Author's Note: Hey guys! ENP1998 here. This is a new series I'm starting in addition to my Batman: Crusade series. If you like this I highly encourage you to check that one out too. Anyway, this is a fic about the evolution of the Bat-Family. This is not entirely canonical. I have made some editorial decisions. Anyway, hope you enjoy and please review!

Until my hostile takeover of DC Comics, I do not own Batman or anyone associated with the character.

Main Characters in this chapter: Bruce Wayne/Batman. Age: 25

Batman: Evolution

Chapter 1:

Night after night the Batman scoured the streets of the corrupt Gotham City. It was said that in Gotham, you could not even find an honest priest. This was not far from the truth. The land was ravaged by years of corruption and greed. The poor continued to remain so, while the politicians and city officials stayed in bed with the mob and crime bosses, keeping their wallets fat, and their homes warm. In a city like this, one would think all hope was lost, that there was no redemption for what was happening, and what the city had done. This was before Gotham's reckoning. This was before the Batman.

Bruce Wayne had lived a peaceful life up until the age of eight. He had been wealthy, and with good parents to teach him the ways of the world. Unfortunately, it was on his eighth birthday, that his parents had taught him his gravest lesson of all.

For young Bruce's birthday, his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, had taken him to the theatre to see The Mark of Zorro. It was on that fateful night that Bruce would never see his parents again.

After the movie, the trio walked out of the back alley to avoid the press getting home. On their way, a shadowy figure passed by, but they paid him no mind. After the figure was behind them, they heard the hammer of a pistol being pulled back and a gruff voice say "Turn around." The three did as they were told and turned around to face the figure. He gestured to them with the gun in his hands. "Give me everything you got", he said. Thomas reached for his wallet in the pretense of giving it to the mugger. As he reached his hand out, he lunged at the mugger and hit him in the jaw. Before he could land another blow, however, the mugger fired his pistol, and Thomas Wayne slumped to the ground, dead. Martha screamed and went over to her dead husband to hold his corpse. The mugger then shot her too. Bruce went numb, not fully understanding what just happened, as the mugger escaped. After a few minutes of pain and dullness, he came to his senses and realized what had just happened.

This terrible, tragic event was what sparked in Bruce Wayne the desire to create and become one of the greatest heroes in the modern day. This is how Bruce Wayne became the Batman.

"Did you get the shipment?" a man asked gruffly to another. "For the hundredth time I told you, NO" the other man said to the first, clearly irritated. "Well what the hell is taking them so long?" the first man asked, "I'm freezing my ass off out here." "I told you! Our guy is reliable. We just need to give him more time." "Did he at least tell you how much more time until the shipment gets here?" "No. He didn't tell me when the shipment was coming." The two men stood in an irritated silence, each one resenting the other, before they both heard a voice. "I'm afraid your shipment isn't coming", it said. The two criminals raised their submachine guns. "Who's there?" one asked loudly and with fear in his voice. Silence… "Who's there!" he asked again, demanding this time. Their answer came in the form of a strange projectile that hit one of them in the hands, causing him to drop his gun, and then rebounded and did the same thing to the other man. In a panic, the men looked to the object that had fallen on the floor. It was a small metal boomerang in the shape of a bat. "Oh no… Oh no…" one of the men said, panicking. "It's him…" "Don't be stupid." Said the other, "He doesn't exist, it's just someone trying to scare us." "Sure about that?" the voice asked. Then, a figure jumped from the scaffolding above and landed in front of the criminals in the light. They saw in the light of street lamps, that no one was messing with them at all. It was the real Batman.

Officers arrived on the scene to see two unconscious drug dealers on the floor of the shipping docks, with a note attached to each of them. The note had no words, simply a symbol of a bat. Batman watched as the officers looked at the note, confused, and smiled to himself. 'Soon they will know what that symbol means' he thought. He fired his grappling hook and flew off into the night sky, in the direction of his home base.

Bruce Wayne walked to the edge of the lake, and pushed in the small rock at the edge of the water. The surface then began to ripple, then a vortex started in the center. Soon, a platform rose from the water. Bruce jumped onto the platform and went underneath the lake, into the Batcave.

He took his mask off and walked to the center of the cave, towards the supercomputer he used to monitor activity in the city. He shut it off and went up the elevator that lead to the Manor that he was born and raised in. He walked through the decrepit and unkempt halls of Wayne Manor, finally reaching his bedroom. He looked at the photo of his parents he kept on his bedside table and smiled. He hoped that, wherever they were, they were proud of him. He shut the lights off and collapsed onto his bed.

Author's End Note: Well I hope you guys enjoyed. It was a little slow I'm sorry, but things will pick up, and soon you'll start to see other members of the family. Don't forget to review!