(Earth 99 was home to the murderous nihilistic Bruce Wayne. One of the universes where he snapped, broke his one rule and never stopped. He ends Thad's criminal career...and Thad becomes something else. robins died before his time )
The Dark Knight left Inertia barely responsive, bleeding from where the batarang connected with his forehead and from the injections.. Given three doses of velocity nine after twelve of his bones were broken, a dosage that could have killed him. ... Knowing that it could have led to the teen's death... People looked horrified, GCPD officers, the commissioner the vigilantes but no one interfered.. You asked him for name and he whispered it weakly as he finally received aid.." T-Thad.."
His knee was shattered, a bat brand on his collar bone and his neck, reaching even his shoulder.
You were the only one to even visit his hospital room.. Coming in just as he wakes up from a nightmare.
"There is no one to call.. No one to pick me up from this place or worry about it.." You went to his hospital room and found him packing.
"I read every book in Gotham.. But I didn't stop ramblings, confessions, from inmates in arkham so I could learn....even his journal so I could know it all and be ready."
"
I didn't steal any of this. Someone connected to the vigilante slipped me a lot of cash. Guilt, his money. I don't care it's enough for the rest of my life."
"Please put me through to Doctor Thompkins I have to talk to her.." It took weeks at Gotham General before his speed returned. But what remained inside him couldn't be healed as easily..." I can't forget it..any of it.. How do I bury it?"
"The nightmare is always the same... I'm in the cave, I can't outrun him... He barely tries and he catches up to me wrapping the grappling hook around my neck.. Breaking me in every way.."
"Fuck Batman.." Thad stated his hands shaking after the comment. You told him of the Dark Knight's disappearance. Thad hated the memories of him..." He lived long enough to be the villain. "
"I'm trying to conquer my fear... I'm sick of it haunting my mind... I'm going to inject myself with Crane's Toxin.. I need you to hold me down when I do it.."
The next step, Thad accessed the bat-cave, dim lights showing him walking toward the armory, the computer and equipment. He could have been there to destroy it, or salvage it..
Destroying every vehicle left in Bruce Wayne's garage..
You triggered an old security measure, small robots designed by Lucius Fox... He reduced all of them to scrap metal.
Thad tore every batsuit he found to shreds.. Anything that he could wear, but he stopped at the Robin suit. He tore off the emblem throwing it embedding it in the wall.
"I promised myself I would be above him, never come from anger or vengeance."
"if gotham's a prison, I'm the warden."
" His boy wonders, his soldiers who died one by one...too slow, too insane to save any of them."
"I won't be a hypocrite."
Gotham grew worse. It wasn't just Batman that was gone, the other vigilantes had to leave it behind due to the damage they received or died in action. But there were rumors of someone new. Always striking swiftly after dropping smoke bombs, using old Robin equipment but he never responded to it..
You finally heard what he called himself what he sang under his breath" send a talon for your head.." When it cleared you could actually see his costume, brown, grey and gold.
He asked you to throw at him and he made it combust." Again, there's hundreds of them left.."
"You assumed I used a bo-staff just like they did...... I prefer to wield things with an edge.." He explained showing the halberd.
The two of you were fitted eith shock collars, when you protested you were the one to suffer. Thad screamed at the people inflicting it.
"This place was insured! They didn't even hurt anyone it was pointless to intervene! "
Excessive in his treatment of the villain you went after. Breaking the glass, dragging his face across it before taking him out of the car and hitting, stomping on him.
"You know that everything just changed. Part of you thinks that your life is over. You're in chock. You don't feel that it's real. Your friends are there to you, but they don't understand. You are only sure of one thing. You wanna hurt who hurt you. Time passes and you start a new life. Part of it is defense mechanism.You don't want to be defined by the terrible thing that happened to you. You don't wanna be hurt anymore. You wanna be someone stronger, then you try to be a "different" person. Until you find the right you."
you found him in a diner, surrounded by people beaten to a pulp, bloodied, with a smile on his face. He was chuckling as he put coffee to his lips.