"The Dawn of John Blake"

A Batman fanfic

The Dawn of John Blake

(Sequel to “The Dark Knight Rises”)

 

Chapter One

 

It’s been two years since I took over for Batman, and rumors of an alliance called the Suicide Squad are swarming around Gotham like ravaging bees. The worst part is I can never find them in time; I don’t even know what they look like! I caught a glimpse of one of their legs last night, but that’s no help. I have no idea who they are, how many of them there are, or what their motives are. They attack different types of victims and rob obscure, varied stores every night. So all I can do now is wait in this diner, looking out the window in the middle of the night, waiting for something to happen. The waitress comes over and asks if I need anything, I don’t leave eye contact with the street as I reply, “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

            I could hear the irritation in her voice when she retorted, “You know, you can’t just stay here all night.” I finally left eye contact with the black streets outside of the diner window. I looked at her in the eyes and saw that she was a beautiful young woman, about twenty-two years old with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her thick Eastern accent didn’t do justice to the full, pouted lips it came out of. Her petite hands were placed annoyed on her narrow hips. One of her thin eyebrows rose at my silence; I guess I was staring for a couple more seconds than I thought. “Well are you going to order anything else or not? I’m a busy lady!” Something odd was in her voice when she said that. I narrowed my eyebrows and looked across the diner.

            “Yeah…but, no one else is here. What else do you need to do?” The reaction she gave me when I said this was not what I expected at all. She gave a sly smile and lowered her head.

            “I thought you’d never ask, sugar!” And with that, she whipped out some sort of gun from inside of her apron with one hand and another sort of gun with the other. She pulled both triggers at once before I had time to think. I felt a netted material all around me come from one gun, but couldn’t see anything because the other gun she shot off must have filled the entire building with smoke, as far as I could tell anyways.

 I heard a high-pitched cackling coming from the girl, whom I assume isn’t actually a waitress, to say the least. I then heard muffled sounds and voices, and I tried to make out words, but all I could hear was imperceptible voices. Then, I heard footsteps come close to me, and a familiar voice came along with it; the voice of a man. Who can that be? I thought, racking my brain. It’s as though I’ve heard it before… from a terrible nightmare of some sort. I heard two other voices come from behind him; one from a voice of a man I didn’t recognize at all, and another from a woman with a smoky, beautiful voice. I still couldn’t quite catch what they were saying, but by this point the smoke was starting to clear.

            “Put your hands up, baby,” the waitress’s voice came from among the now mist of smoke, “word on the street is you’re working for Batman.” Now the smoke was clear enough for me to see the slender woman in front of me; now in a change of costume. From her neck down to her toes, she wore a somewhat jester-like outfit that was patterned with red and black diamonds and squares. It was tightly fit around her small, but somehow still curvy body. Her hair was still in pigtails, but her makeup had obviously gone through a major malfunction during the time the smoke had clouded my vision from her. Now, instead of her light use of brown and black eye makeup, her face was plastered with sloppy white paint and red and black lipstick with smoky, dark makeup or paint of some sort all around her eyes. She looked like a skeleton was attempting to be a clown but failed miserably. She was eyeing me down sinisterly as she swung her hips from left to right, humming jubilantly to herself.

            “Actually, my dear,” the familiar man’s voice came from behind the blonde woman, “word on the street is he is Batman!” Then the man hooted evilly, a laugh similar to that of blondie’s. And after that, I saw him emerge from the mist as he put his bony arm around the girl’s shoulders. I’ve heard rumors of this man, but I thought he was killed; that or imprisoned in Arkham. It can’t be. Here I am, working as the Batman for the very first time, and I am tied up, defenseless, in front of the face of the Joker.

Chapter 2

 

            I could feel my heart racing at the speed of light as I felt the sweat trickle down my forehead. The pale-faced, infamous villain I had heard so much about growing up was looking down at me with his crooked, twisted smile. He somehow managed to whimper joyfully as he crouched down in his tattered, deep purple suit. “Ya didn’t think we’d find you, did ya?” He chortled and then sprung up and did a sort of celebratory dance. The blonde looked mesmerized as she giggled at her male counterpart. Who is she anyway?

            “What are you supposed to be?” I was just as surprised as she was when this blurted out of my mouth. She scoffed, still smiling, did a back hand-spring, and threw her arms up in the air.

            “Harrrrley Quinn at your service!” She chimed, her smile growing even bigger, showing off a perfect row of bright white teeth. She looked down at me, and apparently wasn’t very happy with my lack of excitement. She pouted and crossed her arms in disbelief.

            “Don’t be so needy, child,” the smoky voice of the woman I heard earlier chimed in. Emerging from the haze came a stunning red-headed woman covered in leaves. She looked a little older than this Harley Quinn and acted a whole lot older to boot. “It’s what men want.”

            “Oh, lighten up Red!” Harley responded, waving her hand at her and rolling her eyes. Now the smoke had completely vanished and I could see every one of the members of this so-called Suicide Squad, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Harley skipped over to the Joker and flung herself on his back, which he reacted to by lightly brushing her off his shoulder, consequently tossing her onto the floor. She pretended like nothing happened and got right back up onto her feet and settled for just holding the villain’s hand.

            I looked at the last member of the team; a stalky, bald man that I’ve never seen before, just standing there, silent as the grave. “You’re an odd bunch,” I finally stated and looked up at them all, still netted to a chair. The two girls looked at each other and the big man just continued staring off into the distance. The Joker chuckled and then looked me square in the eye.

            “And what were you expecting?” he grabbed my shoulder and grinned menacingly at an uncomfortably close distance. “Were you expecting a different herd? You don’t run with our crowd?” He laughed again and bounced back, grabbing Harley with his right arm and pulling her to his side.

            “Well I did hear of some other names being linked with your so-called ‘Suicide Squad,’ but I don’t really remember them off the top of my head…” I trailed off and the Joker just laughed, and Harley echoed.

            “Come on!” The Joker grunted teasingly “I’m not that sloppy!” He pushed Harley away and came prancing back over to me, and once again came right up to an awkward closeness. “Sometimes names are just…thrown out! Here and there, there and here! Ha HA! You don’t think I’d let the boys in blue just…ride on my tail, do you?” And with that he spun around and undid something on the back of his coat, revealing coattails with buttons on the end. I figured this couldn’t be very good, so I slowly started to wiggle my wrists out of the tangled mess they were in, making sure no one noticed. “Take it away, Harley!”

            “No problemo, Mistah J!” She sang and jumped over to the Joker and pushed the buttons on his coattails. Another smoke similar to before started to seep out of the ends of the Joker’s jacket as I wriggled faster and faster, trying to make my way out of the trap fast enough to stop whatever these gorillas were up to next. The next thing I knew, the silent, husky man from the back of the room ran over to me and rose an arm to smack me over the head. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline or years of training, but I somehow manage to turn around fast enough to hit his arm with the chair as it was flying towards me. The man’s arm solved my problem with the trap; the chair shattered and left shards of wood all over the floor.

            “Oh come on!” The Joker called out, “We’re just havin’ some fun!” And with that he picked up a metal chair from one of the diner tables and threw it in my direction. I ducked but was still nicked in the face by the bottom of the chair. I ignored the sudden searing pain emanating from my forehead and threw all of my body weight onto the Joker’s stomach using my elbow. It hardly knocked the wind out of him, but I was sorely disappointed when I realized I was now on the ground looking up at the four of them unable to move.

            “What should we do with him, boss?” Harley asked the Joker, stroking his purple sleeve. The Joker grinned and looked down at her with a full-toothed smile.

            “Eh�"he’ll get more fun in time,” and with that he cackled at the top of his lungs and threw a couple handfuls of capsules in the shapes of jack-in-the-boxes around the whole diner. I don’t know how I’m in so much pain right now but I’m frozen to this hard, tiled floor as the Suicide Squad is getting away. The next thing I knew, the diner was filling with cloudy, putrid-smelling smoke as the laughter of the two clowns become more and more distant. My eyes started to shut, but I tried with all my strength to keep them open. It was no use; the gas was doing something to me. Now I find myself laying her alone, defenseless, hopeless, and falling asleep. I only remember one thought going through my mind before I blacked out: where are you, Batman?

Reviews

[A. H. Pinley]

I look forward to reading more on the "new" Batman.

[Elise Pehrson]

Thanks!

[A. H. Pinley]

The smoke had lifted enough to reveal? What was the Joker after? Was this the Jokers way of welcoming this kid aboard? They didn't take this kid? Other than those observations, it was fun to read.