The first of a new collection of short stories, featuring a vigilante who lives on planet Earth in the Batman universe rather than someone who dresses in capes and cowls. There's mention of Joker with Joaquin Phoenix since I love the movie, and I believe it more realistic than other DC movies I've seen in comparison. I don't own DC comics.

Please let me know what you think.

Vigilante.

The Beginning.

It was a scene straight out of a nightmare as Frank Kersey stood to the side as he looked around the garishly graffitied apartment which had once been his home. The bodies of his family - his wife and eldest son, had been taken away while his youngest daughter was now reduced to a vegetable, leaving the forensic team to sweep the apartment for any signs of DNA fragments, pieces of hair, anything like that so they could identify the bastards who had done this to his loved ones.

But Frank was unsure if they would find anything, but he could only hope they were sent straight into a prison cell and the key thrown down the nearest drain to vanish completely in a sewer. But he didn't hold up much hope; with the crime rates in Gotham the way they were, it was likely that whoever did this - Frank had a damn good idea who - would be back out to cause more death in only a matter of hours.

When he had left work earlier that evening, he had just planned to get home and spend some time with his family as he normally did following a day at work, but what he had not expected was to find his home torn to pieces with furniture thrown everywhere, graffiti of so-called happy faces spray painted over the walls.

The red on the walls, however, was not entirely paint. A lot of it was blood.

But the thing that haunted Frank the most and had made him physically sick was the way the faces of his family had been peeled back with a very sharp knife, and now it looked like his family were grinning.

Like most locals in Gotham city, Frank knew the significance of the grin. It was worn by a madman who had carved a path of murder in Gotham, a path of someone who wanted others to laugh but his victims screamed in pain and terror before they were finally killed.

The grin of the Joker.

But why had the Joker attacked his home? Frank and his family had never done anything to attract the attention of the crazy psychopath, so why were his family dead? Yeah, Frank knew the Joker did not even need to see a reason for the atrocities he committed, all in the name of creating some kind of a sick joke. But there were thousands of people in Gotham, why his family in particular? It didn't make sense. The questions were turning themselves over and over within Frank's exhausted brain, but he still could find no satisfactory answer.

"Mr Kersey?" Frank turned. An unshaven man had walked over to him, in a greasy wrinkled suit with a tie that looked like it had just been tied in a hurry as if the man had been sleeping in a vat of grease was standing next to him. The man had a gruff voice, but Frank could see he was looking at him sympathetically. Frank hadn't had much experience meeting policemen, but everything about this man screamed he was a policeman, even if he did not look like it.

"Yes?"

"Detective Bullock," the man showed him his slightly tarnished shield, but Frank had to admire him for his quick and practiced reflexes, "I need to ask you some questions, if you're up for it," the detective added hesitantly while he cast a meaningful look around the state of the room.

Frank nodded, thankful for Bullock's sensitivity. There was more to him than met the eye. "No, I'll do my best."

Bullock looked at him sympathetically. He hated this kind of crime, and despite his somewhat jaded, apathetic view of Gotham since he had been a cop for a long time and he had seen the worst of the city, he was instantly sympathetic to the victims. This was one of those moments where he hated this part of the job.

The detective studied the man. He was pale and shaken, not that he was surprised; the sight he had seen should never have been seen by any kind of father and husband. The apartment was a nightmare in itself, with the dead bodies and the hideous way the youngest daughter had been treated. She had been raped, and raped badly; Bullock could see that.

But what he hated the most was he would need to get this man to focus. He could leave him and come back later when Kersey had calmed down and had recovered his wits, but he wasn't going to do that unless he had no choice. If Mr Kersey wasn't up to the questioning, then he would wait for a few days and come back and begin questioning him later. But the sooner he got this over with the better.

Meanwhile, Frank wasn't really surprised the police were going to question him. He had been expecting it inwardly long before they had come, but he had been numb with what had happened to his family to really care. Truthfully Frank had little idea what he could say or add. The story of the apartment spoke for itself as far as he was concerned. He hadn't witnessed the attack and the home invasion of his apartment, and the brutally senseless way his family had been tortured and killed. He didn't even know for

Bullock nodded and led him away to one of the remaining sofas which hadn't been badly damaged. "Thanks. I really appreciate it," the detective said, taking out a battered old notebook. "Could you tell me what happened?"

Despite his feelings that Bullock was not as disgusting as he looked, Frank was suddenly angry about the question. "How many times do I need to answer these questions? I've already repeated what I found 4 times now."

Bullock sighed. "I know, Mr Kersey. But y'see I've only been assigned to the case, and I need to know what happened. I don't like getting the story from other cops, I prefer to speak to the witnesses 'cause I might have questions of my own. Now, can you answer the question, please?"

Angry he might be, but Frank had to admit the detective might have a good point. "Okay, I see your point," Frank sighed and he rubbed his face, "I had just finished work and I was coming in. When I arrived I saw what happened. I found Sonja, my daughter, just staring off into space while her clothes were hanging off of her. Kate, my wife and Charlie were both dead," Frank choked the word out. It seemed to take forever for Kersey to regain his composure and carry on.

"I called you guys in, and I waited. I even asked my neighbours if they'd seen or heard anything, but nobody did. Nobody came to investigate. Nobody tried to stop this!" Frank didn't mean to cry out, but he did, and his voice carried like a wounded animal's howl of pain and rage.

"What do you do for a living, Mr Kersey?"

"I'm an architect; I've always had a thing for designing buildings. Why do you ask?"

"A line of enquiry; I'm trying to build a picture up of what happened here."

"A picture? Isn't it obvious what's happened, the Joker attacked and murdered my family!" Frank argued, wondering if Bullock was as useless as he looked, although a part of him rationally knew the detective was merely going through the proceedings as he should.

"I'm not sure if it was the clown freak, Mr Keresy," Bullock's blunt remark brought Kersey up, and he ignored the stare he was getting from the now widowed architect, "and you would be surprised how often so many murders are committed 'cause one of the family pissed off the wrong guy, dressing the whole thing up in the gimmick of another killer. You'd be surprised how many times I've seen murders like this, dressed up to look like Scarecrow or Joker were responsible for the deaths."

"Is that what you think happened?" Frank was suddenly struck by the logic of the argument. His apartment was a mess, yes, but that didn't mean there weren't other so-called 'supervillains' in Gotham (seriously, why were so many people living their lives like they were in some kid's cartoon or comic book? Was this the world Batman and the Justice League wanted, costumed heroes or freaks fighting off other freaks day by day?) who wouldn't like to commit murders of their own and frame the Joker for it?

"It's happened before, Mr Kersey," Bullock's voice was grim; clearly he had broken this news before, and the idea enlightened Frank of Gotham's true problems, "all of those freaks were inspired by the Joker when he first appeared. D'you know the story of the Joker?"

"Yeah, I think so. Wasn't he some kind of clown?" Frank as a born Gothamite and someone who'd been around for a long time had witnessed the events of the Clown riots.

"Yeah. Arthur Fleck was just an ordinary down on your luck kinda guy, who wanted to make people laugh, except his jokes were terrible and disturbed people so much they felt sick or they were just poor. Fleck was being raised by this psycho woman who claimed to be his mother, but there's evidence that points to the idea she wasn't. When I say she was a psycho, I don't mean a killer; there was just something wrong with her head, and she suffered from all kinds of delusions, like how she and Thomas Wayne were lovers, stuff like that. She and an old boyfriend were abusive to Arthur, and it affected him deeply. Anyhow, one day Arthur had gone through a rough patch, and on a train, three Wayne Enterprise top cats attacked him. Arthur had already been involved in an earlier assault, and so he began carrying around a gun with him - the gun was seen by kids in a children's hospital by a careless accident, and he was fired unsurprisingly. He snapped on the train and shot the Wayne Enterprise guys, and the news got out a clown had shot them dead. When that happened, a movement spread throughout the city against the upper class of the city. It went wild when Arthur, then calling himself 'Joker' shot Murray Franklin live on TV. Joker was arrested and sent to Arkham, but the movement didn't die. As the years passed it gained more and more strength. The Jokerz have been around ever since."

"I remember Murray vaguely. I never found his show funny in the slightest; most of his jokes were just nasty comments about other people. I always personally thought of him as an arrogant jackass more than anything else," Frank commented, remembering the few times he had tuned into that show and cringing at the things Murray had said live on TV. "Could the Jokerz be behind this?"

"Could be. It would fit their MO and the pattern of their crimes. Joker always goes after bigger targets; banks, robberies, jewellery stores and he prefers carving a path of murder throughout the city. The Jokerz are nothing more than a bunch of kids wearing clown masks and makeup, and dealing with petty assault, murder, and muggings. Home invasion, definitely," Bullock turned to face the graffitied walls and nodded, "Anyway, could we get back to the questions?"

"Sure."

"We've already touched on the idea the Jokerz were involved; have you noticed any of them recently?"

Frank narrowed his eyes in thought. "They're always around, yeah. But I haven't seen any near my home, and my family knew better than to get involved with them. As far as I know, my wife and children didn't attract their attention, clearly, I was wrong."

"Mm, sounds like this was a random attack, in that case," Bullock wrote something down in his notebook. The detective was leaning more towards that line of thought, but truthfully he wasn't holding out much hope of finding the bastards responsible. They were likely long gone by now, and even if it was the Jokerz, then finding them was going to be next to impossible.

Unfortunately, Kersey seemed to realise that. "You won't be able to find them, will you?"

Bullock was not one of those cops who would give in. If he needed to find a Joker, and take the law into his own hands and cover it up to find a lead, then he would. Bullock had been doing that since he was a young officer when he had seen the rotten flesh of the GCPD. Unlike Montoya and Gordon, Bullock was realistic enough to see there were some things a cop should use. The moment he had hit the beat as a cop and seen how bad Gotham was and how the GCPD had been affected, Bullock had known he would need to get down and as dirty as them to play the game or he'd have been transferred out of the GCPD by Loeb if he caused any problem as Jim almost had years ago.

Bullock didn't really need to play the dirty game anymore. While he wasn't omnipotent and knew how many of his officers were on the take, Jim Gordon had turned the GCPD around. Some could say Batman had been the catalyst, but Bullock didn't believe that. While Batman had to take some credit, Bullock personally believed Gordon would have become commissioner and would have been responsible for a great deal of change in Gotham.

Personally, Bullock wished Jim Gordon was solely responsible. At least under him, Arkham wouldn't be a revolving door for the freaks. Even Jim became frustrated by how easy it was for the freaks to burst out of the Asylum while Batman just preached they needed to be sent there, or they would have crossed the line.

Bullock could understand the point of view, okay, but sometimes the line needed to be crossed. If Batman couldn't see that this was what his enemies caused, then he was even more stupid than Bullock believed.

"Mr Kersey, if I had my way, the bastards responsible for this would be here, right now," Bullock's voice held a sincere promise, but Frank couldn't help but feel the policeman was just giving him reassuring words.

Suddenly it was all too much for Frank Kersey. "Why did this happen?" He asked numbly. "Why did my family have to die? People think Batman should be clearing up the city, but he isn't is he? I've heard dozens say he and those freaks treat the city like a chessboard with us in the middle."

Bullock didn't disagree with the man because he felt he had a point. "The pointy-eared freak focuses mostly on bigger crimes, Mr Kersey," he said, although he knew Batman was unafraid of using his fancy moves on anyone, and he had to point that out otherwise the guy got the wrong idea, "but he does take on bastards like the Jokerz."

Kersey didn't know if Bullock was just making excuses, but one look told him the detective was just simply pointing out the cold hard facts. "He should have focused on the Jokerz when he had the chance instead of letting them get this bad."

"I know. I think I'm done with the questions, for now, Mr Kersey, but if anything comes up I might come back and ask you a few more. For now, do you plan on staying here, or do you have anywhere else to go?"

"No, sadly," Kersey hadn't given any real thought about where he was going to be staying for the next few days, but now the detective had pointed it out for him he didn't really want to stay here and be reminded of what he had lost. "I might pack an overnight bag and tell one of my friends about what happened."

"Okay. I'll be in touch regardless," Bullock said and they exchanged phone numbers, "if you have any questions then give me a call."

"I will, thanks detective," Frank nodded. He was still shaken by the nightmare his life had become, and he was at a loss to decide what he should do next.