Gotham City.
I was born here. Raised here. And by raised, I mean beaten up to the ground, legs broken, and the one who can lift it is me, myself, and I.
Gotham is a shit city filled with dirt, body bags, and actual shit. Dusts covering up every space I walked in. Garbage in every corner of the city whether it's human garbage or actual garbage. Bodies piling up on a daily basis right on the corner of Burnley with not a single asshole decided to take a bat. I mean who cares? It's just a body in Gotham City. It's not like you've seen this a million times before.
But I'd be fair here. The city can be beautiful, bright, and cozy sometimes. It's not all dark and gloomy here. Fuck no. This city is shit, but it's my shit. The sun is bright. There are assholes, but that's where you can appreciate the nicest folks around, those that would give you free meals or drinks if they know that you were on the run. The only one who can truly enjoy it is the one who can actually survive it. Those who couldn't stomach it would probably not have a stomach to fill anytime soon. That's because they're out of it, literally, being blown off in shotgun rounds.
Heh. Typical Gotham.
The problem with Gotham is that there are good people in it, but these good people don't have the balls to stand up and fight for what's right. The bad people are ruling the world. The political elites. The mobs. Even the police. You can't trust anyone here. You can fight, but you're going to get your ass kicked. It's where the term "Silent Majority" can be accurately described, and is actually in line with reality.
Well, fuck that. Gotham is just a puddle of fuel, and I'll be the spark for the fire.
##
THE BATS OF GOTHAM
CHAPTER 1
"PROLOGUE"
##
The main road was filled with people protesting. It was enough to cover four lanes worth of street and three blocks worth of road. The protests were nothing more than just a demand for Mayor Hill to step down, as citizen journalism exposed tons and tons of corruption after corruption within the ranks. Since GCPD cannot be trusted, some people who have proofs decided to leak it out to the internet. It was an effective method, because not only it caught up into the police, but it was on the internet and the internet never forgets.
Thankfully the protesters weren't burning on streets or destroying houses anything. They were peaceful and they used their rights of free speech to express their distaste of the current Mayor. The Mayor was kind enough to let these protests exist because the Gotham Citizens couldn't to any significant change. Only the Mayor can be persuaded by it, and he wouldn't be persuaded by thousands of people marching out on streets.
Gotham is in a state where even protesting peacefully is considered being silent. It's not that they didn't voice it. It's just that it's not loud enough. Barbara recognized this for a long time. While she did do her due diligence on gathering up the circumstantial evidence surrounding the major corruptions going on around the city, she couldn't do much of it as the police wouldn't take actions. There's no hard evidence even, just circumstantial evidence that only highlighted some oddities but not the grand scheme.
Barbara didn't want to get more into the protests. So she decided to take a little bit of detour into an alleyway. This was where the hopeless take opportunities to rob as much as money as they can. Barbara is not the kind of girl who would let that happen. She had backup. She had training. She's going to use it by the time something like that could happen. She's a Gotham girl after all. She needed to be prepared for this.
And of course, not long after entering said alleyway, the typical gangs came in. There were three of them. One wore a beanie and slightly skinny. In the right of him was bulkier with a bald head. The other one is too hairy on the head. All of which wore shirts with damages that even a Thrift Shop wouldn't buy.
She turned around after glancing at the three morons, only to find two more with almost similar garments. Great. She's surrounded.
"You know the drill girl," one person said. "Money."
Barbara walked back. Her long red hair made contact with the dirty walls.
"I don't have time for this," Barbara said.
"Neither are we," another man said. "So give us your stuff and we'll leave you alone."
"Not so fast, jerkass."
Someone shouted on the end of the alleyway. Barbara and the rest glanced at the source of the voice. It was a girl with a dark purple hoodie who apparently had a tire iron. She pointed that tire iron right towards the rest of the guys. Barbara was very sure that the tire iron had a little bit of blood in it.
"Get away from the girl," she shouted. "Or you'll going to pay."
Of course that sort of taunt made the rest of the guys laugh for such a ridiculous demand.
"Is she for real?"
"Do you hear that shit?"
"Hey bitch, screw off."
That didn't intimidate her slightly. In fact, it just encouraged her. "You want to hurt women? Hurt me."
The thugs began to look at each other, but are still not convinced.
"I got money."
Barbara raised her eyebrows. The girl just straight up baited them out. That and she had a pack roll of money right on her hands. Where did she get that?
One thug began approaching closer and closer. The girl held her money as bait. Like a fool, he kept his focus on it. He approached it closer and closer. That's where the girl threw the pack of money on air. The dumb guy glanced at the money on the top, but the girl swung her tire iron right on the bottom half of his jaw. The alley was cramped and the swing was enough to propel him into a wall. It was enough to knock him out.
The girl caught the money back. "One down."
Challenged, three men charged into her. The girl put her money in the pockets and began charging as well. One guy swung his punch towards her head, but the girl bowed, dodging his punch. She kicked the guy's lower knee, but she wasn't able to land another hit as another guy decided to swing a punch. She was able to block that punch and put it away from her. With her tire iron, she landed three hits in a quick succession to the second guy: The side neck, the shoulder, and the hip before going back to the first guy and smacking him in the back of his neck, knocking him out.
The third guy came in with a flying kick and kicked her in. She was able to block that, but she got pushed away. This person moved a lot more swiftly and his kicks and punches were more dynamic. Despite all of that, she dodged all of his punches and kicks. One thing that he kept static was his head. When Stephanie got the opportunity, she blocked one punch and swung her tire iron downwards, hitting the top of his head. She then swung to the right, hitting his temple and knocking him out.
The second guy didn't give up right there. He threw a brick wall right towards her, but she managed to slap it away using her tire iron. He also threw another brick wall, but she smashed it completely. She came in closer, causing the guy to run backwards. She stopped in momentarily for a second, noticing that he backed away.
"You're a total whimp," she said.
That intimidated him for a second. Three guys knocked out and two more left. She's a person who could handle herself and probably more. This prompted the two people to just leave the area and run away from it.
"Yeah, run the fuck away you shitheads!" she shouted. "Fuck off to your moms."
Barbara took a closer look towards the girl. Her purple hoodie looked extremely dirty. Come to think of it, there were many traces of blood on her face and mouth, which was bizarre considering that she barely got hit by the three guys last time.
"You alright?" she asked.
"Uhm… yes," Barbara said. "I'm-"
"That's great."
"Yeah, uh… HEY!"
The girl lost her balance and fell down, full body first into a concrete floor.
##
Ringing.
It's ringing.
My ears are ringing.
I think I'm done…
I'm done for now…
Am I done for later?
No.
Fuck no.
Have you ever been in a time where you kept on crying so much to the point where you're running out of tears? You wanted to cry. You wanted to get your emotions out, but you don't have any more tears left. All you can do is put a dead, emotionless face, stare into an empty plain floor without even moving a muscle of your face.
Yeah, I've been through that time.
##
"Ms. Brown," Doctor Englehorn said. "I uh… I never thought you would just… hand over your daughter like that."
He was right. Everybody in the right mind would have this question on why would I just hand over Sherry to the adoption, but I have only one answer to that.
"She's in the right hands," I said, didn't even bother to look at him. "She's going to need a better mother than I am."
"I understand that it's a… difficult decision."
"You don't have to tell me, doc," I said. "I knew exactly how it felt."
I glanced at the doctor in the eye. The doctor recognized my dead emotionless face. It showed more than it needs to be.
"I uh…" the doctor said. "How's your mother?"
"Crazy, as usual," I said. "They're not hiring people with painkiller addictions."
"I wish that your mother can go well," he said. "You don't deserve any of this to happen."
"Yes I do," I said. "It's my fault, in some ways or the other."
"You can't just blame yourself for all of this."
"I did half of it, doc," I said. "I'm not the only one, but I'm not going to blame anyone else. It doesn't matter anyway. What matters is that someone needs to do something about this, and I'm the only one doing it."
The doctor caught on my dead monotone voice. I didn't even bother to move an inch of a muscle. I just… said what needed to be said.
He sighed. "What are you going to do after this?"
"Get a job," I said. "Mom's going nuts. I need to do something to make sure that I got some money in the bank."
"Have you gotten any?"
"No, not yet," I said. "Don't worry about it though. I'll find one soon enough."
"Well, I hope you do find one," he said. "Your mother is glad to have you as her daughter."
"No she's not."
The doctor froze. "Well… regardless, if you need anything, let me know."
The doctor left me all alone. Not a lot of people were in the hospital that day. I took my phone up. I want to look at Sherry. I want to look at her face once again. It was my little baby's face that brought me something. It brought me to finally do something for my life, something useful, something that would make me less of a lazy ass street rat who did nothing.
##
Barbara had to hand it over to the girl for once. She was downright insane. The purple hoodie covered up a lot of wounds. Lots of scratches, traces of blunt force, even knife wounds. She could heal all of them, but she was amazed that the girl could even stand let alone fight three more dudes. She had opened up her purple hoodie to reveal a body armor, and it's not just a standard body armor. It's Kevlar. It's enough to protect bullets, and she got hit with quite a plenty of them.
Her face alone was concerning. Purple right eye, scratch wounds in her mouth and cheeks, what has this girl gone through?
She opened up her eyes. She realized that her entire top was covered in bandage. Her sigh got Barbara's attention. She looked back at her trying to get up from the couch.
"Oww!"
"Hey, take it easy," Barbara said. "It's going to take a while to heal all of this."
She groaned as Barbara tried to push her down into the couch.
"You need to take a break, a really long one," Barbara said. "What the hell happened to you? What's with all of these wounds?"
"I…" she chuckled. "I got into a little trouble."
"A little?" Barbara said. "This… this is definitely not little."
"I… got hit pretty hard last time, did I?"
"No. You were barely hit," Barbara said. "You took all three like it was a piece of cake for you. How the hell can you do that while still having all of these?"
She lay back for a second, and asked a few questions before going into the story. "Where am I?"
"You're in my house," Barbara said. "It's just a few walks from where you beat those guys up."
"Yeah, I know you," she said. "You're Gordon's daughter, Barbara."
"And you're… Stephanie Brown." Barbara took her wallet that has her ID on it. "Who are you?"
Stephanie scoffed. "You want to hear a story?"