Author's Note: This is a story I originally conceived of shortly after The Dark Knight came out, and forgot about until recently. Obviously, at the time I had no clue about the radical direction they would take the franchise in the third film, such as having Bruce retire as Batman, and while I have made some adjustments to my original idea, one may still consider this story an AU sequel to TDK if one wishes.

Also, please bear in mind that the "present" for these movies is the late 2000s, so the technology and culture is slightly different.

Story contains non-graphic depictions of torture.

Prologue

25 years ago…

"You're dead, Bruce!"

On the TV screen, Bruce's knight fell off his mount, signalling a game over. Bruce put down the controller of the Atari console that his friend, Roman, had brought over to play with.

"I don't really like fighting games," said Bruce. "I prefer puzzles." Truthfully, he didn't care for video games at all – Alfred had called them a passing fad – but Roman always had the newest toys and loved to show them off.

"You're just bad at fighting," Roman said, giving Bruce a friendly shove.

Bruce yielded and laughed. "I'll show you who's bad at fighting!" He returned the shove, and both boys rolled to the floor in laughter.

They had been friends since starting school together a year ago, but their two families, Wayne and Sionis, had been seeing a lot of each other lately. Something to do with their dads' companies working together. Bruce didn't really understand those sorts of things. While he didn't find Roman's parents to be very nice – their smiles were creepy, and they often said nasty things about other people – he enjoyed spending time with Roman. Even if he was a bit of a show-off.

Bruce heard a car pulling up on the gravel outside and got to his feet, running to the window of Wayne Manor's spacious rec room. Looking down through the glass, he saw Rachel and her mother, one of the housekeepers, getting out of their car.

"Rachel's here!" he shouted gleefully. "She can play with us too!"

Roman made a noise like his parents did whenever Bruce's parents talked about charity work. "Ugh. I don't know why you're friends with her."

"What, because she's a girl?"

"No, 'cause she's the help."

Bruce frowned. "The help?"

"Yeah. Her mom's a servant. She's not like us."

This was the opposite of everything Bruce's own mother and father had taught him. "She's my friend."

"Whatever. I'm bored. Gonna find my mom and dad." He stormed off.

This often happened whenever Roman felt challenged. As he always did on these occasions, Bruce wondered whether or not he'd see his friend again.

Bruce's house might be bigger than mine, young Roman thought to himself as he wandered the corridors, but it's old and stupid. Our house is much better.

Roman hated coming here. He enjoyed spending time with Bruce, even if he could be boring sometimes, but whenever his parents interacted with other adults, they always put on an act. Pretending to like them, then saying bad things about them later. They weren't exactly nice people at home, his father often saying cruel things and his mother showing no interest in anything except clothes and her drinks, but at least they were genuine.

He didn't get that impression from Bruce's parents though. They seemed like they were nice people all the time. Roman envied Bruce that.

He heard voices coming from the room ahead.

"I don't know what you're getting so worked up about, Thomas." It was his father.

"Richard, our investigation into Sionis Steel found evidence of illegal and dangerous cost-cutting, not to mention staff abuse." That was Bruce's father, Thomas.

Roman crept quietly to beside the open door to hear better, keeping out of sight. There was something exciting about secretly listening to grown-ups fighting.

Thomas continued. "You're forcing your employees to work in unsafe conditions for an unhealthy amount of time. Many have passed out from overwork and weren't taken to a hospital."

"They recovered," said his father.

"That's not the point," said Thomas, sounding angry.

"Thomas, Thomas, they're labourers. I'm already paying them, that's more than people like them deserve."

"They're human beings! With rights!"

His father just scoffed, as he often did whenever Thomas talked about workers' rights.

Thomas didn't stop there. "Our private investigator also found that you were shipping out steel that wasn't up to code. Girders and panelling that could break apart under stress. What if it causes buildings to collapse?"

"That's just simple math. See, you take the probability of an accident occurring, multiply it by the average cost of a compensation pay-out, then weigh that against the cost of improving standards. It usually works out cheaper to take the risk."

"You can't reduce human life to an equation!" Thomas sounded disgusted.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand – you're just a doctor keeping the family seat warm at board meetings – but this is business. Every company has its dirty little secrets."

"Not mine."

"Oh, so righteous. I'm not going to stay here and be judged by a do-gooder like you!"

Richard stormed out of the room, almost running into Roman. He just grabbed his son's hand and pulled him along down the corridor.

"Come on, Roman. We're going to find your mother, then we're leaving."

"C-Can I say goodbye to Bruce?" Roman asked.

"Be quiet," was all his father said. He was a lean, stern-featured man that tolerated no disobedience. He very rarely raised his voice, but Roman still feared his sharp, low tones that nonetheless commanded attention.

Behind them, Thomas stepped out into the hall. Although also tall, thin and dark-haired, he always seemed a lot more approachable, his voice softer. "Richard. These findings will have to be reported to the authorities."

Richard turned and pointed at Thomas with fury on his face. That was more like his father at home. "You do that, Wayne, and you'll regret it. I promise you that." It was just above a whisper.

Soon after, they were gone from Wayne Manor forever.

MASKS

Chapter 1

"Masked Men"

Present

"Welcome back to Gotham Tonight. Coming up, we have an update on the new District Attorney candidates, and a look into the restoration of Gotham General Hospital. But, for now, we go over to Vicki Vale with the latest gossip from the city's social scene."

Mike Engel, Gotham Tonight's host, handed over to the latest addition to the news and entertainment program's line-up.

As an attractive young redhead, there were many rumours as to how Vicki had gotten such a prominent position on the number one talk show in Gotham, and while she may have taken advantage of certain assumptions, Vicki was determined to prove that she was serious journalist who could succeed on her own merits. Her choice of guest tonight, as opposed to her usual vacuous socialites, was to that end.

"Thanks, Mike," Vicki said, smiling into the camera. "I'm joined tonight by noted psychologist, lecturer and author, Professor Hugo Strange. Professor, thank you for joining us."

Sat at an angle across from her in another comfy chair was Prof. Strange, a large, bald man in his mid-fifties with a greying Amish-style beard around his jawline, and a pair of round-lensed glasses on his weathered face. He was dressed in an expensive brown three-piece suit with a gold tie.

"The pleasure is all mine, my dear," Strange said with a grin.

He had been a bit overly flirty with Vicki before the interview, and it had been no surprise that he'd agreed so readily to it in the first place once he'd seen her, but she would maintain her professionalism.

"Professor, your latest book, Masks," she held up a copy, as previously agreed, "examines the new type of criminal that has emerged in Gotham since last year. Can you tell us a bit about that?"

"Certainly, Vicki." Strange began speaking in his deep, French-accented voice, right into the camera. He, too, was a professional. "Since the debut of the Batman, crime in Gotham has escalated to match him. Criminals with disguises, with themes, with a sense of the dramatic. It is almost like crime has become a performance art in this city."

"What do you think the cause of this could be?"

"Likely a lack of self-identity, usually found in the young or the socially ostracised. Conforming to an alternate persona, one with clear goals, can be comforting for such people, especially if it comes with a mask of some sort. These theatrical criminals create that sense of belonging. It is a fascinating psycho-social phenomenon."

"By theatrical criminals, you are referring to men like Jonathan Crane – who operated a drug ring under the alias 'Scarecrow' – and the urban terrorist known as the Joker? As well as the new gangs that have cropped up in the absence of organised crime?"

Strange nodded. "And the Batman himself, of course. Let's not forget the murders he committed three months ago, including that of the heroic Harvey Dent. Who knows how many others he's killed?"

Vicki took a respectful pause. The city was still hurting after the death of Dent, the people's "White Knight," at the hands of the Batman, who had allegedly also killed five others, including two police officers. There were some, however, including Vicki herself, who questioned the details around these deaths. Batman had often gone out of his way to capture criminals alive, to suddenly take up murder seemed a radical departure, and there were other factors that didn't add up. But that was a matter for another report.

Soon after Dent's death, Mayor Garcia has passed a new legislation in his name, the Dent Act, which ensured stricter rules and sentencing for those involved in organised crime. Pretty soon, the Mob had realised that their business was no longer profitable in Gotham and those not already arrested had taken their game elsewhere. That left the police free to focus their attention on catching Batman, but the so-called Dark Knight had all but vanished since.

She resumed her questions. "You are, in fact, here to aid police in their pursuit of the Batman, isn't that right?"

"Indeed, dear Vicki. You see, I gained notoriety in my native Quebec after aiding police there in the apprehension of the savage serial killer Martin 'Mad Dog' Hawkins. I felt obligated to stop him, you see, after the tragic death of my son, Eli, by his hand." Strange took a moment, looking mournful, hand over his heart, before continuing. "After that, I became something of a freelance forensic psychologist, helping to catch numerous other notorious criminals, and studying their minds afterwards to better understand them. I brought down murderers that gave the best detectives the slip.

"That's why your mayor requested my services in the GPD's pursuit of the Bat vigilante."

"You believe that you can catch him?"

Strange's grin became even more smug. "Oh yes. With my expertise, deducing his identity should be simple. The Batman must be stopped, and soon."

Three months ago, Batman, along with Police Commissioner Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, had put an end to organised crime in Gotham, at great personal cost for each of them. But crime had not disappeared entirely.

Several small but violent gangs had cropped up since, each with their own agendas and themes, all of them a threat. Batman had been kept busy every night, stretched thin to take down gang members who endangered citizens and property across the city. It was hard enough just keeping track of all the different groups.

There was the Red Hoods, who all wore scarlet balaclavas and carried out petty crimes like armed robberies and muggings. Blackfire was a group of religious zealots set on punishing the "sinners" of Gotham, usually with flames. The Scarecrows continued to push Jonathan Crane's lethal hallucinogens to drug addicts, despite Crane himself being locked up in Arkham Asylum. The Mutants were a reckless biker gang with no regard for the safety of others. Then there were the Jokerz, who modelled themselves on the dangerously psychotic Joker, also in Arkham, terrorising the populace with aimless mayhem, but thankfully lacked their idol's ruthless intelligence.

Others seemed to rise and fall every week, but it was one gang in particular that had caught Batman's attention tonight. A new one, calling themselves "Anarky" (he was still unsure if the misspelling was deliberate or not). As their name suggested, their goal was anarchy in the classical sense – destabilising government control, as opposed to a group like the Jokerz, who caused chaos for chaos' sake. Batman's investigation into them had suggested they were mostly disgruntled young men who blamed the problems in their lives on outside forces rather than their own faults.

Tonight, three of their members, all armed, had stormed into the offices of the Gotham Times newspaper and taken some of the night-shift staff hostage. Those who had escaped had raised the alarm, and Batman had been monitoring the police channels.

He had gotten to the office building before the police arrived and snuck in through the ventilation system to assess the situation. In one of the bullpen areas, the Anarky members had twelve Times employees huddled against a bank of desks in the middle of the floor. Like the rest of their gang, they wore dark hoodies, spray-painted with an "A" on the back, and gold-coloured masks with blank faces on them, rendering them anonymous. For now.

Unusually though, they were also outfitted with what looked like military-grade body armour and armed with M16 assault rifles. This was well outside their normal means. Perhaps they were stepping up. But where did they get this high-end equipment from?

Those answers could wait until they were subdued. Batman continued to observe through the vent grill in the ceiling as two Anarky members kept their rifles on the hostages, while the third, the tallest, knelt on the floor, preparing something in a backpack. Batman needed to wait for an opportunity to strike, when it did not endanger the hostages.

"Why are you doing this?" one employee, a young woman, asked.

The taller member, possibly the leader, turned to her. "Your paper is a tool of the corrupt, capitalist government that rules this city! Printing their fake news instead of the truth! You must be punished for it!" Although his voice was muffled by his mask, he sounded like an adolescent.

"What are you going to do?" an older man asked.

"We're going to blow this place sky-high!" the leader said. From his backpack, he produced some kind of homemade bomb – cylinders of chemicals wrapped in mechanical parts.

Batman knew he needed to act now. The police would be here soon, and Anarky were likely to set off the bomb on their arrival. He hit the button on his belt that activated an EMP, disabling the lights and any security cameras. As everyone panicked in the sudden darkness, he dropped silently out of the vent, activating his night-vision lenses.

"Who turned out the lights?"

"Are the cops here?"

"Get the bomb ready!"

Still able to see through shades of green, Batman instantly made his way to the leader, who hurriedly set up the bomb. Putting him in a chokehold, he quickly and quietly tried to render him unconscious. Unfortunately, the young leader fired off a burst from his rifle. It didn't hit anyone, but it alerted the other two. Batman drove a punch into the leader's chest to knock him out quicker.

"Lonnie, was that you?"

"No names!"

"Who's here?"

He couldn't risk that they would start firing blindly in the dark, so Batman reached into a pocket on his utility belt to retrieve one of his latest gadgets courtesy of Wayne Enterprises: A small yet powerful electromagnet.

He activated it and threw it behind the two remaining "Anarkists," where it attached to a file cabinet before powering up. Their rifles flew out of their hands towards the magnet, and Batman (whose own equipment was non-magnetic) advanced on them, pummelling each into submission with a savagery that he had to consciously restrain himself from, alternating between targets with blows to their faces and chests. He noted that both of their plastic masks had cracked from his assault.

The hostages murmured in the dark.

"Who's there?"

"Is that the police?"

"What's happening?"

He could not reassure them. Could not leave evidence that he had been here. As far as the public knew, the Batman was a killer, as bad as the criminals he pursued. And so it must remain.

He returned to the bomb, kneeling to defuse it. It was a basic design, with a few wires merely needing cut. However, as he examined it further, he saw that, while it was put together simply, the components looked very sophisticated. More upgraded resources.

He considered rousing the leader, to question him, but he heard footsteps storming up the stairwell. The police were here. He could no longer rely on their collaboration, for they too believed Batman to be a murderous fugitive. He made his escape back through the vent, leaving the hostages clueless as to their rescuer.

Answers would have to wait.