Chapter One: Gotham City
Turned out, Willow couldn't find out a lot about the man known as Batman, except what she could find in the Gotham City newspapers. And she doubted that even half of that was true. Buffy reviewed all of this on the plane back to the states. She not only read the articles about Batman, but she checked to make sure there weren't any reports of strange going's on, or at least not more than usual for the city. From what she could tell, there were a lot of freaks there.
What bothered her the most, however, was the attitude of the city towards the Batman. He risked his life bringing bad guys to justice, going and doing what the police could or would not, and all the people did was blame him for crime being so high, for people getting hurt, and officers of the law getting killed. According to one column, Batman was the reason all the criminals were flooding into Gotham City in the first place. That his standing up to the bad element was drawing them to the city. That was so preposterous; Buffy had to wonder why he even bothered to keep doing what he was doing. The city he risked his life for was so appreciative (NOT!). She knew what that felt like, to go out and try to make the world a safer place. She had been chosen, while he had chosen to do this on his own. If Buffy had had her wish, she would have not been a Slayer. She had to respect his determination for sticking with it.
She decided to pack it in and rest for the remainder of the flight. She had already come up with a foolproof plan: as soon as the plane landed in Gotham she would find a hotel, sit it out until nightfall, and then hang around on the roof tops until the Bat showed up, explain the situation, and offer her services. . . Slayer services. Easy as pie. Really, how hard could it to be to convince a man who dressed up like a giant flying rodent that she was a girl chosen to fight evil in the form of vampires and demons, and that they were invading his city. Oh, and that an old woman in Paris had told her that there was some kind of Insurrection about to happen in Gotham and that she had to hang around in his shadow to stop it from happening.
No problem at all. Why would he not believe her?
Snickering sarcastically to herself, and avoiding the strange looks she was getting from the people seated around her, Buffy sighed, and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.
In her dream, she had the feeling she was being watched. Not by a malicious presence, but one that dwelled in the shadows around her. For some reason, she felt safe knowing that the shadows were not empty or full of creatures that wanted to kill her. When she called out to whoever it was, and she was sure it was a person, they did not answer. When she looked closer at the shadows, she could see someone there, but when she tried to get closer, they moved. They moved very quickly, much too quickly for a human, but yet she knew this person was fully human. Once she got a glimpse of the end of a cape, and then . . . .
She woke with a start as the man next to her, elbowed her roughly in the side. "OH!" She cried, stopping herself at the last minute from hitting back. The man smiled sheepishly at her, apologized, and just then the flight attendant announced that they would be landing at Gotham International Airport in twenty minutes. Buffy fastened her seat belt, again resisting the urge to elbow the man back, and sat back to enjoy the last of her flight. The best part in her opinion – the landing part – aside from the actual getting off the plane after landing part.
As she waited for her luggage to come around on the carousel, Buffy regretted that all her good weapons, her 16th Century Byzantine Axe for one, would not make it through customs, or the metal detector, and had to be shipped stuffed in a huge crate with other materials so they would not be confiscated. She felt naked without weapons. At least she had Mr. Pointy in her bag. He was made of wood. Easy to get by.
Once her two bags came around, she scooped them up, and headed out of the airport to find a taxi. Getting one had been no problem at all, and as she sat in the back seat of what was without a doubt the cleanest taxi she had ever been in, she checked her messages, seeing if Willow had managed to find anything on the "Insurrection." She had not. Even Giles had been unable to find anything from jolly ol' England, but Will promised that both would keep looking.
"Good luck with the Batman," Willow had told her in an email with nothing else in it. Buffy huffed, wishing that all she needed was a little luck. She predicted a whole lot of luck teamed up with the guy being just a little shy of sane and just a smidgen of gullible.
She wasn't expecting too much from either one of those categories.
She had asked the cabbie to take her to the nearest hotel, a nice one, and he obliged. The trip from the airport into what was, according to the Google map on her cell phone, Uptown, just on the east side of the North City Park. Driving around Uptown, she had been able to see the huge Gotham Stadium briefly, but now all she could see were high rise buildings of glass.
The hotel he took her to was way out of her price range and she knew it. But she really didn't have much choice. Maybe she would be able to swing it for one night, just long enough for her to get her bearings, and then she would find something cheaper, most likely in the bad part of town. It wasn't like she couldn't take care of herself.
She had been right about the price range being way beyond her. One night was nearly double what she had paid in Paris. She figured if she went without eating, left room service alone, and the little bottles in the fridge very alone, why she would be able to stay in Gotham after tonight, one maybe two more nights, and then she would either have to walk home or sleep in a cardboard box in the park. Both options held no appeal whatsoever.
She wondered where the Batman lived and what he did during the day. She stifled a giggle at the sleeping upside down in a cave picture that flashed through her mind.
Once up to her room, a very posh room (so much so in fact, that she vowed to sleep on the floor, and only use the restroom if she absolutely had to), Buffy didn't even bother to unpack. The sun was slowly dipping down below the horizon, so tossing her coat into a corner, she stuffed Mr. Pointy in the back waistband of her jeans, easily covered by her shirt, made sure her room key was in her pocket, and dashed back out the door again, locking it securely behind her.
She knew she had to get up high and quickly. After reading the past issues of the Gotham Herald, she knew that at one time the now Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Departments had had a signal light that he could use to let the Batman know he was needed. It had been destroyed last year after the Batman had been accused of killing several people. Buffy had a hard time believing that the man had actually killed someone, at least someone innocent, but accidents could happen.
Now it was just a shot in the dark if anyone happened to see the masked vigilante. He was getting really good at hiding from the public while going about his self appointed job as protector of the city. It seemed to Buffy that he only showed himself in certain places and just long enough to let people know he was still there, and possibly to let the police know they were not going to be able to catch him.
One tall building was as good as another she supposed, so she slipped into the nearest one, caught the elevator to the top most floors, and found the woman's bathroom. The floor she was on housed some kind of firm, she really didn't stop to find out what kind, and by the looks of things they had worked a few hours late and were just now getting ready to call it a day. Lucky for her she had picked the right building. She slipped inside the bathroom unnoticed, opened the window, and was out on the ledge in mere moments. From there it was just a careful little stroll around the building while looking down at the tiny cars and people eighty stories below her, and a short little climb up and to the roof.
The city was huge. How did one man protect all of this all by himself? Buffy shook her head in disbelief as she turned in a slow circle. Why would one man try? Then she remembered something she had read one time, or that someone had told her long ago. It went: Evil only triumphs when good men stand by and do nothing. Or something along that line. Anyway, the point she had gotten from it was that evil can only win when those who are not evil let it. You have to fight the good fight and not let evil win. Maybe that was why he was out here – if he didn't do something, anything, than the evil in the city would win. One man could change the world. Why not a city?