The Dark Knight Legend

by Stacia Deutsch

  “For what?” Bruce asked.

  “To help us destroy the city,” Ducard explained. “When Gotham falls, the other cities will follow.”

  Bruce couldn’t believe what he heard. These men expected him to destroy what his family had built?

  Bruce unsheathed his sword. Leaping to his feet, he tipped the candle to the floor. Fire ignited the wood planks and began to spread.

  “What are you doing!” Ducard exclaimed.

  “What’s necessary.” Bruce struck Ducard in the head with the butt of his weapon.

  Fire exploded around them, broken wood and glass flying like shrapnel. Ninjas jumped to the floor, engulfed in fire. With a loud crack, a section of the roof tumbled toward them.

  Bruce leaped away, but Rā’s al Ghūl was crushed.

  Bruce carried his unconscious trainer out the front door and onto the frozen slope. He left Ducard with an old man in a hut.

  And then Bruce Wayne went home.

  THREE

  Bruce looked out the window of the private jet as it circled Gotham City. He felt, as always, grateful to Alfred. He’d received Bruce’s phone call and had instantly flown to Asia to collect him.

  “Alfred,” Bruce said, “Gotham needs a symbol.”

  “What . . . symbol, sir?”

  “Something for the good to rally behind,” Bruce replied, “and the criminals to fear. . . .”

  The next morning, Mr. Earle was presiding over a board meeting at Wayne Enterprises.

  “Sorry to barge in,” Bruce suddenly interrupted, “but I was in the area.”

  Earle’s face went pale. “My boy!” he exclaimed, forcing a smile and rushing to shake Bruce’s hand. “We thought you were gone for good!”

  “Actually, I’ve come to work,” Bruce replied. “I thought I’d find out what we actually do around here.”

  Bruce was soon given a tour of the business. The Applied Sciences department was the last stop, and Bruce went there alone, knowing that he needed time to speak to the department manager, Lucius Fox.

  Fox showed Bruce all sorts of inventions, like a bulletproof bodysuit made of silicone over jointed armor. “I want to borrow it,” Bruce said, feeling the suit’s fibers. “For spelunking. Cave diving.”

  Fox raised an eyebrow. “You get a lot of gunfire down in those caves?”

  There was a cavern below the southeast corner of Wayne Manor. It was unused and decaying; the only things living there were the bats. A small abandoned elevator, once used to carry goods up into the main living quarters, was boarded up. The space was perfect. With a little renovation, Bruce would make it his lair.

  He had a suit, a cave, Alfred to assist him. . . . Next, Bruce needed to find one honest cop.

  Using darkness as his cover and wearing the black bodysuit, Bruce slipped into the office of Sergeant James Gordon, the man who so many years ago had shown him kindness after his parents’ murder.

  Disguising his voice and keeping his face hidden, Bruce said, “You’re a good cop. One of the few. What would it take to get Carmine Falcone? He brings in shipments of drugs every week, yet nobody takes him down. Why?”

  Gordon shrugged. “He’s paid up with the right people. To get him, it would take leverage on Judge Faden. And a DA brave enough to prosecute.”

  “That would be Rachel Dawes, Finch’s assistant DA. Watch for a sign.”

  “Who are you?” Gordon demanded. “Are you just one man?”

  “Now we are two,” Bruce said, and without a sound he disappeared.

  The next day, Bruce returned to Applied Sciences. He needed more gear.

  Fox gave him a wry look. “What is it today, more spelunking?”

  Bruce said, “I need a lightweight grapnel hook. For climbing.”

  “We’ve got suction pads, grapnels . . . and this thing’s pretty neat.” From a box Fox pulled out a bronze contraption with a shoulder harness and belt. It looked like a parachute harness.

  Fox headed for the door. “Come on, I’ll show you something.”

  They walked out to a loading dock, where Fox lifted a sheet of black fabric from a crate. “Memory fabric.” He took a glove from the same crate and slipped it onto his hand. Small electrodes protruded from the glove’s fingers. “Flexible ordinarily, but if you put a current through it, the molecules align and become rigid.”

  Fox grabbed the fabric and it instantly popped into the shape of a small tent. “It could be tailored to any structure based on a rigid skeleton,” he said.

  Bruce felt its strength. It was impressive. But Bruce was distracted by the sight of a vehicle with enormous tires, covered by a tarp. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The Tumbler? Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that . . . .”

  Moments later, Bruce was taking Fox for a high-speed spin along a test track. The Tumbler was a cross between a sports car and a tank, and it drove like a dream. To the right of the usual driving position was a cockpit enclosed in a glass bubble with separate controls and video panels.

  Fox pointed to a button on the center panel. “You hit that and it will boost her into a rampless jump.”

  After a few more turns, Bruce brought the Tumbler to a squealing, sudden halt.

  “Well,” Fox said, looking a little queasy, “what do you think?”

  “Does it come in black?” Bruce asked with a smile.

  FOUR

  Bruce was a creature of the night now, a new person with a new name—Batman.

  Batman was going to take Falcone and the mob down. He was going to reclaim Gotham City and make it safe once more.

  Bruce had done his research. Falcone supplied drugs to the city, while a corrupt cop named Flass helped him escape the law. Judge Faden was also involved, keeping control over the city’s criminal laws.

  Bruce was certain that there was someone else, someone working behind the scenes. Once Bruce found that person, he’d be closer to the source of the real problems.

  That night, hidden from view, hanging upside down, Batman watched workers unload containers at a warehouse on a Gotham dock. When he shifted position, one of the workers looked up. The man didn’t have enough time to scream before Batman attacked. Unaware that his workers were being taken out one by one, Carmine Falcone was in his office inside, having a meeting with Dr. Jonathan Crane, a thin man with glasses.

  “You know who we’re working for,” Dr. Crane said without using the name of the mysterious man behind the drug smuggling. “When he gets here, he won’t want to hear that you’ve been endangering our operation just to filch a few dollars from your dealers.”

  Falcone’s thick face twitched. “He’s coming to Gotham?”

  “Soon,” Crane replied. “This is our last shipment.”

  A distant yell shattered the night’s silence. Falcone reached for his shotgun, and Flass bolted out the door to investigate.

  Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!

  Hearing the sudden blast, Flass ducked behind a stack of shipping containers. Falcone ran up beside him.

  Crane slipped out the office door and disappeared into the night.

  After another scream, Flass jumped into his patrol car and drove away.

  Falcone crept along the container stacks. The shipment had to be protected at all costs. He rounded a corner to find five of his men in a circle looking out, weapons in hand and tensed.

  From the steel beams overhead, a shadow dropped into their midst: a man dressed like a giant bat. In seconds, with no weapon at all, he took out all five mob thugs.

  As the caped figure stood over the men, Falcone asked, “What are you?”

  The man turned slowly. “I’m Batman,” he said.

  A short time later, Sergeant Gordon stared in awe at the scene—Falcone’s thugs knocked out, tied up, and sitting against a shipping container full of drugs. A line of cops held back the press photographers.

  “Falcone’s
men?” asked a beat cop.

  Gordon shrugged. “Does it matter? We’ll never tie him to it anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” the cop replied, pointing upward.

  Gordon followed his gesture to a huge harbor light beaming over the river. Strapped to the searchlight’s enormous lens was Carmine Falcone—arms stretched outward. His sleeves had been ripped in a jagged pattern.

  The light’s beam shone on a cloud. It made a circle of light, surrounding the silhouette of a bat—the city’s new symbol.

  FIVE

  Dr. Crane was the director of the Arkham Asylum. The fortress—located on an island called the Narrows—held some of the most mentally unstable criminals in Gotham history.

  Crane was called into the county jail to evaluate whether or not Falcone was insane. No one knew that just the night before, the doctor had been in the mob boss’s office on personal business.

  “I know about your experiments on the inmates at your nuthouse,” Carmine Falcone threatened. He wanted Crane to get him out of jail. “So what’s hidden in the drugs I bring for you?”

  “If he wanted you to know, he’d have told you himself.”

  “I’ve been smuggling your stuff for months. He’s got something big planned. I want in.”

  Crane didn’t respond to Falcone’s threats. Instead he pulled out a burlap sack with eyeholes, stitching for a mouth, and a plastic breathing tube. He put it on. “I use this in my experiments. Those crazies, they can’t stand it. . . .”

  Whoosh.

  White smoke shot out of Crane’s briefcase.

  Falcone started to hallucinate. The crime boss saw lizard tongues, sharp and forked, flicking out of Crane’s mask holes.

  Falcone let out a piercing scream.

  The prison official ran to the door. “Oh, he’s not faking,” Crane said gravely, stepping into the hallway. Falcone wasn’t crazy before. But he was now. “I’ll talk to the judge.”

  Bruce Wayne felt that to keep his new identity a secret, he had to go around town acting like a rich, spoiled playboy. He wanted everyone to think that there was no way he and Batman could possibly be the same man. So he invited two beautiful women to have a lavish dinner with him at the Gotham Plaza Hotel.

  As the group was leaving, Bruce was certain that his bad-boy reputation was secure. At the entrance he ran into his old friend Rachel Dawes. He hadn’t seen her in more than eight years, and he was embarrassed by the way he was acting.

  “I . . . I’d heard you were back,” Rachel said, eyeing the two women. “Where were you?”

  “Oh, kind of all over,” Bruce replied nervously. “You know.”

  “No, Bruce, I don’t know,” Rachel replied. “Neither did a lot of people. People who thought you were probably dead. Me, I never quite gave up on you.”

  “Come on, Bruce!” one of the women said, snuggling into his shoulder. “Let’s party!”

  Bruce cringed. “Rachel . . . that’s not me. Inside I’m different. I’m—”

  “The same great little kid you used to be?” She poked him softly on the chest. “Bruce, it’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.”

  She walked away.

  Rain fell while Batman hunched on a fourth-story ledge between buildings on a near-deserted Gotham street.

  As Detective Flass approached, Batman fired his grapnel gun. The wire wrapped around the cop’s ankle, lifting him off the ground.

  “Who was with Falcone at the docks?” Batman demanded, drawing the detective upward so they were eye to eye.

  “I never knew his name!” Flass screamed. “There was something hidden in the drugs. . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know—something! I never went to the drop-off; it’s in the Narrows.”

  Batman leaned in closer, and let Flass safely drop to the ground.

  Following Flass’s tip, Batman discovered a large shipping crate behind Arkham Asylum. Inside was an industrial machine the size of a small van. A label on its side read WAYNE ENTERPRISES: M-EMIT.42B. He didn’t know what he’d discovered, but he knew it was important.

  He ducked into the shadows as he heard footsteps.

  Two dockworkers appeared, along with a thin man wearing glasses.

  “The boss wants you to keep it in the asylum until the time comes, Dr. Crane,” the first worker said.

  Batman snuck in closer. Too close. It was a mistake. Dr. Crane saw him. There was no way to escape before Crane released the same gas he’d used to poison Falcone.

  The nightmares began immediately: Rā’s al Ghūl . . . the wooden chest . . . bats . . . the monastery in flames . . .

  Flames. His memory and reality were blurred as Crane set the ground on fire.

  Rolling along the rain-soaked sidewalk, Batman managed to put out the blaze. Then, summoning what was left of his will, he shot the grapnel gun upward and lifted himself onto a roof, out of sight.

  Reaching into his Utility Belt for his phone, Batman punched in a number and grunted, “Alfred . . . come . . . poisoned . . . need a blood sample . . .”

  When Bruce woke up two days later, it was his birthday.

  “I only breathed the slightest amount of gas,” Bruce explained to Alfred. The experience had felt familiar. . . .

  “I took a blood sample and sent it to a laboratory known for both discreet and prompt blood work,” Alfred said, taking a sheet of paper from the night table.

  Bruce read the report. “‘Protein-based compounds’ . . . It might be possible to make an antidote. I think I know how to do it.”

  SIX

  The next day, Bruce showed the report to Fox. The man’s eyes widened in disbelief. “This was in your blood?”

  “It’s some kind of weaponized hallucinogen,” Bruce replied. “Administered in aerosol form. Could you synthesize an antidote?”

  “This receptor’s a compound I’ve never seen before,” Fox replied. “I can do it—but it’ll be hard.”

  Bruce nodded gratefully. “One more thing. Do you know what a Wayne Enterprises M-Emit forty-two B is?”

  Fox sat at his desk and typed the name into his computer. “Hmm . . . it won’t tell us. Must be a defense prototype. I’ll make a couple calls.”

  Bruce’s birthday party was starting without him. Batman was perched on a landing outside Dr. Crane’s office at Arkham Asylum.

  Rachel was inside with Crane. Through the transmitter embedded in his cowl, Batman could hear their two voices clearly.

  “Dr. Crane,” Rachel said, “about the Falcone report you filed with the judge: Isn’t it unusual for a fifty-eight-year-old man with no history of mental illness to have a complete psychotic break?” She was there to investigate the reason Falcone had been moved from the jail to the asylum.

  “Look, I doubt we’re even supposed to be having this conversation,” Crane said gravely. “But off the record, we’re not talking about easily manufactured eccentricities. Come, I’ll show you.”

  Using his spikes, his instincts, and occasional peeks into asylum windows, Batman trailed the pair to a dismal cell. Inside, Carmine Falcone lay strapped to a bed, mumbling, “Scarecrow . . . s-scarecrow . . . s-s . . .”

  A few moments later Rachel and Crane walked off the elevator into an old, musty hallway.

  “This is where we make our medicine,” Dr. Crane said. “Perhaps you can have some. Clear your head.”

  As a puff of gas blew into her face, Rachel screamed and fell to the floor.

  Thunk.

  The overhead lights went out, plunging the room into darkness.

  A window shattered.

  Batman attacked two workers—one with a grapnel hook around the ankles and the other with a knockout punch.

  Batman spun around to fight Crane. He was wearing the Scarecrow gas mask.

  A puff of poison came from the mask, but Batman ducked in tim
e. Tearing open Crane’s jacket, Batman lifted up a container full of toxin attached to a tube that ran up the jacket’s sleeve. “Taste of your own medicine, Doctor?” he asked.

  Crane’s eyes bugged out in terror as Batman squeezed the container.

  Tsssss . . .

  Crane fell to the ground, gagging.

  “Who are you working for?” Batman demanded.

  “R-R-Rā’s,” Crane stammered. “Rā’s . . . al Ghūl!”

  Batman pulled Crane tight. “Rā’s al Ghūl is dead, Crane! Who are you really working for?”

  Crane’s eyes suddenly glazed over. “Dr. Crane isn’t here right now,” he babbled, “but if you’d like to make an appointment—”

  Crane had lost it. He was useless. Batman dropped him and turned around. He scooped up Rachel and rose. Through the window he could see dozens of police cars. He had to get out before he was arrested.

  Not knowing his motives, the Gotham police department considered Batman to be a dangerous vigilante, and they were looking for him.

  Using his cloak and grapnel hook, Batman escaped to the Batmobile. He secured Rachel in the passenger seat.

  A helicopter tracked them from overhead. A car cut them off in front. Batman nailed the accelerator.

  Whump!

  His tires rolled up and over the car, crushing it. Batman fired his rockets, and they landed with a thud on the roof of a parking garage. With another thrust of the rockets, they launched onto the highway, thumping down into the center lane. Batman lunged into the pod seat. Swerving down the next exit ramp, the Batmobile screeched onto the road and plunged into a wooded area.

  “Hold on!” he told Rachel. She twisted in her seat, cowering.

  The Batmobile shot forward, its wheels spinning, arcing high through the air, over the river—and plunging straight into the face of a waterfall!