[b]Gotham City, 22 Years Ago.[/b]

The monorail was riding into town from New York, onto the Island outside of Jersey. The island known as Gotham City, America's Fourth biggest metropolitan area, second-to-last in primary education results, lowest amount of teenagers who graduate from high school and the highest mortality due to violent crime in the world. You were more likely to get shot in Gotham than you were in war-torn Sokovia or any of the destabilized areas in Africa and the Middle East where Warlords ran free. For Rebels, Freedom Fighters, Warlords, and hell, even terrorists believe in something. They answer to something greater. And they fear consequences for their actions. They believe in being in the right, in being just. That one day, they will have to stand to answer for their actions. That one day, someone, something, will hold them accountable.

In Gotham, there's no such thing. The criminals in Gotham do not believe in any god worth fearing. They don't believe in political motivations or in any ideals. Their thirst for violence and their greed seems all but infinite. The 26 year old heir-to-billions pondered this, as he sat on the train looking worn down. He had just gotten back from his travels, taken the flight into Jersey and the train out into Gotham - there had been a bombing at the Archie Goodwin Airport. He shook his head. There was nothing quite like being home.

The train rolled into the station, and at the station stood his dapper butler, well dressed in a three piece suit, as always. A smile crept up on the heir's face as the butler saw him and smiled gently at him. It had been four years since they had last seen each other. Bruce had seen the wonders of the world. But, perhaps more important he had seen the wonders within himself.

He knew what he was going to do, now that he was back home. He had a mission, a purpose. It wasn't to return to his father's post as head of Wayne Enterprise. He had left Gotham as a notorious bachelor, a playboy who had more money than sense. A man who was known for spending money on fast cars and totaling them - walking out of the wreckage with a supermodel on either arm. All of that was just a bandaid. A way to take his mind off the pain, off the sorrow, the anger. To contain white-hot flame that burned inside of him. But he wasn't afraid of the fire anymore, no, he gladly placed his hand on top of it, feeling it's sting.

"Master Bruce. I'm glad to see you home safe." Alfred said, ceremonoiously, reaching for Bruce's bag, who in turn held the bag away from Alfred, instead going in for a hug. 
"It's good to be home, Alfred." Bruce spoke, softly. Alfred hugged his ward, his eyes getting more narrow as he caught a whiff of the billionaire.
"You smell repugnant, Master Bruce." Bruce chuckled
"It's gunpowder. And sweat. Lots of sweat." Alfred smiled and scoffed
"Well, I'm glad you're home safe, Master Bruce."
"I'm not planning on staying safe for long, Alfred. We have work to do." Bruce's words were strong and sure. He had never once been more convinced of anything in his entire life.

[hr]
[b]Four years Later[/b]
In the gutter outside of Falcone's Bar sits the man, drenched in his own cape. Blood running from his mouth, he can't move his left leg and he's so tired and bleeding so much that he can't really move at all at the moment. His gloves right hand's knuckles have been beaten raw through the reinforced material, torn apart from him grinding his knuckles against something - or rather, someone. As around him there lays a dozen knocked out and broken men, and next to them there's their weapon of choice. Tire irons, knives, machetes, butcher knives, handguns, a couple sawed off shotguns and four submachine guns can be spotted easily. Upon closer inspection, you can tell his leg can't be moved because there's a piece of rebar sticking through it.

The cloth covering his face is torn over the left side of his face, revealing his dirty and wet hair from the rain, the rain running down blood from his forehead onto his eyebrow, dripping onto his cheek and then washed onto the stone tiles. In the window to the bar, another two goons were knocked out, heads smashed out of the window from the inside. And the further into the room you would move, the more thugs you would find, all beaten within an inch of their life. Hours later, the GCPD would ransack the place and along with millions of dollars worth of contraband, they would also find 37 known criminals, plus six suspected new recruits into the Falcone family. It's the most devastating blow to the organized crime circuit in Gotham City since Edgar J. Hoover. 

But for the man in the cape with the now broken pointy ears? It was the culmination of ten years hard work. A four year long crusade on the villainous scum of the world. It was his war. It feels like the end. And in a way, it is. If the wrong police cruiser had pulled up to the scene, the masked vigilante would be met with a swift bullet to the brain and a falsified report. But luckily for him, Detective Jim Gordon was the one who stepped out of the cruiser, his partner, Harvey Bullock searched the back of the place while Jim covered the front. The found the Bat-Man in the gutter and carried him away from the scene, and supplied him with first-aid, before helping his partner.

The Bat removed his cowl and cape, Jim would dump them and when the ambulance arrived, all they would find was a man wearing a reinforced motorcycle getup who had gotten in bad with the gang. A fictive story about the billionaire being mugged by the Falcones before the masked vigilante swooped in and saved the day would make the newspaper. And Bruce Wayne became the first high-profile person the Batman would have ever saved and the Batman was immortalized as a symbol of hope and wide-spread social change in Gotham, for after the incident the entire city got invigorated for a time, and started fighting back against the superstitious and cowardly lot.  He had finally given the criminals of Gotham something greater than their greed or thirst for violence. He had brought them fear.

And all it cost him was his pride... And his leg. The media would dub the Falcone Bar assault as testament to the supernatural nature of The Batman, for no one man could have done something like this.
[i]No one man...[/i] The statement planted the seeds for a plan inside the recovering Bruce's mind, he and his three adopted sons had their future set for them.

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