Roman

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

If anyone is finding it hard to read do let me know and I will adjust for readability as best I can.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N

Only the wan green of the console screens illuminated the dingy room, throwing a sickly glow across Edward Nashton's face as he pushed back his slick and unkempt hair and replaced his glasses before diving back into the mainframe, his typing rapid and feverish as he approached his goal. He was close, oh-so-close, but something eluded him, some final key to the puzzle, an infinitesimal but paramount element that was the otherwise-missing glue to hold all the framework together. He'd worked for months, years even, at first in theory, but now putting it all together in practice, making it real, making it tangible; he felt giddy, frantic, but also frustrated. He'd never stumbled like this before, never hit this kind of roadblock. He wasn't used to his mind being bested.

"What has a bed, but never sleeps?" Came a voice from the far side of the room, as Eddie was suddenly blinded by bulbs sparking into life overhead; Deidre Vance, his research associate, strode across and raised the blinds that covered the university lab's windows, further flash-banging him with the early-morning sun cresting over Gotham's skyline. Eddie looked out over the university campus and saw students slowly beginning to trickle in, ready to start a new day of academia, and realised he'd worked overnight once again. He turned to Deidre, who looked at him with a mix of amusement and exasperation, and chuckled as he removed his glasses to rub his eyes that were undoubtedly bloodshot.

"A river, Dee." He answered, and she smiled and shook her head, shoving a paper cup of faculty-lounge coffee into his chest as she walked past him to look at the consoles he had plugged himself into for the last nine hours.
"EENH." She said, imitating the harsh noise of a gameshow buzzer, "I'm sorry, the answer we were looking for was 'Professor Edward Nashton'. Better luck next time!"
Eddie threw a hand to his forehead in mock tragedy as she chuckled watching him in the reflection of the screen, and then he took a greedy slurp of the coffee, letting the scalding and bitter drink splash into his empty stomach.
"God, I'm starving." He said, mostly to himself, but Deidre nodded her head and gestured to the counter top by the door. She'd brought breakfast - a few pastries from the cafeteria - and next to those, a fresh shirt and change of tie. Eddie dutifully ate and changed while Deidre typed away, finishing a few lines of code she'd interrupted Eddie working on and then saving before shutting the console down.

"You can't keep doing this Eddie, you're running yourself ragged." She said, that well-practiced tone of voice, not unlike a mother scolding her child, creeping back in to her words. "Besides, it's too cold this time of year to sleep alone..." the mother-tone was completely gone with this addition, and Eddie smirked, raising his eyebrows at Deidre. He moved to peck her cheek, which she made a big show of graciously permitting.
"It'll be worth it, Dee." He said, moving back towards the pastries. "We're so close! You've seen the code. I just need to figure out the final piece."
"Well, Eddie, maybe it would be easier to work things out with 8 hours of rest powering that massive melon, instead of..." Deidre picked up assorted discarded junk food from the floor under the desk. "Funyuns and Mr. Pibb? Really Eddie? I pity your students."
Eddie patted his stomach, which groaned seemingly on cue as soda, onion rings, pastry and coffee coagulated in his gut. "I pity my intestinal tract more." He joked, and Dee just groaned, binning the trash and moving to sip her own coffee.

The two sat in silence, with only the soft whirring of the computer servers backdropping their quiet contemplation of caffeine.
"Anyway," Deidre said with a start, jolting Eddie who'd nearly began napping over the rim of his cup, "it's not your students that'll be suffering today." She put on a wry smile, watching the over-worked cogs in Edward's head kick back into gear as he turned over dates, agendas, appointments in his head.
"No, no! Not today! Surely not today! Next week!"
"Today, Eddie." Deidre said with inarguable finality, weary but amused. "He's coming today."

-

The air still smelled of petrichor as Bruce Wayne stepped out from the car, door held open dutifully by Alfred, who picked lint from Bruce's collar with one hand as he closed the door with the other. Bruce smoothed himself down, shaking away enduring memories of the night before. Foundation had done wonders to hide the bags under his eyes, but what lingered behind his eyes was harder to conceal.

"Remind me once more, Alfred?" Bruce asked, and if there was even a hint of exasperation at what would be the fifth repetition this morning, you couldn't tell from Alfred's stone-faced demeanour.
"The Wayne Foundation has been funding Professor Nashton's research efforts for some time, sir, through the 'City of Progress' grant program that you set up a few years ago. Unfortunately, while I don't doubt the good professor has been working tirelessly, Wayne Enterprises' board members are becoming somewhat antsy at his dearth of practical output."
Bruce looked up at the university buildings. "And I'm here to check on what he's been doing with money the board believes belongs in their pockets?"
Again, if Alfred found amusement in Bruce's wit, he didn't show it. "Quite, sir. Better Bruce Wayne, philanthropist and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, than some board stooge already paid off to shut him down."
Bruce double-took at Alfred's candour; he was rarely this vocally critical of the Enterprises boardroom. "You believe Professor Nashton does good work?"
"I do, sir. He is the finest mind in the city, perhaps the country; and he has afforded himself his position through keen intellect and a work ethic that rivals those in present company. He is the kind of man Gotham needs to help lead the city into a bright future. I am loathe to think that those work-shy lackadaisicals would shut down his projects for what amounts to pocket change to them."
Alfred cleared his throat, and this time, he allowed a flash of ignominy to cross his face. Bruce waved away the incoming apology.
"I trust your judgement, Alfred. And you're right, when it comes to the board. But there are deeper things wrong with this city."
Alfred nodded solemnly. "I saw your report. Ghastly business. Let us hope that the good lieutenant can keep the more concerning details from the press."
"Gordon is doing all he can; only he and Leslie know the true details around the body. Still, though - someone in the GCPD is connected."
"One thing at a time, Master Bruce." Alfred advised, opening the driver-side door and taking a seat, a copy of the morning's Gotham Gazette and a filled thermos ready and waiting on the passenger seat. Chauffer was one of the many roles Alfred was a seasoned professional at.

Bruce looked towards the main campus gates, and the central research building beyond. He rolled his shoulders, and slipped on the mask.

-

"-and so you see, Mr Wayne, the idea is not for us to develop an artificial intelligence - instead, to allow an artificial intelligence the space to develop itself!" Nashton concluded, having talked excitedly about his work from the university reception all the way up past his office and into his main research laboratory. Bruce stood in the doorway as Edward hurriedly set to booting up the mainframe, eager to show his investor his life's work. Bruce was impressed; from what Nashton had explained, and what he could see of the server capacity, this was a massive project, in a near-experimental field, that the professor seemed to have been making un-impeded strides in for months. There was some real weight to what Nashton sought to accomplish; however, there were equally heavy concerns.

"What about the risk of losing control? True AI has only ever been discussed in theoretic - once it's online, there's no way to control what it might be capable of." Bruce asked, and Eddie nodded carefully.
"Of course, there is always inherent risk in all forms of progress; but we do what we can to mitigate - without compromising. Is an artificial intelligence any more dangerous than an organic one? Under the right conditions, either can be as destructive as the other. Living in Gotham, Mr. Wayne, has taught me that lesson well enough."
Bruce cocked an eyebrow, but chose not to comment. There was some validity in Edward's argument. "Please, Professor, Bruce is fine - how have you worked to mitigate the risks?"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Bruce. As impressive as the network is, it remains - since its conception - a closed circuit. There is no, nor has there ever been, an existing connection to the wider university network - nor Gotham's, nor the world. We drip-feed information in through manual upload, directly to the server. Together with basic guidance code, we simply create an environment in which a developing mind takes the right...direction. Like raising a child."
Bruce extended a hand, which Eddie eagerly shook. "Well, I must say I'm impressed, professor. And you can rest easy that Wayne Enterprises is confident that the grant money is going towards true breakthroughs. It'll certainly ease the minds of the board to know you're on the cusp of release."

Eddie's grip loosened slightly and he cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, on the cusp indeed..." he trailed off, and Bruce gave him a quizzical look.
"Hit a roadblock, professor?"
"Not so much a block as a minor stumble, Mr. Way- Bruce. It's close to completion, close enough to see it, but there's one missing piece of the puzzle, something eluding me. It's smart - so smart - but it still 'thinks' like a computer."
"How do you mean, Edward?" Bruce pressed, keen to help if he could offer advice.
"How to explain...computers think vertically. Logically. If x, then y, resulting in z. You can tell it to solve an infinite amount of calculations, but it can only do it with the right amount of starting data, and then extrapolating it out to logical conclusions and solutions. But a computer doesn't have any imagination, and if you ask it to make 2 and 2 into 5, it can't do it, because the logic doesn't work."

Bruce took a moment of thought.
"When I was a boy, Alfred used to distract me with riddles. I got good at solving them, so they weren't much of a distraction at all, and so the riddles had to get harder. And then, one day, Alfred told me a riddle I couldn't solve. It pestered me for days, buzzing around my head. I lost sleep over that riddle."
Edward's face lit up, his own adoration of puzzles and brain-benders plain as day. "Do share, Bruce."
"Two men walk into a restaurant. They are seated at the same table, order the same dish, and are served at the same time. After they both take their first bite, one man leaves the restaurant and kills himself. Why?"
Edward's previously elated face crumpled under the weight of disappointment that he could not offer an answer to Bruce's riddle. "Why?"
Bruce smiled his own wry smile. "Years previous, both men had been marooned on a deserted island. Starving, the second man had managed to provide food, and told the other it was swordfish he'd speared from the sea. Having ordered swordfish at the restaurant, the first man realised he'd never tasted swordfish before, and that what he'd eaten on the island had instead been the flesh of his son who had died in the accident that had marooned them. Consumed by grief and guilt, he killed himself."
Eddie raised his own eyebrow. "That's rather dark, Mr. Wayne."
"I was a rather dark child for a time, Professor Nashton. The riddle distracted me well. The lesson I learnt - if an answer doesn't present itself from the given information, you may have to invent your own. Lateral thinking is a skill as important as any other - thinking around the problem. Perhaps there's a way to teach it to your digital mind."

Edward turned to look at the mainframe console, sleep-deprived gears working on overtime as he turned the ideas over in his mind.
"Food for thought, regardless." Bruce said, dismissing the conversation. "Riddles are fun, but I'll leave the truly difficult problems to great minds like yours." He clapped a hand to Eddie's shoulder, taking his arm in a handshake again. "But tell me - when you unveil your great accomplishment - what will be its name?"
Edward smiled the biggest smile he'd give that day, and answered proudly: "The Encrypted Network Intelligence Grid and Mainframe Archive."
Bruce chuckled. "Clever, Eddie." He looked at the console screen, glowing softly green, awaiting input. "Very clever."

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

You misunderstand. They're not DOOM's patrol. They're on patrol for DOOM.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

<Snipped quote by Roman>

Seems like a risky way to play Russian Roulette.

@Lord Wraith

Take a shot for every time I used a semi-colon

(DO not do this)

.

@Roman

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Take a shot for every time I used a semi-colon (DO not do this).

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N

Aftermaths are rarely loud.

Crises themselves, the catalysing events, the worst-thing-that's-ever-happened-to-me's; these are cacophonic, discordant, deafening. They often involved the wrenching of metal, the crashing of concrete, blasts of gunpowder and gut-churning organic tearing and crunching and grinding. But the aftermaths - the minutes, hours, sometimes days afterwards - they were quiet. Dust settled, fires burnt out, rubble came to rest. And then, slowly but surely, the catastrophe that had first announced itself in a sudden roar rippled back out across the city in peels of tragedy.

The Batman crouched low on the building roof above an open window, out of which emanated the loudest aftermath he had ever heard, even through the torrential rain that soaked the city tonight. A little boy had been killed tonight, found dead after 3 weeks missing. The mother wailed below, hoarse and exhausted. The father was a shell, struck motionless by shock. One of Jim's boys was in the room with them, trying desperately to offer comfort that was neither wanted nor would be effective. Neither parent would ever be the same again; statistically, they'd be divorced within the year, neither able to cope with their grief. They'd have lowered life expectancy, higher rates of depression, and their standards of living would decline. Nothing Bruce could do would ease these inevitable outcome. But Batman could stop it from happening again.
Can you?

I must.

The radio in his cowl's ear chirruped as Jim Gordon made contact. Gordon had been first on scene after the body had been discovered, and Batman had watched from the rooftops as the lieutenant organised cordons, oversaw evidence collection, and arranged the body to be collected by the coroner. As the gurney was lifted into the coroner's van, Gordon tilted his head up ever-so-subtly, casting a careful eye across the roof-edge. He'd seen the fluttering of a cape, and that was enough.

"Batman. Body's arrived at the morgue. I've sent the team back out. Leslie can hold off processing for half an hour."
"Understood."
Batman launched a grapnel and swung into the night. The sobs got left behind; but the grief stayed.

-

Over the course of his half-decade career, Bruce never found that dealing with the dead ever got easier. Gotham's mismatched cabal of gangsters and psychopaths had left scores of bodies in their wake over the last five years, and undoubtedly for decades before that; Batman shouldered every life that was lost in his city, counting every single person that he failed to save. But the children...the children were always the hardest.

He and Jim stood silently beside the giant slab GCPD mortuary table, the body bag - the oh-too-small body bag - lying zipped up atop the metal. Dr. Leslie Thompkins lingered at the door, her eyes darting between the bag and the two men standing over it. Her mouth crinkled warmly at the edges where she pulled her lips into a smile that wasn't really a smile at all.
"I'm stepping out. Half an hour. Locking the morgue behind me." She said; Jim nodded solemnly as Leslie waved a key unenthusiastically. "Everyone knows I find children difficult. Loeb won't ask questions."
Batman didn't look up, didn't move; it was only when he heard the click-clack of the key in the lock that he unearthed a hand from beneath his cloak to unzip the body bag, in one long, steady movement.

The bag peeled open and suddenly it was unavoidable. Jim turned away, but Bruce's stony gaze somehow hardened further.
The throat was a mess; stained with blood yet to be cleaned off, scraps and tufts of feathers burst forth from puncture wounds that encircled the boy's neck. Batman took a sample of some of the cleaner feather debris to be identified once he returned to the cave; he was sure that later, Leslie would find splinters of the calamus within the wounds. Cause of death was uncertain. Exsanguination, or asphyxiation? Did he bleed out, struggling for breath through a hundred punctured holes? Or did he suffocate, while his heart relentlessly pumped blood up and out his throat?

"Jesus Christ..." Jim muttered from across the room. He was a seasoned cop, and like Bruce had seen far more morbid than the worst Gotham City had to offer. But children were always hard. "Stabbed with feathers...just when you think you've seen it all. You think this was Cobblepot?"
Batman shook his head in a micro-movement.
"Kids aren't Penguin's MO. Bad for business." Bruce produced a small torch from his gauntlet and carefully inspected the rest of the body. "He's been well-kept. Looked after."
Jim re-approached the body as Batman went over it with care.
"He's clean. New clothes. No signs of malnutrition. Hair cut recently - loose strands behind ears. Even makeup..." Batman trailed off. There was something bothering him about the body, something obvious that nevertheless eluded him.

The mouth was slightly ajar, and Bruce could see that something had been stuffed inside.
"Something in the oral cavity. I need a gag."
Jim turned to Leslie's laid out tools on the cabinet-top behind them and passed Bruce the reverse plier; carefully, Bruce eased open the jaw of the boy, muscles already stiffening. Inside was...
"Is that newspaper?" Jim asked, nearly a whisper. Batman didn't respond, just removed the scrunched-up scrap, cautious not to tear it. He moved away from the body, spreading out and flattening the paper on the worktop that lined the side of the room. As the scrap unfurled, Bruce's fist clenched and he set his jaw. Jim approached from behind, and looked over Batman's shoulder to the newspaper article that had been revealed; there was a sharp intake of breath, and then a few looks from the article to the body and back to the article, and then Jim said:
"My god. He's practically a double."

The article was old, even if the crinkled paper it had been printed on wasn't. Batman seethed internally. From the page, 8-year-old Bruce Wayne sobbed at the end of a paparazzi camera, the night of his parent's death. From the slab, a perfectly painted doppelganger rested dead and mutilated. The clothes were a match; the haircut was copied to the strand. The makeup emulated young Bruce's facial structure with contour and highlight. Bruce didn't want to know how he'd missed this; so many details of that night he'd obsessed over, for years and years to this very day. How could he be his own blind spot?

Wrapped in the article was a small item: a singular bullet casing. At a glance, it matched the calibre from the Wayne murders.
"That needs to go to forensic immediately, check for prints, DNA."
Batman picked up the casing and turned it over in his hand.
"Check cold cases. Archived evidence."
"You think the killer got these from the GCPD? It's all locked away. The department's dirty, but to dig this up..."
"Not ruling anything out. Not yet."
Batman turned away from the counter and moved toward the window, lingering only briefly at the body; now that he'd seen the article, the resemblance had turned the cadaver from tragic to ghoulish, and he felt unseated, askew.
He needed to leave.
There was something he needed to check.

-

Crime Alley was quiet tonight, save for the steady drip-drop of rainwater running through the gutters and the ever-present background of Gotham at night. The ground was slick with water, and there was a wet sheen that reflected the mixed moon-and-lamp-light; but there was something else that the light illuminated, something far more concerning.
Someone had redrawn the chalk outlines of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Batman un-melted from the shadows, spreading his own inky dark across the alleyway. He stood over the chalk etchings, unavoidably reliving the moment in his mind, each shot, each scream. He'd briefly surveyed the surrounding area when he'd arrived, but despite the freshness of the chalk - it had to be less than an hour old, drawn after the rain ended, it wouldn't have survived the downpour if done before - there was no evidence of anyone having been in the alley the entire night. Except for the chalk.

The fluttering of wings seized Batman's attention, zeroing in on the sound as he looked up sharply. Above him, from the rooftops; the beating of flight. Grapnel was already out and fired before it could end, and within seconds Bruce was above the alley atop the buildings, scanning furiously the skyline. Gotham stretched out before him, smoke and light spilling into the air, but the top of the city was as empty as the bottom. And then, a single caw, and more fluttering, and a magpie landed before him, spotlighted perfectly by the moon's light, reflecting ethereally on its monochrome coat. It tweaked its head, spying Batman in one beady eye; in its beak was a bead, brilliant white, that clattered on the stone as it was dropped by the bird and rolled its way to a stop at his boot, Batman stooping to pick it up. A pearl.

The magpie stared at Batman, eerily quiet. He started toward it, movement already futile; it was up and gone in a beating of wings before he could catch it, regardless of speed. In its place was a scrap of paper, scratched from being clutched in its talons but legible nonetheless:
ONE FOR SORROW

Batman looked up at the bird, already a barely-visible speck in the night sky. Something inside him coiled in old, dredged-up turmoil. Whatever this was, in the pit of his stomach, he knew: it was going to get worse, before it got better.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

T H E B A T M A N

---

^{_{B R U C E W A Y N E ♦ V I G I L A N T E ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.

Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.

Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.

What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.

I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

Notable NPC's

_{G C P D P E R S O N N E L}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon
◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock
◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya
◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen
◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins
◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb}
_{G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James
◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter
◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder
◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale
◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton
◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance}
_{G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum)
◼ Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns
◼ Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis
◼ Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot}

Batfamily Career Timeline

I recommend opening in a new tab to zoom for readability.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Sample Post

Set the scene.

Gotham docks. Off-stage, yet his presence felt: ‘The Penguin’. Deposed heir to the Cobblepot crime family; now destitute, he grows desperate and ruthless in pursuit of the empire he’s lost.
The empire I have ripped away from him.

Tonight he brings drugs into my city, balaclava-clad men hauling wooden crates off of shipping containers and loading them into trucks. The cargo and containers are unmarked, but I have already seen the shipping manifesto; these crates may have come from overseas, but their purchase has been made through holding companies and shell corps that one can, when looking in the right places, trace back to a property development and construction contracting company based in New York City.
Fisk is attempting to purchase a stake of Gotham using Cobblepot as a figurehead. They will both be disappointed.

From my vantage point I can see eleven men.
Three loading crates; they are strong, but fatigued, and the hard work on a humid night has aggravated them; they demand help from the others, but are ignored. Tempers flare.
One in the truck cab; he is overweight and chain-smoking. His windows are closed and the stereo is loud.
Four dock workers, all paid off. Whether by Cobblepot or Fisk doesn't matter; what does is three of them are concealing light firearms, judging by their uneven gaits. The other is young and nervous, and wraps his hand around a single set of brass knuckles in his jacket pocket.
Two security guards, once again paid off. One guards the entrance to this pier - he's jumpy, and carries his hands together, awkwardly low and in front of him: he is holding what is likely to be a shotgun. The other is casually patrolling; he is openly carrying a pistol, with a heavy torch in the other hand. The patrolling guard is not jumpy, and he grips his pistol loosely. Carelessly.
The last man is the lookout; he is stationed atop the gantry crane assigned to this pier. He is holding an automatic rifle and has binoculars, an open-broadcast two-way radio, and has even been equipped with night-vision goggles, because he is here to look for me, and I operate from the dark.

He will not find me. I am above him. I was on this gantry crane first.

I begin tonight's work.

-

'Eyes' is a dumb nickname, Eyes thinks, but these are dumb men and it is simple and effective and makes his role in the operation clear. They are obviously expecting interference tonight - but that is why he is here. His radio crackles - the voice coming through is filled with static, and is loud and grating. Ten minute check-in.
"[WALKER TO EYES. CHECK IN]"
"Eyes to Walker. Eyes clear."
"[WALKER TO EYES. OARLESS CANOE.]"
"Eyes to Walker. Western Fjord."
The radio crackles again and falls silent. Check-in clear. Eyes thinks he'll take another walk around the crane; the lights of Gotham's business district over the dock-water on a clear night is oddly beautiful. There's a good view of Wayne Tower too, the imposing skyscraper with its iconic 'W' fascia nestled among bank and media logos. He can lean over the railing and gaze out over the pier for five minutes, then walk back around for the next check.

Eyes barely has time to register what little noise comes from behind him before his forehead hits the metal railing and he bounces back, reeling - but not before his leg is kicked into the lower set of railings and his kneecap shatters. He would scream in pain, but as he twists around in his fall, the jagged, black shape that towers above him lashes out with one of its uncountable limbs and strikes him across the throat, silencing him as he sinks to the floor. Eyes' has one last sight before he fades out; terrible, inhuman horns, sitting atop a snarling black face, blasphemously haloed by demonic wings.

-

I have nine minutes and forty seconds before the lookout fails to report at the next check-in and the men are alerted to my arrival. The guard at the entrance to the pier is sequestered in his booth, too far from the operation to be useful; the driver is not the fighting type. That leaves me a little over a minute to incapacitate each man.
Doable.
I leap from the crane, gliding softly towards the patrolman who has entered the furthest section of his route.

-

Walker’s name is actually Walker, although he hasn’t let anyone know - to do so would be to defy the point of the codenames in the first place. William Walker. William after his father; he knows that much of the man, but little else. He spent much of his youth fighting ‘Willy Junior’ as a nickname, but eventually, gracefully, Bill stuck. Bill’s trying to be a better dad to his kid than William Senior was - not hard, as Bill’s mere existence in his son’s life is a step above the standard the old man set.

Bill’s a security guard at the docks, has been for 4 years. He knew what kind of world he was stepping into when he took the job - record turnovers, Gotham Docks, for all manner of reasons both sinister and benign - but there was little else in his skill set he was suitable for, and the job paid well for what it demanded of him. Tonight was the first time he’d been involved in anything explicitly illicit. The first time he’d been actively involved, at least, approached by a man in a suit with a roll of bills that totalled 3 months wage. 3 months wage for one night protecting whatever was coming off those containers - cargo that would have been coming in anyway, Bill thought, cargo that’s probably come in unawares on many of his shifts over his career. A quarter-year of pay for one night’s overtime. He could pay off his son’s braces with some left over for a real knock-out birthday present with what he was earning tonight. He felt good. A little dirty, but good.

There was a noise in the shadows to his left and Bill snapped out of his ruminations and whipped around, torch held out first and his pistol low and close to his body. He’d not fired a gun once in his four years on the docks, and didn’t even own the one he was holding now.
“W-Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was another sound, behind him. He whipped around again, swearing under his breath and shaking a little. Still nothing. He took a few steps forward.

A quiet, sharp little noise rushed through the air towards him and something pierced his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. It clattered to the ground, but Bill paid no attention; even before he’d yelled out in shock, there had been another small noise and a gummy, viscous substance had splashed across his mouth and nose, muffling his shout and blocking his air. He slowly sunk to the ground, losing consciousness, back against a shipping container as his legs gave way beneath him.

Ten feet away, across the path, the shadows shift and split and some cursed figure melts into reality; Bill can recognise a head connected to shoulders, but the rest of the body is an inhuman mass that bleeds into the floor, no limbs or torso or recognisably human features to speak of.

Consciousness fades. The darkness descends. The figure envelopes him; and then Bill cannot keep his eyes open any longer.

-

The patrolman had been at odds with the job since the night began; I’d checked his record, and for a docks guard, it was as clean as they came. A little history, to be expected. But this was his first time being bought. He’d taken to it all too easily. They all do.

I lean over him and lightly wave a small bottle of solvent beneath his nose; the glue blocking his nostrils melts away, and I hear him subconsciously take a full breath, but he doesn’t wake up. He won’t for at least half-an-hour; the glue includes chloroform in its makeup to sedate the victim. I bind his hands behind his back, retrieving the batarang, and then head inwards towards the truck.

There are seven men left: the three loaders, and the four dock workers. The loaders are unarmed, but the workers aren’t, and the three with concealed pistols need to be tackled first. They’re mostly milling around, but one wanders away to urinate. I take him out first; emerging from the dark like a beast of the nine circles, enveloping him in terror’s embrace and smothering him until he stops struggling. I set him down and bind his hands, too, and then I take the pistol from the belt of his trousers. Well made. American. Probably Fisk again; Oswald’s no arms dealer, and doesn’t have the underworld clout to source firearms like these. I disassemble it easily enough, regardless of its manufacturer.

The pieces go clattering around the corner towards the remaining men; everyone ceases their tasks to watch as the sections of pistol slide in their direction from where their comrade had rounded the corner mere seconds ago. They all freeze; every single man on the pier tonight now knows their operation has ended, but none want to say it aloud. Instead, the two workers wielding pistols draw them and hold them tight and outstretched, and then heckle the worker with the dusters to investigate. He protests, meekly, then does what is demanded of him, slipping the brass knuckles over his fist as he approaches my corner.

He rounds it and see his colleague unconscious. He does not see me. I reach out and seize his wrist, bringing my elbow down across the top of his forearm, breaking his elbow sharply; he screams and I let him. I want them to hear his pain. I want them to fear the pain they are about to feel. I slip the dusters off his fingers as he whimpers, cradling his broken arm, and then deliver them to the side of his face; he slumps over, out cold, gums bleeding. I toss the dusters towards the remaining men too; now I hear them shouting. The shake and inflection in their voices indicates panic.

Five left. Two armed. Terror beginning to strangle their minds and cloud their judgement. Time to end things.

I launch a smoke capsule at the ground in front of me; gas explodes forth and lays down cover; I step into the fog, unseen, and then carefully approach the outer edge of the cloud, allowing the men to barely glimpse my form; I hear one shout and know I've been spotted, and immediately back away, invisible again, before dropping prone to the ground. Shots puncture the gas as bullets whip past above me. The two with pistols are aiming torso-level. They both miss; then they pause to reload. I stand and step forward again, in one smooth motion parting my cloak and flinging two batarangs out; they both find their marks, cutting across the hands of the workers as they're scrambling to load a second clip. Both pistols are dropped, and the men let their fear get the better of them. They turn and run. I throw out my other arm; bolos fly forth and ensnare their ankles. they hit the ground head-first and hard.

Three left. I step out of the smoke completely, letting my cloak cover me again. They stare; I wait. I let the tension build.

Finally, one snaps and charges me; he throws a wide fist, too much wind up, too slow to connect; I sidestep and jab the wrist, breaking it easily, and then drive my other arm into his ribs; he folds around my fist, winded, and a follow up to his kidney has him wheezing and stumbling. I spin and bring my leg around; my greaves connect with his ear and he goes flying.

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

Larry McCoy has driven nearly anything that’s been built with a wheel and two pedals. Never drove stick, but never needed to; never had a licence neither, but never needed one. With an auto all you needed was a foot for ‘go’, a foot for ‘stop’, and hand for ‘where’. Larry had all those, and he made do just swell. Tractors early on - ploughing fields and harvesting crops. Taxi for a while, tried buses too, although eventually he pined for the quiet solitude he’d enjoyed in the cab of heavy farming machinery; he’d long left corn behind him, but found long-haul lorry driving suited him just fine. There was something comforting about a long road in front of him and a radio that was just a fraction static, where the only things that existed were Larry, the cargo he was hauling, and the journey that took from where he came from and where he was going.

That’s why he hated nights and jobs like these; no mystique, no romance, no subtle beauty. Here, the ugliness was laid bare, and he had to dip his hands deep into the muck. After jobs like these, Larry didn’t feel clean for days. But Larry’s wife had cancer, and hospital bills don’t pay themselves. So he played the music loud and stayed in the cab. That was his condition; he’d drive, and he’d drive whatever they wanted, and he’d do it better and sometimes cheaper than most. But he stayed in the cab.

So when Larry saw The Batman, a creature he believed was just Gotham urban legend - fuck, to Larry, the Batman may as well have been the Jersey Devil - appear out of darkness and smog, having done some unseen, unspeakable horror to at least three men, more likely eight, and then proceed to effortlessly incapacitate three more, seemingly untouchable, ethereal, intangible...

Larry got out the cab and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

-

The driver ran. I’d anticipated it; he didn’t have the look of a fighter. By the time he reached the guard booth at the entrance to the pier and pointed frantically down the way towards me, I’d already set the charges on the crates; as the last guard sprinted towards me, I melted back into the shadows of the docks, and triggered the explosives.

By the time the guard picked himself up off the floor, Fisk and Penguin’s budding enterprise was cinders, and I was gone; another story of the night.

The evening was yet young. There was much work to be done.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

- The Batman, 1.01
- The Batman, 1.02
- The Batman, 1.03
- The Batman, 1.04
- The Batman, 1.05

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Oh, so Hound gets to play a talking tiger AND a talking monkey, but a talking hedgehog is right out just because he's blue and enjoys light jogging?

The favouritism in this place is disgusting.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

The Batman Application

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

T H E B A T M A N

---

^{_{B R U C E W A Y N E ♦ V I G I L A N T E ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.

Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.

Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.

What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.

I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

_{G C P D P E R S O N N E L}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon
◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock
◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya
◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen
◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins
◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb}
_{G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James
◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter
◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder
◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale
◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton
◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance}
_{G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum)
◼ Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns
◼ Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis
◼ Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot}

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Set the scene.

Gotham docks. Off-stage, yet his presence felt: ‘The Penguin’. Deposed heir to the Cobblepot crime family; now destitute, he grows desperate and ruthless in pursuit of the empire he’s lost.
The empire I have ripped away from him.

Tonight he brings drugs into my city, balaclava-clad men hauling wooden crates off of shipping containers and loading them into trucks. The cargo and containers are unmarked, but I have already seen the shipping manifesto; these crates may have come from overseas, but their purchase has been made through holding companies and shell corps that one can, when looking in the right places, trace back to a property development and construction contracting company based in New York City.
Fisk is attempting to purchase a stake of Gotham using Cobblepot as a figurehead. They will both be disappointed.

From my vantage point I can see eleven men.
Three loading crates; they are strong, but fatigued, and the hard work on a humid night has aggravated them; they demand help from the others, but are ignored. Tempers flare.
One in the truck cab; he is overweight and chain-smoking. His windows are closed and the stereo is loud.
Four dock workers, all paid off. Whether by Cobblepot or Fisk doesn't matter; what does is three of them are concealing light firearms, judging by their uneven gaits. The other is young and nervous, and wraps his hand around a single set of brass knuckles in his jacket pocket.
Two security guards, once again paid off. One guards the entrance to this pier - he's jumpy, and carries his hands together, awkwardly low and in front of him: he is holding what is likely to be a shotgun. The other is casually patrolling; he is openly carrying a pistol, with a heavy torch in the other hand. The patrolling guard is not jumpy, and he grips his pistol loosely. Carelessly.
The last man is the lookout; he is stationed atop the gantry crane assigned to this pier. He is holding an automatic rifle and has binoculars, an open-broadcast two-way radio, and has even been equipped with night-vision goggles, because he is here to look for me, and I operate from the dark.

He will not find me. I am above him. I was on this gantry crane first.

I begin tonight's work.

-

'Eyes' is a dumb nickname, Eyes thinks, but these are dumb men and it is simple and effective and makes his role in the operation clear. They are obviously expecting interference tonight - but that is why he is here. His radio crackles - the voice coming through is filled with static, and is loud and grating. Ten minute check-in.
"[WALKER TO EYES. CHECK IN]"
"Eyes to Walker. Eyes clear."
"[WALKER TO EYES. OARLESS CANOE.]"
"Eyes to Walker. Western Fjord."
The radio crackles again and falls silent. Check-in clear. Eyes thinks he'll take another walk around the crane; the lights of Gotham's business district over the dock-water on a clear night is oddly beautiful. There's a good view of Wayne Tower too, the imposing skyscraper with its iconic 'W' fascia nestled among bank and media logos. He can lean over the railing and gaze out over the pier for five minutes, then walk back around for the next check.

Eyes barely has time to register what little noise comes from behind him before his forehead hits the metal railing and he bounces back, reeling - but not before his leg is kicked into the lower set of railings and his kneecap shatters. He would scream in pain, but as he twists around in his fall, the jagged, black shape that towers above him lashes out with one of its uncountable limbs and strikes him across the throat, silencing him as he sinks to the floor. Eyes' has one last sight before he fades out; terrible, inhuman horns, sitting atop a snarling black face, blasphemously haloed by demonic wings.

-

I have nine minutes and forty seconds before the lookout fails to report at the next check-in and the men are alerted to my arrival. The guard at the entrance to the pier is sequestered in his booth, too far from the operation to be useful; the driver is not the fighting type. That leaves me a little over a minute to incapacitate each man.
Doable.
I leap from the crane, gliding softly towards the patrolman who has entered the furthest section of his route.

-

Walker’s name is actually Walker, although he hasn’t let anyone know - to do so would be to defy the point of the codenames in the first place. William Walker. William after his father; he knows that much of the man, but little else. He spent much of his youth fighting ‘Willy Junior’ as a nickname, but eventually, gracefully, Bill stuck. Bill’s trying to be a better dad to his kid than William Senior was - not hard, as Bill’s mere existence in his son’s life is a step above the standard the old man set.

Bill’s a security guard at the docks, has been for 4 years. He knew what kind of world he was stepping into when he took the job - record turnovers, Gotham Docks, for all manner of reasons both sinister and benign - but there was little else in his skill set he was suitable for, and the job paid well for what it demanded of him. Tonight was the first time he’d been involved in anything explicitly illicit. The first time he’d been actively involved, at least, approached by a man in a suit with a roll of bills that totalled 3 months wage. 3 months wage for one night protecting whatever was coming off those containers - cargo that would have been coming in anyway, Bill thought, cargo that’s probably come in unawares on many of his shifts over his career. A quarter-year of pay for one night’s overtime. He could pay off his son’s braces with some left over for a real knock-out birthday present with what he was earning tonight. He felt good. A little dirty, but good.

There was a noise in the shadows to his left and Bill snapped out of his ruminations and whipped around, torch held out first and his pistol low and close to his body. He’d not fired a gun once in his four years on the docks, and didn’t even own the one he was holding now.
“W-Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was another sound, behind him. He whipped around again, swearing under his breath and shaking a little. Still nothing. He took a few steps forward.

A quiet, sharp little noise rushed through the air towards him and something pierced his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. It clattered to the ground, but Bill paid no attention; even before he’d yelled out in shock, there had been another small noise and a gummy, viscous substance had splashed across his mouth and nose, muffling his shout and blocking his air. He slowly sunk to the ground, losing consciousness, back against a shipping container as his legs gave way beneath him.

Ten feet away, across the path, the shadows shift and split and some cursed figure melts into reality; Bill can recognise a head connected to shoulders, but the rest of the body is an inhuman mass that bleeds into the floor, no limbs or torso or recognisably human features to speak of.

Consciousness fades. The darkness descends. The figure envelopes him; and then Bill cannot keep his eyes open any longer.

-

The patrolman had been at odds with the job since the night began; I’d checked his record, and for a docks guard, it was as clean as they came. A little history, to be expected. But this was his first time being bought. He’d taken to it all too easily. They all do.

I lean over him and lightly wave a small bottle of solvent beneath his nose; the glue blocking his nostrils melts away, and I hear him subconsciously take a full breath, but he doesn’t wake up. He won’t for at least half-an-hour; the glue includes chloroform in its makeup to sedate the victim. I bind his hands behind his back, retrieving the batarang, and then head inwards towards the truck.

There are seven men left: the three loaders, and the four dock workers. The loaders are unarmed, but the workers aren’t, and the three with concealed pistols need to be tackled first. They’re mostly milling around, but one wanders away to urinate. I take him out first; emerging from the dark like a beast of the nine circles, enveloping him in terror’s embrace and smothering him until he stops struggling. I set him down and bind his hands, too, and then I take the pistol from the belt of his trousers. Well made. American. Probably Fisk again; Oswald’s no arms dealer, and doesn’t have the underworld clout to source firearms like these. I disassemble it easily enough, regardless of its manufacturer.

The pieces go clattering around the corner towards the remaining men; everyone ceases their tasks to watch as the sections of pistol slide in their direction from where their comrade had rounded the corner mere seconds ago. They all freeze; every single man on the pier tonight now knows their operation has ended, but none want to say it aloud. Instead, the two workers wielding pistols draw them and hold them tight and outstretched, and then heckle the worker with the dusters to investigate. He protests, meekly, then does what is demanded of him, slipping the brass knuckles over his fist as he approaches my corner.

He rounds it and see his colleague unconscious. He does not see me. I reach out and seize his wrist, bringing my elbow down across the top of his forearm, breaking his elbow sharply; he screams and I let him. I want them to hear his pain. I want them to fear the pain they are about to feel. I slip the dusters off his fingers as he whimpers, cradling his broken arm, and then deliver them to the side of his face; he slumps over, out cold, gums bleeding. I toss the dusters towards the remaining men too; now I hear them shouting. The shake and inflection in their voices indicates panic.

Five left. Two armed. Terror beginning to strangle their minds and cloud their judgement. Time to end things.

I launch a smoke capsule at the ground in front of me; gas explodes forth and lays down cover; I step into the fog, unseen, and then carefully approach the outer edge of the cloud, allowing the men to barely glimpse my form; I hear one shout and know I've been spotted, and immediately back away, invisible again, before dropping prone to the ground. Shots puncture the gas as bullets whip past above me. The two with pistols are aiming torso-level. They both miss; then they pause to reload. I stand and step forward again, in one smooth motion parting my cloak and flinging two batarangs out; they both find their marks, cutting across the hands of the workers as they're scrambling to load a second clip. Both pistols are dropped, and the men let their fear get the better of them. They turn and run. I throw out my other arm; bolos fly forth and ensnare their ankles. they hit the ground head-first and hard.

Three left. I step out of the smoke completely, letting my cloak cover me again. They stare; I wait. I let the tension build.

Finally, one snaps and charges me; he throws a wide fist, too much wind up, too slow to connect; I sidestep and jab the wrist, breaking it easily, and then drive my other arm into his ribs; he folds around my fist, winded, and a follow up to his kidney has him wheezing and stumbling. I spin and bring my leg around; my greaves connect with his ear and he goes flying.

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

Larry McCoy has driven nearly anything that’s been built with a wheel and two pedals. Never drove stick, but never needed to; never had a licence neither, but never needed one. With an auto all you needed was a foot for ‘go’, a foot for ‘stop’, and hand for ‘where’. Larry had all those, and he made do just swell. Tractors early on - ploughing fields and harvesting crops. Taxi for a while, tried buses too, although eventually he pined for the quiet solitude he’d enjoyed in the cab of heavy farming machinery; he’d long left corn behind him, but found long-haul lorry driving suited him just fine. There was something comforting about a long road in front of him and a radio that was just a fraction static, where the only things that existed were Larry, the cargo he was hauling, and the journey that took from where he came from and where he was going.

That’s why he hated nights and jobs like these; no mystique, no romance, no subtle beauty. Here, the ugliness was laid bare, and he had to dip his hands deep into the muck. After jobs like these, Larry didn’t feel clean for days. But Larry’s wife had cancer, and hospital bills don’t pay themselves. So he played the music loud and stayed in the cab. That was his condition; he’d drive, and he’d drive whatever they wanted, and he’d do it better and sometimes cheaper than most. But he stayed in the cab.

So when Larry saw The Batman, a creature he believed was just Gotham urban legend - fuck, to Larry, the Batman may as well have been the Jersey Devil - appear out of darkness and smog, having done some unseen, unspeakable horror to at least three men, more likely eight, and then proceed to effortlessly incapacitate three more, seemingly untouchable, ethereal, intangible...

Larry got out the cab and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

-

The driver ran. I’d anticipated it; he didn’t have the look of a fighter. By the time he reached the guard booth at the entrance to the pier and pointed frantically down the way towards me, I’d already set the charges on the crates; as the last guard sprinted towards me, I melted back into the shadows of the docks, and triggered the explosives.

By the time the guard picked himself up off the floor, Fisk and Penguin’s budding enterprise was cinders, and I was gone; another story of the night.

The evening was yet young. There was much work to be done.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

Roman's Scrapbin

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

T H E B A T M A N

---

^{_{B R U C E W A Y N E ♦ V I G I L A N T E ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.

Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.

Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.

What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.

I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

_{G C P D P E R S O N N E L}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon
◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock
◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya
◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen
◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins
◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb}
_{G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James
◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter
◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder
◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale
◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton
◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance}
_{G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum)
◼ Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns
◼ Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis
◼ Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot}

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Set the scene.

Gotham docks. Off-stage, yet his presence felt: ‘The Penguin’. Deposed heir to the Cobblepot crime family; now destitute, he grows desperate and ruthless in pursuit of the empire he’s lost.
The empire I have ripped away from him.

Tonight he brings drugs into my city, balaclava-clad men hauling wooden crates off of shipping containers and loading them into trucks. The cargo and containers are unmarked, but I have already seen the shipping manifesto; these crates may have come from overseas, but their purchase has been made through holding companies and shell corps that one can, when looking in the right places, trace back to a property development and construction contracting company based in New York City.
Fisk is attempting to purchase a stake of Gotham using Cobblepot as a figurehead. They will both be disappointed.

From my vantage point I can see eleven men.
Three loading crates; they are strong, but fatigued, and the hard work on a humid night has aggravated them; they demand help from the others, but are ignored. Tempers flare.
One in the truck cab; he is overweight and chain-smoking. His windows are closed and the stereo is loud.
Four dock workers, all paid off. Whether by Cobblepot or Fisk doesn't matter; what does is three of them are concealing light firearms, judging by their uneven gaits. The other is young and nervous, and wraps his hand around a single set of brass knuckles in his jacket pocket.
Two security guards, once again paid off. One guards the entrance to this pier - he's jumpy, and carries his hands together, awkwardly low and in front of him: he is holding what is likely to be a shotgun. The other is casually patrolling; he is openly carrying a pistol, with a heavy torch in the other hand. The patrolling guard is not jumpy, and he grips his pistol loosely. Carelessly.
The last man is the lookout; he is stationed atop the gantry crane assigned to this pier. He is holding an automatic rifle and has binoculars, an open-broadcast two-way radio, and has even been equipped with night-vision goggles, because he is here to look for me, and I operate from the dark.

He will not find me. I am above him. I was on this gantry crane first.

I begin tonight's work.

-

'Eyes' is a dumb nickname, Eyes thinks, but these are dumb men and it is simple and effective and makes his role in the operation clear. They are obviously expecting interference tonight - but that is why he is here. His radio crackles - the voice coming through is filled with static, and is loud and grating. Ten minute check-in.
"[WALKER TO EYES. CHECK IN]"
"Eyes to Walker. Eyes clear."
"[WALKER TO EYES. OARLESS CANOE.]"
"Eyes to Walker. Western Fjord."
The radio crackles again and falls silent. Check-in clear. Eyes thinks he'll take another walk around the crane; the lights of Gotham's business district over the dock-water on a clear night is oddly beautiful. There's a good view of Wayne Tower too, the imposing skyscraper with its iconic 'W' fascia nestled among bank and media logos. He can lean over the railing and gaze out over the pier for five minutes, then walk back around for the next check.

Eyes barely has time to register what little noise comes from behind him before his forehead hits the metal railing and he bounces back, reeling - but not before his leg is kicked into the lower set of railings and his kneecap shatters. He would scream in pain, but as he twists around in his fall, the jagged, black shape that towers above him lashes out with one of its uncountable limbs and strikes him across the throat, silencing him as he sinks to the floor. Eyes' has one last sight before he fades out; terrible, inhuman horns, sitting atop a snarling black face, blasphemously haloed by demonic wings.

-

I have nine minutes and forty seconds before the lookout fails to report at the next check-in and the men are alerted to my arrival. The guard at the entrance to the pier is sequestered in his booth, too far from the operation to be useful; the driver is not the fighting type. That leaves me a little over a minute to incapacitate each man.
Doable.
I leap from the crane, gliding softly towards the patrolman who has entered the furthest section of his route.

-

Walker’s name is actually Walker, although he hasn’t let anyone know - to do so would be to defy the point of the codenames in the first place. William Walker. William after his father; he knows that much of the man, but little else. He spent much of his youth fighting ‘Willy Junior’ as a nickname, but eventually, gracefully, Bill stuck. Bill’s trying to be a better dad to his kid than William Senior was - not hard, as Bill’s mere existence in his son’s life is a step above the standard the old man set.

Bill’s a security guard at the docks, has been for 4 years. He knew what kind of world he was stepping into when he took the job - record turnovers, Gotham Docks, for all manner of reasons both sinister and benign - but there was little else in his skill set he was suitable for, and the job paid well for what it demanded of him. Tonight was the first time he’d been involved in anything explicitly illicit. The first time he’d been actively involved, at least, approached by a man in a suit with a roll of bills that totalled 3 months wage. 3 months wage for one night protecting whatever was coming off those containers - cargo that would have been coming in anyway, Bill thought, cargo that’s probably come in unawares on many of his shifts over his career. A quarter-year of pay for one night’s overtime. He could pay off his son’s braces with some left over for a real knock-out birthday present with what he was earning tonight. He felt good. A little dirty, but good.

There was a noise in the shadows to his left and Bill snapped out of his ruminations and whipped around, torch held out first and his pistol low and close to his body. He’d not fired a gun once in his four years on the docks, and didn’t even own the one he was holding now.
“W-Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was another sound, behind him. He whipped around again, swearing under his breath and shaking a little. Still nothing. He took a few steps forward.

A quiet, sharp little noise rushed through the air towards him and something pierced his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. It clattered to the ground, but Bill paid no attention; even before he’d yelled out in shock, there had been another small noise and a gummy, viscous substance had splashed across his mouth and nose, muffling his shout and blocking his air. He slowly sunk to the ground, losing consciousness, back against a shipping container as his legs gave way beneath him.

Ten feet away, across the path, the shadows shift and split and some cursed figure melts into reality; Bill can recognise a head connected to shoulders, but the rest of the body is an inhuman mass that bleeds into the floor, no limbs or torso or recognisably human features to speak of.

Consciousness fades. The darkness descends. The figure envelopes him; and then Bill cannot keep his eyes open any longer.

-

The patrolman had been at odds with the job since the night began; I’d checked his record, and for a docks guard, it was as clean as they came. A little history, to be expected. But this was his first time being bought. He’d taken to it all too easily. They all do.

I lean over him and lightly wave a small bottle of solvent beneath his nose; the glue blocking his nostrils melts away, and I hear him subconsciously take a full breath, but he doesn’t wake up. He won’t for at least half-an-hour; the glue includes chloroform in its makeup to sedate the victim. I bind his hands behind his back, retrieving the batarang, and then head inwards towards the truck.

There are seven men left: the three loaders, and the four dock workers. The loaders are unarmed, but the workers aren’t, and the three with concealed pistols need to be tackled first. They’re mostly milling around, but one wanders away to urinate. I take him out first; emerging from the dark like a beast of the nine circles, enveloping him in terror’s embrace and smothering him until he stops struggling. I set him down and bind his hands, too, and then I take the pistol from the belt of his trousers. Well made. American. Probably Fisk again; Oswald’s no arms dealer, and doesn’t have the underworld clout to source firearms like these. I disassemble it easily enough, regardless of its manufacturer.

The pieces go clattering around the corner towards the remaining men; everyone ceases their tasks to watch as the sections of pistol slide in their direction from where their comrade had rounded the corner mere seconds ago. They all freeze; every single man on the pier tonight now knows their operation has ended, but none want to say it aloud. Instead, the two workers wielding pistols draw them and hold them tight and outstretched, and then heckle the worker with the dusters to investigate. He protests, meekly, then does what is demanded of him, slipping the brass knuckles over his fist as he approaches my corner.

He rounds it and see his colleague unconscious. He does not see me. I reach out and seize his wrist, bringing my elbow down across the top of his forearm, breaking his elbow sharply; he screams and I let him. I want them to hear his pain. I want them to fear the pain they are about to feel. I slip the dusters off his fingers as he whimpers, cradling his broken arm, and then deliver them to the side of his face; he slumps over, out cold, gums bleeding. I toss the dusters towards the remaining men too; now I hear them shouting. The shake and inflection in their voices indicates panic.

Five left. Two armed. Terror beginning to strangle their minds and cloud their judgement. Time to end things.

I launch a smoke capsule at the ground in front of me; gas explodes forth and lays down cover; I step into the fog, unseen, and then carefully approach the outer edge of the cloud, allowing the men to barely glimpse my form; I hear one shout and know I've been spotted, and immediately back away, invisible again, before dropping prone to the ground. Shots puncture the gas as bullets whip past above me. The two with pistols are aiming torso-level. They both miss; then they pause to reload. I stand and step forward again, in one smooth motion parting my cloak and flinging two batarangs out; they both find their marks, cutting across the hands of the workers as they're scrambling to load a second clip. Both pistols are dropped, and the men let their fear get the better of them. They turn and run. I throw out my other arm; bolos fly forth and ensnare their ankles. they hit the ground head-first and hard.

Three left. I step out of the smoke completely, letting my cloak cover me again. They stare; I wait. I let the tension build.

Finally, one snaps and charges me; he throws a wide fist, too much wind up, too slow to connect; I sidestep and jab the wrist, breaking it easily, and then drive my other arm into his ribs; he folds around my fist, winded, and a follow up to his kidney has him wheezing and stumbling. I spin and bring my leg around; my greaves connect with his ear and he goes flying.

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

Larry McCoy has driven nearly anything that’s been built with a wheel and two pedals. Never drove stick, but never needed to; never had a licence neither, but never needed one. With an auto all you needed was a foot for ‘go’, a foot for ‘stop’, and hand for ‘where’. Larry had all those, and he made do just swell. Tractors early on - ploughing fields and harvesting crops. Taxi for a while, tried buses too, although eventually he pined for the quiet solitude he’d enjoyed in the cab of heavy farming machinery; he’d long left corn behind him, but found long-haul lorry driving suited him just fine. There was something comforting about a long road in front of him and a radio that was just a fraction static, where the only things that existed were Larry, the cargo he was hauling, and the journey that took from where he came from and where he was going.

That’s why he hated nights and jobs like these; no mystique, no romance, no subtle beauty. Here, the ugliness was laid bare, and he had to dip his hands deep into the muck. After jobs like these, Larry didn’t feel clean for days. But Larry’s wife had cancer, and hospital bills don’t pay themselves. So he played the music loud and stayed in the cab. That was his condition; he’d drive, and he’d drive whatever they wanted, and he’d do it better and sometimes cheaper than most. But he stayed in the cab.

So when Larry saw The Batman, a creature he believed was just Gotham urban legend - fuck, to Larry, the Batman may as well have been the Jersey Devil - appear out of darkness and smog, having done some unseen, unspeakable horror to at least three men, more likely eight, and then proceed to effortlessly incapacitate three more, seemingly untouchable, ethereal, intangible...

Larry got out the cab and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

-

The driver ran. I’d anticipated it; he didn’t have the look of a fighter. By the time he reached the guard booth at the entrance to the pier and pointed frantically down the way towards me, I’d already set the charges on the crates; as the last guard sprinted towards me, I melted back into the shadows of the docks, and triggered the explosives.

By the time the guard picked himself up off the floor, Fisk and Penguin’s budding enterprise was cinders, and I was gone; another story of the night.

The evening was yet young. There was much work to be done.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

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A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.