The Aster {Book 1 & 2} (Batman/Joker/Robin/Batgirl story)

1. Prologue - The Bat's Shadow

"You know Mom will kill me for keeping you out this late."

The streets of Gotham are dark right now, dark and empty. The only light is the strange yellow glow radiating from tired street lamps, making everything seem a sepia shade of black and grey.

I turn to Sally and half snort, half laugh. If there's going to be trouble later I sure as hell want to keep the mood light while it's still possible.

"It'll be fine!" I turn to face her, teetering backwards towards the sidewalk. "It's not like we've done anything wrong."

"Only stayed out a lot longer than we bargained for." She frowns, her eyebrows furrowing downwards.

I turn to my sister and give her the look. The look I've spent years mastering, which, in words, roughly translates as "*really*?" said in the most sarcastic way possible.

"Come on. It's my birthday. Nothing is going to spoil it, not Mom not Dad."

My sister pulls out her phone which lights up brightly to her touch. "Well its nearly midnight, so we're not going to have the magical protection of it being your birthday for much longer."

Geez. Sometimes I feel like the older sister. If I were her age - nineteen, free, leaving home for Metropolis University in a few weeks - I would do anything and everything I wanted. Sometimes I would give anything to change places with her.

She goes to put her phone back in her pocket before pausing, holding it back out in front of her again.

"I'm gonna call Mom, Meredith. I'm sorry."

"Sally!"

She steps back and leans against a rusting lamppost, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear before putting the glowing phone up to it.

"I hate to be a party killer but I don't even if we're heading the right way home, I don't know if I've even been in this part of the city before."

I stop in front of a dark shadow where I think once a door used to be and look around. Beside me is a black void of an alleyway, a dank smell and cold wind seem to be sweeping out of it. For a second I feel her uneasiness, if it's that she's feeling. Oh stop it, you're deliberately psyching yourself out.

"You know what she'll say -" I stop, mid sentence. I swear I just saw something move     in the alleyway, out of the corner of my eye. Probably a cat... maybe...

I step out onto the edge of the abyss and stare into the darkness. I can vaguely hear  Sally on the phone to Mom, trying to sound light and reassuring, but I'm to busy studying the black. There's someone watching me, they're close. I know it.

I don't even know to this day what hit me. Whether it was an iron crowbar or a person the effect was the same.

I lie on the ground dazed, semi conscious just for a moment, before my sister's scream brings me straight back to life. I don't even know what's going on, my mind can't function this fast.

Suddenly someone grabs me by my sweater, I'm upright, I only see his face for a second before suddenly I'm hitting a wall, a sharp wall, the edge of the blocked up doorway.

His face was ordinary. So was his friend's. Like someone you'd pass on the street a thousand times over. But his expression wasn't.

It was leering, angry.

Excited.

Suddenly Sally hits me before being quickly slammed back against the wall beside me.

"Now, what do we have here?" A voice sneers just inches away from my ear.

"Please don't hurt us," Sally half cries half moans.

And that's when the pain starts. Across my face, across my body, so many punches and hits I can't process them all. All I can process is how it feels.

I hear Sally screaming, or maybe it's me, and I feel someone start to pull and tear at my clothes.

And that's when I hear it.

"Batman!"

I open my eyes, I didn't even know they were shut, to see Sally suddenly break free and stumble out into the empty road waving frantically with her blood covered arms.

And that's when I see him. Directly across the street, standing high up above us on a flat building rooftop.

Batman.

I'm not going to describe him. There's no point. Everyone knows what he looks like. For a second everything stops. Like someone pressed pause on the whole world. And for a microsecond our eyes meet, and it sounds stupid, but that mask... I feel like he's starting into my soul.

And that's when he turns his back on us and disappears into the darkness.

"No!"

I see Sally lunge forward even more and that's when everything happens. The man who had her suddenly jumps forward, crushing her, and a flash of brightness at the end of his fist flies through the air and disappears into my sister over and over again. She's screaming, squealing, making inhuman noises an animal being slaughtered would make.

I don't want to take me eyes off of her, of what's happening, but suddenly I'm being slammed against the wall again and now all I can feel is fear. Unbearable fear.

No one is coming to save us, we're dead -

The gunshot shatters through the air. Followed by another. Two neat, perfect gunshots. And then silence.

I expect to feel pain, feel something, but I don't. I open my eyes wide. And I realise that I'm not the only one bleeding anymore.

His face... the whole side of his head was obliterated. Then he falls. Now I can see Sally, see her attacker has fallen too. But so has she.

Without warning I'm aware of everything. All my senses have returned with a vengeance. Taste -blood. Smell - gunpowder, blood, the filth of the street. Touch - my hands pressed against the slimy cold wall behind me. Sound- footsteps. Sight...

All I can see is the street ahead. My eyes won't move to look around. But then the footsteps come closer, and then into my line of vision.

I know who he is. Anyone who's ever picked up a newspaper knows who he is. The green hair, the coat, the frighteningly white skin.

"Isn't this funny?" The voice doesn't seem attached to the person before me, but I know it is. I know that voice.

The Joker.

The last thing I remember is his face. His face and a church bell somewhere striking midnight. And that's when I fall into nothingness.