Prologue
The billionaire playboy stood before the floor to ceiling mirror in the master bedroom of his uptown suite. Glass of scotch in hand, scotch being the typical drink of rich men, he stared past his own reflection to the two drunken, unconscious woman in his king sized bed, the two who had so willingly leapt at the chance to sleep with Gotham’s golden boy. A sneer found its way to his face as he pondered his contempt for them, and it only broadened as his gaze shifted to his own visage, a tall handsome man in overly expensive silk night pants, holding the vile liquid in the crystal glass, looking every bit the fool he’s forced to play. He hates scotch. No matter how much he drinks, his taste for it never improves. But he must play the part of a foolish socialite, all money and no substance, a businessman owning half the city and running a technologies corporation, WayneTech.
He is Bruce Wayne. But he’s also so much more, something darker, sinister, a dark knight in the face of the putrid filth that’s tearing our lives apart. The crime and evil in the hearts of man, the sinister deeds we commit on one another. He is the night, the terror in the face of evil and unjust. He is the Batman, a being of the cape and cowl who stalks the night, his prey those that would prey on others.
Bruce turned from the mirror, back to the bad. He’d satisfied his baser instincts with the two, and could even say he’d enjoyed himself, but it didn’t make him feel any warmer towards the harlots, trolling through their youth with anyone of renown. They’re of no use to society, just leeches. And one day they’ll be used and tired, with little to show for themselves.
Bruce chuckled to himself, finding a grim satisfaction at the thought. Setting the scotch on the end table, he strode from the room, all of the levity from the nights events having long faded, and a grim countenance settling over him as he prepared to begin his patrol. He passed through the hall into the main corridor of his suite, passing the living area filled with expensive, unused entertainment equipment, and into the library.
In a ten foot space between the rows of bookcases stood a tall, ornate grandfather clock Bruce had purchased during his travels after college. Using his extensive mechanical skills, Bruce modified the clock, adding to its internal components a system meant to send an electrical pulse when the hands are set to a certain time and a hidden button in the facing is pressed.
Bruce set the time, the usual twinge of pain and guilt pulling at the back of his mind, begging him towards a spiral of remembrance and misery, all self-imposed. The time he’d chosen was in fact the exact hour, minute, and second that his father’s watch had stopped on the night he’d died. The night that Thomas and Martha Wayne were murder before young Bruce’s eyes, a boy of the tender age of eight who had begged his father to abandon the opera and instead see a screening of the Mask of Zorro, a dark shrouded hero Bruce was always enamored with.
But that was the past, a fleeting echo in his mind as the wall shifted forward and split, either side rotating out until nearly flush with the adjacent walls. Upon entering, they swung shut behind Bruce, leaving him in utter darkness. No matter. He knew this process all too well. He took four strides forward, stopped, and pressed his hand forward, a rectangle of blue light illuminating around his hand as his palm was scanned.
“Disengage defenses, one entering.” said Bruce, his graveled voice echoing in the small chamber, a seemingly mundane space even in the light, but in reality a potential death trap for any foolish enough to venture in: the floor was electrified in a grid pattern narrow enough that the foot would always cross at least three lines, the strength of which is the equivalent to several stun gun charges; spaced evenly along the wall are four flushed nozzles prepared to pump sleep toxins in gas form; and a drop down from the ceiling behind hides an automatic turret that fires equal numbers of rubber bullets and an adhesive gel of colossal strength developed by Bruce using a formula he’d tasked from his scientist at WayneTech, just tweaked and enhanced with his own style. In summary, if anyone other than Bruce or his retainer Alfred Pennyworth wandered their way into the passage, they wouldn’t be getting out on their own.
A second door slid open before Bruce, this time revealing an circular elevator of an unusual sort. Within was what resembled rollercoaster harnesses built for two. And it becomes immediately clear what they are intended for, Bruce latching himself in choosing his destination from the encrypted choices on the keypad and instantly rocketing downward deep below the city streets and subway system to a hidden outpost, an extension of his main camp the bat caves beneath Wayne Manor.
The trip was over in seconds, hydraulic brakes engaging and easing the elevator to a halt. Bruce exited out into a wide, long chamber within which contained a large computer array, a medical examination station, a small tool shop for mechanical purposes, a bio lab, an electronics lab and fabrication system, an enclosed canopy, custom motorcycle colored with black and adorned with bat themed flare, and a small armored vehicle known affectionately as the Batmoblie.
Along a raised platform on the near wall to the right stood several capsules, each containing various aspects of the dark alter ego the was the true Bruce Wayne, the Dark Knight, the Batman. The different models included his standard suit, an armored mechanical contraption, a suit fit for diving and sea exploration, a lighter and more vulnerable version of the standard suite, and his experimental space suit, although he’d yet to even imagine how or why he’d need such a thing.
As was his norm, he chose the standard suite, a champion of modern body armor and reflex enhancing technologies. The inner most layer of the suite was a body molding material designed to aid the muscle system and circulate perspiration out of the suit through numerous pores in the outer layer, and to breath in air with movement. This layer is followed immediately by the tension easing cyber muscle system that ease and aids all actions and movements, increasing the already considerable strength and prowess of the Batman considerably. This layer is infused with a third layer, a very thin system of nano sensors meant to monitor the suit during use. A viscous and putty like ballistics stopping gel covers that, and it is in turn covered by a Kevlar weave fabric reinforced in all the vital areas by carbon fiber coated steel plating, all covered in a second layer of gel, a lead weaved fabric, and dressed smoothly with a friction reducing, light and radar absorbing, flame and heat retardant fabric designed by Bruce.
The cowl is less a cowl so much as it is a close fitting bullet proof helmet infused with the greatest of impact resistant technology. The eyes are cover by lenses that project a heads up display, showing temperature, compass direction, night and thermal vision, time of day, global positioning, and sonar projected radar. The onboard computer can scan and track finger prints, gases and odors, specific voice patterns, sound waves, and radio signals, its functions enhanced by orbiting WayneTech satellites, the Batmobile, or proximity to an outpost in Gotham.
The ears have sound dampening and enhancing technologies, and the effect can be toggled on or off, allowing Bruce to hear normally if he chooses via adjustable openings. The whole face of the cowl shows a stern and frightening visage, sharp features meant to stop a man in his tracks. Tall thin points after the fashion of bat ears raise from the top and back of the head, housing the radar other sensors. The face is covered to the nose below the cheeks, allowing for an attachment that provides full face coverage, a voice changer, gas mask, and mouth guard, which he often uses.
On his hands to just below the elbow are gauntlets that have a powered grip function, and several crescent blades along the outside of the forearms in a straight line. The boots are close fitting, reinforced and well-padded things meant for stealth, running, and jumping, an advanced system cyber muscle system built in to aid in landings and desperate leaps.
Flexible steel coils trace the limbs, pulled rigid when the limbs are straightened and in doing so providing several hundred pounds worth of weight resistance when pushing or under a crushing weight, saving the bone structure and providing support. His spine is reinforced buy titanium, interlocking segments that reach in varying widths from the top of his neck to his tail bone.
A long, billowing cape surrounds the suit, lined with flexible cables that aid in gliding. The whole suit fits together in a near seamless, completely mobile suit with a full range of motion, a worn weapon that provides superhuman resistance to damage, enhanced strength, and superior tracking.
Worn around the waist is the utility belt, filled with countless advanced detective tools, solvents, and physical aids such as adrenal shots, liquid vitamin blends, and several medical aids.
All of this he fitted over his powerful physique, delving deep in to a state of pure focus, devoid of the frivolous things that the man known as Bruce Wayne interest himself in day to day. He isn’t that man now. He is the dark night, and with the night he hunts.
