The warehouse was alive with the sound of tools and low mechanical hums. Upstairs, the apartment above served not as a home but as a command post. On the desk lay the pieces of something greater: Batarangs lined neatly, their edges sharpened to surgical precision; smoke pellets sealed in capsules; a grappling gun polished and ready for use. Beside them sat a black utility belt, its compartments meticulously arranged.
Every section had its purpose:
Batarangs: balanced for throwing, lethal in accuracy.
Grappling gun: compact, foldable, capable of firing reinforced line to scale walls or swing between rooftops.
Smoke pellets: for escape and confusion.
Compact trackers: small discs that could be attached discreetly.
Miniature camera bugs: to plant and record conversations.
Lock-picks: for silent entry.
Flash charges: small blinding bursts to disorient.
The cape had been completed, flowing down his back, reinforced with memory fabric that stiffened when air caught it, allowing him to glide short distances between rooftops. The mask covered his face entirely, ears swept back into subtle points. With it all together, the image was unmistakable: he was no longer Nate Cross tinkering in a warehouse. He was Batman.
Against the far wall, a heavy PC tower glowed softly. Batman had built it piece by piece, custom hardware built or assembled by hand, multiple encryption codes, multiple redundancies, and a self-contained firewall system. It was more than a computer; it was a fortress of data. No hacker would ever touch it. Not easily anyway.
On the monitors appeared the beginnings of a Tower-like structure: dossiers, photos, maps of Brooklyn and Hell's Kitchen, lists of officers tied to gangsters, coded logs of every patrol. With every patrol, the database grew. This was not a cave, but it was the seed of one.
That night, Batman moved across Brooklyn's rooftops. The city below carried on as always, bars closing, cars rumbling, alley deals being made in shadows. He struck fast and quiet.
A mugging near a subway station: Batman dropped from above, two blows, one man unconscious, the other fleeing in terror before being tripped and tied with reinforced line.
A drug exchange: smoke pellets, Batarangs slicing through pistols, and three dealers left in a heap for responding officers to find.
He left no names, no explanations. Only whispers. By the second week of patrols, criminals in Brooklyn no longer looked only for cops, they glanced nervously at rooftops, as if the dark itself had teeth.
Hell's Kitchen was different. Blood painted the pavement as two gangs clashed violently under a neon glow. Blades and pipes swung, bottles shattered, and stray gunfire cracked windows. Civilians screamed, ducking for cover as stray bullets tore through car doors.
Batman watched from above. He had intended to observe. But when a bullet ricocheted into a storefront and sent innocent bystanders scattering, he moved.
The cape unfurled as he dropped into the chaos, landing between two groups mid-swing. A smoke pellet burst at his feet, and confusion reigned.
Batarangs cut through weapons, pistols clattering to the ground. Batman's fists moved with brutal precision: a strike to the ribs dropped one thug, an elbow to the jaw silenced another. He disarmed a knife-wielder, flipping him into a wall with bone-cracking force.
A gang member raised a shotgun toward the shadow in the smoke. Batman's grappling line fired, wrapping the weapon and yanking it free before the thug was slammed to the ground.
By the time the smoke cleared, both gangs were broken. Bodies littered the ground, groaning and unconscious. The civilians had escaped unharmed. Batman exhaled, standing over the wreckage. For the first time, he felt the absence of something, mobility, pursuit, containment. He glanced toward the fleeing gang cars he hadn't been able to chase.
He missed the Batmobile. The grappling gun was not advanced enough to help him follow those cars.
After nights of patrols and constant tinkering in the cramped apartment, Batman realized his operations had already outgrown the warehouse space. The grappling gun, the cape, the database, they worked, but he needed more. More room, more protection, and above all, secrecy.
Brooklyn rooftops were enough for now, but one night as he watched gang cars speed off into the dark, he knew: the absence of pursuit power was crippling. He needed a place to keep something larger, a vehicle, eventually more than one. A Batmobile. Even, someday, a Batjet.
By day, Nate quietly searched real estate records, maps of abandoned subway lines, sealed-off tunnels, decommissioned water treatment facilities. At night, Batman tested entry points, prowling through forgotten infrastructure with a flashlight and silent tread. Some sites were too exposed. Others, too unstable. But he was narrowing the options.
He imagined reinforced walls, hidden entrances, a lift for vehicles, hangars disguised beneath the city's skin. A command post not just for files and gadgets, but for war. Gotham had its cave. New York would have its own shadow.
The hunt for a base had begun.
Later that week, Batman traced whispers to the docks. It was a Friday night when Batman stumbled upon something bigger. From a rooftop near the docks, he saw them: two rival gangs gathered around a shipping container. Cars lined the street, headlights off, men leaning against them with pistols and shotguns.
Batman crouched low, his mask filters dampening the cold bite of the river wind. He zoomed in with binocular lenses built into his mask. At the center, two leaders shook hands, one from Brooklyn, the other from Hell's Kitchen. Their words carried across the silence.
Leader 1: "Brooklyn stays ours. You get the docks. But the cops..."
Leader 2: "Already paid. They won't touch it."
Leader 1: snorting "They never do. As long as the cash flows, New York's finest stays blind."
Batman's jaw tightened. He didn't need more evidence of corruption, but hearing it confirmed his suspicion: this wasn't a few dirty cops. It was systemic.
As the leaders dispersed, smaller crews broke off, carrying crates from the container into waiting vans. Nate counted eight armed enforcers guarding the operation. Enough to test his arsenal.
First a flash of light, then a smoke pellet dropped from above, hissing as white clouds billowed across the dock. Shouts erupted.
Enforcer 1: "What the hell is that?!"
Enforcer 2: "Keep moving! Stay sharp!"
Enforcer 3: "Can't see anything here!"
From the smoke, a Batarang whistled through the air. A pistol clattered to the ground. Another followed, slicing the strap off a shotgun. Panic spread.
Nate dropped into the chaos, a black blur of fists and precision. His first strike shattered an enforcer's jaw. He pivoted, elbow driving into another's throat, dropping him instantly.
One man raised his weapon, too slow. A Batarang embedded itself into the metal, wrenching it from his grip. Nate was already on him, two swift blows to the ribs, one to the temple. Down.
Another charged with a knife. Nate sidestepped, twisting the man's wrist until bone cracked, then slammed him headfirst into a crate.
The dock became a storm. Men fired wildly into shadows, bullets sparking off steel. Nate was never there. He slipped from smoke to darkness, striking, vanishing, striking again. In less than three minutes, eight men lay unconscious or writhing in pain.
Every gadget had purpose: smoke to disorient, flash to blind, grappling gun to pull weapons, Batarangs to disable. Batman moved like a phantom, strikes fueled by chakra-enhanced speed and strength.
When the last thug hit the ground, the dock was silent but for groans. None escaped. None could whisper. Within ten minutes, clean officers, tipped off anonymously, swarmed the scene and dragged the criminals into custody.
In bars and alleys, the underworld murmured of something new. Stories spread not from survivors, but from aftermaths. Dozens of armed men left broken in just a week. Shipments seized. Deals crushed. All with no explanation but shadows.
Gangster 1: "They say it's a man. Wears a mask."
Gangster 2: "Not a man. Men don't move like that. He's a bat. A monster."
Fear had begun its work.
Back in his apartment, Batman updated the database. Faces catalogued, gangs mapped, corrupt officers tagged. The network was slowly taking shape.
On the TV, reports aired of industrialist Tony Stark's sudden disappearance in Afghanistan. Conflicting accounts mentioned an ambush, missing convoys, and rumors of weapons falling into terrorist hands. Batman paused, considering. Street crime was already rot enough, but something larger was stirring. Something that could shift the balance of power far beyond the alleys of the city.
Still, he typed, feeding the database. He would face what came, when it came. But tonight was the city's turn.
On a rooftop overlooking Brooklyn, Batman crouched against the skyline. The cape rustled softly in the night wind. Below, criminals looked nervously into alleys, their confidence shaken.
In his gloved hand, a Batarang gleamed under the streetlight.
"Fear is a weapon. And tonight, it's mine."
With that, Batman melted into the dark, the night once again his domain.