'Jack Bracket' was currently surveying the scenery in his club. Gotham Nights was the newest nightclub that popped up out of nowhere in Park Row. Which was odd really, there was basically no reason for a nightclub (or any kind of establishment of the like) to be here. But it helped out a lot. It made the neighborhood money, which in turn helped to make the place at least a little better than it had been before.
And of course, Jack Bracket was 'donating' almost all the funds he made to the bartenders who made drinks and the DJs who he'd picked up off the street. It was a new beginning for most of the employees here. People who had nowhere to go to, or nothing else to do besides crime. It helped. Even if the help was bare bones, it was something. And for these people? That something was everything. Jack smiled as he wished his employees a good night. He had to head out.
Little did they know, he was going to stay very close by.
(...)
The Court of Owls had been a fierce opponent. Perhaps the hardest thing Lance had ever fought against. But he and Bruce were able to take the Court down. Burn them to ashes and make sure none of the members could ever turn innocent people into monsters again. Made sure that nobody else died because of the machinations of the Court.
This left their underground tunnel system abandoned. The secret entrances in and above the sewers went unused for years. Thankfully these tunnels were still pretty much hidden from everyone else. Only a select few heroes even knew the tunnels existed, and only the Bats knew where the tunnels were. And since all of them were dead, the secret is left only to Lance. And wouldn't you know it, a large chamber that belonged to the Court was almost directly underneath the building he bought. Lance was grateful most people didn't look into Jack Bracket. Joey gave him a very basic backstory that wasn't very good for hiding against anything more than the government.
Still, he didn't have any enemies in high places right now. Just the Gotham Rogues, most of which haven't had the displeasure of meeting him yet. Nearly two months of vigilanting as the Arkham Knight and he hasn't run into a single Rogue. Weird. But who knows where they were?
Lance did. Lance knew exactly where they were. And tonight? Tonight he was paying them all a visit.
(...)
The Iceberg Lounge was packed tonight, and Dent hated it. He took a sip of his watered down whisky and nearly threw it at the bartender's face. Though maybe he should just go strangle Cobblepot. That'd be a more effective way of getting a good drink. Speaking of the flightless asshole, he was partying up a storm over in the VIP section.
Whatever. It didn't really matter much to Harvey. Hell he's surprised he's even here. Last time he saw Oswald, the man had swindled away a deal from him that could have made him thousands. And being a crime lord isn't cheap. He really should shoot the guy. It'd be pretty easy now that he thinks about it. Plus Sionis would find it funny. Waylon might even eat the body; he already bit off the arm of one of Penguin's bodyguards for getting to close to the giant reptile.
Harvey pulled out his coin and flipped it. He softly growled when he realized Oswald was going to live another day.
"Riddle me this! I am everything you are, yet I weigh nothing. The entire world could fit inside me. What am I?" Nygma asked Victor. The ice cold man just stared at him.
"I've always hated puzzles." Victor says, and Nygma frowns.
"It's an easy one! Doesn't anyone know this!?" He yells into the crowd of villans and guards. Everyone is silent. Edward simply leans back and sighs.
"I never thought I'd miss the Bat..." He says solemnly. Harvey just shakes his head. What a lunatic...
"A mirror." A heavily modulated voice says from above. Nearly everyone's head snaps up, and the bodyguards all raise their weapons as a... A tank of a Batman drops from the ceiling.
No, not Batman... Dent growls, his coin already in his hand, ready to decide the fate of the imposter.
"The answer is a mirror. Right Nygma?" The newcomer asks. Edward's eyes turn calculating.
"Yes indeed... Riddle me this! What has many teeth, but cannot bite?" He snaps out quickly. The facsimile of the Bat scoffs.
"A comb. Come on Nygma, give me a hard one." Edward opens his mouth, but Penguin beats him to it.
"This party is invitation only. You weren't invited." The fake Batman laughs. It's harsh and chilling through his modulated voice.
"Don't worry. I'm not staying long... I just wanted to pass along my warning." Mask pulls out a gun as he stalks closer than the rest towards the intruder. He raises his gun at the man, about ten feet away from him.
"The only warning here punk is for you. Get lost and ditch the fake Batsuit." The man tilts his head slightly, before chuckling.
"Oh, you think I'm supposed to be Batman?" The newcomer laughs again, throwing his head back. It's... It's fucking terrifying if Harvey was being honest. No one else seems to disagree with that thought. Even Sionis is holding his gun tighter. After a short time, the fake Bat stops laughing and just shakes his head.
"I'm not Batman. I'm not even a Bat. I'm worse." He says, and then turns his head slowly to look at the sea of villans around him.
"Batman is dead. The rest of the birdies have left the nest, destined to never fly again..." He says.
"But no need to worry. Gotham is safe. Because the Arkham Knight can handle it from here." Sionis shoots the supposed Arkham Knight, yet the bullet bounces off of the armor and hits a bodyguard in the knee. Said man falls to the ground with a shout.
"Oof. Hey Penguin! I hope you pay that guy enough to deal with this shit!" The Arkham Knight yells, the air of fear and foreboding now seemingly gone. Oswald looks over to the guard, and then back to the Arkham Knight. He takes his cigar out of his mouth.
"I'll give you ten seconds to get out of my property before my guys start shooting." The Arkham Knight just shakes his head. And then the aura of fear is back.
"Don't forget what I said. You don't want to make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." He then throws his hand to the ground, and smoke suddenly envelopes the building. The smoke alarm goes off.
"Someone turn that damn thing off!" Someone yells, Dent isn't sure who. By the time the smoke subsides, the Arkham Knight is gone.
But he's not forgotten. The festivities end shortly afterwards. A few people ask if they think he's going to be a problem. Penguin and Mask say the fake is just all talk and no bite. Croc and Freeze don't really have an opinion on the matter. Riddler is just happy someone can play his stupid games. Two-Face though? He can tell that some serious shit is about to happen. He's not going to underestimate this guy. The last guy he did that to was Batman.
And that was a mistake.
(...)
After Lance had given the Rogues the 'fuck around and find out' speech, he retreated back to the Asylum. There was a lot more work involved in the solo vigilante game than he thought. There was a lot of ground he had to cover and even after two months, he hasn't made much of an impact yet. The cops only met him twice now, and other than a drug ring, he's taken out only petty crime/misdemeanors. He had to do more. Do better. To that end, Lance has a four part plan to help get Gotham back in shape.
Step 1: Ensure that Crime Alley is able to make money to raise both the opinion and the safety of the neighborhood.
He was already doing a good job of that with his nightclub, which as it turned out was making a nice chunk of change. He'd still use Deathstroke's resources and/or money hacked from Luthor's bank account for his nightly activities. Everything the club made mostly went either into the Alley or in the bank accounts of his employees.
There was a few more things he can do to help keep the Alley up and coming so that it can be nicer. Safer. It'll never be as pretty as Gotham Heights or the Diamond District, but he can at least make the Alley into something better than before. Jason would be proud.
Step 2: Aquire information about all the current gangs.
There was a lot that had changed in the three years he'd been away from Gotham. Buildings open that he'd never heard of, establishments closed that he'd remembered. And to top it off, there was more gangs than he'd recalled too. He wanted - no, needed - information on them all. Sure, the Rogues and their own gangs caused the biggest problems to the city, but the smaller problems added up too. And every problem led to one more life ruined or someone else killed. And that wasn't acceptable. Unlike Step 1, he didn't have a clear cut idea of how to fix this yet. He'd probably need to do a ton of research to figure out what gangs were around. Maybe hack into the GCPD. Speaking of...
Step 3: Weed out the corruption inside the Gotham Police Force.
With Jim long dead, the GCPD has become laughably incompetent. If Lance had to guess based on the research he'd done so far, around half the GCPD was either corrupt or on someone's payroll. That can't continue, at ALL. The entire way this all works out is if the people Lance delivers to the cops end up in jail, not released a few blocks away or worse, killed before they reach the nearest precinct. Now there was a few ways to go about this.
He could pay off the cops himself, but between what little money he secures for himself at the club and what he can reasonably ask for from Slade, it's a terrible idea that won't work at all. He could also try to dig up every piece of dirt and get them jailed, but that's also going to take work to uncover. There's no good way to go about this, and Lance is stumped. Which also leads to another step he can't figure out.
Step 4: Work out a patrol route that got him through all of Gotham in one night in a timely fashion.
This was also more difficult than he orginally thought. Gotham was large enough that he'd only be able to check out the entire city twice in a seven hour period. That was also something that wasn't acceptable. He needed to somehow get into the security cameras around the entire city. If he could do that, he'd at least be able to check on places remotely. But that would take time, effort and if anyone in charge ever noticed, he'd lose all the hard work he'd made and have to start from scratch. He didn't have time for that. Like Step 2, he also didn't have a good plan for this. Like Step 3, he didn't have an idea of how to solve this.
Lance crawled into the sewers with a large sigh. There was a lot he needed to plan for to help keep the city as safe as possible. But he couldn't think of any solutions to Step 3 or 4. It was a problem. It was so much of a problem in fact, that while Lance was busy lost in thought, he nearly tripped over something in the sewers.
"What the fuck?" He says, looking down at what appeared to be a very clean, very expensive bag. A bag placed right next to one of the hidden entrances the Court used to get into their tunnels. Lance looked down at the bag in thought.
He used his thermal vision and there doesn't seem to be a bomb. Cautiously, he opens the leathery, expensive bag and finds both a neatly, color coded set of papers and a few hard drives. There's also a note.
Dear Arkham Knight. I know that you may already know all of this information, but I've still decided that it was in Gotham's best interests to ensure that you receive this. Details on all the gangs, both minor and major that I've found while searching around Gotham are inside. Please use this and make our city safer. I will try to give you more information if possible.
I give you my sincerest regards - Alvin Draper.
Lance re-reads the note a few times, before looking back down at the bag.
"Huh." He says lamely. He slowly puts everything away inside the bag and, after checking for trackers of any kind, brings it with him into the tunnels.
Step 5: Figure out who the fuck Alvin Draper is.
(...)
As it turns out, Alvin Draper is a very good fake identity. There's a birth record making the man just over twenty-five, yet the birth certificate doesn't correspond with the hospital it has listed. There is also no photographic identification he can pull from, even though the man apparently has a driver's license. Or rather, there is a photo, but when he cross checks it, it belongs to a dead guy from Arizona. He briefly wonders if the man was murdered by 'Alvin' but a quick check shows that the man died in a fire.
Tragic yes, but nothing that will give him anymore information. He bites his lip. He almost calls up Joey. As good as Lance is, Joey will always be better at this stuff. But, Lance needs to do this by himself. He can't rely on others forever. Besides, if this mystery man really does just want to help, than there's nothing to worry about.
So, Lance instead focuses on what he can do. And the first thing he can do is to sort through the information Draper gave him. Which is honestly a major help. In fact, this basically checks off Step 2 from the list. There's detailed information about which gangs are located where, what activities they usually do and what contraband they sell, and even the danger that Draper thinks each gang poses. It's impressive. Really impressive. So much so, that once he's completely done organizing everything and setting it all up on his systems, he takes Draper's letter and writes on the back.
"Draper. I have no clue who you are, and I honestly don't care. You've saved me a large hassle that would've taken me a few weeks to solve. If you have anymore info, drop it off where you did before.
-Arkham Knight."
He's about to put the letter down when a thought occurs. If Draper really does want to help... He knows that blind trust isn't a good thing. He knows that. Bruce, for as paranoid as he could be, usually had a reason to be that way. And Lance was the same. Still, maybe this could also be a solution to Step 3...
"P.S. If possible, do you think you can aquire hard evidence of as many crimes as you can find from the dirty cops around Gotham? This is a request, so don't feel obligated to do so."
Lance figures he can drop this and the bag both back off where he had first gotten it. He also needs to see if any of the nearby cameras caught anything. Which means he'll need to get into the systems nearby at the very least. Lance cracks his neck.
It's going to be a very long night. But, who knows? Maybe this will get him more info, both on Gotham's dirty cops and on Draper.
(...)
A few days later, Lance finds himself patrolling through the Bowery. He still hasn't found any good solution to his patrol route, so he just tackles a few parts of the city each night (it's far from ideal, but it'll have to do for now). He's grateful that he picked the Bowery as his main hunting ground tonight, because he's stopped near a dozen muggers and purse snatchers in the last three hours alone.
There's a lot of petty thievery tonight, but this does work out in Lance's favor. The more people that know about him, the better. He doesn't want to hide like Bruce first did. Lance wants the criminals to know he's out there. That there's something to fear. And while he wants to scare the ever loving shit outta crooks, he also wants to exude a safe, approachable aura. Like Dick.
Like he used to.
So the best way to do that, is knock around a few thieves, make some jokes with the victims and then fuck off. Be approachable, yet scary. It was a... Difficult balance to achieve. Now he knows why Bruce needed Dick.
As Lance is grappling near the edges of the Bowery, he sees two men trying to discreetly follow a young kid. He can't tell much about the kid from here; They have on a large hoodie that almost goes to their knees, and the hood is secured tightly around the head. They're wearing a very beat up pair of... Light up sketchers. That's about it on the description, at least until he can get closer.
The kid is being smart, taking turns left and right to confirm they're being followed. Which Lance already knew, but it at least was nice that both the kid and him had confirmed it. As the kid made a turn into an alleyway, the two men followed the child. Lance perched himself on a nearby rooftop, and watched in amusement as the kid instantly jumped into a dumpster. No hesitation at all, just jumped right in.
The kid could jump.
And funnily enough, as the idiots turned into the alley, they were confused.
"Hey kid? Come on out! It's dangerous at this time of night!" One of them says, and Lance nearly scoffs. They weren't very good at hiding their intentions.
"Yeah kid, let us take you home!" The other guy says. Lance decides it's time to act. He jumps down right in front of the two crooks.
"Hello! Arkham Knight here! What's this about a lost child?" He says in a sweet, fake voice. The two men audibly gasp.
"The Bat!?" The first man yells, and then runs off. The other guy stands stone still. Lance just shakes his head.
"How rude. I said I'm the Arkham Knight!" He then turns to look at the other man, and clasps him roughly by the shoulder.
"How about you get lost, and stop following around kids in the dark?" Lance steps closer to the man.
"Because if I catch you doing this again..." He unholsters his gun and points right between the man's legs.
"Get my drift?" He says coldly. The other man nods slowly, and then as soon as Lance lets go, the man books it out of the alley so fast, you'd think he was a speedster. Lance holsters his gun back as he heads over to the dumpster.
"Yo kiddo! It's safe to come out!" He says, harshly hitting the side of the metal container. Instantly, a head pops up out of the trash.
"Ouch! What the fuck!" A young, squeaky, female sounding voice says. Lance stares at the hooded child.
"Get home kid. Don't wander around in the dark anymore, ok?" He says, his tone softer than before. The girl(?) scoffs.
"Of course it's not safe! It's Gotham! At night!" The kid says, her hands raising up above her head at that last point. Lance smiles underneath the helmet, and then offers a hand to the child.
"I'll take you home, how's that?" He says, and while the kid grabs his hand, she then snorts.
"That's still stranger danger you know." Lance snorts right back.
"You mean you haven't heard of me yet!?" He asks, his voice mimicking hurt. The almost certainly a girl rolls her green eyes, which he can see as he helps her out of the dumpster. Her hood comes down as she hits the ground, a large tuft of unkempt, red hair falls out. She quickly tucks her hair back in her dirty hoodie and pulls the hood back up.
"What if I don't got a home?" She says in a voice both challenging and yet... There's a touch of sadness there. Lance kneels down till he's eye level with the kid. She's pretty small; she barely comes up to his waist.
"Well then first I'd offer you a bite over at BatBurger." He says, and then raises his hand.
"I'm the Arkham Knight. You?" He asks. For a second, he doesn't think she'll respond. But then she shakes his hand.
"Carrie. Carrie Kelley." The young girl says.