Chapter One: The Definition of Misery

Gotham City Hall

If I could describe the end of the world in one word I would use this descriptor: beautiful. The death of tyranny, my grand proclamation, was not necessarily my vision but rather a small thought of it. My vision included the eventual induction of dictatorship, not eternal anarchy. Then again, it wasn't my plan to begin with, but hers, Talia's. The mastermind behind the League of Shadows, the mastermind behind eternal anarchy and deception.

I am not an evil man, just a confused and twisted one. A thespian if you will.

I stood there standing in the ash of the world, looking like the beast born from it and saw Bruce amidst the Gotham City Police Force. The greatest assembly of justice.

Slaughterhouses and stands for the slaughter.

Bruce's eyes were pools of malice, I could see hate in his eyes against me. If I could tell him the truth I would, I would most definitely, but then, I would ruin the surprise.

We came at each other with the fury of the cobra, the swiftness of the wind, and the force of God with our blows. We moved up the steps and onto the porch. He grabbed me and attempted to hurl me in a window. He failed, as I knew he would and I pinned him up against a pillar.

"You shall be remembered Bruce," I said, "as a martyr to those who failed!"

I punched him, a second and a third time, each successor being harder and more painful to me than to him. My hand was burning.

Fury. That is on what happened next. We clashed into the foyer, the government seat of man, the cold reflective tile floor which does nothing to benefit the cause of progress. Pitiful existence we humans have in this regard. Our endless error of history repetition.

Bruce beat me down to the floor, with his boot of justice he kicked my torso. One, twice, a third, as if the pillar beating were simply nothing.

"Where is the trigger?" Bruce asked, in a voice of the devil.

"If I told you Bruce you wouldn't believe me." I said to him. He punched me in the face, a tube of Venom was broken. He punched me again. Another. My brain, which had been coursing with the toxin of madness, began to stir and grow drunk. I smiled like a cheshire cat.

"Bruce," my voice faded, I thought my hour was at hand, final words were meant for something I suppose. "why do we fall?"

He didn't answer me.

"Why do we fall Bruce?" I asked him, louder this time.

He looked at the floor, as if there was something more interesting there.

"If you think that you are the savior of the world," I said, "then you are wrong. You're just a man-"

"A man who has come to stop you." He said. What a cliché and unoriginal statement. A director probably wrote it.

"Stop me from what?" I asked him, "Dying? That would be a blessing. Living? That would be a blessing. Either way, you win Bruce. I live, I go to prison, I die, you move on." I closed my eyes, Talia could present her work.

She revealed herself and avenged me for a moment. When I opened my eyes again Talia was thirty seconds from killing the man I tried to break, or was, made stronger. I would like to believe that. In a way, I do.

Fear is the very thing that causes us to rise from Despair. Determination is on what gets us through Despair, Desire helps us climb the rope, and when you see the sun, you know that a victorious angel rests with you.

I stood slowly and as she stabbed Bruce, I stared at her, believing that there was another way out of this. I wasn't about to be declared heartless psychopath who was victim of his own madness, although, I am all those things, it is best to look positively.

"Bruce," I said turning toward him, "do you want to live?"

He couldn't breathe. He was having trouble. I lifted him. I tore my shirt and bound him.

"Don't kill him." Talia said, "I want him to feel the heat of the fire."

She walked over and caressed my face, a mask of fear, a mask of death, a mask of pain that only she knew, that only she witnessed. We were the only two people in the world who understood in the meaning of the word: anguish.

She walked away. I would never see her again. When silence took the room again I spoke:

"We are the definition of misery. You and me. We keep believing that we can make the world stronger," I kneeled down beside him, "but all we do is ruin, sin, and die. That's all we do Bruce. Ruin, sin, and die. That is the human definition of misery Bruce, ruin, sin, and death."

A Beretta M9 was at my side, I aimed it at Bruce's cheek. At the corner of my eye stood Selina Kyle, she was beautiful with her machine, as if it were made for her. She told Bruce to duck, he did and she fired. It missed me by inches but the ringing sensation of the would be fatal accident was in my ear whistling.

Selina got off her machine, walked very nonchalantly towards me and thought for a moment that she could do something about it. I stood.

"Don't worry about a thing Miss Kyle, I shall handle this. However," I looked at her, wanting some sympathy, but receiving none. A natural response I suppose. "Don't oppress the wrong revolutionary."

I exited the place.

I am by no means a vigilante, but if I'm going down, someone is going down with me. Be it by the bomb that has eleven minutes or a bullet housed in my Beretta.

I stood on the porch, police charged and seized my person. I did not resist. I knew that my campaign for slaughter was over and that my sin was trying to be Senor Villa or Dictator Stalin. I tried to endorse a failed promise of truth, I saw that when an armored van disappeared down the street. I knew Talia was in it. I knew that my life was in it. My father's daughter planted a bomb in the center of the world, and it was here, at the base of it, where I submitted to the system.

As I entered Blackgate Prison, I was greeted by corpses and hangman's nooses. I had achieved the sin of Germany. The bomb counted down as I entered my cell.

Five, four, three, two...

I took a breath, exhaled it quickly as the world still clung to existence. The plan had failed. I would be branded a heretic, a genocidal devil. I hope that Nuremberg is quick and judges mercifully, but in the eyes of God, who can look upon me with mercy? The answer is no one.

We are the definition of misery.

I am the definition of misery.