JustIce League: The Malignant Uprising

The Dark Knight

Some Years Earlier: Gotham City

They called him Bruce Wayne and that was fascinating. He could have been named something even more pretentious like Charles, or William, or Henry, but instead he was called Bruce.

Bruce Wayne.

It is a name that sent shivers up his spine for no reason; a name that signaled the start for a mental breakdown. Perhaps, it was a name that carried the weight of an always dying world.

Bruce didn't want his name, yet it was given to him by powers outside of his control.

He didn't want his parents to die, and yet it was carved into his destiny.

Years passed of course, and with the seasons changing, so did the temperament of those tending the Wayne legacy. Many called him an overlord even though Bruce was only fourteen. Eventually, that was something that he partially believed. Those around him told him he was a crook; he was trouble. Though in reality his worst enemy became himself. He liked to fight. He liked to set fire to the smallest things and watch them scream. He liked it, and that drove him to the edge of insanity.

Another year passed, and all of the burdens he had seen, all the ugly memories, the ugliest scars, and the ugliest of poison capsules, all crept their way into his shaky hands. Leaving marks on perfectly round forearms and on his bruised mind. They all found a way to break his delicate psyche into millions of glass shards that flashed over and over again to to black and gray and red. More and more red. All of the torture ruined is perfect inheritance. All of it was ruined by Bruce's stupid mental capacity for his own self doubt and deprecation.

But most importantly he was everything everyone had said and he believed it too.

With the years and years that had passed, his tendencies only grew worse. In secret he kept cutting and laughing at his pain and the slow disease of insanity only crept into his eyes slower and slower.

It wasn't wrong what he was doing. It wasn't wrong to him. The pain he inflicted on himself and on the animals was merely science after all. It was an experiment of will and strength and patience. They were all tests to feel something. Anything at all like he knew the little animals did.

However, it was something that Alfred disagreed with. He saw the changes in Bruce. He saw the very essence of the boy's core. He saw the demons pushing Bruce to danger and some kind of adventure. Aflred had witnessed this craze in a boy before during his army days, and he knew how it would end.

But the boy was his own now and so he remained confined to his maddening silence.

But time was relentless. and as it moved into the future, Bruce only grew more and more out of control. Bruce knew he was crazy for liking to hurt his pets. He was sixteen and he knew how insane he was. They would wail as he pulled their limbs and studied them. He knew that it was wrong to like to feel fire burn and tingle at his fingertips, but its orange and blue colors attracted more curiosities.

Something was wrong, but it was also so right.

There was a slight guilt for his actions. Guilt about Alfred watching him grow up this way and guilt about hurting innocent creatures, but the fun times always out weighed his guilt. The fun times always made him joyous and crave more of it. The sickness was unstoppable.

And then time froze for one evening. It paused for one night as Alfred finally approached the oncoming hurricane.

It was just another rainy day outside of the Wayne Manor and what a sad day it was. The clouds were an ashy gray as the rain pushed itself from the clouds. There was an occasional flash of lightning here and there and the thunder rumbled through the house and shook the fragile windows, but the most sad thing of all, was that it was the day that Bruce turned twenty two.