Chapter 9: The New Batman
Bruce Wayne hadn’t left his house for weeks. People wondered where Batman had gone. Crime was running rampant in the streets. Things were terrible for Bruce. Things were also terrible for Wayne Enterprises. WayneTech had recently released a new Smartphone but had fallen critically and financially. The phone had a number of problems and was easily hacked by the mob. Bruce and Lucius had agreed that they would spend millions of dollars marketing the phone which nearly blew WayneTech’s entire budget and that had a knock-on effect to all the money going in and out of the company. The Bat-gadgetry wasn’t cheap either. The Batmobile was constantly going in for repairs and his other gadgets were being destroyed. He nearly wanted to declare bankruptcy. His entire company was relying on the eco-friendly power generator to pull through so they could recoup their losses. Harold Stapleton had become one of Bruce’s best friends over nearly a year. Dent and Gordon were working together harder than ever before to stop Black Mask. But they realised that they had been relying lots on Batman to stop crime and when he disappeared they couldn’t handle the challenge themselves. Most of the Gotham Chronicle offices had been destroyed by Black Mask and his followers so the paper was on temporary hiatus. Everything had a knock-on effect on everything else and at the end everything came back to Batman. He was planning on revealing his identity soon enough in the hope that other people would step up to the role. Bruce was sitting on the couch in his living room. It was very spacious, the only thing in the room was two couches, a 50” plasma screen TV and a large coffee table. Alfred entered the room with a strange look on his face.
“You didn’t tell me you went out last night!” Bruce turned his head around.
“What do you mean? I’ve been right here for weeks!”
“Give me the remote.” Bruce handed Alfred the remote control for the TV. He turned it on and there was only one story on the news: “BATMAN RETURNS!” Bruce bolted right up.
“After speculation that Batman had hung up his cowl for good, which was put to rest last night. The Batmobile was spotted on camera driving down a tunnel and Batman himself was spotted fighting some criminals in the back alleys of Gotham City! What do you think of this news? Are you pleased that the Caped Crusader is back on the streets fighting crime? Or are you angry and disappointed and think he should be back behind bars? Email us your thoughts and queries at www.channel7.com/rollingnews! But for now you can feast your eyes on the footage caught last night!” Bruce stared at the screen in bewilderment. The new sight was his Batmobile racing down the tunnel, dodging cars at fast pace and a low-quality video of what was supposed to be him fighting criminals at night. He won of course. Bruce got up and went to get dressed.
“Where are you going Master Bruce?” Alfred asked.
“I’m going to have a talk with Lucius. We can go over various different interesting topics such as ‘should we go lending out billion dollar cars to random people’. I’ll be very interested to know the answer.” Bruce went into his bedroom.
“Well I guess that idea goes out the window.” The butler muttered.
Bruce’s Lamborghini raced down the street. Lucius would be in Wayne Tower at the moment unless he’d realised that he was coming and pulled a runner. The car swerved into a parking space. Bruce leapt out and ran into the building.
“So what we need to decide is if we are going to invest in rebooting the Smartphone’s or abandon them altoge-“Bruce entered the room and which cut through Lucius’s speech to the other members of the board.
“Lucius I need to speak to you in private for a couple of minutes.” Lucius looked worried.
“Um, of course Mr. Wayne! Anything you say!” He let out a troubled laugh and followed Bruce out the door.
“Now, have you seen the news this morning?”
“No I can’t say I have Mr. Wayne.”
“Well, the top story was that apparently I had gone out last night as the Batman! With the Batmobile and all! And the thing that puzzles me the most is that you are in charge of my gadgetry and somebody else suddenly had a copy! Can you explain that to me?” Lucius looked terrified.
“It was Dent. He came to me the other week asking for access to all the gadgets because he wanted to continue the Batman if you didn’t want to. There’s nothing wrong with that! If you feel so passionate about it then I’ll tell him that the deals off!”
“The deal’s off. Starting tonight I’m returning. And I’m gonna talk to Dent.” Bruce stormed down the stairs and back to his car, leaving Lucius to return to his speech.
It was midnight. The Batmobile strolled down the back alleys of Gotham in hope of finding the imposter. The question still remained of whether Lucius had constructed new gadgets for Dent or taken Bruce’s. He knew that Dent had no Batmobile and not as much gadgets but he had a suit. He drove past a small Italian restaurant that was often housed by Black Mask and his friends. He noticed that somebody had been thrown out the front door onto the street. He quickly swerved into the darkness to avoid being seen. Dent in full Batman gear burst out of the doors.
“Where is he!?” Yelled Dent in a deep, growling voice.
“I dunno man! I haven’t seen him today! LET ME GO!” The man screamed. Dent punched him around the face. The criminal’s name was Rogue, the only name he went by. Rogue broke free of Dent’s hold and scrambled across to the other side of the road. Dent began to run after him, but then the Batmobile rammed into his side, thrusting him onto the ground. Rogue stood up and ran into the shadows. Batman leapt out of the car and onto Dent.
“Oh crap.” Dent said. He looked like a little boy whose scheme had just been foiled.
“Why are you dressing up as me!? You’re being a coward! I am the symbol of justice in this city and you are the symbol of hope! You can never be what I am!” Dent punched him. Batman thrust his wrist up and a grappling hook ejected itself and attached to the roof of the restaurant. He grabbed Dent’s arm and pulled him up with him. They both landed in a brawl on the rooftop.
“You’re wrong! You are the symbol of justice; do you know what you’ve done to this city?! Things are better than ever!”
“That’s a lie! If things were better then wanted criminals wouldn’t be out eating Italian at night, they would be locked up in county!”
“Why are you angry? You have shown people that they shouldn’t be afraid to take a stand! And we’re taking your advice and then you want us to stop!”
“I don’t need help!” Dent leapt up and started beating Batman. Batman’s wrist blades popped out and scraped Dent’s mask. He screamed in agony. Dent punched Batman in the chin and he collapsed.
“You have done what the GCPD couldn’t accomplish in years. You are falling! You need help! One day somebody will come along that’s too much for you to handle! You need me!”
“How did you know to go to Lucius!?” Bruce asked angrily.
“Gordon told me your identity. He thought it would be easier for us if we had no secrets!” Dent replied.
“I can handle Mask on my own! He doesn’t scare me, I scare them!”
“You have limits! Mask can’t be kept alive and you don’t want to acknowledge that! I think that you haven’t caught Mask because you know he needs to die but you can’t do it! I can. I’m not afraid to silence an evil man! Mask deserves it.” Dent produced a normal coin from a compartment in his leg armour. “Heads he’s a lucky man. Tails, not so lucky.”
“You can’t leave a man’s life to chance!”
“We can make exceptions!” Dent flipped the coin. It landed on heads. Batman sighed.
“You don’t need to stoop to their level.” Harvey went to put away his coin when Batman stopped him. “Wait; show me the other side of the coin.”
“No.” Batman grabbed the coin from his hands. He turned it over in his hands and realised that both sides were heads.
“You lied. You can’t kill anybody. You’re Gotham’s White Knight, not it’s Dark one.” Dent snatched the coin back and backed away.
“Fine, you get your wish. Work alone. But one day you’ll have to break your limits. That’s why the worst get executed in prisons. You need somebody to help you.” Dent ran to the other side of the building and jumped off, gliding away.
Bruce woke up. He was dazed by the bright light seeping through the windows. Alfred was sitting by his bed on a wooden chair.
“Finally awake!”
“How long have I been asleep?” Asked Bruce.
“Well its 15:30 P.M so the answer is a long time!”
“Bloody hell, did I tell you who the imposter was?”
“Well as soon as I noticed you were home you were fast asleep. But the news channels have been airing some breaking news of a fight on top of Luigi’s Italian Restaurant between two ‘Batmen’. Care to explain?”
“Well, first off the imposter was Dent.”
“Dent!? How did he get the gear?”
“Lucius, I’m obviously not paying him enough. Dent wanted to become my companion because he said that he didn’t have the same limits as me. So we had a little ‘brawl’.”
“Define ‘little’ for me.”
“He’s stopped now. But he lied about the killing bit, he has a coin.”
“You have lots of coins.”
“A coin that he uses to make decisions. He used it to determine Black Mask’s life. But if it landed on heads then he would survive and somehow both sides were heads.”
“That’s cheating. Dent can’t become your assistant because it defeats the purpose of what you stand for. You want to avenge your parent’s death by ridding the city of crime forever. If somebody helped you do it then you wouldn’t feel like you had made a mark.”
“People are helping me Alfred. Gordon’s helping me and Dent’s helping me. They can patrol the day, I own the night. I want criminals to run scared at the mention of my name. I want to scare the living crap out of people. Some criminals are already too scared to go out at night.”
“Well Master Bruce, know your limits. Dent was right. One day you will find somebody who is too much for you to handle. Who creates so much destruction that they need to be silenced. And you can’t handle that. Gordon may be able to get his hands dirty but not you. Dent may want to cheat his way to the top but you can’t. If so, then that man doesn’t deserve to be our DA.”
“Well this therapy session has been fun but I need to get dressed and go see how Stapleton is doing. And make yourself useful and prepare some breakfast.” Bruce smiled and went to the bathroom. Alfred smiled and marvelled at Bruce’s courage. He went into the kitchen to make breakfast and turned on the TV. The top story on the news was shocking. The power generator construction site had been cordoned off. By criminals. Black Mask was in charge. Harold Stapleton was either dead or had been taken hostage. The footage was coming from a news helicopter, and on the streets were angry citizens shouting and the police trying to get in. There were more criminals there than Black Mask had. It said at the bottom of the screen that Mask had broken hundreds of inmates out of Arkham. Construction workers had revealed their true colours; they were all undercover agents working for the mob. He stopped what he was doing.
“BRUCE!” Screamed Alfred, running as fast as he could up to the bathroom.