#4: Old Foes, Pt 2 (Moreau / Flinchum)

“Mom? Dad?”

“Yes Bruce?” my father comes to life and replies.

“B-but I thought you were...”

“Dead? Of course we’re dead, son. And so are you.”

I breathe for a second, as I try to comprehend what he is saying. “Dead?” I reply.

“You lived your life trying to save victims of crime and now you yourself have become one. You were yet another victim of what Gotham has become.” My father almost seems disappointed about something. “At least you put up a fight ‘till the end,” he continues, “just like your old man.”

“The end?” I ask. “When was that?”

“The Mad Hatter,” my father says grimly, “He killed you. After he used his machine to put you to sleep, he had Schneider murder you in cold blood.”

That’s right, the Mad Hatter! It takes me a while to recall what happened, but the whole scene eventually comes back. Breaking into Waynetech, closing in on the Hatter, a hypnotized Schneider pinning my arms behind my back, it all strangely seems like an eternity ago. So I was killed by the Mad Hatter? I always pictured my death being almost a ‘duel to the death’ epic battle with someone like the Joker, or Ra’s Al Ghul. That, or some punk kid getting lucky with a knife. But never, ever did I see myself being killed by the Mad Hatter. However, life doesn’t always involve epic battles, and anyone has the power to kill.

“Untimely death runs in the family son,” my father continues. “Your great-grandfather was killed in the war. Your grandfather Jack died of a heart attack caused by an over aggressive businessman. Your mother and I were killed in a random stickup. And now your death adds to the family history.

The Wayne name was one of the few good names left in Gotham,” my father adds, with almost no emotion whatsoever. “Your mother and I have been watching you from here for all these years, praying that death had left the Waynes. You were all that was left of us.”

There is a moment of silence. I look into the endless blackness surrounding us. “What is this place?” I ask.

“This place,” my father says, “has no name. There’s absolutely nothing here. It’s just a realm where souls go after they die. There’s nothing to fear here, and nothing to enjoy either. All we have is each other’s company. But it’s a far better place than what we had on Earth.”

I feel myself gulp as I look down at the ground. Am I really dead? Is this really it? I work hard all my life and get killed by a storybook wanabe, and this is where I end up?

I look back up at my father. “You said you were… watching me?” I ask, still curious about this place.

“Yes,” my father replies. My father holds out his hands as if he were holding a globe. Inside of them, a small bulb of light emerges. The light rapidly grows bigger and bigger. I look into the light, which does not appear to have the slightest impact on the blackness around us.

After what seems like an eternity, I feel water dripping on my eyes. Slowly they open of their own accord. I moan. Two tall structures block the left and right sides of my vision. Straight ahead of me, I see only dark grey. The ground is cold, hard, and wet. I feel groggy. I look at my suit, which appears to have a large number of rips and tears in it. There is blood dripping out of some of them. It begins to drip down onto my suit. My arms move themselves above my head. One of them slams into a trash can.

I stand up. I’ve been lying in a Gotham City alley. I quickly brush myself off as I try to regain my sense of direction. A black alley cat walks out of the trash can I hit, looks up at me, screeches, and runs away. Am I dead? What happened to my parents? The conflict with The Mad Hatter, talking with my mom and dad, did it ever really happen? I begin to feel dizzy. I need to get back to the cave.

I reach down for the button to call the car, or “Batmobile,” as some call it. As I begin to open the pocket on my belt with the remote in it, I notice something strange on the pocket. A bullet hole? I open the pocket and take out the transmitter inside. It sparks for an instant before dying. The bullet is lodged in the device. The gadgets in my belt are built to take a bullet, not to survive one. How could this have ended up here? Who could’ve shot me?

I take my grapple out of another pocket and shoot it up onto a rooftop. I brace my arms and let the grapple lift me to the roof. Once there, I land and roll. As I look around, I realize how unusually dark this night is. Rain clouds completely cover the stars, which is strange, because it isn’t raining that hard. The only illumination comes from the working streetlights, which are few and far between in this rundown section of the city.

I jump from one rooftop to another towards Wayne Manor. To get there, I’ll have to cross the entire city. My rooftop path eventually leads me to a more developed section of the city where I see more people.

A young man, around 18, is staring out his apartment window, which is about level with the roof I’m swinging towards. The man instantly notices me when I hit the rooftop. As fast as he can, he grabs the window, slams it shut, locks it, and pulls the curtains closed behind it. I’ve gotten reactions before from people looking out of their windows, but never like that. I wasn’t even looking directly at him. The costume works too well sometimes.

I continue along the rooftops towards my destination. I keep thinking about my parents. Could I have really talked to them? Do my parents truly hate what I’ve done with my life since their death? How did I end up back in Gotham?

I slowly descend onto a rooftop that is quite a bit lower than the one on which I was just standing. This one has a billboard. I slowly begin to walk past it. Suddenly, the darkness of the night is broken by a huge police spotlight aimed right at me. I curse myself for not seeing it sooner. I look down off the edge of the building.

“Batman!” Lt. Detective Gordon yells into his megaphone. “Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head. You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Mayor Hill!”

I notice another spotlight creeping over the corner of the building to the right of me. It is followed by a police helicopter, which begins to bear towards me.

“You have five seconds! Four...three...” I hear from the loudspeaker on the helicopter.

I run to take cover behind a chimney.

“Two...one...” The guns on the helicopter start firing. Once I realize the bullets are coming too close, I dive head-first off the roof. As I fall, I shoot my grapple. It wraps itself around a flagpole. While dodging bullets, I swing and land on another rooftop. The helicopter’s spotlight begins to catch up with me. With a leap, I stretch my cape tight as I touch down onto the railing of a fire escape, then bounce off and glide to the street below. I start running down the street, realizing that I’m an easy target for the helicopter. The spotlight chases behind me until it finally catches up with me so that the light blinds me. I quickly jump sideways into the alley which connects Finger Street with Aparo.

I pause to catch my breath as I think about what is happening. The police, who have just begun to tolerate my presence in the city, are chasing after me in full force and accusing me of assaulting the mayor. Someone obviously set me up. But who, The Mad Hatter? I have personally talked to the mayor once or twice before, so how could he fail to realize that his would-be assassin wasn’t me? Unless...

Suddenly, the spotlight blazes down on me again. I quickly run out, as my cape stretches itself almost the entire width of the alley.

I hear the thud of the bullets pounding into the pavement behind me as I run from death. I duck into another alley. The helicopter roars over me.

I look up. I’m near an abandoned factory by the docks, completely opposite where I want to be. There is an old, heavy wooden door that leads into the factory. I pull on the handle in an attempt to open it. Doesn’t budge. I step back and size the door, calculating its weak point. I kick it in the target area, and watch the door smash into the building.

The odor of rust hits me immediately as I step over the threshold. The building is completely empty. The ground is wet and full of mold. There is an old rusted machine to the left of the door. A faded newspaper is trapped under the corner of the machine. It is an Evening Edition of the Gotham Gazette, dated May 11, 1939. The article on the front page discusses the things that President Roosevelt is doing in an attempt to get America out of the Depression.

Across from the door is a rusty, metal staircase. I hear sirens coming closer. Without a second thought, I dash towards the stairs and follow them as they spiral up the walls of the building. Once I get about four stories up, I reach the door to the roof. Suddenly, four armed police officers come in through the door below. “Freeze!” they yell. With all my might, I slam the door to the roof open. A bullet strikes the railing of the staircase as I dash out the door. With a great leap, I jump off the edge of the roof and land on the one adjacent to it.

I leap from rooftop to rooftop, not pausing to take a breath. My legs say ‘stop’, but my brain says otherwise. I begin to think about the conversation with my parents. Could it really have been just a dream? It just seemed so...vivid. “...you thought the law just didn’t apply to you,” I remember my father saying. I sigh, realizing the situation I’m in now and still not fully comprehending how I got here in the first place.

After I leap across countless rooftops, I stop. I take a deep breath. My legs hurt badly. I feel tired. I look behind me, and realize thankfully that no one is coming. The streets will be easier to traverse than the rooftops. I stretch my cape tight, and glide down to the street below. Once I hit the pavement, I walk about six steps before I realize my fatal mistake. Police cars swarm me from all directions. Even before the cars come to complete stops, the officers are stepping out and pointing their guns in my direction. The fat, unshaven Detective Bullock steps out of the car in front of me.

“Get down ya filthy piece of scum,” he says in his ‘I don’t care if you were my mother’ tone of voice, “and put yer hands in the air.”

I look at the cops around me, as I consider my next move. As I start to raise my hands, I unsnap one of the pockets on my utility belt without them noticing. What I’m about to do is way too risky, even for me. But I can’t afford to go to jail with the Hatter still on the loose.

Detective Bullock walks towards me. “Let’s go punk,” he says as he grabs my arm. He attempts to pull me towards the car. I purposely over-exaggerate the effect of the tug, and allow two flash-bang capsules to fall out of the opened pocket.

Before they even realize that something has hit the ground, I close my eyes tightly and slam the protected sole of my boot onto the capsules as hard as I can. The police are quickly blinded, and they all cover their eyes. In that brief moment, I quickly reach for my grapple and shoot it up into the air. I watch as the grapple shoots up into the air and the end sinks into a chimney on a roof. Within a second, I’m off.

I change body position in mid-air so I can land on my feet when I hit the roof. I watch as my two feet seem to hang in mid-air, just above the roof. BANG! I hear come from below as I see a bullet just clip the side of my leg. An officer must’ve been lucky with a blind shot. My once stable legs give, and I fall onto the rooftop on my side. I look at the blood dripping from the side of my leg. I got lucky. Way too lucky.

I somehow manage to stand back up and brush myself off. It hurts, but I have to keep going. With more effort than usual, I leap to another rooftop. A light suddenly blazes on my back as I hear rapid-fire shots coming in my direction.

“There he is!” I hear yelled from some sort of radio. I turn around to see the same police helicopter that was chasing me before. The rotary machine guns start to fire. I hide myself behind a chimney as bullets slam into the pavement beside me. I quickly come out of cover and whip a batarang at the searchlight on the helicopter. It bounces off like bullets bounce off Superman.

As the helicopter turns to make another pass over me, I flee to a different rooftop and hide behind its ledge. The machine guns start firing, and the bullets land right next to me.

As I look towards the bullet holes in the pavement, I notice two bricks broken off from the ledge. I pick up one in each hand. As the helicopter turns to try and hit me again, I run to hide behind the raised portion of the roof on which the door is located. As the helicopter comes towards me, I quickly pop out from cover and throw one of the bricks at the searchlight. The helicopter shakes as the brick collides with it. It cracks the outer glass of the searchlight, but the light is still working fine. I throw the second brick with all my strength, and quickly glide to another roof so they lose sight of me.

“He destroyed our searchlight!” I hear the pilot say over the radio.