A fanfiction tribute to Kevin Conroy, who will forever be remembered as the best Batman voice actor
Starhammer 50k: Legend Of The Night
Space Batman with Warhammer and Star Wars elements! Popcross Studios did it first.
NOTE: This is an Encyclopedia Chapter, which means it is dedicated to describing the mixed lore of the Starhammer 50k Multiverse.
Blizzard Force Hoth will be a more ambitious crossover battlefield project than my last two episodes put together, and I'm taking my time to plan well and make it as sublime as I can.
LORE STARTS HERE
You already know the story of Bruce Wayne.
The only son of a wealthy family in Gotham City, who tragically lost his parents when a petty criminal shot them both dead. Two bullets from a gangster's gun destroyed Bruce's childhood and removed any sense of innocence.
However, he wasn't alone... his family's butler, Alfred, was there to be a foster father for him. And Alfred was completely fed up with the rampant crime in Gotham, an attitude that Bruce came to share, obviously.
So much so, that the young Wayne began desiring a chance to fight back against the criminals who had taken his parents from him and caused so much suffering in the city. And so Bruce went on a journey with Alfred, visiting country after country, learning all the skills and abilities he would need to bring justice to the mob.
He had all the money he needed to pay the best teachers and tutors, who would school him in every form of combat, stealth, and survival, as well as dozens of other things, ranging from escape artistry, detective work and disguises, to 12 PhD's worth of knowledge in virtually all subjects.
He trained himself to physical and mental perfection, rendering himself a living weapon without equal, and came back to Gotham a changed man.
But before he started his crime-fighting career, Bruce realized he was lacking in one quality: How to make criminals afraid.
Just then, a bat crashed through one of the windows in the mansion, and Bruce remembered that there was a huge cave full of bats underneath Wayne Manor. This gave him the inspiration he needed to forge a persona that would strike terror into the cold, black hearts of hardened criminals.
And so Bruce Wayne became Batman, a Dark Knight waging a crusade against crime and corruption!
Now... how do we fit that character arc into this sci-fi fantasy multiverse that I've got going here? How do we modify Batman's story to be more appropriate for the 51st Millennium?
I know exactly how!
Remember the Night Lords from Warhammer, which were basically the Space Marine equivalent of the Joker, because of how sadistic and cruel they were? Well, imagine if the Night Lords were a force for justice instead, and Batman was one of their foremost leaders!
So combine all the insane skill and intellect of Batman, with the superhuman abilities of the Adeptus Astartes, in particular the vampire powers of the Night Lords. And then make them serve my customized Galactic Republic.
Here's Space Batman's story (and I should remind you, the YouTuber called Popcross Studios already did this sort of thing on his channel.)
Brutus Wayne was the sole heir to his wealthy aristocratic family, and enjoyed a life of luxury that most children growing up on the urban planet of Nostramo wouldn't even come close to having.
But his young life, (and his future too,) changed forever when his mother and father, Tigris and Minerva Wayne, were brutally murdered in front of him by a street thug, who wasn't merely content with robbing the wealthy family.
It seemed as if young Brutus would be left alone to suffer, with no one to take care of him. But luckily, someone, a father figure, was there for him- his family's butler, Alphys Pennyworth. He's not related to Alphys from Undertale at all.
Alphys was charged with looking after the boy, and oftentimes he would ramble about how infuriated he was with the rampant, seemingly omnipresent crime in planet Nostramo's hive cities, as well as the fact that the criminals and outlaws just kept getting away with their heinous acts. It was almost as if the mafia had control over the city government... oh, wait, they totally did.
This desire for justice that the family butler spoke of rubbed off on young Brutus Wayne, and he realized that he had the potential to do something to fight against the injustice going on.
His dream of becoming a crusader against interstellar vice and villainy was something he'd vow to make a reality.
At the age of 13, Brutus went on an odyssey across the realms, learning every skill, studying every subject, and educating himself in every field of knowledge he needed to keep his vow, while training his body and mind to perfection (much like normal Batman.)
He...
Learned the arts of stealth, espionage and assassination from the Dark Elves of Gomorrah and the Tieflings of the Nine Hells,
Mastered every martial art and fighting style listed in the Galactic Republic's military database,
Picked up on detective work, escape artistry, multilingualism, and spy disguise in the Adeptus Arbites,
Got invested in survival techniques, tracking, vehicle piloting and engineering know-how while enrolling at Bellatrix Naval Academy,
And of course, has 12 PhD's worth of knowledge in his brain, and is twice as strong and twice as fast as the best Olympic athletes, with reaction times that blur the human eye, and tenacity and endurance beyond anything seen in real life.
But... there was one last crucial segment in Brutus Wayne's quest to become stronger. Up to this point, he was a normal human.
That's right, he signed up for Space Marine training, and got the Primaris gene-seed conversion for adults, which gave him 23 new organs, all with different purposes and unique quirks.
The Night Lords Legion was built to cast down the multiverse's tyrants, despots, demagogues, and crime lords. They strike out against injustice, and liberate the oppressed from the oppressors.
The Night Lords' unique superhuman traits, sourced from their Primarch, Konrad Curze, (who acts as one of the Republic's 101 chief governors,) include a sonic scream attack (like Black Canary!) and creating terrifying illusions, in addition to perfect vision in complete darkness.
Brutus Wayne, grown to manhood, and having gone through thick and thin to fulfill his oath of vengeance, was a perfect recruit for the Night Lords. When he became an official battle-brother, he climbed through the ranks, fighting on battlefield after battlefield, and single-handedly toppling authoritarian regimes, until he became the Chapter Master, his Primarch's envoy and the person who commanded the Night Lords fleet in most of their engagements (because Konrad Curze and his fellow Primarchs were usually very busy with political matters on the home front.)
Finally, but most importantly, he came home, and exacted his revenge on the gangs of Nostramo, cleaning them up within a few months.
Hell, even the Hutts were scared. No crime lord was safe from Brutus Wayne, the Night Haunter.
Author's Note: The Primarchs only command their legions of Space Marines, Spartans, D party characters and Jedi Knights when a particularly dire threat needs to be addressed, such as someone like Vecna (from the end of Episode 2) showing up on an important planet.
Gradually, the Night Lords would gain many more gifted members, (which I will call the Bat-Family of the 51st Millennium,) including Darius "Rick" Grayson, Tim Drakkus, Barbaria Gordos, James Gordos, Katernia Kane, Selina Kyros, Azrael Dreemurr, and Jarvis Todd.
And they maintained a watch over Nostramo and its surrounding worlds, keeping their eyes peeled for lawbreakers.
So, to put it into perspective: The first 3 Robins, Batgirl, Batwoman, Commissioner Gordon, Catwoman, and Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley,) with a metric ton of Warhammer and Star Wars themes and crossover lore attached to them.
Future plans: Brutus Wayne will show up in Episode 3: Blizzard Force Deployed
He and a certain ice queen... I mean Throne Warden, will inspect the defenses of the new Echo Megabase on Hoth. Whether it will prove sufficient to withstand any invading force is still a mystery.
One last thing to know about Episode 3 is that it will feature the first notable alien and otherwise non-human named characters. Ahsoka Tano and the giants from Forgotten Realms didn't really count.