Along with the shell casings, pearls scattered across the ground.
In the dim Crime Alley, the thug fled with the wallet, leaving only young Bruce Wayne standing alone in his parents' pool of blood.
A Batman flew through the beam of light beneath the streetlamp, its wings beating soundlessly. It was not a Butterfly, yet the little boy noticed its presence as if guided by some unseen force.
"Why?!" The boy twisted his head around one hundred and eighty degrees, staring into the darkness at the mouth of the alley. "You clearly had a way! Deathstroke told you he could help you! Why weren't you willing to save our parents?!"
The man in the darkness slowly approached the crime scene. His pointed ears and black cloak gradually emerged beneath the streetlamp, while a huge swarm of Batman circled around him as though he were the largest moth.
"You are not me. This is a dream."
She did not answer the boy's question, nor did she care to. Yet seeing this scene replayed still stirred Batwoman's heart slightly. That was the only reason she was willing to waste time saying anything.
"I am you. I am Bruce Wayne." The boy maintained the position of having his neck twisted backward, his expression ferocious as an evil ghost. "You clearly could have saved our parents, but you chose not to! For your own pride, you betrayed us!"
"You are nobody. You are not Bruce Wayne either," Batwoman said with certainty. She had already realized that the person speaking with her in the dream was not another one of her personalities, but some unknown entity.
As for how she knew?
Because this time, he was not the standard answer.
This was not the first time she had dreamed of this scene. She had had