1.
"Who was that?" I panted out, once we had stopped to catch our breath.
"That was the Joker," replied Selina.
"Well, if he's threatening everyone he meets like that, then I think we've got to stop him. After all, we came here to rid Gotham of its criminals, not run away from them," I said, and then turned around to walk back to the theme park of terror.
"No Bruce, wait," purred Selina.
I looked at her in surprise, and then the memory of the incident resurfaced in my head.
"Another thing," I said, frowning with suspicion, "How did that clown know who you were?"
"Let me explain," said Selina, "The Joker, back in the days of Gotham when your parents were still alive, was a notorious and crazy inventor who used to be a circus performer. He created a laughing gas that killed you while you were laughing, leaving your corpse with a smile on its face. He is one of the worst criminals Gotham has ever had, at one point managing to murder thousands of people, but when he was eventually caught, he was sentenced to Arkham Asylum instead of Gotham Penitentiary on the grounds of being insane.
There, he was treated by your mother, who rooted out the murderous tendencies he had, and then declared him sane enough to be let out of the asylum, as long as he continued to receive therapy every once in a while, and she wasn't wrong to do so. The Joker hasn't committed a single crime ever since being let out of Arkham Asylum.
Of course, despite how brilliant your mother was, she couldn't completely heal a damaged mind, and so the Joker has reverted back to his old theme park, pretending to be a clown, and telling terrible jokes to passers-by. He's creepy and uncomfortable, but relatively harmless to be around."
"Then what the hell was that?"
"I'm not completely sure why he attacked you, but maybe it was because of his history of being a patient of your mother, and because of your resemblance to her, which might have triggered something that made him lash out."
"So we have no need to turn him in to the police."
"Yes, as long as we don't go along that road any more. I had no idea that would happen, otherwise I would've chosen a different road."
I nodded.
"One final thing. You still haven't told me how he knows you."
"Oh, we criminals know each other," purred Selina, "Especially those who used to be criminals but aren't any more."
"Being a vigilante is still a crime," I pointed out.
"Hey, don't look at me. You're the one who wanted to get your rich feet dirty."
"Fair point," I said.
"Alright, we've got to get a move on," said Selina, "I can feel people watching us. We've stayed in one spot too long. Not a wise thing to do in these parts."
I agreed with her. I could feel passers-by eyeing us, trying to gain a sense of how big of a threat we were. I could feel the people in the rags eyeing us enviously, wondering how much money we had in our pockets. I saw them look down disappointedly when we decided to get a move on.
We went into another street, this one with yet more people lurking by in the shadows, yet more rats rummaging through bins, yet more cats hissing at every person who dared come close, yet more graffiti painted shamelessly on the walls. It was a street like any other in Galalea, except for some reason it felt different. Selina seemed to sense it too, and she perked up in suspicion like a cat would.
"Something's wrong here," she purred quietly.
Adrenaline started flowing through my blood as I started to get a sense of nervousness.
Footsteps resounded in the darkness. Selina turned around quickly to the place where they appeared to be coming from. Footsteps then resounded in the opposite direction to where she was facing. Then more footsteps were heard. The footsteps were surrounding us in every direction.
"We're trapped," hissed Selina, which was followed by a slow, dry chuckle.
"You bet you are, little kitty cat," said the voice of the chuckle, "Bet you don't feel so important now, huh? Bet the world suddenly feels small now that you know that there are WOLVES in it!"
This was followed by a chorus of chuckles, and then into the limelight stepped a large number of burly men, all of them wearing sly smiles on their faces. I saw their eyes, and in those eyes I did not see any good intentions towards us. I cannot say how many of them there were, although it was definitely a number larger than ten.
"Now, this is what is going to happen," said the owner of the voice from before, who seemed to be the leader of the group, "The young man is going to give us all the money he has on him at the moment. And as for the little kitty cat..."
He let the unfinished sentence speak volumes. It was followed by another round of hearty chuckles. My blood began to boil. These men were the epitome of what I intended to end in Gotham City. I could not have faced a better criminal for my first delivering of justice. It was time to start being a hero. It was time to start cleansing the filth of Gotham City, making it into a new, glorious metropolis, one whose crime rate would no longer be the highest of any city in America. It was time to make sure my parents' deaths were not in vain.
I looked over at Selina, and whispered, "The Flying Monkey". She nodded.
The Flying Monkey is one of my favourite moves in neo-karate, because it's extremely effective at knocking out multiple opponents at once. Two people are required for it to be accomplished, making it the perfect move for the situation we were in. None of those despicable men were going to lay a hand on either me or Selina.
I put one palm over the other and held my hands out to Selina. Before the men could make a move, she was standing on my hands and I was clutching her feet. I lifted her up into the air and swung her around the group of men like a baseball bat. As she was swinging around, Selina delivered a solid Giggle of Terror to every single man surrounding us, making them all fall to the floor, drowsy and not being able to get up, but not unconscious. Once we had neo-karated every man onto the ground, we gave each of them a Fjord Crater for good measure, making them groan even more. Their groans were music to my ears. Selina spat in the eyes of the leader.
"That's what you get when you mess around with the Catwoman and the Masked Man," she hissed.
"Now, Catwoman," I said, "I don't think we've taught these people enough of a lesson."
"You know what, Masked Man?" said Catwoman, "I think you're right."
I pulled out my Freebullet and aimed it at the leader of the men.
"Masked Man!" hissed Catwoman, "What do you think you're doing!?"
"These people deserve death," I said.
"No!" whimpered the leader of the group, all of his bravado from earlier gone, crying like a perverted baby.
"Do you honestly think that?" asked Selina.
I was silent for a moment, thinking about Jeremy Fox. I couldn't let my anger take control of me again. I steeled it inside, sighed, and put the gun away.
"You're right," I said, "We agreed to be the purveyors of justice, not murderers."
Selina nodded. I faced the leader of the group, who was visibly relieved. Pathetic piece of shit.
"Now, I am willing to be charitable," I told him, "But if you do not comply with my demands, then I have no choice but to kill you and all of your sick friends."
The leader gulped and nodded. I pulled out my phone and went to the recording device on it.
"I want you to say into this recording that you confess to all your crimes, to attempting to rob and sexually assault us, and you'd better support that story in court, you'd better confess to being the twisted fucks that you are, or we're coming for you. And next time, we won't be so charitable," I spat.
The leader nodded again.
"That goes for all of you!" I shouted, "We've got small tracking devices here that we're going to force all of you to swallow at gunpoint. They'll be in your digestive system for at least a month, so if you deny ANYTHING that you did today, we'll come after you. And as you've seen today, I am willing to kill. Is that understood?"
The men nodded.
"Tie them up, Catwoman," I said.
"My pleasure," she purred, and got out some rope, with which she tied the hands and feet of all of the men.
We went around the group, and slowly forced them to swallow the tracking devices we had prepared.
"I confess to attempting to rape and rob the Catwoman and the Masked Man," said the leader into my phone, on the edge of crying, "I confess that this was purposeful, and that I was the leader of this attempt. I confess that all of the members of the group with which I am now tied up were a part of this attempt too."
I nodded, ending the recording, "Good."
Selina and I stood back and admired our handiwork.
"None of these people are going to rape or rob someone ever again," I said, "This is justice."
Now all we had to do was send the recording to the local police station. We received a phone call from said police station within a minute.
"Who are you? Is this a prank?" said the woman on the other line.
"No, madam, this is real," I said, "We are Catwoman and the Masked Man, and we had an attempt on our lives today, which we swiftly dealt with. The people we have tied up are ready to corroborate our story. I leave the rest of justice to the police."
"Where are you?" asked the woman.
I told her our address.
"We will not appear in court," I said, and hung up the phone.
And so our first act of justice was committed. A number of people had stopped on the street to watch this spectacle, too unbothered or too scared to interfere. I suppose some of them might have even agreed with our actions. Selina and I turned to face these people.
"I am the Masked Man," I shouted.
"I am the Catwoman," Selina shouted.
"And we will bring justice back to Gotham City!"
We left the street with thunderous applause.
2.
"So that was our first act of vigilantism," purred Selina, "I liked it."
"Yeah," I said, "It felt like we rid the world of a small piece of misery that it wouldn't have to deal with again."
"Not as big as getting rid of Miseysm," purred Selina, "But still worth something."
"And this time, when they applauded for us," I thought, "I felt like I deserved it."
We walked further along the streets of Galalea. We passed by worn-down shops that sold cheap and low-quality items. We passed by a fire station that looked like it was running out of funding to keep on going. The paint was worn down, one window had been shattered and was now hastily covered up by some cardboard, and the fire truck, clearly visible through the opened garage, still had its ladder hanging down the side, giving off the appearance that the workers had either given up or had just decided that it wasn't worth it.
We passed by a school that had yet more graffiti sprayed all over the walls, and had toilet paper sprawling over the playground, showing a lack of funding for janitors. A lonely swing stood in the middle of the playground as miraculously the only thing that seemed fine. That somehow made things seem worse. As I saw these sights, my high spirits from the deliverance of justice sank a fair bit. It seemed that, for all their efforts, my parents had barely even scratched the surface to making the poverty ravaging through districts such as Galalea even a tiny bit better.
"Puts some things into perspective, doesn't it?" said Selina quietly, "While you and the other rich kids played with your golden rocking-horses, I had to go to a school like that, where the taps only run water on Wednesdays, where some children sit on the pavement during breaks and clutch their stomachs with hunger, where the staff sometimes have to chase away mice."
"It's not my fault I was born into a rich family," I said, like I had said multiple times before, "It's not my fault that some children were born into a poor family. It's not my fault that my family got the good end of capitalism. And you can't just expect me to give up everything, donate all my money, and join the lower socio-economic classes. Even if I did that, other rich people would still continue being rich, and most poor people would still continue being poor."
Selina sighed, "I guess all I can really expect of you is to put your money and privilege into making things a bit better, like your parents did, like you are now doing. I'm just lamenting a world in which capitalism seems to be our best option, and where our best option includes that school. A world where, no matter how much money is put in by the rare compassionate members of the upper class, no matter how many policies are enacted to try and make things better, no matter how many taxes are paid, there are always going to be people like those we've seen today, who are huddled up in rags without a home to go to."
We were silent for a moment.
"I guess I get the appeal of religion now," I said, "Maybe even something as extreme as a religion that allows crimes. I mean, what's the point of following the laws of a society that treats you like that?"
We walked further along Galalea, lost in contemplation. And then we heard some more footsteps, rushing over to us. We turned around, but before we could react we had been pushed to the ground. I looked up and saw two figures. Both were wearing a green robe and a mask with a dove above a tree on it. Both were holding knives, which were pointed at us.
"Miserysts," I said, and there was intense loathing in my voice.
The two figures looked at each other. I got up from the floor and performed my best Slippy Slop yet on the figure pointing their knife at me. A Slippy Slop involves sliding beneath the feet of your opponent and pushing them on their anus so that they fall over. Not to brag, but this particular Slippy Slop was extremely smoothly executed, showcasing that my months of training had paid off. I was now the one pointing my gun at the Miseryst. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Selina had done the same to her attacker.
"Now, we're not going to report you to the police," said Selina, "Because we plan on joining your religion. We just want some information."
The two figures looked at each other. I had no idea what Selina was getting at so I kept my mouth shut.
"You will answer my questions or you will get shot," Selina warned.
"What do you want to know?" one of the figures piped up.
"First of all, why do you wear those robes and that mask?"
"Because we have to," said one of the figures.
"Why?"
"We don't really know," the other figure piped up, "We're really new to the religion."
"This is our first act of misery," added the first figure.
"'Act of misery'?" I asked.
"Yeah," said the person who had attacked me, "We have to make other people miserable in order to appease our one and only true Lord, the Ensnarer of Happiness, the Defeater of Misery, our God Ferdinand."
"Talk to a priest if you want to know more," said the other figure, "Like we said, we don't really know anything."
"Where can I find a priest?"
The Miseryst told us an address.
"I don't know anything else," he added, "On our God Ferdinand I don't know anything else."
"Yeah, all we know is that you have to record all of your acts of misery in a journal so that our God Ferdinand knows what we've done."
"A journal, you say?" I said, and looked over at Selina. She had a gleam in her eyes.
"You may go now," she told the Miserysts.
The Miserysts didn't need to be told twice. They leapt to their feet and ran off, probably out of our lives forever. As for Selina and I, we both had formulated the same plan when we had heard about the journals.
"The journals," I whispered, "It's a miracle."
"Yes," purred Selina, "We've just been handed the perfect way to defeat the Miserysts."