Set the scene.
Gotham docks. Off-stage, yet his presence felt: ‘The Penguin’. Deposed heir to the Cobblepot crime family; now destitute, he grows desperate and ruthless in pursuit of the empire he’s lost.
The empire I have ripped away from him.
Tonight he brings drugs into my city, balaclava-clad men hauling wooden crates off of shipping containers and loading them into trucks. The cargo and containers are unmarked, but I have already seen the shipping manifesto; these crates may have come from overseas, but their purchase has been made through holding companies and shell corps that one can, when looking in the right places, trace back to a property development and construction contracting company based in New York City.
Fisk is attempting to purchase a stake of Gotham using Cobblepot as a figurehead. They will both be disappointed.
From my vantage point I can see eleven men.
Three loading crates; they are strong, but fatigued, and the hard work on a humid night has aggravated them; they demand help from the others, but are ignored. Tempers flare.
One in the truck cab; he is overweight and chain-smoking. His windows are closed and the stereo is loud.
Four dock workers, all paid off. Whether by Cobblepot or Fisk doesn't matter; what does is three of them are concealing light firearms, judging by their uneven gaits. The other is young and nervous, and wraps his hand around a single set of brass knuckles in his jacket pocket.
Two security guards, once again paid off. One guards the entrance to this pier - he's jumpy, and carries his hands together, awkwardly low and in front of him: he is holding what is likely to be a shotgun. The other is casually patrolling; he is openly carrying a pistol, with a heavy torch in the other hand. The patrolling guard is not jumpy, and he grips his pistol loosely. Carelessly.
The last man is the lookout; he is stationed atop the gantry crane assigned to this pier. He is holding an automatic rifle and has binoculars, an open-broadcast two-way radio, and has even been equipped with night-vision goggles, because he is here to look for me, and I operate from the dark.
He will not find me. I am above him. I was on this gantry crane first.
I begin tonight's work.-
'Eyes' is a dumb nickname, Eyes thinks, but these are dumb men and it is simple and effective and makes his role in the operation clear. They are obviously expecting interference tonight - but that is why he is here. His radio crackles - the voice coming through is filled with static, and is loud and grating. Ten minute check-in.
"[WALKER TO EYES. CHECK IN]"
"Eyes to Walker. Eyes clear."
"[WALKER TO EYES. OARLESS CANOE.]"
"Eyes to Walker. Western Fjord."
The radio crackles again and falls silent. Check-in clear. Eyes thinks he'll take another walk around the crane; the lights of Gotham's business district over the dock-water on a clear night is oddly beautiful. There's a good view of Wayne Tower too, the imposing skyscraper with its iconic 'W' fascia nestled among bank and media logos. He can lean over the railing and gaze out over the pier for five minutes, then walk back around for the next check.
Eyes barely has time to register what little noise comes from behind him before his forehead hits the metal railing and he bounces back, reeling - but not before his leg is kicked into the lower set of railings and his kneecap shatters. He would scream in pain, but as he twists around in his fall, the jagged, black shape that towers above him lashes out with one of its uncountable limbs and strikes him across the throat, silencing him as he sinks to the floor. Eyes' has one last sight before he fades out; terrible, inhuman horns, sitting atop a snarling black face, blasphemously haloed by demonic wings.
-
I have nine minutes and forty seconds before the lookout fails to report at the next check-in and the men are alerted to my arrival. The guard at the entrance to the pier is sequestered in his booth, too far from the operation to be useful; the driver is not the fighting type. That leaves me a little over a minute to incapacitate each man.
Doable.
I leap from the crane, gliding softly towards the patrolman who has entered the furthest section of his route. -
Walker’s name is actually Walker, although he hasn’t let anyone know - to do so would be to defy the point of the codenames in the first place. William Walker. William after his father; he knows that much of the man, but little else. He spent much of his youth fighting ‘Willy Junior’ as a nickname, but eventually, gracefully, Bill stuck. Bill’s trying to be a better dad to his kid than William Senior was - not hard, as Bill’s mere existence in his son’s life is a step above the standard the old man set.
Bill’s a security guard at the docks, has been for 4 years. He knew what kind of world he was stepping into when he took the job - record turnovers, Gotham Docks, for all manner of reasons both sinister and benign - but there was little else in his skill set he was suitable for, and the job paid well for what it demanded of him. Tonight was the first time he’d been involved in anything explicitly illicit. The first time he’d been actively involved, at least, approached by a man in a suit with a roll of bills that totalled 3 months wage. 3 months wage for one night protecting whatever was coming off those containers - cargo that would have been coming in anyway, Bill thought, cargo that’s probably come in unawares on many of his shifts over his career. A quarter-year of pay for one night’s overtime. He could pay off his son’s braces with some left over for a real knock-out birthday present with what he was earning tonight. He felt good. A little dirty, but good.
There was a noise in the shadows to his left and Bill snapped out of his ruminations and whipped around, torch held out first and his pistol low and close to his body. He’d not fired a gun once in his four years on the docks, and didn’t even own the one he was holding now.
“W-Who’s there? Show yourself!”
There was another sound, behind him. He whipped around again, swearing under his breath and shaking a little. Still nothing. He took a few steps forward.
A quiet, sharp little noise rushed through the air towards him and something pierced his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. It clattered to the ground, but Bill paid no attention; even before he’d yelled out in shock, there had been another small noise and a gummy, viscous substance had splashed across his mouth and nose, muffling his shout and blocking his air. He slowly sunk to the ground, losing consciousness, back against a shipping container as his legs gave way beneath him.
Ten feet away, across the path, the shadows shift and split and some cursed figure melts into reality; Bill can recognise a head connected to shoulders, but the rest of the body is an inhuman mass that bleeds into the floor, no limbs or torso or recognisably human features to speak of.
Consciousness fades. The darkness descends. The figure envelopes him; and then Bill cannot keep his eyes open any longer.
-
The patrolman had been at odds with the job since the night began; I’d checked his record, and for a docks guard, it was as clean as they came. A little history, to be expected. But this was his first time being bought. He’d taken to it all too easily. They all do.
I lean over him and lightly wave a small bottle of solvent beneath his nose; the glue blocking his nostrils melts away, and I hear him subconsciously take a full breath, but he doesn’t wake up. He won’t for at least half-an-hour; the glue includes chloroform in its makeup to sedate the victim. I bind his hands behind his back, retrieving the batarang, and then head inwards towards the truck.
There are seven men left: the three loaders, and the four dock workers. The loaders are unarmed, but the workers aren’t, and the three with concealed pistols need to be tackled first. They’re mostly milling around, but one wanders away to urinate. I take him out first; emerging from the dark like a beast of the nine circles, enveloping him in terror’s embrace and smothering him until he stops struggling. I set him down and bind his hands, too, and then I take the pistol from the belt of his trousers. Well made. American. Probably Fisk again; Oswald’s no arms dealer, and doesn’t have the underworld clout to source firearms like these. I disassemble it easily enough, regardless of its manufacturer.
The pieces go clattering around the corner towards the remaining men; everyone ceases their tasks to watch as the sections of pistol slide in their direction from where their comrade had rounded the corner mere seconds ago. They all freeze; every single man on the pier tonight now knows their operation has ended, but none want to say it aloud. Instead, the two workers wielding pistols draw them and hold them tight and outstretched, and then heckle the worker with the dusters to investigate. He protests, meekly, then does what is demanded of him, slipping the brass knuckles over his fist as he approaches my corner.
He rounds it and see his colleague unconscious. He does not see me. I reach out and seize his wrist, bringing my elbow down across the top of his forearm, breaking his elbow sharply; he screams and I let him. I want them to hear his pain. I want them to fear the pain they are about to feel. I slip the dusters off his fingers as he whimpers, cradling his broken arm, and then deliver them to the side of his face; he slumps over, out cold, gums bleeding. I toss the dusters towards the remaining men too; now I hear them shouting. The shake and inflection in their voices indicates panic.
Five left. Two armed. Terror beginning to strangle their minds and cloud their judgement. Time to end things.
I launch a smoke capsule at the ground in front of me; gas explodes forth and lays down cover; I step into the fog, unseen, and then carefully approach the outer edge of the cloud, allowing the men to barely glimpse my form; I hear one shout and know I've been spotted, and immediately back away, invisible again, before dropping prone to the ground. Shots puncture the gas as bullets whip past above me. The two with pistols are aiming torso-level. They both miss; then they pause to reload. I stand and step forward again, in one smooth motion parting my cloak and flinging two batarangs out; they both find their marks, cutting across the hands of the workers as they're scrambling to load a second clip. Both pistols are dropped, and the men let their fear get the better of them. They turn and run. I throw out my other arm; bolos fly forth and ensnare their ankles. they hit the ground head-first and hard.
Three left. I step out of the smoke completely, letting my cloak cover me again. They stare; I wait. I let the tension build.
Finally, one snaps and charges me; he throws a wide fist, too much wind up, too slow to connect; I sidestep and jab the wrist, breaking it easily, and then drive my other arm into his ribs; he folds around my fist, winded, and a follow up to his kidney has him wheezing and stumbling. I spin and bring my leg around; my greaves connect with his ear and he goes flying.
Two left. They rush me at the same time.-
Larry McCoy has driven nearly anything that’s been built with a wheel and two pedals. Never drove stick, but never needed to; never had a licence neither, but never needed one. With an auto all you needed was a foot for ‘go’, a foot for ‘stop’, and hand for ‘where’. Larry had all those, and he made do just swell. Tractors early on - ploughing fields and harvesting crops. Taxi for a while, tried buses too, although eventually he pined for the quiet solitude he’d enjoyed in the cab of heavy farming machinery; he’d long left corn behind him, but found long-haul lorry driving suited him just fine. There was something comforting about a long road in front of him and a radio that was just a fraction static, where the only things that existed were Larry, the cargo he was hauling, and the journey that took from where he came from and where he was going.
That’s why he hated nights and jobs like these; no mystique, no romance, no subtle beauty. Here, the ugliness was laid bare, and he had to dip his hands deep into the muck. After jobs like these, Larry didn’t feel clean for days. But Larry’s wife had cancer, and hospital bills don’t pay themselves. So he played the music loud and stayed in the cab. That was his condition; he’d drive, and he’d drive whatever they wanted, and he’d do it better and sometimes cheaper than most. But he stayed in the cab.
So when Larry saw The Batman, a creature he believed was just Gotham urban legend - fuck, to Larry, the Batman may as well have been the Jersey Devil - appear out of darkness and smog, having done some unseen, unspeakable horror to at least three men, more likely eight, and then proceed to effortlessly incapacitate three more, seemingly untouchable, ethereal, intangible...
Larry got out the cab and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.
-
The driver ran. I’d anticipated it; he didn’t have the look of a fighter. By the time he reached the guard booth at the entrance to the pier and pointed frantically down the way towards me, I’d already set the charges on the crates; as the last guard sprinted towards me, I melted back into the shadows of the docks, and triggered the explosives.
By the time the guard picked himself up off the floor, Fisk and Penguin’s budding enterprise was cinders, and I was gone; another story of the night.
The evening was yet young. There was much work to be done. 
