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[indent][sub][COLOR=BLACK][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [color=lightgray]Gotham City, New Jersey, United States[/color][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=BLACK][b]The Batman: Embers[/b][/COLOR] [color=lightgray]Issue #2[/color][/right][/sup][/indent][COLOR=dimgray][SUP][sub]___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sub][/SUP][/COLOR]

[INDENT][COLOR=lightgray]It was that time of the year again.

The masked vigilante stood atop a perch overlooking the historic Monarch Theater, once the jewel of the arts for the city and now a rotting ruin. 

Much of Park Row had turned out this way in the last decade. A place where the street gangs and the most desperate of society tried to survive. Most of northern Gotham had turned out like this and Batman did not find himself all that guilty that he had prevented much of it at all. His mission for the longest time was not to save Gotham, but to inflict pain and suffering on those who sought to harm her. Was that the right way to look at it? Maybe not, but Park Row had taken his son and driven his wife to madness.

It had been over twenty years since a bullet exited the gun of a mob enforcer and killed his son.

Two long decades since the darkness consumed him.

Two decades since The Batman was born.

[color=black][b]“I’m sorry, Bruce.”[/b][/color]

The words cut through the silence of the night. 

His son would be turning thirty this year, spending his time honing his craft in whatever he chose to do. He pictured him being mentored by Uncle Silas as Martha planned his wedding to a girl of good character. A childish fantasy undercut by the reality of Gotham, a place where good people were destroyed by the circumstances of the city’s terrible curse. 

He should’ve buried her just like he had done to Falcone, Sabatino, Dubelz, and others in the past. He couldn’t do it. A true comedy, as she told him, as they battled on the county fairgrounds outside Gotham City one year ago. Even with her now in Arkham, every single casualty of the battle weighed on him with every day. The survivors of the Haly’s Circus Massacre wonder what could’ve been; how their lives would be if The Batman had killed The Joker in any of their battles in the past. How he does every time he thinks about his son.  

[color=yellow]“Bats.”[/color]

The silence broken, the vigilante moved his hand to his ear.

[color=black][b]“What is it?”[/b][/color]

[color=yellow]“We’ve got a problem.”[/color] The young feminine voice replies, [color=yellow]“How fast can you make it to Robinson Park?”[/color]

[color=black][b]“Not long.”[/b][/color]

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[color=black][b]“I’m on my way.”[/b][/color]
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