Batman awoke in an alley he didn't recognize. He was in pain. A lot of pain. Groaning, he sat up and looked around. He found himself alone with no idea where he was or how he got there. He had vague memories of fighting a powerful villain whom he couldn't remember, a blinding flash of light, intense pain, then darkness. Had he died? He didn't see his parents anywhere waiting for him to join them, he still had a pulse, and his entire body hurt from whatever fight he had just been in, all of which indicated he was still very much alive.

Taking his grappling hook off his belt he fired it and grappled up onto a nearby roof. Once he was on the roof he looked around and found himself surrounded by buildings he didn't recognize. Whatever city this was, he had never been here before.

Taking out a GPS device from his utility belt he discovered he was somewhere on the east coast of America, just north of Boston. It was strange though. He may not have been familiar with every city in the United States, but he knew for a fact there shouldn't have been a city here in this location so close to Boston. And it wasn't like cities just popped up out of nowhere. Something was very wrong here.

Just as he was about to start investigating, he heard a woman scream.

Investigating could wait. He immediately sprung into action and rushed in the direction of the screams. He heard a gunshot right as he reached the entrance of the alleyway and arrived just in time to see the woman fall to the ground with a huge chunk missing from her head, clearly dead.

"Stupid bitch. I told you to shut the fuck up." The assailant growled before kicking the corpse.

Batman snuck up on the murderer before grabbing him by the shoulder. When he tried turning to face him, Batman punched him in the face hard enough to knock out several teeth, sending him sprawling. Tripping over the corpse, the murderer crashed to the ground. Cursing the murderer tried to flip over and shoot at Batman only for Batman to grab his wrist and break it, causing the murderer to cry out in agony and forcing him to drop his weapon.

Grabbing the murderer by the shirt, Batman picked him up and slammed him against a wall.

"W-who the fuck…" The murderer started only to be cut off as Batman punched him in the gut, causing him to puke.

"Shut up. You only speak if I let you… Where are we right now?" Batman demanded.

"Fu… F-fuck you, freak…"

Batman grabbed the man's other wrist. "Talk or I'll break this one too."

Batman could see the fear in the murderer's eyes. "I… Like this alley or…?"

"This city. Where are we?" Batman demanded.

"B-Brockton Bay…?"

"What year is it?" Batman demanded.

"1996…?"

Batman frowned at that. He had never heard of Brockton Bay and he had apparently gone back in time by several decades somehow.

"Last question. Who was that woman you just murdered?"

"Fuck, I don't know! Just some random slut! I just wanted to have a good time but—" The murderer was cut off as batman slammed his head into the wall, knocking him out.

"Wrong answer." Batman said. He then proceeded to tie the murderer's feet together with a cord before hanging him upside down from a street-light in front of the alley. He wasn't going anywhere until the police arrived. Reaching into the murderer's pocket, Batman took out a flip-phone the man had been carrying and dialed 911.

"Hello, you've reached emergency services. What is the nature of your emergency?" Greeted the operator.

"I would like to report a murder."

"Is the assailant a parahuman?"

Parahuman? He hadn't heard that specific term before but he could surmise the gist of what it meant. It was clearly an equivalent term to 'metahuman'. A person with superpowers. Which, clearly, this thug was not. "No. He's a common thug who shot a woman he was trying to rape in an alley. He is currently unconscious hanging upside down from a street-light waiting to be arrested. Impossible to miss."

"I see. Could you give me your current location?"

Batman looked at a street sign and found the exact street he was on before giving the location to the operator.

"Excellent. The police are on the way. I assume you are a parahuman, judging by what you said about him hanging from a street-light. May I ask your cape name?" The operator asked.

"Cape name?" Batman asked.

"It's your hero identity. Your private identity is not required… Are you okay, sir?" The operator asked.

"I'm fine. Just new. I'm Batman." Batman lied. He was absolutely not new to this. He had just never heard that terminology before.

"Alright. Thank you, Batman. A lot of new heroes tend to rush off after arresting someone. Would you be willing to stay put and give a witness testimony?" The operator asked

"I'm afraid not." Batman said before hanging up and stuffing the phone back in the murderer's pocket. He then fired a grappling hook and zipped up onto a roof top before rushing away from the scene. He had no intention of staying there and being questioned by the police at this stage. Not until he had a lot more information. And he knew just the place to get that information, without access to his batcomputer. A local library.

After finding a library he quickly picked the lock before slipping inside. It was dark so he activated his cowl's night vision. Finding a public computer in the back of the library he was relieved to find it had a broadband connection rather than dial-up. That would certainly make things a bit faster for him.

Turning on the computer he started by looking up the date on the computer itself. November 12th, 1996. He confirmed this by checking online as well. He really had ended up a couple decades back in time. Not particularly happy with this but taking the information in stride, he continued and looked up 'Gotham City'. There were no results. He looked up Wayne Enterprises and was again met with no results. He looked up himself. Nothing. He looked up his parents. Still nothing. It seemed that anything in regards to the Waynes and Gotham simply did not exist in this world.

That had cemented the idea that he had not just gone back in time but had ended up in a completely different world in his mind. So he started his research into this world. He wanted to learn as much about it as possible. To that end he started with history, going all the way back to 1635 and what should have been the founding of Gotham. He didn't have time to go as in depth as he would have liked.

He learned that much of history was the same as the history he was familiar with, save for some key differences such as certain events not happening that should have, such as the founding of Gotham. And Metropolis was just a small city in Illinois rather than the sprawling mega-city it was in his world. However, everything changed in 1982 when a golden man was found floating above the ocean. Said golden man later being named "Scion".

After his appearance, people with superpowers started to appear. These people were later called "parahumans". Parahumans apparently gain their powers after suffering a "trigger event" which was essentially just the worst day of their lives. As a result many parahumans were criminals. However, some decided to become mercenaries or heroes instead. In response to the parahuman threat the government had formed both the Parahuman Response Team and Protectorate. The Protectorate being a hero organization sponsored by the government that worked under the PRT while the PRT was a paramilitary organization that also encompassed police and/or emergency functions in regards to parahuman activity. Other heroes were all vigilantes, independently sponsored teams, or corporate teams which were essentially just mercenaries or private security.

There were also something known as the "unwritten rules" such as: Respect the secret identities of fellow parahumans. No attacking the civilian family members of parahumans. No violence or using powers during a meeting between multiple parties. Try not to use lethal force. No widespread attacks against civilians. No enslaving others with mind control. No rape or sexual assault of any kind. And more.

He read through all of the rules and could agree with many of them. No use of lethal force especially. Though he sincerely doubted many villains followed that rule. And looking it up he saw that villains had violated the rule of not attacking heroes in their civilian identities before. So he was not about to risk relying on the unwritten rules under any circumstances. Some he already followed normally, some he did not. Some he could accept and follow without complaint, such as not attacking villains who volunteered to fight during an attack by these 'Endbringer' creatures, Leviathan and Behemoth.

That led him into looking up everything he could about the two endbringers. Unfortunately not much was known about either of them, except the places they destroyed, what they looked like, how powerful they were, and some basic abilities they had. Still what he learned was enough to make him wish Superman were there to help him since he had nothing that could even so much as scratch them. At least not that he had with him at the moment. Maybe he could build a suit to be able to fight them back in his world, but he didn't have the tools or resources here in this world.

Moving on from the endbringers he kept researching parahumans and discovered that someone called "Professor Haywire" opened a portal to several alternate realities sometime before 1988 and his actions ended up revealing the existence of several alternate earths to the public. The Earth Batman had ended up on was referred to as Earth Bet.

Unfortunately Dr. Haywire's equipment was confiscated and travel between these alternate Earths was prohibited due to several treaties.

To Batman this provided further evidence that he was in a completely different reality. He needed to find a way back to his reality. Batman knew Nightwing, Barbara, and Jason could handle Gotham for him while he was gone, or at least he hoped they could, but he still didn't like it. What if Joker broke out of Arkham again and they couldn't handle the clown's schemes without him? What if the Court of Owls started assassinating major figures in Gotham and they couldn't stop it without him? What if Darkseid or Doomsday showed up and Superman and the Justice League needed his help? What if… What if… What if… So many what ifs kept playing in his mind.

Batman sighed and shook his head. He knew this was going to take a lot of time and research but he needed to get back to his world. He just had to hope the obvious time dilation between their worlds would be able to buy him enough time to get back soon. That or his allies back on his earth were trying to find a way to get him back and could get results faster than he could on his own.

Batman wiped the computer of everything he had done that night before turning it off and getting up. Exiting the library he already had his next goal in mind. He didn't know how long he was going to be trapped in this world so he was going to need to 'exist' here. As such, he was going to need to forge his birth certificate and enter it into the government's records, get a driver's license, forge his school records and diploma, and forge his tax and bank records. He would also need to do the same for his parents just in case anyone tried to investigate his family. Unfortunately, this was going to take time and effort. He knew he wasn't going to be able to do all of this in one night. But he was a couple decades in the past which would make things easier since security systems would be less developed.

For tonight, however, he was going to find a place for him to stay during the day since he was now technically homeless and without a penny to his name. He was going to have to build Wayne Enterprises here in this world from the ground up.

Meanwhile, Contessa had been about to go to bed when the path to victory changed. There was a new player somewhere in the world. She didn't know who it was, if he or she was a cape, where they were, if it was just one or multiple people, or basically anything about the person. The path didn't give her such information. However, she knew the individual was important based on how large of an impact they had on her paths. Some paths now had far less steps, making things easier. Some had more.

They had to tread carefully with this individual. Immediate assassination was apparently an option to restore the paths to what they had been. However restoring the paths was not necessarily the best option. They needed to find, evaluate, and monitor whoever it was before making a decision. There was no path suggesting this, it was merely her own thoughts as his presence did indeed reduce the steps of several important paths, which was quite valuable in and of itself.

Contessa contemplated all of this. She was going to have to inform Dr. Mother and the other members of this in the morning. For now, however, she simply had to finish her dinner.

Note: I was originally considering letting Batman have the Hellbat armor, but I think that would make things like endbringer fights way too easy. Also I wasn't sure if having Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Robin, Damian, Alfred, and Cyborg come along for the ride was a good idea either as I was considering having it be the first appearance of the Hellbat armor, after Batman saved Damian. Honestly, cyborg was the biggest concern there considering he has a mother box and might have been able to devise a way to use it to get back to their own universe. So this story takes place a bit earlier in the timeline than that, in case anyone was curious.