Five in the morning.
The rain was still falling. Gotham's rain never seemed to end.
Outside Wayne Manor's towering wrought-iron gates, a dark figure silently vaulted over the electrified spikes and landed lightly.
Bruce Wayne tugged at the gray secondhand tracksuit that squeezed his chest painfully. The cheap synthetic fabric was soaked through, clinging tightly to his skin.
The pungent lemon scent of cheap laundry detergent assaulted his nostrils.
"Master Bruce, if you wished to experience a homeless man's morning stroll through the East End, I would suggest at least taking an umbrella. Or using the front door."
An elderly but resonant British voice sounded from the shadows of the porch.
Alfred Pennyworth stood quietly on the steps, dressed in an immaculate three-piece suit and holding a large black umbrella.
His sharp gray-blue eyes swept quickly over Bruce.
No missing limbs. His mental state was almost unnaturally good.
But Alfred's brow instantly knotted.
His gaze locked on the ruined tactical belt clenched in Bruce's hand. Its black bulletproof material was completely saturated with dark red liquid. When raindrops struck it, what splashed up was not rainwater, but thick blood.
"That amount of blood loss is fatal. Come with me. The medical room."
Alfred's voice lost its usual composure as the instincts of a former veteran MI5 operative awakened.
"I'm fine, Alfred." Bruce strode into the foyer and casually tossed the belt onto the expensive marble floor with a dull slap.
"Just a few scratches."
"Scratches don't drain a third of an adult man's blood." Alfred wasn't buying it. He seized Bruce's wrist with startling strength.
"Take your clothes off. Now. Otherwise, I shall have to resort to the interrogation techniques I learned in Belfast."
Bruce sighed. He knew this man all too well: his butler in name, his adoptive father in every way that mattered.
He unzipped the cheap jacket, pulled it off, and tossed it onto the sofa.
A broad back covered in old scars. Firm abdominal muscles.
Alfred took a tactical flashlight from his pocket and shone its harsh white beam over Bruce's abdomen and right leg.
There were no signs of serious injury, only two faint red marks that looked like mosquito bites.
Alfred switched off the flashlight and drew a deep breath. Apart from the laundry detergent, there really was no smell of fresh blood.
"Where did the wounds go?" Alfred pressed his fingers against Bruce's skin, testing the elasticity of the muscles beneath. Flawless.
"Bullets cannot do so little damage. Even the finest medical drugs on the market would leave serious scars. Master Bruce, my eyesight has not deteriorated to the point where I cannot distinguish ketchup from human blood. The bullet holes in that belt line up perfectly with your spleen and a major artery."
"That's what I want to find out, too."
Bruce walked to the bar and poured himself a whiskey. Ice cubes clinked crisply against the glass.
He tipped his head back. The harsh liquor poured down his throat, its fiery sting bringing him fully awake.
"The East End. An alley at 22 Lake Street. An underground clinic." Bruce turned, profound wariness and suspicion flickering in his deep-set eyes.
"An Asian back-alley doctor named Yang Ming."
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a quack peddling fake medicine."
"If a quack can catch my downward karate chop with one hand, then send me flying five meters with Bajiquan." Bruce's mouth twisted into a cold, self-mocking smile.
Alfred's pupils contracted sharply.
He knew Bruce's fighting ability all too well. Those were killing techniques honed on the edge of life and death during his travels across the globe.
There were probably fewer than ten ordinary humans in the world who could pin Bruce down and beat him.
"He doesn't follow any single style." Bruce set down his glass and braced both hands on the bar, his knuckles whitening.
"Krav Maga chokeholds, Muay Thai elbow strikes, even the lowest street-thug tricks-groin kicks and eye gouges. He blends killing techniques with dirty moves. And his muscles react faster than his brain can issue commands. That kind of muscle memory can only come from countless life-or-death fights."
A deathly silence settled over the hall.
"That's not all." Bruce gritted his teeth.
"He injected me with some green drug. A little over ten minutes. In just a little over ten minutes, my spleen, which had been pierced by a nine-millimeter bullet, and my broken ribs were completely rebuilt. The agony of those cells dividing like mad... I never want to experience that again."
Alfred frantically searched his memory for every classified file on biological modification and alien technology in the old MI5 intelligence database. Nothing matched.
"He's a monster. A monster in a white coat who worships money." Bruce stared hard at Alfred.
"He saw through my identity at a glance. My disguise was a joke to him. Alfred, use every resource we have. I want everything on this Yang Ming. Everyone he's been in contact with, who trained him, and why he's holed up in Gotham's slums."
"As you wish, Master Bruce." Alfred bowed slightly.
As he looked at the bloodshot-eyed young man before him, who resembled a wounded lone wolf, an indescribable ache welled in his heart.
He had opposed this near-suicidal street vigilantism from the start. Gotham's darkness could not be beaten back with a pair of fists.
He had watched Bruce grow up struggling with the trauma of losing his parents, watched him force himself into becoming an emotionless machine of vengeance.
If Thomas and Martha were watching from heaven, they would never want their son to die in a stinking alley.
But he could not dissuade him. Bruce's obsession had sunk into his very bones.
Alfred poured a cup of hot tea and handed it to him.
"Perhaps this Dr. Yang has taught you a more vivid lesson than anything I could offer in the training room. Gotham does not believe in rules, Master Bruce. There are only hunters and prey here."
"Furthermore, if this Dr. Yang truly snatched you from death's grasp as you say, then I believe the Wayne Family owes him an enormous debt. Perhaps I should find the time to pay this... miracle doctor a personal visit."
"He already took a million dollars in hush money." Bruce gave a cold snort, making his displeasure with Yang Ming clear.
"A million for the life of the Wayne Family's sole heir? Far too cheap," Alfred said mildly.
"Still, I find myself somewhat relieved to see you suffer such a serious setback. At least it might help you understand that Gotham's criminals are not the assassins you met in the Himalayas, with their devotion to bushido."
Bruce did not argue. Silently, he picked up the cheap tracksuit and headed for the study on the second floor.
"Take a bath, Master Bruce. Your clothes smell as though someone stuffed ten stray cats into a moldy washing machine," Alfred called after him.
"I shall have black coffee and a detailed briefing on the East End's criminal factions ready for you at breakfast."
At five thirty in the morning, the study's lights were off.
Bruce sat in the large leather swivel chair, wrapped in darkness.
Failure washed over him like a tide.
Tonight's operation had been a complete disaster. He had not understood the Malone Crime Family's firepower, and he had not expected Gotham Police Department patrol officers to open fire on him.
He had charged into the rainy night in a black bodysuit like some ridiculous masked wrestler, only to nearly be shot to death.
Yang Ming had been right. His disguise was a joke.
Criminals did not fear him. The police did not fear him. The gangs feared him even less. They saw him only as a deranged freak.
"I need a symbol," Bruce murmured, clutching his head in both hands.
"A symbol that will make them tremble down to their bones. A totem of Gotham's dark night..."
Crash!
A sharp crash suddenly tore through the study's deathly silence.
Gale-force wind and driving rain shattered the huge floor-to-ceiling window, sending shards of glass pelting the carpet like hail.
Bruce jerked his head up.
Lightning split the night sky, its pallid glare illuminating the study.
An enormous dark shape swept inside on the wind.
It was a massive bat.
It thrashed its black, leathery wings in the gale, shrieking piercingly. It circled overhead, casting an enormous shadow across Bruce's face like the mask of a demon poised to devour him.
Bruce stared fixedly at the bat.
His breathing stopped.
Memories of falling into the dry well at Wayne Manor as a child poured through him like floodwater through an opened dam. Darkness. Dampness. Countless bats screaming as they rushed at him... It was the most primal, purest fear buried deep within him.
Fear.
Bruce's eyes grew brighter. The confusion in them gave way to an almost crazed clarity.
"Yes... that's it."
He sprang to his feet and strode to the desk. He ripped away the tablecloth and snatched up a pencil.
"Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot." Bruce's voice echoed through the thunder, chillingly low. "I must become the embodiment of their nightmares. Whenever they see the night, I want them to think of me."
The pencil scraped furiously across white paper with a soft, rustling sound.
The outline of a cowl with two pointed ears gradually took shape.
Next came a black cape that could spread like a glider's wings.
"Kevlar is too heavy, and it can't stop armor-piercing rounds at close range. I'll need Nomex fire-resistant fabric interwoven with miniature titanium-alloy scales." Bruce rapidly annotated the specifications.
"The cowl needs a lead lining to block X-ray vision. The lenses need integrated sonar and infrared thermal imaging..."
His mind worked faster than ever before.
"A suit isn't enough. I also need an absolute terrain advantage. I can't end up without even a refuge again, like tonight."
He snatched up the manor's architectural plans. His gaze fixed on the enormous, abandoned natural cavern beneath the estate.
The place that had once brought him endless terror.
"Alfred!" Bruce pressed the Communicator on his desk, his voice brimming with barely contained excitement.
"Master Bruce, I was just about to fetch a broom to clean up the glass in your study," came Alfred's resigned voice over the Communicator.
"Contact Lucius Fox in the Applied Sciences Division. I want to buy that batch of bridge-laying vehicles and all-terrain armored vehicle prototypes the military rejected. Route the payments through shell companies."
"Also, order a batch of top-spec servers and medical pods. Have everything delivered to the cavern beneath the manor."
Bruce looked at the black sketch on the paper, a figure like a demonic god, and his lips curved into a cold smile.
"I'm going to build a cave of my own in Gotham's hell."
Outside the door, Alfred quietly listened to the voice over the Communicator.
He looked out the window. The enormous bat had already vanished into Gotham's torrential rain.
Alfred knew that the little boy who had once cried on rainy nights was finally about to die for good. In his place would stand a monster that would make all of Gotham tremble.
And the catalyst for it all was a late-night incident marked by failure and the inexplicable.