I never asked for this. I never once asked to be swept up into the shit that you see on the news, the sort of thing that happens every week where the a madman has planted bombs all throughout the city, or an entire wing or murders have escaped, or a chemical weapon has driven everyone insane. I never wanted that shit.
Of course, you can't just move out of the slums of Gotham City.
I remember walking to "work,", going to pay my dues to the Falcones for not picking that month to take what little I had to my name. I never asked what was in the packages, or who they were going to. Just pick up the box, Jack, and walk it to another part of town. Don't ask, don't look, don't care. Don't die. Scrounge up enough to get out.
Then the bugs came. One second I'm walking down Marcy ave and the next I'm on fire, naked and screaming out of terror and confusion. The next there's some sort of spaceship above me, and then I'm flying, terrified, unsure
And then nothing. Blackness. I don't remember what I don't remember, but I know there's a hole there. I don't know how long it took, not initially. I wake up. A woman speaking in my ear, telling me to get out. Watch out for the guards, don't step in front of them, you're going to have to take them out.
I don't know how I know what I know, but there's a robot in front of me, the sort of stuff you here about in Metropolis. It comes at me, sounds an alarm. I lift a box that weighs a hundred pounds more than me over my head and I beat it into pieces. More arrive, and I pummel them into scrap with my bare hands.
I don't know how I do this, or how I know to do this.
The woman guides me. I evade more of the things, a big walking tank on insect legs. I don't go crazy somehow. Maybe part of me just knew better. Regardless, I end up face to face with the Last Son of Krypton, just like in the papers. He's before me, telling me to get out, good work, he'll clean up. I'm silent, the reptilian part of my brain knowing better than to break down and panic. Leave logic and thought for later, once deeds are done.
There's a flash. I'm inside the GPD only this time not inside of a cell. There are people here that shouldn't be, Costumes, Capes, whatever you want to call them. They're congratulating me. I don't know what's going on.
The woman in my ear tells me that the Batman is impressed. He wants to know if I want to help clean up Gotham. Something about the Falcones.
From atop the Cape Carmine Lighthouse I watch them meet. A group of punks talking to a gang of crazies in Mexican wrestling masks. The people I had to sell my soul to in order to get by, the lifestyle I almost got sucked into before whatever whim decided I needed to be the sort of insane person on teevee.
I watch someone else deliver a package like the ones I've handled recently. I can see clearly enough despite the darkness that there's no shame, no regret here. Falcone family goons doing business as usual. It makes my stomach turn knowing they're here, below me both literally and figuratively.
I learned a few things I don't remember. I know this lighthouse is easily a dozen stories, give or take. I know I'm going to jump off of it.
Halfway through my descent I feel that reptilian part of me snap forward. I plummet out of the sky like a pissed off meteor, striking the earth from the heavens and here to extinct an inferior lifeform.
First, the Falcones. Atonement regardless. I didn't ask for this, no, but I'm not going to waste it. Leaving Gotham isn't an option anymore, not until I've cleaned this place from the inside out. The Batman wants to teach a thing or two, I'm happy to listen.
First, the Falcones.
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