Darkness.
It's like a lullaby to the baby that is my home city, Gotham. A crying, smelly baby that constantly wets the bed and gets into all sorts of trouble. If I wasn't already rich, I'd say the hassle is beyond my pay grade. But even the naughtiest of babies still receive unconditional love; a love that is in no way sexual or deviant.
I think my mind went off in a tangent...
Wait, it's coming back to me. Yes!
Darkness!
Sadness!
It's always present in Gotham. Much like the burning reminder of a alcoholic in withdrawal, the addiction and craving for more dreariness. That is what it means to be a Gothamite. That or maybe it's just me, being an orphan. Or any other poor kid who didn't inherit a fortune and turns to a life of crime because the system sucks?
Maybe I should do something about that? Nah, I throw enough charity balls for the wealthy, I don't need to do anything for the poor. Poor people will always be poor. No amount of waxing noble ideology will change the basis that better people have to stand on top of the smaller people.
It's only on occasion that if one group of poor people try to steal from some other more well-off people that I have to show them the pecking order. The pecking order of my fist introducing them to their old friend: Mr. Asphalt and Mrs. Concrete!
The only question is, should I beat them before they join a gang or gangster to commit crimes or should I beat them up before they get the chance? I should ask Alfred about that.
But anyways, this internal monologue is distracting from the real reason I'm in the dead of night. The purpose that drives me, metaphorically, to this tall building overlooking the Gothic decor of my sweet succubus city. Perched on this gargoyle as my cape flaps in the wind, my body armor protecting me from the cool of the night and my cowl giving me a convenient HUD view of what looks like a corroded grey (or is it gray?) van parked in an alley.
It's been parked there for a freakin' hour. I had to ignore some of the cops chattering in my cowl. Their robberies and break-ins can wait. This van, however, has to be watched. Religiously as a zealot in the Crusade shouting Deus Volt!
Thankfully, something finally happens; my legs were starting to cramp being postured in my passively brooding crouch.
Based on my expert deduction skills of spending years refining my detective expertise I can safely say for certain that this is a drug deal. The four men (unconfirmed if they identify as something else; irrelevant to the mission at hand) approaches the suspiciously familiar individual. He (I'm sure this one is a he!) is wearing what looks like a large dark overcoat, matching black gloves and...an eighteenth century plague doctor mask?
Crane, are you going old school for this?
I'm certain this is Doctor Johnathan Crane, also known as the guy who likes to use an unhealthy amount of pharmaceuticals for his deranged crimes. This isn't based on some thoughtless hunch like DICK would throw out like the peanut gallery he is. This is produced by evidence of my incredible and refined intellect.
My deduction has always paid off, after all. Except...
No, it always has. I don't care what Alfred says to the contrary. My mind is a steel trap. Everything gets in and nothing gets out! Especially the hard facts. Definitely those.
Wait a second. Those plastic bags have...pills!
Drugs confirmed!
HUD, I don't have time to wait on your buffering analytics. My analysis is right and I shall commence my unsanctioned sting operation...now.
Using my unbelievable mastery of acrobatics, I flip majestically as I can in this dexterous suit of armor. With the aid of my Bat Cape I slow my fall just enough so my knee caps don't discharge like corks from the champagne bottle I'll open later to congratulate myself on a job well done. What does get cracked is the poor sucker who was holding out the money for the bag of drugs.
Down, like the punk he is.
"Holy-!"
BAM! I popped the guy to my left's jaw, keeping him from spewing profanity in the Lord I don't believe in's name. And before I'm sure the next guy can whip out a piece, I utilize an excellent roundhouse kick to his solar plexus, watching him spew bile, blood and spit as he's sent sprawling across the ground.
WHAM! POP! SNAP! The other two are in haste to gang up on me. My focus is too charged with sweet, sweet, sweet adrenaline to notice their own obscene choices of lower intelligent words. A swift knee to the gut, an armored elbow to the jaw and a snap kick to the chin brought them both down for the count as well.
I'm sure I broke a best time for those take-downs.
Anyways, I should bring in Crane now-
"Have you gone completely mental?!" The man with the plague mask cried out in an elderly, very much NOT Scarecrow voice. Based on my expert detective skills (skills that definitely hadn't failed me ten seconds ago) I judged by his height, body weight and his overall decor lacking an obtuse amount of sterilized needles for Fear Toxins that I...was perhaps a bit hasty.
Or maybe this was all a cover?
"You can't fool me, Crane!" I growl like a doberman as I jab my finger in his direction. "I caught you red-handed selling illegal drugs to these scum!"
"I-I beg your pardon!" He stuttered, sounding both fearful and indignant in front of my terrifying presence. "I don't know who you think I am, but my name is not Crane!"
"A likely story!" I snarled, walking up to back him up flush to his grey (gray?) van. I grab him with my Kevlar armored fingers around the cuff of his coat and bring him in close; for intimidation, not homo-erotic reasons like someone might think. That or maybe the smell of expensive wine on my breath will disgust him into spelling out the truth?
"Where are the other drugs going?!" I gutturally inquire, almost to the point of being unintelligible.
"L-Listen! I'm not a drug dealer, I swear!" He sputtered, muffled behind his beak shaped mask.
"What do you call this, then?!" I reach out and grab the plastic bag holding the pills. I counted ten of them in all. My HUD was tracing their chemical lay-out while I maintained eye contact with the older man's exposed, wrinkled hazel orbs.
"I-I'm a doctor. Well...formerly," He admitted hesitantly. "I couldn't practice my work, not while my overseers enforced unreasonable expenses and terrible business practices to make my low income clients from getting the help they need. So, with my own resources and not illegally, I procured some pain medication for the four young men. The same ones you just brutally assaulted, without a warrant or even a clue what I was doing here!"
I think I made a serious mistake.
"Why dress up like you're expecting the Black Plague then, doctor?" I ask gruffly, trying to maintain my composure as the saner part of me realizes that my earlier expert deduction was entirely off-base. That and my HUD had specifically confirmed the compounds are common in that of pain reducers, most common in pharmaceuticals prescribed through doctors. Nothing illegal or toxic in small doses.
"If I'm seen, someone may recognize me. It could bode poorly if even I explain this to anyone who reported me. My life's work jeopardized because of my own conscience. So I wore more concealing garbs and this mask I got from a medical convention not more than five years ago," He calmly explained, feeling the grip of mine slipping on his collar. "I know this can be skewed in a wrong light, but I'm doing what I feel as both a doctor and a practitioner of medicine is the right thing to do. Why should the less fortunate suffer due to their limited abilities and circumstantial fiance crisis-es?"
I can't believe I screwed this up. I leaped without looking where I was jumping. I broke teeth of potential innocents when I declared them guilty without any verdict or looking at the evidence. Who am I to judge that this man is doing wrong? I confused him for a known psychopath, yet this man is clearly sane and just doing what his conscience is guiding him.
How can that be wrong?
"So, if you don't mind, can we just put what's happened behind us-?"
"Not so fast, doctor!" I growled, recollecting myself as I grip around his collar harder than before. "You're selling drugs to fill your own pockets in. I'm sure you got those cheap and whatever may be true about your story, doesn't stop the fact you're profiting off the less wealthy while also giving yourself a moral high ground in the process. You're as bad as Scarecrow!"
"Did you hear nothing I said?! I'm innocent-!"
JUSTICE! I don't let him speak another word. My fist crashes through his paltry made disguise, splinter of ceramic flying as my reinforced knuckles hit him hard enough to make him spit teeth. The pain was enough for him to pass out, and his mask fell off onto the dark alley floor. Dialing through my cowl, I begin to string up these criminals by their ankles with a few placed grappel shots along the alleyway.
"Gordon, this is Batman."
"...I know who this is. Who else uses this line?"
"Alf-...right, of course! I got something for you."
"Please don't tell me you didn't just beat the Hell out of some poor sap."
"Alright."
I let the silence tell him I got something more worth his time. I hear a sigh before he answers me.
"What is it?"
"I caught four crooks trying to buy drugs in an alley by some curmudgeon who claimed he was being a good doctor to satiate what counts as his twisted conscience. Profiting off the misery of others while telling himself he's doing a good act. Who'd ingratiate themselves by being so ruthless to a fellow citizen?!"
"...I'm not going to dignify that with an answer."
"What happened to your dignity, Gordon? I thought you had plenty of that!"
"Obviously not, given how I'm in cahoots with a vigilante," I hear him sigh again, taking a drag from what sounds like a cheap cigar. "Just give me the address and I'll have them booked. Hopefully I won't need body bags."
"Gordon, I don't kill. It's in my blood NOT to murder."
"Yes, clearly I have nothing to fear from the masked man beating up people in alleys."
"I'm glad a man like you in the police force exists. You're probably the only person who gets me."
"Some days I wish I don't."
"What?"
"More importantly, you should make yourself scarce. Not everyone is keen at your...colorful appearance up close."
"The only colors I wear is black and really dark grey (gray?). I am anything but colorful," I answer him before he yells at me for the address. He seems to do that alot. My noticing of it is just yet another sign of my amazing detective skills for sure.
This case has taught me that even shades of grey (gray?) are always hidden behind obvious black and white. A criminal was caught and his customers will be reminded what happens when you don't obey the law. Even if those laws help incur a crippling ripple across the economy to keep poor people in states of misfortune.
As I swing away, I deposit the broken plague doctor mask in some unknown part of my person. Another collectible to put in my hall of trophies in the Bat Cave. One such reward for doing my heroic duties of keeping my sweet, luscious, naughty baby that is Gotham safe.
Man, I love being the good guy.
A/N: This is a first for me. Apart from A Kenpachi Field Trip, this is going to be straight parody. Unlike the prior which is mindless action with comedic elements and a semblance of a story, this will be a string of events that will be loosely tied together with a 'story'. Think of this as a mini-series where things happen episodically and will be referenced from time to time as the 'story' continues.
This is by no means a perfect caricature of Batman. This is just me poking fun at the myriad of exaggerated dark poetic POV thought bubbles you see in more modern comic incarnations of him while also hinting at being a little introspective in the flaws of Batman's world. If any of you have thoughts or inklings regarding this story, please leave a comment in the Review section below.
Until then, I'll see you all the next time I feel like updating!