A Fool's Crusade

   The swearing blaze nestled into the dark stone fireplace spoke to the man's enraged quintessence in a way no mere poem could ever desperately hope to accomplish. Within this small study sat thousands of the greatest works of literature money could buy, imprisoned within the creaky and stained bookshelves and blanketed in dust. Despite the immense talent displayed on the yellow pages shrouded in their leather and plastic covers, none could ever quite evoke Bruce's anguish, his torment, and his unquenchable thirst for vengeance. The only thing that ever got close was the fire. The heat that stung his skin as he sulked in the leather chair that was once his father's, was the blood-stained promise he kindled on his knees at the base of his parents' grave. It was flourishing, persisting in a dance of hellish fury and wretched, unrelenting, self-indulged torture.

The shadows casted by the inferno's orange radiance shrouded both the study and Bruce in a hauntingly nostalgic tenebrosity, masking what little humanity the man had left, if any at all. All that was left in that chair was the monster. The constant reminder of that night. The smell of gunpowder. The fear.

Narrowed dark eyes glanced up through a furrowed brow, peering into the grim and hollow painting of the man's slain parents. Within its golden frame was at first glance a happy family, a boy, his mother and his father, their smiles forever etched within the canvas with a permanent gleam. The more the man looked deeper into the painting however, the more it proceeded to mock him. Vacant eyes and smiles laughed at him, ridiculing him for the silly belief of happiness, a fool's crusade that's impossible to achieve. That life was far behind him. Ripped away from him when some punk with a gun pulled that trigger in the alley, and when the cold stones ran red with the blood of Thomas and Martha Wayne. "Stop laughing.." Bruce thought, but he knew those laughs were smothered in truth. There's no happiness for Bruce. There's no normal life. There's no end to the promise he had breathed into existence and there is no death for the beast he had brought to life. All there was, all there ever will be, is the war. The war to give others that life he could never quite grasp.

"It's all your fault." His father's booming voice echoed in his ear, as a ghoulish figure in the shape of Thomas Wayne stood tall next to his chair that held Bruce in its tight grasp. Dressed the same as that night, stained with his own blood as the gunshots that took his life gleamed in a wet, oily scarlet glow, a pale face that reeked of death expressed a great sense of disappointment as those empty eyes gazed downwards at his son. "Why didn't you save us Bruce?" Thomas Wayne asked, heartbroken that his own son led him to his ill-timed demise.

"Your fear killed us Bruce," The delicate voice of Bruce's mother snaked into his mind as she stood on the other side of him. Like his father, her wounds were fresh and still damp with her blood, her once smooth and cream colored skin was sickly and faded, her pearls were tightened around her neck, acting like a noose yet she spoke clearly as though she wasn't being restrained at all. "You were so scared to take the long way so you asked for a short cut."

That didn't sound right. Bruce was sure that it was his father who wanted to go down that alleyway.

"You dare doubt us son?" Thomas Wayne's voice bellowed in an angry echo. "You? Who can't even save his own city from ruin? You who chooses to let these low-lives live? The same type of thugs who took us away from you? They don't deserve to live. They had their chance and they threw it all away. The only way to save Gotham is get rid of them, permanently."

Bruce bends over in his chair and covers his ear desperately to block out his father's voice. Why would his father say these things? Is this the same man who raised him? Who saved so many lives with his surgical skills? Who gave all he had to Gotham and more?

"And they shot me for it Bruce." Thomas continued on. "They don't care about the good you do. All this city knows is evil. Evil and carnage. That's how to combat against the rot. By becoming the decay yourself."

Bruce's heart was beating faster, sweat pouring from his skin as his head throbs in an immense amount of pain. The room was so hot, the heat was just bearing down on Bruce's shoulders like the weight he had to carry since he was just eight-years old.

No! No matter how intoxicating it may seem, no matter how much he wants to avenge what he had lost he would not go down that path. It would be too damn easy. It would only add to the endless cycle that continues to plague Gotham. It would only make him exactly like the animals that terrorize the good people of Gotham. Thugs, crooks, bad cops, corrupt politicians, they were all scum maybe, but even scum have families. Even they have those they love, who they care for, who they tuck into bed and kiss every night. Who is Bruce to rip that away? What right does he have? Some are just desperate, pushed to extremes only to survive. Bruce's rage is not for them. Bruce's rage is for the ones who burdens them with such a choice.

Martha's cold hand touches Bruce's face in a comforting gesture as the matriarch offers a soothing shush that calms her living son. With an ever-so delicate pull she directs Bruce to look at her putrefying face. Bruce looked into her inky black eyes with widened eyes in stoic horror as he shakes from her blistering icy touch. "It's pointless Bruce," She whispered gently, with cold air leaving her shredded, dried and peeled back lips. "It's a fool's crusade. It has no end, unless you make it have an end. You have the power, the means. Gotham is your kingdom. Your subjects should play by your rules."

"Kill them Bruce," The ghoul ordered. "Kill the rodents that have infested your kingdom."

Bruce stared into the abyss that was the eyes of his deceased mother. The man didn't blink as he gazed further into it, taking a comfort within the darkness while remaining disturbed by the words it had uttered. There was just a grim silence now as Bruce tried to fight off the seductiveness of his parents' words, all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire blazing in the fireplace. A roar of vengeance that calls to him.

An abrupt crash coming from the attic pierces the silence startling Bruce who then gazes upwards to the ceiling. The panicked sound of fluttering wings echoes through the boards and the walls of the house.

The ghouls share a look before they start to whisper-
"Beware the Court of Owls,