THE DC GENESIS PROJECT PRESENTS: THE BATMAN
This story, unlike many others, is born from tragedy. The first act opens up to a boy with his knees on a cold sidewalk, his fingers soaking in warm blood, tears streaming down his red cheeks as he tries to rouse his parents from the eternal sleep they was granted to them by the bullet of a man with frightened, hollow eyes. From the shadows of the alleyways that adorned the spaces between the buildings on Park Row is where he came from, Bruce remembered the glint of the gun as the streetlight reflected off of it. He remembered the deafening howl of gunfire, the blankness in their eyes.
PROLOGUE: The Night Everything Changed
Every night he awoke from his sleep in cold sweats with the visions of his parents death. Nightmares of their lifeless corpses being carted off. Every night the fire that threatened to consume him, the hatred and thirst for vengeance was stoked. He rose from his bed, looking at the clock on the other side of the bed that displayed 11:00 PM. Ruffling his messy black hair, the seventeen year old Cambridge graduate stood to his feet, picking a t-shirt from his hamper, the very one he shed earlier that day and left on the floor and slipped it on.
Making his way over to the window, he opened it, letting the lights of the city flood into the dark room. Big Ben and Parliament were visible in the distance, London at night was a glorious sight to behold. He'd been out of school for a whole year and spent time studying with the top most professors outside of the lecture hall in anything that interested him in Europe, never staying in one place for too long, always moving. Accompanying him was the fortune his father left him and his aptitude, allowing him to attain vast amounts of knowledge over a short amount of time. His mind was like a sponge, and he had instant recall of anything he'd learned, he could recant a textbook from table of contents to glossary. It wasn't rare for Bruce to hear how his brain was a trap waiting to be armed.
Well aware of how brilliant he was, he never took his mentors seriously.
He emerged from his bedroom, zipping his leather coat up and trotting down to the first level of the penthouse when he heard a door open and a voice call out to him. "Master Bruce? Where are you headed?" Alfred asked from the doorway of his room, emerging in his pajamas and nightcap snug on his head.
"Out. Don't wait up for me." The young man bluntly spoke. Alfred's nose wrinkled, he fixed his glasses and cleared his throat as the door shut behind Bruce. Alfred was the closest thing that the emancipated teenager had to a parent, but he had no reins on Bruce, he never seemed to need them, even now in his rebellious phase as he transitioned to being an insomniac creature of the night who prowled the streets of London. He didn't like it, but he knew whatever Bruce was out and about doing wasn't the work of devils, at least. Bruce was a health nut, not for physical appearance, but more so for his physical capability. Gymnastics and martial arts were passions of his, Alfred would say, but the truth was they were something more than just passions.
They were basic training. The groundwork to becoming the soldier he needed to become. Bruce, from the back of the black cab, stared out at the passing lights, wondering what his cause was, what army was he going to be a soldier to?
He soon stepped from the cab and entered a building, descended down a narrow stairwell that quaked rhythmically. Down at the bottom of the well that was marked with sharpie pen of autographs from different bands, he opened the door, allowing the music that was trapped within the crowded basement to flood outward. Wading through the crowd, Bruce looked around the murky dark basement, toward the far back was a stage where there was a band playing. On the far right wall was a makeshift bar where they were serving whatever was on hand.
While the music was in his taste, he was here on business and began moving through the crowd before a voice caught his attention causing him to turn his head, peering over the thrashing crowd and flailing crowd to a figure at the bar. A woman with two cat ears poking from the top of her black hair, she was a slender young woman, dressed in a black tank top and jeans. This mysterious cat woman turned just as he was approaching, taking a long sip from her German beer, her eyes glued to the band on stage.
"Excuse me." Bruce said loud enough for her to hear him over the music.
"Buzz off." She bluntly responded, bobbing her head to the drums.
"I'm sorry, it's just that--"
"I said buzz off. I'm not interested."
"It's rare that I run into a fellow Gothamite this far away from home, is all." It garnered a response other than 'buzz off'. The woman looked Bruce over from head to toe, almost skeptically wincing an eye.
"How'd you know I was from Gotham?"
"The accent." Said Bruce, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat. "Most people say you can't discern a Gothamite's accent from a New Yorker's, I say that's bull. I would say upper east side, but I'm not sure...sounds like you picked up some verbal mannerisms from a friend." The young lady smirked, somewhat impressed by his ability to deduce she was from, "Bruce." He introduced himself, "Bruce Wayne."
"Selina." She placed her beer down on the bar, finding the way he introduced himself to be a bit funny. "Square jaw guy like you, this doesn't seem like your scene, Mr. Wayne." A smirk tugged at Bruce's lips.
"Aren't you a little bit too young to be drinking, miss...?"
"Sorry, Nancy Drew, I don't give away my last name on the first night."
"So, there'll be others?" He asked, Selina's scarlet lips seemed to stick out in the dim lighting. Her Cheshire grin of this night, the night his life forever changed, the night when they first met would be burned into his mind forever. Before he could get a response Selina was pulled away by her best friend and confidant, Holly Robinson, who led her toward the stage. Selina lifted her beer, saluting Bruce while yelling something that was drowned out by the music.
They would meet again, a year or so later, on the rooftops of Gotham, in a drastically different setting but at heart the very same people that met in the basement of this very London club.
The night before, Bruce was across town, at a club, where he was approached by a woman he'd never met who claimed that she could help him find what he was looking for. At first he thought the woman was coming onto him until she mentioned his parents by name. She slipped him a note telling him to be here and told him that everything would fall into place shortly after. She slipped away onto the dance floor, Bruce pursued her into the alley behind the club only to find that she'd vanished.
He was certain this was some sort of trap, probably an attempt to kidnap him and squeeze money out of Alfred. The thing was, even if he hadn't come here tonight, even if he was certain that this was some elaborate ruse to kidnap him, he would have always wondered what if. What if they had answers to what happened to him as a child? There was always a nagging suspicion that due to who his father was, such a high profile doctor and business executive that he thought maybe, just maybe, they weren't gunned down in a mugging.
Maybe it was an assassination.
His eyes were drawn toward a door next to the stage where he saw a woman standing with her hands on her hip, he was certain it was the same woman from the night before just based on her posture. Confident, the smugness in just the way she had her hands on her hips. She stood out with her slanted eyes, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and unlike most of the youth that were pumping their fists to the music in t-shirts and jeans, she was wrapped in a tight-hugging Cheongsam. A traditional Mandarin gown with knee high boots.
This mysterious woman noticed she'd been spotted, smiling to Bruce as she opened the door and slipped into the room backstage. Wading through the crowd, he stepped up to the door, opening it and stepping into what looked like a spacious closet. Looking around as he roamed through the room, he was startled by the door suddenly closing, and when he looked, that Chinese woman was standing there.
The fluorescent lighting went out.
Like lightning, he was attacked from all sides by what seemed to be skilled assassins. Their weapons caught the glint of the light that slipped underneath the door, flashes of silver threatened to decapitate the young Bruce Wayne who narrowly evaded each killing strike. His only comfort in this room full of killers trying to slice him in two was that they were as blind as he in this situation--
Without his eyesight, Bruce fell back on his other senses, the shrill sound of metal after colliding with brick, the smell of drawn blood, the taste of sweat on the air. Bruce refused to be a helpless, shortly after his parents deaths he found a teacher, began training in various martial arts, so when the now cautious assassins rounded him, he took a stance. They wanted him dead, it seemed, and he couldn't just ask who they were and why they wanted him that way, that would do nothing but bring about his death.
One the four assassins he counted stepped forth, as silently as possible going to strike where he thought Bruce was. Though it was a commendable attempt, his footstep sounded like it was made by an elephant his prey, so Bruce stepped inward and delivered a fist to the man's face--
A second closed in to capitalize on Bruce's attention being focused on the first attacker--
Bruce spun out of the way, evading a stab that threatened to disembowel him, simultaneously smashing the second man's face in with an elbow. The third came with a sword held above his head, but Bruce took the second assassin by the back of his hood and shoved him in the third attacker's path while returning to the first assassin who was recovering from having his nose jaw broken. Before he could regain his senses, Bruce disarmed him with a chop to a nerve cluster in his forearm, then delivered a headbutt as he fell back into a wall. Pinning the assassin there with his hands, he repeatedly bashed his forehead into the man's nose.
Over, and over, and over until the man yielded, until he stopped struggling, until he went limp in Bruce's grip. Wayne was covered in a gory show of snot and blood.
The other two attackers seemed to have sacrificed the first assassin, never coming to his aid as his skull was bashed in by Bruce. Instead they took more advantageous positions, used the time Bruce was laying into him to prepare their third wave. The fourth assassin seemed to just enjoy watching, something that seemed to worry Bruce who's heart was beating like a drum.
"That's enough."
"Cain?" Bruce's eyes went wide, the lights cut on revealing a tall man with graying hair standing across the room from Bruce. David Cain was the man who taught Bruce everything he knew about fighting. Cain saw something in the boy, a raw hatred, a chip on his shoulder, the potential to become one of the greatest killers, that's why he took Bruce under his wing.
That's why he was here now.
"Been a long time, Bruce." Cain neared Bruce who kept his hands up, ready to kill Cain if it came to that. "Wanna' meet the bastard who killed your parents?"
PROLOGUE: The Night Everything Changed
Every night he awoke from his sleep in cold sweats with the visions of his parents death. Nightmares of their lifeless corpses being carted off. Every night the fire that threatened to consume him, the hatred and thirst for vengeance was stoked. He rose from his bed, looking at the clock on the other side of the bed that displayed 11:00 PM. Ruffling his messy black hair, the seventeen year old Cambridge graduate stood to his feet, picking a t-shirt from his hamper, the very one he shed earlier that day and left on the floor and slipped it on.
Making his way over to the window, he opened it, letting the lights of the city flood into the dark room. Big Ben and Parliament were visible in the distance, London at night was a glorious sight to behold. He'd been out of school for a whole year and spent time studying with the top most professors outside of the lecture hall in anything that interested him in Europe, never staying in one place for too long, always moving. Accompanying him was the fortune his father left him and his aptitude, allowing him to attain vast amounts of knowledge over a short amount of time. His mind was like a sponge, and he had instant recall of anything he'd learned, he could recant a textbook from table of contents to glossary. It wasn't rare for Bruce to hear how his brain was a trap waiting to be armed.
Well aware of how brilliant he was, he never took his mentors seriously.
He emerged from his bedroom, zipping his leather coat up and trotting down to the first level of the penthouse when he heard a door open and a voice call out to him. "Master Bruce? Where are you headed?" Alfred asked from the doorway of his room, emerging in his pajamas and nightcap snug on his head.
"Out. Don't wait up for me." The young man bluntly spoke. Alfred's nose wrinkled, he fixed his glasses and cleared his throat as the door shut behind Bruce. Alfred was the closest thing that the emancipated teenager had to a parent, but he had no reins on Bruce, he never seemed to need them, even now in his rebellious phase as he transitioned to being an insomniac creature of the night who prowled the streets of London. He didn't like it, but he knew whatever Bruce was out and about doing wasn't the work of devils, at least. Bruce was a health nut, not for physical appearance, but more so for his physical capability. Gymnastics and martial arts were passions of his, Alfred would say, but the truth was they were something more than just passions.
They were basic training. The groundwork to becoming the soldier he needed to become. Bruce, from the back of the black cab, stared out at the passing lights, wondering what his cause was, what army was he going to be a soldier to?
He soon stepped from the cab and entered a building, descended down a narrow stairwell that quaked rhythmically. Down at the bottom of the well that was marked with sharpie pen of autographs from different bands, he opened the door, allowing the music that was trapped within the crowded basement to flood outward. Wading through the crowd, Bruce looked around the murky dark basement, toward the far back was a stage where there was a band playing. On the far right wall was a makeshift bar where they were serving whatever was on hand.
While the music was in his taste, he was here on business and began moving through the crowd before a voice caught his attention causing him to turn his head, peering over the thrashing crowd and flailing crowd to a figure at the bar. A woman with two cat ears poking from the top of her black hair, she was a slender young woman, dressed in a black tank top and jeans. This mysterious cat woman turned just as he was approaching, taking a long sip from her German beer, her eyes glued to the band on stage.
"Excuse me." Bruce said loud enough for her to hear him over the music.
"Buzz off." She bluntly responded, bobbing her head to the drums.
"I'm sorry, it's just that--"
"I said buzz off. I'm not interested."
"It's rare that I run into a fellow Gothamite this far away from home, is all." It garnered a response other than 'buzz off'. The woman looked Bruce over from head to toe, almost skeptically wincing an eye.
"How'd you know I was from Gotham?"
"The accent." Said Bruce, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat. "Most people say you can't discern a Gothamite's accent from a New Yorker's, I say that's bull. I would say upper east side, but I'm not sure...sounds like you picked up some verbal mannerisms from a friend." The young lady smirked, somewhat impressed by his ability to deduce she was from, "Bruce." He introduced himself, "Bruce Wayne."
"Selina." She placed her beer down on the bar, finding the way he introduced himself to be a bit funny. "Square jaw guy like you, this doesn't seem like your scene, Mr. Wayne." A smirk tugged at Bruce's lips.
"Aren't you a little bit too young to be drinking, miss...?"
"Sorry, Nancy Drew, I don't give away my last name on the first night."
"So, there'll be others?" He asked, Selina's scarlet lips seemed to stick out in the dim lighting. Her Cheshire grin of this night, the night his life forever changed, the night when they first met would be burned into his mind forever. Before he could get a response Selina was pulled away by her best friend and confidant, Holly Robinson, who led her toward the stage. Selina lifted her beer, saluting Bruce while yelling something that was drowned out by the music.
They would meet again, a year or so later, on the rooftops of Gotham, in a drastically different setting but at heart the very same people that met in the basement of this very London club.
The night before, Bruce was across town, at a club, where he was approached by a woman he'd never met who claimed that she could help him find what he was looking for. At first he thought the woman was coming onto him until she mentioned his parents by name. She slipped him a note telling him to be here and told him that everything would fall into place shortly after. She slipped away onto the dance floor, Bruce pursued her into the alley behind the club only to find that she'd vanished.
He was certain this was some sort of trap, probably an attempt to kidnap him and squeeze money out of Alfred. The thing was, even if he hadn't come here tonight, even if he was certain that this was some elaborate ruse to kidnap him, he would have always wondered what if. What if they had answers to what happened to him as a child? There was always a nagging suspicion that due to who his father was, such a high profile doctor and business executive that he thought maybe, just maybe, they weren't gunned down in a mugging.
Maybe it was an assassination.
His eyes were drawn toward a door next to the stage where he saw a woman standing with her hands on her hip, he was certain it was the same woman from the night before just based on her posture. Confident, the smugness in just the way she had her hands on her hips. She stood out with her slanted eyes, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and unlike most of the youth that were pumping their fists to the music in t-shirts and jeans, she was wrapped in a tight-hugging Cheongsam. A traditional Mandarin gown with knee high boots.
This mysterious woman noticed she'd been spotted, smiling to Bruce as she opened the door and slipped into the room backstage. Wading through the crowd, he stepped up to the door, opening it and stepping into what looked like a spacious closet. Looking around as he roamed through the room, he was startled by the door suddenly closing, and when he looked, that Chinese woman was standing there.
The fluorescent lighting went out.
Like lightning, he was attacked from all sides by what seemed to be skilled assassins. Their weapons caught the glint of the light that slipped underneath the door, flashes of silver threatened to decapitate the young Bruce Wayne who narrowly evaded each killing strike. His only comfort in this room full of killers trying to slice him in two was that they were as blind as he in this situation--
Without his eyesight, Bruce fell back on his other senses, the shrill sound of metal after colliding with brick, the smell of drawn blood, the taste of sweat on the air. Bruce refused to be a helpless, shortly after his parents deaths he found a teacher, began training in various martial arts, so when the now cautious assassins rounded him, he took a stance. They wanted him dead, it seemed, and he couldn't just ask who they were and why they wanted him that way, that would do nothing but bring about his death.
One the four assassins he counted stepped forth, as silently as possible going to strike where he thought Bruce was. Though it was a commendable attempt, his footstep sounded like it was made by an elephant his prey, so Bruce stepped inward and delivered a fist to the man's face--
A second closed in to capitalize on Bruce's attention being focused on the first attacker--
Bruce spun out of the way, evading a stab that threatened to disembowel him, simultaneously smashing the second man's face in with an elbow. The third came with a sword held above his head, but Bruce took the second assassin by the back of his hood and shoved him in the third attacker's path while returning to the first assassin who was recovering from having his nose jaw broken. Before he could regain his senses, Bruce disarmed him with a chop to a nerve cluster in his forearm, then delivered a headbutt as he fell back into a wall. Pinning the assassin there with his hands, he repeatedly bashed his forehead into the man's nose.
Over, and over, and over until the man yielded, until he stopped struggling, until he went limp in Bruce's grip. Wayne was covered in a gory show of snot and blood.
The other two attackers seemed to have sacrificed the first assassin, never coming to his aid as his skull was bashed in by Bruce. Instead they took more advantageous positions, used the time Bruce was laying into him to prepare their third wave. The fourth assassin seemed to just enjoy watching, something that seemed to worry Bruce who's heart was beating like a drum.
"That's enough."
"Cain?" Bruce's eyes went wide, the lights cut on revealing a tall man with graying hair standing across the room from Bruce. David Cain was the man who taught Bruce everything he knew about fighting. Cain saw something in the boy, a raw hatred, a chip on his shoulder, the potential to become one of the greatest killers, that's why he took Bruce under his wing.
That's why he was here now.
"Been a long time, Bruce." Cain neared Bruce who kept his hands up, ready to kill Cain if it came to that. "Wanna' meet the bastard who killed your parents?"
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