The old man’s worn-out shoes sloshed against the rain-streaked sidewalk as he stumbled down the night veiled street. He’d been drinking for a long time, but not enough to forget why.

He drops his bottle, and it shatters as he stares upwards, petrified from blinking even as lightning strikes, a furious gargoyle spreads its wings from a steeple across the street. The old man falls to his knees and shivers in the rain for the rest of the night.

Later on, the next day a massive man in a green suit lights a cigar in his high-end office, he’s got a ring on each finger and half a mouthful of gold teeth. He smiles wide, smoke billowing out of his cheeks. “So, Mr. Wayne… do we have a deal?”

Bruce Wayne stares out of the window, looking down on the morning street, tirelessly. Lucious Fox clears his throat. “Now Mr. Throne, we appreciate your offer and I’m only speaking as Mr. Wayne’s representative but as you can see, he’s an extremely contemplative man and will need some time to get back to you.”

Thorne grimaces with impatience but quickly masks his temper with a wide grin. “Well…” He takes a deep breath and reaches out for a handshake. “Thanks for coming all this way, Mr. Fox and Mr.- “

Bruce stands up and walks out of the office, hands in his pockets.

Thorne’s extended hand bawls into a tight fist as Mr. Fox smiles apologetically.

Later, in the company car, Lucious sits with a large ledger in his lap. He’d been speedily reading through it with a precision that he prided himself on. Though, precision isn’t everything.

“While I’ve made it clear, I don’t support the idea of doing business with the man, that was not to say I support the idea of insulting him! Now, I’ve salvaged his offer and I’m already noticing discrepancies- “

“Reject the offer.” Wayne nearly whispers, staring out of the car window.

Lucious takes off his glasses. “You haven’t heard the offer, I don’t think you’ve heard a single thing said this morning- “

“He’s buying up lots in the low-income housing district, employing thugs to harass tenants into leaving. Reject the deal.” Wayne breaks his stare to look into Lucious’ eyes. As the sunlight reflects from Bruce’s sapphire blue eyes, he didn’t see a tired playboy, thoughtlessly daydreaming, he saw the mind of mad genius, a cerebral magician who’d just put another foe into checkmate.

“You knew he was dirty?” Lucious asked.

“Just wanted to get it in writing.” Bruce took the ledger from Lucious’s lap while Lucious nodded, proud of Bruce’s ethics. “And what are we going to do with that? Report it?”

“Not yet.” Bruce smirked. “I’m still building up evidence for Throne. This will be a big help along with your testimony, but these next few nights will be key in assuring Thornes illegal operations are crushed.”

Lucious furrows his brow as he looks at Bruce, “Wait, so you’re working with the police?”

Bruce smiles “Sort of.”

Lucious looks down and mentally pours through the events of the last few months. “The Car, the missing Arms and Utility funds… You’re working for! No, you’re…” Before he can say it, he gasps, seeming to realize the truth over and over to make sure it holds up.

The driver’s diving window opens as Alfred Pennyworth turns to smile at the two men. “I do believe he's got it, Master Bruce.”

Bruce puts a hand on Lucious’ shoulder, snapping him out of his eureka state. “Mr. Fox. We have work to do.”

Later that night, the old man leaned on the wall of a dark alleyway, he dragged himself, limping through the pain. He’d been thrown down and kicked by thugs, they threw him out of the building he was sleeping in and told him they’d kill him if he returned. He was all out of booze and going insane with echoing memories of gunshots and scared little boys. Twenty years in Blackgate just to die alone in the streets like this?

He caught his breath and sorted through his scrambled thoughts before finally turning around. “They’re just going to have to kill me.” He thought to himself again and again with each shaking step.

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He returned to the building, a low-income apartment where many of the city’s suffering stuffed their lives into roach infested walls under bloodstained ceilings. For a moment, the old man swore he saw a shape moving on the rooftop before his attention was taken by the sight of a yellow van backing into the back of the leasing office.

The old man crouched and ducked behind garbage cans as he saw two thugs on either end of what looked like a bloody rolled up carpet, with a women’s feet protruding from one end. The old man covered his mouth and turned to sneak away,

Bottles clattered, and the old man gasped as he began tripping over loose garbage and wrestling with his own hungover footwork. He fell face first and cracked his forehead onto the cement. The last thing he saw before slipping into dizzying unconsciousness was the smudging image of the two thugs rushing towards him.

He woke up, his wrists and ankles tied together with rope as he sat in an unexpectedly comfortable leather recliner. He looked around to see he was in a large warehouse where the shelves and storage had all been moved aside to make room for a large clearing in the middle. In the center of this clearing was the old man in the recliner, next to him a mattress with five corpses piled onto it. His scream was muffled by the tape plastered over his mouth. His heartbeat loudly unluck it was overshadowed by the sound of approaching footsteps.

An extremely thin man, wearing a tight yellow suit adjusted the three pencils lining his breast pocket. He looked very much like a pencil, himself the old man thought. With his oily pink skin, bald head and yellow suit. The yellow suited man cleared his throat and smiled wide. “Good evening, Mr. Chill. I do suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.” He clasped his shiny gloved hands together, amused by the fear and confusion.

“And I don’t mean here in this warehouse, I mean why you’re on the recliner where people who are alive get to sit and not on the mattress where I keep the filth.” The yellow suited man searched the old man’s eyes for any sign of punishable resistance but found nothing. Disappointed, he shrugged and continued. “How rude of me, I haven’t introduced myself. They call me The Eraser. It’s my job to snuff out things that make life difficult for my employer. Evidence, mostly. Sometimes a witness or two. However, within the month, I’ve had to erase a dozen people and it’s hardly slowing down.”

He gestures towards the shelves of barrels that line the walls of the warehouse. The old man’s eyes widen in horror as he realizes.

“Sulfuric acid.” The Eraser smiles. “Just the thing for when you need to erase a big mistake.” Eraser steps closer to the old man. “Anyway, as I was saying. The reason you’re still alive…”

The old man’s face twists in disgust as the Eraser points a finger gun at him and slowly mouths the words “Pew. Pew. It’s you, aren’t it? Joe Chill, you old son of a gun! You’re the guy that greased the Waynes.”

The old man looked down, too beaten to protest, too ashamed to deny.

The Eraser crossed his skinny arms and cocked his head to the side. “I mean, you were the most famous criminal in Gotham. You started a golden age for guys like me. You showed us that it didn’t matter how small you were, that nobody was bulletproof.” Eraser begins to laugh. “You’re like the John Wilkes Booth of Gotham- No, Lee Harvey Oswald!”

The Eraser chuckles a moment longer before leaning in to look into Joe Chill’s eyes.

“You’re my hero.”

Chill can’t believe his ears. Before he could think of anything else, there was loud clanging and a massive thud. Eraser cocked an eyebrow before heading towards the noise only for one of the thugs from before to come flying towards him from the shadows. He dodged as the big man crashed into barrels. Eraser and Chill were both terrified as the darkness grew thicker, overlapping with black smoke that slowly filled the room.

THE BAT’s voice filled the air.

“Lenny Fiasco.” It’s over.”

Eraser pulled out a sharped pencil and pointed it randomly, frantically. “Stay away from me! How do you know my name? What are you?” He swiped wildly with each question. Chill felt his blood run cold as a fabric blacker than ink brushed past his arm.

Eraser was hyperventilating as he begged the darkness “What do you want? Who are you?”

He froze as he heard the demon whisper inches away from his ear. “I’m Batman.”

Chill heard a scream suddenly stop as the sound of heavy fists breaking flesh filled the silence. After a few minutes the dark shape stepped through the smoke to look down on Joe Chill.

Blood dripped from THE BAT’s clenched fists as his eyes narrowed into Joe Chill’s. Chill had no idea what to think, much less what to do. He just wanted to die and instead he got kidnapped by a pencil man and is being glared at by the gargoyle from his waking nightmares. He shivered and shut his eyes.

THE BAT’s gaze did not break as it calmy spoke one word. “Testify.”

The next night…

“Breaking News tonight in Gotham as one Rupert Thorne was arrested on charges of fraud, extortion and named as a conspirator in the Wayne Family Shooting. Years after his release for the murder, lone gunman Joe Chill is now testifying that he was hired by Thorne to shoot Thomas Wayne. Harvey Dent announced he will be prosecuting- “

The television clicks off.

An aged Italian man stood behind his desk, squeezing the remote so tight that the plastic began to crack. The fury was palpable before one of his surrounded, well-dressed henchman spoke up.

“Boss, you think it’s-“BANG

A gun fires and the henchman drops to the floor, bleeding into the carpet.

“Clean that up.” The old man growled, holding the smoking gun.

“Yes, Mr. Falcone” Another pair of henchmen nervously say in unison before shaking it off and taking the body by either end and removed it from the office.

Carmine Falcone set his gun down on his desk and growled to himself. “We’re going to have to get an exterminator for that Bat.”