A/N: HELLO! I started this story a while back under the title 'Chronicle of the Bat' but it fell apart on me. Now, I'm back and hoping to finish it properly. Thanks for reading, and please, find it in your heart to review? DANKS.
I' don't own Batman or lay claim to him.
GOTHAM CITY STORIES: ANNALS OF THE BATMAN.
CHAPTER 1:
"I demand satisfaction sir!,"
The voice of a black haired boy with crystal blue eyes echoed throughout the quiet streets of Gotham city.
He stood upon the steps of an old apartment building, dressed very sharply in a dark two piece suit and red tie, one arm outstretched, as if he held a rapier, the other raised flamboyantly behind his head.
The "satisfaction" he demanded was from a man in his late thirties, the same dark hair as the boy, but with hazel eyes and dressed in a tailored tuxedo, who walked side by side with a flawlessly skinned, brown haired woman in a red dress, a pair of gloves in her hand and the man's black trench coat draped over her slim shoulders.
"My dear sir," the woman said, emulating a bad southern accent, raising her hand to her forehead dramatically. "Please, I beg of you, rescue me from this horrid man!"
The boy grinned widely, running down the steps and leaping up onto a overturned garbage can, assuming the same stance as he had held on the steps.
"Don't you worry M'lady!...I shall rescue you from this vile fiend!" he began waving his outstretched arm, brandishing his invisible weapon.
"Bruce, quiet down," the man chuckled. "You'll wake up everyone on the street!"
The woman took the man's arm in hers. "Oh, Thomas, let him have his fun"
The three continued down the cracked concrete path, Bruce leaping around, waving his hands like a mad man, climbing bus benches and fire hydrants, and occasionally blurting out heroic comments and threatening his father with his non-existent sword.
They reached a corner and stopped, where Thomas began looking around at the street signs.
"What's wrong?," his wife said, looking up at him, taking notice of a sudden change in the man's demeanor.
"I, I think we took a wrong turn back there somewhere..." he smiled to his wife, before nervously looking around again. "We'll have to go back, I think it's two blocks over"
"What's gotten you so anxious?," she said, rubbing her hand on Thomas's forearm, trying to make him feel better. "Thomas?"
"I just don't think this is a part of town I want Bruce to see, Martha. I came here for work a while back and there are people here he shouldn't be around"
Thomas turned Martha around as she beckoned for their son.
"Bruce?, Bruce come here sweetheart," The young boy dropped off the edge of the bench he was standing on and ran into his mother's outstretched arms.
"Thomas," she said.
"Just keep close, alright?, stay together and move quickly."
The group took hurried steps down the two blocks, Thomas keeping a tight grip on both his son and wife, until he turned them down a street that lead through the theater district, where the group had just come to see a charity performance of "The Mark Of Zorro!" for the Wayne foundation, then a half dozen more until they reached Gotham square.
The neon lights and open space made Thomas calm down and release the grip on his son's shoulder a little. He still kept looking around, but it was only to check down the alleyways that they passed, in case someone was hiding up a fire escape, or when a car backfired on the other side of the street.
He led his wife and son over the road and passed a hotdog stand, where Bruce had asked for one, but was hurried along before the vendor could even fish one out of his steamer.
The three made it to a row of cabs that took off just as they reached them, to which Thomas cursed loudly, and began to look for any others in the vicinity, looking up one way to an empty street, and then the other to an empty street with a few stray cats purring on corner.
"Dad?" Bruce tugged on Thomas's sleeve and pointed down an alley, to a very busy street on the other side where the yellow of the cabs could be seen blurring past.
"Nice find Bruce, alright, we'll try down there" he took his wife and son by the hands and began leading them down the grime covered alley with haste, still checking out the fire escapes as they walked underneath, and turning his head for every suspicious sound he heard.
Reaching the other end of the alley, Thomas let go of his wife and son and walked out to the curb, where he stuck out his arm to hail a taxi.
"There's no one here Dad, let's go back to the theater" Bruce said, looking back down the dank alley they had just exited.
"No Bruce, I' rather we stay here," he looked over his shoulder to his son, who was looking him straight in the eye. "There's a better chance of catching a cab in the light" Thomas smiled awkwardly, not wanting his son to see his nervousness.
"Dad!," Thomas turned to see his son pointing down the alley again, this time to see a cab that had just stopped on the corner. "I'll catch it!" The boy started sprinting down the down the alley, seeing two men climb out and fumble in their pockets for money.
"BRUCE?" Martha cried, reaching out for the boy as he took off.
"BRUCE!," Thomas yelled, running into the alley after his son. "SON, COME BACK HERE!"
Bruce didn't stop, in fact he sped up, ignoring his father's shouting down the alley, and his mother's pleas as she followed him.
"I CAN CATCH IT DAD!," Bruce said, turning halfway around as he sprinted, looking to his father as he followed him. "DON'T WORRY, JUST GET MOM!.."
He started to turn back, still sprinting as fast as he could, but turned into a overturned shopping cart, his knees colliding with the steel frame and sending the child face first into the broken concrete.
"BRUCE!,"Thomas began sprinting now, making it to his grounded, bawling son and lifting the boy up from a small pool of blood that had formed beneath his face.
"Dammit son," the man said, checking a large gash on Bruce's left eyebrow. "I told you to stop, see this is what happens when you don't listen"
Bruce picked up that his father was angry at him, and began crying even more. "I'm s..sorry dad, I thought I co-could catch it." Thomas looked out of the alley to see an empty space where the taxi was parked moments before.
"That's alright Bruce, I don't blame you,"
"Bruce! Oh sweetie, are you okay?" Martha reached them and bent down to hug her son, and checked the cut that had begun to steadily seep a thin stream of blood down his face.
Bruce nodded, wrapping his arms around his father, who lifted him up into his arms.
"Come on Bruce, let's get you home"
"T..Thomas," the man and his son looked up to see Martha looking up the alley to a man, not ten feet away, half hidden in the shadows, clad in a brown leather jacket and faded blue jeans.
"Stand up," the voice was coarse, raspy like that of a heavy smoker.
Thomas let Bruce down and stood up, putting himself between his wife and the stranger.
"Thomas, he has a gun," Martha whispered, gripping Thomas's forearm tightly.
The man walked out of the darkness, into the light of an over head neon sign, which revealed a horrible face.
His skin was pale, and he had cracked lips that were so thin and chapped they seemed to blend in with his face perfectly. His hair was colored a faded brown, very greasy, and thinning a little on top. When the man smiled, it showed a series of brown and yellow teeth. The sight of which made Bruce grab hold on to his mother.
"Money, now," the man said, raising a small revolver.
Thomas raised his hands in a non-threatening way. "Okay, okay, there's no need for the gun, here," Thomas reached into his jacket, beginning to slowly take out his wallet, which the man snatched immediately.
"And the watch," the mugger pointed the hand which held Thomas's wallet to his left wrist.
Thomas nodded, and began slowly un-clasping the golden watch band, not taking his eyes off the hideous man.
"You," The gunman pointed to Martha, who's eyes went wide with fear, and started to shake.
"The pearls," the man said, aiming the gun at the priceless Wayne family heirloom that hung around her neck.
"Woah,"Thomas stood between them again, handing out his watch, which the man took. "That watch there is worth fifteen thousand, there's roughly a thousand in my wallet as well, that's enough okay?"
The man shook his head, raising the gun to Thomas's face. "I want the pearls,"
He pushed Thomas out the way, and grabbed at Martha's neck with his gun hand.
She struggled for a moment, trying to slap away the man's hand, when Bruce screamed out.
"GET OFF OF HER," The boy grabbed his mother's attacker by the arm, doing his best to pull the man off of his mother, and started kicking at random intervals.
"Get offa me kid!," the man began shaking both his arms, one fighting with the two Wayne's.
"BAMM!"
The deafening sound of a gunshot rung out, echoing off the graffitied walls.
All three froze, with Bruce and the man looking to Martha, who stood for a moment with shock in her face, then fell backward onto the concrete, silent.
"Mom?...MOM!," Bruce screamed, before starting to punch the man, tears forming in his eyes. "GO AWAY...GET AWAY FROM US!" he began screaming, before the mugger swung out and hit him in the face with the butt of his revolver, knocking the child to the ground.
Bruce looked up, grasping his face, to the man cocking his gun and aiming it at Bruce, his brown eyes rife with fury.
"You little shi...Ughh!" Thomas appeared out of no where, his shoulder colliding with the man and bringing him to the ground, where the two began to wrestle over the weapon.
Bruce watched as his father struggled with the mugger, rolling around on the ground, before a second shot made Bruce tense.
"DAD?," Bruce said, seeing his father fall from his knees on to his side, and crawled over to him. "Dad?, dad get up," he said, whimpering over his father's lifeless body.
Bruce looked up to see the man who had just killed his parents running off down the alley, towards the end they'd come in from, and crash into a man as he turned the corner. He heard the mugger snap some comment at the man, then run out of sight. The man stood there for a second, stunned at the stranger's outburst then turned down the alley.
"Oh my god," the man gasped, starting up the alley to where a young boy held his father's lifeless body.
0ooo-19 YEARS LATER-ooo0
ENTER: THE BLACK MASK! -PART 1.
The rooftop of the Sionis Meatpacking building was far quieter than he'd assumed. Bruce Wayne, under the guise of the Batman, leapt from building to building with a grace normally reserved for wildcats and other spry beasts.
For over a year, Bruce had been doing this. Every night, every rooftop, from the docks in East Gotham, to the highrise corporate buildings in the West. It was fitting, so he thought, it was necessary.
At first, it was really only to take out the gangs that plagued Gotham, the ones who used bribery and intimidation to harm his late father's dream to make Gotham a clean city, but since then it had become somewhat of a secret life for him. News spread quickly of the six foot Bat that lived in the shadows of Gotham's streets, that would viciously maim anyone that stood in his way, that could fly.
But in truth, it was all technology and human skill that made him what he was. The 'flying' was all the work of a gas propelled grappling gun, one which a German inventor had aided him in creating only a few years ago. The 'maiming' was just a decade's worth of training in martial arts, Brazilian Jiu jitsu, Aikido, Hapkido, Krav Maga. And the 'living in Gotham's shadows?', that was the eight months in Okinawa learning from a frail old man named Kirigi, who Bruce had heard was the last 'ninja' in the world.
Of course, there were other skills he'd picked up since his nineteenth birthday, when he'd decided to leave Princeton and travel the world. A man named Henri Ducard had taught him to track wild animals in the South of France, a chemist in Austria had spent nearly eight months teaching Bruce to memorize the periodic table among other things. But they all came together well, making Bruce who he was now.
As for the 'Batman' moniker?, well, that came about by total coincidence.
Less than a month after Bruce returned from his trip, there was a night where he'd taken refuge in his late father's study. It had been raining, he remembered, and his butler Alfred had long since gone to bed. He was looking over a police report he'd managed to secure about the illegal dealings of a man named Roman Sionis, an old primary school friend of Bruce's. Sionis had been named in a lawsuit by a disgruntled banker, Warren White, that claimed Sionis' meatpacking company was run on fear and backroom dealings.
Bruce had tried to piece the evidence together, hoping to discover if the banker's accusations were correct, when he was torn from his stupor by the sound of breaking glass. A bat had found it's way into the study through the top window. It sent chills down his spine, memories of the fear he'd had of them when he was a child filled his mind. It was then it hit him, and then he'd taken that name, choosing to utilize what once tormented him to torment those whose goals were to harm his city.
Ironically, that was why he was here in the industry district tonight tonight, traversing the many vents and smoke-chutes upon the meatpacking plant's roof. He'd been following the widely publicized legal battle between Roman Sionis and his former banker, who'd been in a government sponsored police custody while the trials went on.
The last report Bruce had gotten his hands on revealed that Sionis kept most of his papers in a secret vault within his office. The police had scoured the place from top to bottom and found naught, which only gave Sionis' lawyer a better case, and made the prosecutor retract himself from the case and skip town. This made Bruce uneasy, and gave him more and more motive to do what he'd come to do tonight.
A skylight sat above Sionis's office. Batman took a miniscule band-saw from one of the many pockets which laced the gold plated belt he wore around his waist and used it to split the fiberglass pane from it's steel base, opening up the office to him. Any light of the city around him was extinguished as he silently dropped into the room, listening any sign that he wasn't alone. A breath, a creak of a chair, anything.
When he was sure he was the only one there, he reached for another one of his belt's pockets. From this one he took a monocular like device,
which he placed to his eye and began to twist. The sight turned from pitch black to a transparent blue. With his spare hand, he pressed the ear of his cowl and spoke. "Alfred," he spoke in a quiet, stern voice. "Is the feed coming through?"
"Aye ser," came a voice from nowhere. "Say what you will about Sionis' personal life, but he does have good taste"
He didn't acknowledge the joke. "Activate the Bat-computer's fingerprint revealing software" a second past, then the transparent blue room was suddenly covered in dozens of miniscule orange markings. Batman panned over the office, pausing for a moment every now and then for the Bat-computer's software to fully register the room.
It was when he paused while facing a solid wall that Alfred's voice sounded in his ear again. "There ser, Sionis' fingerprints appear on that wall and that wall only" Batman twisted the monocle again and the room went black.
"Thank-you Alfred. I'll send word when I've found it"
"As you wish ser"
He pressed his ear again, deactivating the communicator, and then placed his hands to the wall. Though it was dark, Batman could still make out a noticeable groove with the wall, a quarter inch concave over an area of less than a foot. He rapped his gloved knuckles on the plaster in a few places, making certain he had the right spot, then pulled out his saw and carved a square through the plaster.
Taking the plaster from the wall, a thick doored iron safe was revealed, built into the building's brickwork. It was a combination lock, made in the late seventies. 'Simple,' Batman thought with a smirk. Once again, he took the tiny bandsaw and went to work at the hinges on the safe's door. It was only a few moments before the safe was open to him. He carefully placed the door on the floor and looked inside.
A mound of papers sat on the lower shelf. He took them and began flipping through them, using his monocle's camera function to take pictures to send to Alfred. "Alfred, what do you make of this?," he spoke to his butler over the communicator. "It seems White is correct in his claims"
"Aye ser. Mister Sionis does seem to be in deep with some of Gotham's worst"
The files showed that Sionis had been dealing with everyone, from a corrupt detective named Bullock, to Sal Maroni, the head of Gotham's Maroni crime syndicate. Millions of dollars in bribes to judges and other government officials. "He's been at this for years,"
"I'm sure the district attorney's office would be happy to hear about this," Alfred said. "The new D A would get quite the kick out of it"
Batman Agreed. "You're right. Write up a report and send it in tomorrow anonymously"
"As you wish, Master Bruce"
Placing the papers back, Batman looked at the top shelf. Stacks upon stacks of hundred dollars bills made up a pile within the the safe. He took the top stack and flipped through them. "Alfred?, send these serial numbers through the treasury databanks"
He recited a few for his accomplice. "They're non-existent ser, which means they're..."
"...Counterfeit"
"Precisely"
Batman nodded to himself. "Very well. Make reference of it in the report and send it i..." A sound from outside made him stop in his tracks, footsteps in the meat-plant beneath him.
Without a second to waste, he placed the bills back in the safe, lifted the door up and put it in place. He used a thin switch to apply a slight glue to the sawn hinges, putting them in place. It wouldn't let the safe work, but if everything went well, the police would be in here by the morning. He did the same with the square of plaster, gluing it back into the wall. It wasn't perfect, but the glue was the same color as the wall, making it indistinguishable to anyone who glanced at it. But perhaps not to those who looked closely for very long.
The footsteps grew louder, and with only a second to spare, Batman leapt up onto Sionis' desk and again, pulling himself through the skylight and onto the roof just as the door opened. He didn't want to waste time, so without looking, he sprinted off across the roof and, with the use of his grappling gun, flew off into the night.
NEXT TIME: ENTER THE BLACK MASK PART 2