Batman: Dark Days Chapter 1

Hey guys! Sorry I gotta say this, but yesterday, my computer was hacked, and all my files were deleted, including the story I had been posting on here, EMPEROR. But fear not! I will rewrite it soon enough and once I finish it again I will post it once more. But for now, I will post a story I wrote a couple years back that I had saved on my laptop, called Batman: Dark Days! So here is the first chapter, enjoy!


Batman: Dark Days
Chapter 1
On the outside, Gotham City, a series of three islands residing in Lake Gotham connected by four bridges, three connecting islands together and the fourth to the mainland appears to be quiet, sleeping along with the majority of its citizens as the crescent moon hovers in the night sky. The important buildings are lit by large neon signs, the brightest being the giant three-dimensional W branded upon Wayne Tower, headquarters of Wayne Enterprises. But for the most part, the buildings are not lit. As darkness does, this attracts the monsters onto the streets, murderers, rapists, psychopaths, out into the open to do whatever evils they wish upon the streets of the Gothic-style buildings that make up Gotham.
But it also brings out him.
During the day, Bruce Wayne does what some might describe as living life, riding in his custom-built jet black Bentley limousine driven by his goodhearted butler Alfred Pennyworth, brandishing some beautiful woman on his arm whom he often never spoke 10 words to before hence, to some high-class party that only billionaires like himself attended. The gossip columns adored him, but most of the middle class in Gotham showed quite a disdain for him, as he often came off as arrogant and shallow, despite his regular huge donations to the GCPD, Gotham City’s men in uniform commissioned by James Gordon, the offices of Gotham City‘s District attorneys, unofficially led by Harvey Dent, Blackgate Prison, and Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, as well as many small charity organizations around Gotham, including the Leslie Thompkins Organization, which worked for the medical treatment of Gotham’s homeless and those who couldn’t afford health insurance. Wayne had jet black hair, and always wore incredibly stylish (often Italian style) suits. He had broad shoulders, handsome looks, and a trimmed physique, often landing him on Stacy Handler’s (Gotham’s leading gossip columner) list of “Gotham’s Most Desirable Men.”
But when night fell, Bruce Wayne dies, and he becomes a very different person.

Laura Jensen was just getting off at work at TGI Fridays. She hated work there; for one thing Tito, the head cook smelled like grease and tuna, and her ex-boyfriend Henry worked there, and she hated his guts. But if she was going to pay the ridiculously high rent that Mr. Costello next door charged, his breath engulfed by the smell of tobacco, she had to work there. It wasn’t her only job, though. On weekends she worked at a computer tech support group downtown. She loved computers, always had, ever since she first got onto one when she was 9.
She had walked about halfway home to her apartment on Ferdinand and 3rd when she was stopped by a large man, probably of Latino heritage, wearing a worn red snowcap. “Hey, baby, how ya doin’ this fine evening?” he said to her. “Just…trying to get home,” she said, moving around him, but being caught by a beefy arm wearing black fingerless gloves. “Oh hang on, baby, don’t be in such a rush.” “Please, I’ve really got to get home.” “I know ya do, we all gotta be doin things, am I right?” The man had a raspy voice as he chuckled. Laura was caught off guard by the fact that he held in his hands a revolver. She had taken self defense classes for these situations, but that was years ago, and this man was much more massive than anyone she practiced against. “Alright, look baby, I’m gonna make this real easy on ya, ok? Heh heh.” Sweat started to drip from her eyebrow. Only adding to this was the fact that no one was walking down the alley, a short cut she had found out about a couple months back. “I want you to take off those sexy little jeans of yours, let me do what I’ll do, and then I’ll let you be on your way, okay?” A tear of terror ran down her cheek. “Please, I just want to get home. Please sir…” “Alright look sweetheart, now you’re starting to piss me off. I’m gonna tell you one more time. Take off your pants. Now!” She had had nightmares about this. But this was so much scarier than what she had dreamed. But she had to oblige, she wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. Slowly, she unbuckled her belt and slid her skinny jeans off of her legs, watching as the man licked his lips perversely, the revolver pointed at her waist.
He had seen enough.
Above him the dim alley lamp exploded, hit by a well placed Batarang. Suddenly Laura was grabbed around the waist, not by the man as she could still barely make him out in the darkness, but by someone else, and she soon was propelled upward, like she was flying, upward, onto the roof of the building next to her. She didn’t see him much, but she heard him, a deep menacing voice. “Stay quiet. I’ll come back.” He said it right in her ears, but all she saw was a shadow. As he approached the edge of the roof, his arms extended upward, bringing with them a cape made of state of the art manipulating cloth fibers, forming what looked to be wings. The wings of a bat.
He jumped, and lifting his arms, the cape, acting like a parachute, billowed against the air, allowing him to descend swiftly but safely back onto the ground with a thud behind the man. “What the hell?” He spun and looked at the figure, and in his eyes, he saw rage, a gaze that petrified him, on the top of his cowl two short spikes mimicking the ears of a bat and on the torso of his dark gray costume in the middle of the chest, a black bat insignia. The terror made him drop the gun to the ground. “Holy-OOF!” The very breath was knocked out of him as he was punched in the gut by the hardest punch he had ever felt, which said a lot because he had been punched many times in his lifetime. The figure’s fist seemingly sunk into the man’s abdomen, followed swiftly by an uppercut to the bottom of the jaw, knocking loose three teeth, following him thudding to the ground. “You son of a bitch…” he said, blood dripping down his jaw, as he slowly rose to the ground. His eyes turned to the revolver in front of him, his back to the shadow, and, thinking himself clever, quickly grabbed at it and turned to shoot the figure. “Where the hell…did you… go?” the mugger said, spinning around at the faintest sound he heard, gun pointed, for several moments, panicking. “I am not…I am not afraid of you!” No he wasn’t afraid.
He was terrified.
Quick as lightning, the gun was kicked out of his hand from his right side, followed by a knee to the sternum, making him drop to his knees in pain, followed by a pounding hammer fist to the top of the head, dropping him onto his face, knocking him out cold.
The figure found Laura sitting, leaning against the edge of the wall, holding her knees to her chest, crying from the shock of what had jus happened. He was going to rape her, and she knew it. She jumped when he spoke to her in the deep, growling voice he had practiced hundreds of times until it became natural to speak in. “You can stop now.” She looked at him, tears burning her eyes, and caught her jeans as he tossed them to her. “Is he gone?” “He won’t be hurting anyone anymore.” “Did you kill him?” “No.” He gestured with his arms for her to come to him. She put on her jeans and approached him, trusting him. He put his arm around her lower back, but gentler than the first time now, and she held on to him as he glided her down to the ground, adjusting his cape so that the glide was slower and easier. She had gone through a lot in such a short time, and he didn’t want to add to it. As they landed, he let go of her, but she didn’t. She hugged him tightly, a tear of relief dripping onto his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, through her tears and the ache in the back of her throat. Letting him go, their eyes met for an instant, and then something in the sky caught his gaze. The signal, a giant light of his bat symbol in the sky, Commissioner Gordon’s way of contacting him, glided across the clouds of the night. He looked back at her. “You should get home.” “Yeah,” she said, sniffing. “Yeah, ok.” She hugged him around the neck once more then left, walking down the alley.
He walked in the opposite direction, pressing a button on his wrist. But as he walked past the mugger, he heard him groan. “What…what are you man?” he said weakly, blood soaking his face as he lay on his back. Right then, a knee landed in his chest by the shadow whose gaze of rage had returned. “I’m the Batman,” he growled, knocking him out could once again with a hard punch in the face. Rumbling down the alley came the Batmobile, a state of the art long black vehicle with a 780 horsepower engine. The top hatch opened and the Batman stepped into the cushioned seat, closing the hatch, and driving off into the night.