Post by jordan on Oct 22, 2013 0:09:56 GMT -5
Ultimate Batman Issue #1
The Mysterious Case of the Nightwing and the Coward
Chapter I
Through Different Eyes
By Jordan
*
Batman
Thud. Silence. Thud. Silence. Thud. Silence. A black beast pitters and patters above my head. I sit waiting and listening, I hear what he says and smell the blood he's drawn."Heat vision, on." I whisper into the hidden mouthpiece that I use to communicate with my cowl, the mouthpiece that activates the lenses inn my eyes and makes them into something completely different, something worth using. I look up into the floor above my head and see two men, locked in a death match. One is large, powerful and older. Shoulders are broad and his steps are slow.
The other man acts as a complete contrast to the first; he is tall and slim, his movements fluid and his punches always connect. He swings around behind the first man and knocks him to the floor.
I've been tracking the second man for almost three weeks now--on the streets, they call him Nightwing. Is he just another punk like Robin was, or will he be someone worth my trouble like Oliver? I see him reach into his thick body armor and pull out a small wooden handle, what could it be? I wonder this only for a moment, for it takes him just seconds to pop the blade on the knife and hold it the first man's neck. This is where I intervene.
I fling a sticky explosive to the ceiling and wait five seconds for it to detonate. Using my grappling hook, I lift myself to the story above me. I now stand face-to-face with a large man in tick armor, an eagle adorning his chest and back. "Nightwing." Some say my voice sounds like a growl, others say it sounds like pure hatred, a few some say it sounds like gravel being crushed under the tire of an eighteen wheeler. Whatever it sounds like, it scares the shit out of anyone who hears it. Accept Nightwing. He just laughs.
"I was wondering when I'd see you, Batman. I've been in town almost a month we haven't had any face time. What a shame." His laugh is cold and heartless, like nothing I've heard before.
"Are you the one who's been killing the Maroni thugs?" His eyes stare into mine, unfeeling, unloving--this is a man who grew up with no love in his life.
"Oh God, Batman, HELP! He's gonna kill me!" Tears run down this man's cheeks, cutting rivers in the streams of blood. I've met this man before, six years ago when I brought him in for the attempted murder of the Maroni head. I guess he's switched sides.
"John Balamossi, you should have stayed in prison or stayed straight." Fear cloud out all other emotions in his eyes.
"Y-you remember me?" For just one second, I see the fear fall away, but I'm not sure what emotion overrules it.
"I remember everyone." What was supposed to sound threatening and angry, I fear may have sounded slightly afraid and sympathetic.
"Isn't this touching, a reunion of Batman and Thug, we should make a reality show about it, shouldn't we? Ha, ha."
"What are you looking for, Nightwing? Why are you killing the Maroni's?" I fear I may know his answer before he says it.
"I'm looking for the head of the Maroni Crime Family, Batman. He killed some people I loved very much an I need to find him." The mysterious Head of the Maroni Family. No one knows who runs the operation except a select few, and no one knows who those few are. No one speaks, no one knows, everything's a secret even I can barely fathom a look at. It is a conspiracy and a web created long before I came around.
"Everyone's looking for the Head, Nightwing. What makes you special?"
"What makes me special? What the hell makes you special, Batman? You're just a crook running around, parading like a flying rodent, telling me your righteous nothings, why would I accept anything that you told me?" I stare into his eyes, his knife stilled poised at Balamossi's neck.
"Because I'm Batman." In one fluid motion I lift my wings and glide across the room, closing the distance between him and I, and sending him flying into the back wall with a well placed kick against his chest. He doesn't verbally respond, he just attacks. He jabs with his knife and cuts the side of my stomach, but the knife catches on my kevlar and snaps. I grab his wrist and toss him backwards against the same wall. "Give up Nightwing, you'll never find th Head like this. Let the cops do their job." He laughs again, and it cuts to my heart.
"This coming from you? The goddamn Batman is telling me to stay out of the way of the cops? You self righteous piece of shit!" He unhooks a hand grenade from his utility belt, pulls the pin and launches it at me. Balamossi doesn't move an inch. I throw myself on top of Balamossi to shield him from the blast, and the shrapnel cuts through my kevlar and lodges itself in my back. I stand tall and find that the Nightwing has already disappeared. Damn. I look down at Balamossi shaking his head.
"You can't turn me in, everyone will laugh at me!" His tears stream down hi face thicker than ever. I shake my head and hold back a laugh of my own.
*
Bruce Wayne
The soft beads of sunlight rain down like the early mists in late July upon my back. My suit it straight black, my vest is a deep, dark purple and my tie is a solid red. This is what my advisors chose for me today, because a grown man of nearly thirty can't choose his own clothes. The world we live in.
My body is tired, my arms are weak but my brain is on edge. After my first encounter with the Nightwing last night, my mind is buzzing with possibilities. He was approximately five-foot-eleven, he was caucasian and his whole body was on edge, as though he never had a moment off. I know the feeling. He was probably in the age range of twenty-four to twenty-seven. I just don't understand.
My thoughts are disrupted by the buzzing of my intercom. "Yes, Martha?" I say in to the intercom, waiting for response. What could she be informing me about at eight in the morning?
"Misters Bryan Haly and Donald Grayson are here to see you." My eyes flicker about the large, spacious office as I soon become more self-conscious than normal. Is my suit on perfectly? Is my watch on right? Is my hair out of place?
"Send them in, Martha." I don't have time to check my composure, as the two gentlemen barge through the large oak door within seconds.
"Bruce, my boy!" Bryan Haly's voice is warm and welcoming as he marches towards me. He is a stout man of just over five-six, and he is rather rotund. His hair balding on top, his smiling loving and caring--Bryan Haly is the greatest man on Earth. He skips the formal handshake and moves straight for a hug as h embraces me in his tight, warm arms. His hugs have the love of a father, and I only hope that mine have the love of a son.
"Well, well Mr. Haly, I didn't know that you knew this stuck up, egotistical snob." The younger man, Donald, says with a scowl scarring his face with hideosity. My eyes meet his and Haly feels the tension. Donald is shorter than I, his legs long, defined and athletic. He is an acrobat by night, and apparently Haly's assistant by day.
"If it isn't good old Donald Grayson," I pause for a moment, our eyes connecting in heat.
"Come here you sorry bastard!" Donald triumphantly yells, rushing towards me to give me a hug. "It's been almost a month and you haven't dropped by once! Not once!" His smile erupts in a seemingly endless grin, crossing his face from ear to ear. My smile emerges happier than it had it months. Our embrace ends and we step back, the three of us in an ill-formed triangle.
"I haven't seen you two since the day..." I stop myself and let my sentence hang open. I was about to say words that should never be said in someone who has been exposed to such tragedy's presence.
"Since the day that Balamossi shot Haly's circus, claiming that the Maroni Head was somewhere in the audience? Since the day my parents died and Haly took Dick and I in out of the goodness of his heart? No, you haven't, but that's all dead and buried, let's move on Bruce, shall we?" His endless smile breaks but hi eyes do not turn red, he does not hold back any tears.
"Yes, Bruce, let us move on." Haly has an odd mixture of an American and a British accent. I never inquired into his former nationalities, but I'm guessing the market for circuses in England was smaller than in America.
"Straight to business then, huh? Be it then, what are you two here for?" Donald shifts swiftly from one foot to the other while Haly stays straight. Donald doesn't want to ask whatever they are about to ask while Haly does. Never fold to the right hand man.
"Well, seeing as we've just gotten back from Rome, and this is the first time we've been back in Gotham since...the shooting, I see it only fit that you, as my friend and a friend of the circus, would throw us a fundraiser. We have another week scheduled in Gotham, but the funds aren't flowing in as powerfully as we'd hoped. It would be a big help if you'd get some of your richer friends together for us and get us money. Just enough to feed the animals is all we have." I stare into his strong, unwavering eyes. He has a look of business, not a look of pride. Donald, on the other hand, wears a look of anger. Is this their true proposal? Or is there something else I'm supposed to know?
"Of course, Mr. Haly, I'd be delighted." And with the shake of a hand, the deal is made.
*
Batman
I stand still and blind with the shadows--as one with the night, I stalk my prey. I stand perched above them and look down upon them. They are the helpless and the weak--and the evil and the mighty. I have sworn to protect my city from crime. The Nightwing must fall in order for my reign to continue. But he cannot fall yet--not until I find the Maroni head.
I have spent the night finding known members of the Maroni and I have listened to their tales, new and old. One tale tells of a loving wife her pushed her husband to crime when they needed to put a roof over their son's head. One tale tells of a powerful kingpin who gave his power to an upstart gangster who wanted to make it big in the world. But the one that interested me the most went like this:
Once upon a time in a land across the sea, there was a king and queen who stood tall above the trees. Their eyes, combined, saw all that there was to see, and their hearts wept not for those souls whom they brought to their castle to face their eternal judgment. One day, a young maiden had fallen madly in love with the king's son, and he had so to her as well. Together in the dark of the forrest they made love and, from this tainted love, came a child. To the maiden's displeasure, the Prince told her to leave the kingdom at once, but she refused. And when the day came that the baby should be born, it was herald to the royal birthmark--the black blade.
The baby was taken to the King and the Queen for them to find the truth and it was determined, through long,hard evaluations, that this baby should be that of the royal heir. The Prince, the Maiden and the baby were banished from the kingdom, and the baby was named Ignavissimo--coward.
The Prince, angered at his newfound home and poverty, took to drinking. There was a bar that he frequented, the only one that served his liquor just the way he liked it, and at this bar there was another man. This man held power in the city, and, seeing the Prince drinking his own favorite drink, this strange man came to talk to the Prince. He said 'Is that in your hand the liquor of green gods?' and the Prince stared into his bleak eyes. 'Y-yes, but how did you know?' and the strange man just laughed. He introduced himself as the Courageous Coward, the Man With No Fear. It was told to the Prince that this Coward was a man of respect within the local community and so, out of duty to his father, he began to see more of this Coward, hoping one day to take all that was his and hand it to his father, make hi father proud.
And take it he did. Within years, the Coward had fallen and the Prince had taken the lands for his own. But when the day came that the Prince handed his kingdom to his father, the King spat in his face and rejected him wholly. And the Prince, with much spite in his small, broken heart traveled across the sea to the golden lands, bringing with him his wife and son, and expanding his empire across this new golden land. He renamed himself Prince Maroni, and his son would be the heir to the most powerful fortune and family the Mafiaso had ever seen.
But the tale ends there. The head of the Maroni, Ignavissimo, heir to a foreign crown, now rules a massive criminal empire which steals millions of dollars within days, and then disappears. But he has to have some sort of outside operation, right? No one can operate one of the most successful criminal empires ever without an outside operation right? My eyes stare out into the black abyss and, just for a moment, I think I can see it staring back.
*
I don't even realize it, but it's been hours in what seems like the span of seconds. I stand silent in the stark shadows, staring out into the blinding light. Cast large against the dark clouds of Gotham is the Bat-Signal, the giant floodlight Gordon uses to call me. We meet right next to the light, possibly the stupidest, most dangerous idea I've ever heard. Anyone could find us at any time--yet, miraculously, no one ever has. The strange signs of the city.
Police Commissioner Jim Gordon stands staring out into the darkness of Gotham from atop the GCPD HQ rooftop. Knowing Jim like I do, he's probably contemplating what it means to be human and why it is that we do what we do. Ever since the day of the Joker incident five years ago, he hasn't been the same. I fall slightly off balance and make a noise not even a bat could hear.
"Batman." We stand just yards apart, my eyes staring into his but his eyes searching for my feet--searching for me. He reaches over an turns off the floodlight. His trench-coat billows in the wind.
"Why am I here, Jim?" His eyes continue searching for me, but he doesn't find me. I can tell that he's uncomfortable not being able to see me, and I shuffle my boots to help give him an idea of where I'm at. I see some of the tension in his eyes melt away, and his body relaxes. He still isn't answering. I could be searching for Nightwing and Ignavissimo right now, what is Gordon doing keeping me here? Shouldn't he be doing his job? "Jim, what happened?"
"It's the Circus Case, Batman." I hate times like this. What circus case is he talking about? Is something happening with Haly's? I know that it's the only circus in town right now, I wonder what happened? I swear, sometimes he thinks I'm a damned Bat-God. Best to play along for now.
"Did you find something?" He reaches into hi coat pocket and pulls out a manilla folder clearly marked "Circus." He extends his arm, holding it out to me. He's trying to bait me out of the shadows, get me into the open. It is times like these that I wonder if he really is on my side or not. Against my better judgment I step out into the soft Gotham moonlight and pull the older from hi clenched hand. I open it to see a jumbled portfolio of pictures--of Nightwing.
But the pictures throughout the folder's man content do not pierce me as much as the first--Nightwing carting off young Dick Grayson. At twelve years old, and a murderous vigilante is carting him away from the only family he knows. Nightwing must pay. If they're labeling the Nightwing Case "Circus," then there must be some connection.
"I've heard about this man, Jim. On the streets they call him Nightwing. He's taken up his own war against crime, specifically the Maroni Family. Twenty-three dead and counting. I haven't been able to find him, which means he's had ghost training. Luckily, I have too, or else this would become much harder. I've been tracking him for weeks--come to think of it, ever since the Circus showed up." Of course, this isn't all true. I have found Nightwing, he's actually very easy to track. But Gordon has been less than private with the information I've shard with him over the years. Sometimes he fights with me and sometimes he fights against me. I just don't know which this one will be.
"Batman?" Gordon's voice is a fain whisper, carried away by the soft currents of my mind. I wonder how long it has been since last I said something. "Batman, do you know what this Nightwing character has to do with the Circus?" I try to say something highly intelligent, but it comes out as little more than senseless babble and a bad grumble.
"Jim, how long ago was the picture with the Grayson boy taken?"
"About three hours ago." Nightwing. Dick. The Circus. A month. No...no!
"Jim, we need to get to the Circus--now!" My voice is panicked and I wonder what my biggest fan Jim Gordon hears. I take a step back into the shadows and whisper into my voice control system: "Activate--Getaway One." Loud speakers on the heels of my boots create a noise akan to the sound and the screech and the fluttering of bat wings. In seconds, I am off the rooftop on my across the city to the circus. Just as my feet land on the next rooftop over, I see the smoke and the fire rising high into the atmosphere. The world is coming to a quick end. I can't helpbut to scream it--
"Dick!" My voice carries far and loud. Maybe if I get there quick I can catch Nightwing and put him down once and for all. This time it isn't about vengeance or self-pity--it's about saving the life of an innocent young man, Dick Grayson.
To Be Continued...Obviously...
The identity of the Nightwing revealed!
The Mysterious Case of the Nightwing and the Coward
Chapter I
Through Different Eyes
By Jordan
*
Batman
Thud. Silence. Thud. Silence. Thud. Silence. A black beast pitters and patters above my head. I sit waiting and listening, I hear what he says and smell the blood he's drawn."Heat vision, on." I whisper into the hidden mouthpiece that I use to communicate with my cowl, the mouthpiece that activates the lenses inn my eyes and makes them into something completely different, something worth using. I look up into the floor above my head and see two men, locked in a death match. One is large, powerful and older. Shoulders are broad and his steps are slow.
The other man acts as a complete contrast to the first; he is tall and slim, his movements fluid and his punches always connect. He swings around behind the first man and knocks him to the floor.
I've been tracking the second man for almost three weeks now--on the streets, they call him Nightwing. Is he just another punk like Robin was, or will he be someone worth my trouble like Oliver? I see him reach into his thick body armor and pull out a small wooden handle, what could it be? I wonder this only for a moment, for it takes him just seconds to pop the blade on the knife and hold it the first man's neck. This is where I intervene.
I fling a sticky explosive to the ceiling and wait five seconds for it to detonate. Using my grappling hook, I lift myself to the story above me. I now stand face-to-face with a large man in tick armor, an eagle adorning his chest and back. "Nightwing." Some say my voice sounds like a growl, others say it sounds like pure hatred, a few some say it sounds like gravel being crushed under the tire of an eighteen wheeler. Whatever it sounds like, it scares the shit out of anyone who hears it. Accept Nightwing. He just laughs.
"I was wondering when I'd see you, Batman. I've been in town almost a month we haven't had any face time. What a shame." His laugh is cold and heartless, like nothing I've heard before.
"Are you the one who's been killing the Maroni thugs?" His eyes stare into mine, unfeeling, unloving--this is a man who grew up with no love in his life.
"Oh God, Batman, HELP! He's gonna kill me!" Tears run down this man's cheeks, cutting rivers in the streams of blood. I've met this man before, six years ago when I brought him in for the attempted murder of the Maroni head. I guess he's switched sides.
"John Balamossi, you should have stayed in prison or stayed straight." Fear cloud out all other emotions in his eyes.
"Y-you remember me?" For just one second, I see the fear fall away, but I'm not sure what emotion overrules it.
"I remember everyone." What was supposed to sound threatening and angry, I fear may have sounded slightly afraid and sympathetic.
"Isn't this touching, a reunion of Batman and Thug, we should make a reality show about it, shouldn't we? Ha, ha."
"What are you looking for, Nightwing? Why are you killing the Maroni's?" I fear I may know his answer before he says it.
"I'm looking for the head of the Maroni Crime Family, Batman. He killed some people I loved very much an I need to find him." The mysterious Head of the Maroni Family. No one knows who runs the operation except a select few, and no one knows who those few are. No one speaks, no one knows, everything's a secret even I can barely fathom a look at. It is a conspiracy and a web created long before I came around.
"Everyone's looking for the Head, Nightwing. What makes you special?"
"What makes me special? What the hell makes you special, Batman? You're just a crook running around, parading like a flying rodent, telling me your righteous nothings, why would I accept anything that you told me?" I stare into his eyes, his knife stilled poised at Balamossi's neck.
"Because I'm Batman." In one fluid motion I lift my wings and glide across the room, closing the distance between him and I, and sending him flying into the back wall with a well placed kick against his chest. He doesn't verbally respond, he just attacks. He jabs with his knife and cuts the side of my stomach, but the knife catches on my kevlar and snaps. I grab his wrist and toss him backwards against the same wall. "Give up Nightwing, you'll never find th Head like this. Let the cops do their job." He laughs again, and it cuts to my heart.
"This coming from you? The goddamn Batman is telling me to stay out of the way of the cops? You self righteous piece of shit!" He unhooks a hand grenade from his utility belt, pulls the pin and launches it at me. Balamossi doesn't move an inch. I throw myself on top of Balamossi to shield him from the blast, and the shrapnel cuts through my kevlar and lodges itself in my back. I stand tall and find that the Nightwing has already disappeared. Damn. I look down at Balamossi shaking his head.
"You can't turn me in, everyone will laugh at me!" His tears stream down hi face thicker than ever. I shake my head and hold back a laugh of my own.
*
Bruce Wayne
The soft beads of sunlight rain down like the early mists in late July upon my back. My suit it straight black, my vest is a deep, dark purple and my tie is a solid red. This is what my advisors chose for me today, because a grown man of nearly thirty can't choose his own clothes. The world we live in.
My body is tired, my arms are weak but my brain is on edge. After my first encounter with the Nightwing last night, my mind is buzzing with possibilities. He was approximately five-foot-eleven, he was caucasian and his whole body was on edge, as though he never had a moment off. I know the feeling. He was probably in the age range of twenty-four to twenty-seven. I just don't understand.
My thoughts are disrupted by the buzzing of my intercom. "Yes, Martha?" I say in to the intercom, waiting for response. What could she be informing me about at eight in the morning?
"Misters Bryan Haly and Donald Grayson are here to see you." My eyes flicker about the large, spacious office as I soon become more self-conscious than normal. Is my suit on perfectly? Is my watch on right? Is my hair out of place?
"Send them in, Martha." I don't have time to check my composure, as the two gentlemen barge through the large oak door within seconds.
"Bruce, my boy!" Bryan Haly's voice is warm and welcoming as he marches towards me. He is a stout man of just over five-six, and he is rather rotund. His hair balding on top, his smiling loving and caring--Bryan Haly is the greatest man on Earth. He skips the formal handshake and moves straight for a hug as h embraces me in his tight, warm arms. His hugs have the love of a father, and I only hope that mine have the love of a son.
"Well, well Mr. Haly, I didn't know that you knew this stuck up, egotistical snob." The younger man, Donald, says with a scowl scarring his face with hideosity. My eyes meet his and Haly feels the tension. Donald is shorter than I, his legs long, defined and athletic. He is an acrobat by night, and apparently Haly's assistant by day.
"If it isn't good old Donald Grayson," I pause for a moment, our eyes connecting in heat.
"Come here you sorry bastard!" Donald triumphantly yells, rushing towards me to give me a hug. "It's been almost a month and you haven't dropped by once! Not once!" His smile erupts in a seemingly endless grin, crossing his face from ear to ear. My smile emerges happier than it had it months. Our embrace ends and we step back, the three of us in an ill-formed triangle.
"I haven't seen you two since the day..." I stop myself and let my sentence hang open. I was about to say words that should never be said in someone who has been exposed to such tragedy's presence.
"Since the day that Balamossi shot Haly's circus, claiming that the Maroni Head was somewhere in the audience? Since the day my parents died and Haly took Dick and I in out of the goodness of his heart? No, you haven't, but that's all dead and buried, let's move on Bruce, shall we?" His endless smile breaks but hi eyes do not turn red, he does not hold back any tears.
"Yes, Bruce, let us move on." Haly has an odd mixture of an American and a British accent. I never inquired into his former nationalities, but I'm guessing the market for circuses in England was smaller than in America.
"Straight to business then, huh? Be it then, what are you two here for?" Donald shifts swiftly from one foot to the other while Haly stays straight. Donald doesn't want to ask whatever they are about to ask while Haly does. Never fold to the right hand man.
"Well, seeing as we've just gotten back from Rome, and this is the first time we've been back in Gotham since...the shooting, I see it only fit that you, as my friend and a friend of the circus, would throw us a fundraiser. We have another week scheduled in Gotham, but the funds aren't flowing in as powerfully as we'd hoped. It would be a big help if you'd get some of your richer friends together for us and get us money. Just enough to feed the animals is all we have." I stare into his strong, unwavering eyes. He has a look of business, not a look of pride. Donald, on the other hand, wears a look of anger. Is this their true proposal? Or is there something else I'm supposed to know?
"Of course, Mr. Haly, I'd be delighted." And with the shake of a hand, the deal is made.
*
Batman
I stand still and blind with the shadows--as one with the night, I stalk my prey. I stand perched above them and look down upon them. They are the helpless and the weak--and the evil and the mighty. I have sworn to protect my city from crime. The Nightwing must fall in order for my reign to continue. But he cannot fall yet--not until I find the Maroni head.
I have spent the night finding known members of the Maroni and I have listened to their tales, new and old. One tale tells of a loving wife her pushed her husband to crime when they needed to put a roof over their son's head. One tale tells of a powerful kingpin who gave his power to an upstart gangster who wanted to make it big in the world. But the one that interested me the most went like this:
Once upon a time in a land across the sea, there was a king and queen who stood tall above the trees. Their eyes, combined, saw all that there was to see, and their hearts wept not for those souls whom they brought to their castle to face their eternal judgment. One day, a young maiden had fallen madly in love with the king's son, and he had so to her as well. Together in the dark of the forrest they made love and, from this tainted love, came a child. To the maiden's displeasure, the Prince told her to leave the kingdom at once, but she refused. And when the day came that the baby should be born, it was herald to the royal birthmark--the black blade.
The baby was taken to the King and the Queen for them to find the truth and it was determined, through long,hard evaluations, that this baby should be that of the royal heir. The Prince, the Maiden and the baby were banished from the kingdom, and the baby was named Ignavissimo--coward.
The Prince, angered at his newfound home and poverty, took to drinking. There was a bar that he frequented, the only one that served his liquor just the way he liked it, and at this bar there was another man. This man held power in the city, and, seeing the Prince drinking his own favorite drink, this strange man came to talk to the Prince. He said 'Is that in your hand the liquor of green gods?' and the Prince stared into his bleak eyes. 'Y-yes, but how did you know?' and the strange man just laughed. He introduced himself as the Courageous Coward, the Man With No Fear. It was told to the Prince that this Coward was a man of respect within the local community and so, out of duty to his father, he began to see more of this Coward, hoping one day to take all that was his and hand it to his father, make hi father proud.
And take it he did. Within years, the Coward had fallen and the Prince had taken the lands for his own. But when the day came that the Prince handed his kingdom to his father, the King spat in his face and rejected him wholly. And the Prince, with much spite in his small, broken heart traveled across the sea to the golden lands, bringing with him his wife and son, and expanding his empire across this new golden land. He renamed himself Prince Maroni, and his son would be the heir to the most powerful fortune and family the Mafiaso had ever seen.
But the tale ends there. The head of the Maroni, Ignavissimo, heir to a foreign crown, now rules a massive criminal empire which steals millions of dollars within days, and then disappears. But he has to have some sort of outside operation, right? No one can operate one of the most successful criminal empires ever without an outside operation right? My eyes stare out into the black abyss and, just for a moment, I think I can see it staring back.
*
I don't even realize it, but it's been hours in what seems like the span of seconds. I stand silent in the stark shadows, staring out into the blinding light. Cast large against the dark clouds of Gotham is the Bat-Signal, the giant floodlight Gordon uses to call me. We meet right next to the light, possibly the stupidest, most dangerous idea I've ever heard. Anyone could find us at any time--yet, miraculously, no one ever has. The strange signs of the city.
Police Commissioner Jim Gordon stands staring out into the darkness of Gotham from atop the GCPD HQ rooftop. Knowing Jim like I do, he's probably contemplating what it means to be human and why it is that we do what we do. Ever since the day of the Joker incident five years ago, he hasn't been the same. I fall slightly off balance and make a noise not even a bat could hear.
"Batman." We stand just yards apart, my eyes staring into his but his eyes searching for my feet--searching for me. He reaches over an turns off the floodlight. His trench-coat billows in the wind.
"Why am I here, Jim?" His eyes continue searching for me, but he doesn't find me. I can tell that he's uncomfortable not being able to see me, and I shuffle my boots to help give him an idea of where I'm at. I see some of the tension in his eyes melt away, and his body relaxes. He still isn't answering. I could be searching for Nightwing and Ignavissimo right now, what is Gordon doing keeping me here? Shouldn't he be doing his job? "Jim, what happened?"
"It's the Circus Case, Batman." I hate times like this. What circus case is he talking about? Is something happening with Haly's? I know that it's the only circus in town right now, I wonder what happened? I swear, sometimes he thinks I'm a damned Bat-God. Best to play along for now.
"Did you find something?" He reaches into hi coat pocket and pulls out a manilla folder clearly marked "Circus." He extends his arm, holding it out to me. He's trying to bait me out of the shadows, get me into the open. It is times like these that I wonder if he really is on my side or not. Against my better judgment I step out into the soft Gotham moonlight and pull the older from hi clenched hand. I open it to see a jumbled portfolio of pictures--of Nightwing.
But the pictures throughout the folder's man content do not pierce me as much as the first--Nightwing carting off young Dick Grayson. At twelve years old, and a murderous vigilante is carting him away from the only family he knows. Nightwing must pay. If they're labeling the Nightwing Case "Circus," then there must be some connection.
"I've heard about this man, Jim. On the streets they call him Nightwing. He's taken up his own war against crime, specifically the Maroni Family. Twenty-three dead and counting. I haven't been able to find him, which means he's had ghost training. Luckily, I have too, or else this would become much harder. I've been tracking him for weeks--come to think of it, ever since the Circus showed up." Of course, this isn't all true. I have found Nightwing, he's actually very easy to track. But Gordon has been less than private with the information I've shard with him over the years. Sometimes he fights with me and sometimes he fights against me. I just don't know which this one will be.
"Batman?" Gordon's voice is a fain whisper, carried away by the soft currents of my mind. I wonder how long it has been since last I said something. "Batman, do you know what this Nightwing character has to do with the Circus?" I try to say something highly intelligent, but it comes out as little more than senseless babble and a bad grumble.
"Jim, how long ago was the picture with the Grayson boy taken?"
"About three hours ago." Nightwing. Dick. The Circus. A month. No...no!
"Jim, we need to get to the Circus--now!" My voice is panicked and I wonder what my biggest fan Jim Gordon hears. I take a step back into the shadows and whisper into my voice control system: "Activate--Getaway One." Loud speakers on the heels of my boots create a noise akan to the sound and the screech and the fluttering of bat wings. In seconds, I am off the rooftop on my across the city to the circus. Just as my feet land on the next rooftop over, I see the smoke and the fire rising high into the atmosphere. The world is coming to a quick end. I can't helpbut to scream it--
"Dick!" My voice carries far and loud. Maybe if I get there quick I can catch Nightwing and put him down once and for all. This time it isn't about vengeance or self-pity--it's about saving the life of an innocent young man, Dick Grayson.
To Be Continued...Obviously...
The identity of the Nightwing revealed!