the other wall.

Bruce breathed heavily, dropping to his knees as the blood pooled around the heads of his victims. He couldn't be positive but he was sure he had just killed three men; he finally deserved to be in this prison. He sat there staring at them as he did with his parents, just sat there.

The stone in the wall finally shifted and Alfred appeared behind it, wondering where Bruce had been when he saw the sight. Bruce didn't move, Alfred grabbed him roughly excited.

"Bruce! Bruce!" he shook the man as hard as he could, Bruce finally snapped back to reality, looking at Alfred, the withered unshaven smile, "Bruce! Good work my boy!" Bruce blinked, "We're finally out of here!"

The escape was easy, most of the other guards were asleep or drunk, it was easy to be a guard when all the inmates stayed in their cells all the time, and dressed like them Alfred and Bruce made their way through the castle like structure of the prison. Finally they came to the docks, grabbed a small wooden boat and rowing it back to the mainland. There they stood on a hill over-looking the water, eyes closed, with smiles on their faces and breathing in the freshest air they had ever tasted.

"I'm twenty-four," Bruce finally said, staring at the prison, "Fourteen years I've been stuck there."
"Twenty-six years for me," Alfred added, "and I will never take the sunlight for granted ever again."

Bruce laughed to himself, and then looked over the hillside to see a familiar rising of coal smoke in the distance, "What now?" he asked. Alfred looked in the same direction as Bruce did and placed a hand on Bruce's shoulder.

"Now we leave, still have a lot to teach you, and a lot to show you," He began walking, Bruce figured that Alfred didn't even know which direction he was even going, "I promise we will return there soon Master Bruce, you're just not ready, neither of us are."