Lucian had set up a small living space for himself at the top of the chapel's bell tower. It was the safest part of the structure being that high up, as anyone inside would be hard to spot—not to mention the bottleneck that the spiraling staircase would place any invaders in. Moreover, if anyone ever reached him, he could easily escape by climbing down the vines that had grown all over the stonework.
'Hell... I could probably jump down with Full Cowling...'
Besides how good the tower was, the rest of the chapel wasn't as bad as he expected. All of the wood had rotted away through decades of disuse, but the stones, metal, and glass all held fine. They were only weathered with age and covered in grime.
As for sleeping through the night, Lucian just cleaned up the floor as best as he could, set up a sheet of leaves and vines, and used his backpack as a pillow.
...
The following morning, he separated some of his belongings and kept only what he needed in his backpack: one set of clothes and his headgear. To protect the rest of his stuff, he pushed the fallen church bell around and used it as a cover.
It proved a monumental task and a good workout. Though heavy, he didn't strain himself—his Vitality had enhanced him to the point that the effort wasn't all that taxing.
He returned to the city afterward and looked for a gym. It was on the cheaper side, but well within his standards. It had all the essential equipment, and even had extra stuff for martial artists. Striking pads, gloves, body armor, headgear... they even had extra punching bags in case the current old ones took too heavy of a beating.
'No boxing ring, though. Shame.'
Lucian joined up and got to training. He did it mostly to test his strength, speed, and muscle memory in earnest and without risk.
With his body reset for the purposes of testing the Program, he was nowhere near as strong as he had gotten back at the Academy. Still, he was much stronger than he used to be in his first life. Striking speed was great compared to before. Endurance, as had been proven earlier, was elite. Muscle memory was as good as he remembered.
Now done with his tests, he went for his true goal: a shower. The chapel was cut off from Gotham's water supply, after all. If that hadn't been a problem, he would not have had any need for his current arrangements.
While there, he made sure to get as much use of the facilities as he could and really scrubbed himself clean. He'd even picked up some toiletries along the way to the gym, so the process of cleansing his body was heavenly after experiencing Gotham at its finest.
When he left the shower, fully dressed, he felt like a new man. On his way out of the gym, he spotted something—someone—that really caught his eye.
A girl had entered the gym as he prepared to leave. She was on the shorter side, with her light skin decorated with freckles and punctuated by scars. Her green eyes carried singular focus as she moved, and her orange hair formed a bright halo around her as light bounced against it.
And then, there was her body. It really caught Lucian's attention, and not in the carnal way.
She had come in wearing a baggy hoodie and sweats, but once she reached the racks where the boxing gloves were kept, she shrugged off her jacket. A black tank top hugged her lean body underneath it. Slim as she was, her muscles still whispered of strength under her scarred skin.
Past her appearance on the surface, there was this intensity in the expression on her pretty face. Singular focus that swirled with tempered control, as well as whatever else the latter might have been holding down.
Lucian forgot how to breathe for exactly one second.
As much as he wanted to approach her, that would have been in bad taste. He still had a job to do on top of that, so he reluctantly tore his gaze away from her and moved on.
'No time to play around. Maybe in the future, though...'
He finally left the gym to the sound of her punches, crashing into a punching bag with enough weight to sound like muffled gunshots.
...
Hungry after his morning at the gym, Lucian splurged on a big breakfast. Beefy, brothy noodle soup served as his main course. The diced bits of meat inside were just perfect. He also had some salad for his greens with a decent amount of dressing, and purchased a tall can of pringles to snack on throughout the day.
The first thing he needed now that he had a place to stay, was a steady source of income. He didn't seek a normal job, though—not even when legal requirements were more of a suggestion in Gotham than a necessity. He wanted something that wouldn't be at risk with the lifestyle he planned to have. Even better if it synergized well with what he would end up being, or of it was something he could abandon at the drop of a hat.
Pulling on experiences from his old life, he took on small, one-time odd jobs here and there. They would sustain him until he could find reliable income. Most of them were unfair and earnings varied. Half of them entailed things that no sane man would ever take on without appropriate compensation.
Lucian, however, took those as opportunities to temper himself.
Besides money, some of those odd jobs actually earned him some EXP. With the amount of workplace hazards in Gotham, he'd saved his fair share of people from debilitating injury—even death in some cases.
[ Rescue EXP: 100. ]
[ Next level: 100. ]
And with workplace violence being quite common, combat EXP was also on the table.
[ Combat EXP: 70. ]
[ Next level: 30. ]
...
Lucian spent the next dozen hours working non-stop. Come nightfall, he had accumulated a sizable buffer of cash and an equally considerable appetite. He did eat lunch at some point, but so much work would rile up anybody's stomach.
He stopped at some pub for a quick evening meal. He might get some more work after all, and wanted to save his finishing meal for just before bed.
As for why he chose the pub, well... food and drink always got people talking.
The one he'd entered was a small, cozy space; warm despite the cold, and bright in spite of the dim lighting. He sat himself at the bar. It was closest to the people seated in the darkest corners, and made it easy to listen in.
"What can I fix for ya?" asked the bartender. She was all smiles, all business.
Lucian picked out something easy from the generic menu, and asked for a cocktail.
The bartender cocked a brow at him with the beginnings of a smirk on her lips. "Cocktail, really? You don't strike me as the type..."
He chuckled, passing over the money for his order. "What, did you expect me to get a beer?"
The way she shrugged while mixing his drink, as well as her subdued smile, told him everything.
Digging in, Lucian found the food to be decent. It was enhanced by his hunger, but... not bad at all. He made sure to eat slowly as well, and tuned in on the conversations all around him.
"Hey, did you hear...?"
"That was terrible..."
"Another one? Fuck, what is even going on anymore..."
Missing person's cases, from what Lucian could gather. Most of the victims were women. That painted a nasty picture in his head already, and then came the next bits of information.
"That many? Really?"
"I think it might be..."
"No way. Shit, I gotta call my sister..."
The frequency had been increasing in the past months. It wasn't big enough to reach front page news, but not so small as to be disregarded as the typical Gotham affair. Something was definitely fishy about it, and Lucian felt an itch deep inside to do something.
Then came the talk that he was waiting for.
"Yeah, this is the address."
"... seriously? You wanna do that?"
"Cops are no good. Someone's gotta do something."
"You're right... might as well earn some money doing it."
There was apparently a place that sought people like Lucian: those who wanted to do good, but not to the point of absolute selflessness. A protection gang, they called it. The Lucky Coyote.
A password was also mentioned among the whispers, and Lucian made sure to jot it down in the Program's notepad feature. As he finished his meal, there were also whispers of other news. Lizard-men stealing food, a man with a pig's head lurking in the shadows... there were even whispers of a man recognized as a god—by the rats in the sewers.
The gossipers dismissed those ones as urban legends, but Lucian knew better as an outsider.
'Best be ready... one of 'em's a kill-on-sight.'
He thanked the bartender for the meal and drinks once he was done. He left as big of a tip as he could and left. He had a new destination now: a place where he could do good for others and himself.
...
Iñigo's.
That was where the address led to, the one that Lucian had overheard in the pub. It was a Mexican-owned restaurant, but served food from cuisines all over besides their primary menu. From what he'd heard about the place just from the customers already inside, the food was pretty damn authentic.
As it was getting late in the night, they were already near closing. Only an hour left. Less and less people trickled in as those who finished their meals left at a more consistent rate. Lucian sat down, ordered, and ate while waiting.
Only a handful of tables were left. The servers were starting to look at him with interest. Inevitably, he was the only one left seated.
One of the servers approached him. "Excuse me," she asked, leaning ahead in a manufactured friendly manner. "Did you come for our job opening...?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, I heard about it from someone I know. It's still up, right?"
The server nodded cordially as her coworkers cleaned up in the background. "Okay, then! I just have to ask, though... what's your reason for applying?"
Lucian had to force down a grin as he recalled something else he'd heard at the pub. "Oh, nothing much. Just felt lucky."
"Lucky, you say?" The server parroted.
"Mhm. Like a coyote."
৹ ◎ ◉ ◎ ৹
The Batcave. Dark and spacious, it housed an entire arsenal that had taken years to build up. The vast computer array stood imposing in the far back. Lockers lined one curved wall, housing armor and weapons that could be retrieved for a myriad of scenarios. Vehicles of all sorts were in position near various exits, waiting dutifully for deployment.
Batman sat in the far back among the computers, using only one screen. He had it replaying a certain strip of footage that Robin had retrieved with him the previous night.
A boy around Robin's age entered the camera's field of vision, sprinting for his life until a cat, of all things, sent him sprawling. A man appeared after he did, lifting him by the hair to pin against the wall. One could only imagine the threats that had been made.
Then, there it came. The reason Batman looked at the footage again.
Shortly after the first man caught up with the boy, another entered the frame. His body glowed as he moved, bright enough that the subpar camera captured his skin as flat white blobs. Within only a handful of frames of him entering the scene, he had already slammed a lead pipe into the other man's head. Only then did his body cease glowing, turning him into an ordinary figure.
Metahuman, clearly—some form of physical enhancement. Possessed a good enough sense of morality to save a boy in dire straits. Selfish enough to just rob a man blind along the way, not seeming to care if he survived the act of violence. Some might call it justified, others overkill...
Batman classified it as 'callously opportunistic.'
Immediately upon his first time viewing that footage, he had called up Oracle—formerly Batgirl not long ago. He had taken what he could from the evidence on scene and asked her to look out for that metahuman. To his surprise, she found him rather quickly.
The lead was the boy himself. He had been injured, and Oracle made a prediction of the metahuman's potential behavior based on his actions during the incident. Oracle managed to track the boy to a clinic in the city—one funded by Wayne Enterprise. Once she had a lock on that location, she intruded on their security system's cameras.
There he was, clear as day. From Oracle's estimates, she placed the unknown metahuman at nearly six feet tall. His appearance and physique suggested that he was a healthy young adult, likely early twenties. He also moved with a distinct gait that suggested extensive martial and military training.
When Batman checked to see if that metahuman's appearance matched any records, he found none. Even Oracle had no further leads despite her considerable expertise and resources.
In the end, Batman shelved the topic for another time. The boy was safe. Even with one casualty, the incident had been resolved with a crisis averted. There were also no further sightings of the metahuman yet.
Robin appeared, exiting one of the changing rooms. He skipped merrily over to Batman, who briefly ruffled his hair before leading the way out of the cave.
"What's up for tonight?" Robin asked.
Batman opened up a regular-looking car, its windows tinted so heavily that nobody could see in without a powerful flashlight. "I want you to stay on the missing persons' cases," he said as he and Robin entered. "I believe we're close to a breakthrough. I'll investigate the recent movements at the docks while you build on what we already have. If I'm not just seeing patterns where there aren't, they might just be connected."
—=—=—=—=—=—=—=—
Surprised that Batman's not freaking out over a kill? You can blame your expectations on the people in charge of comic book franchises. Their desperation to cling to these iconic characters have done more harm for the characters themselves than good. Instead of writing for quality, they write to extend everything for the sake of more profit. Because of that, all we have now is a freak-out, crash-out Batman that makes little sense when inspected with a closer look.
Also, the art I posted as visuals for homegirl isn't in the 'present' as narrated, but... it's still her :3
No spoilers in that image either, so don't worry about that
Anyway, this rewrite will probably have a lot more smut than the original version. I just... really want to write more of that, even if I'm still green.
...
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