Roman Torchwick watched his men prepare.

Tonight was nothing special. Just another average night of preparing for a drug deal. At the moment, he didn't think he had anything to be scared of. His assistant, Neopolitan, was keeping watch over the men doing the deal, and Cardin was nearby, watching with her. He reached into one of the boxes, and picked up a stuffed bear. He easily took off its head, and pulled out the drug kept inside, before making his way over to Torchwick.

"Looks fine," he said.

As he spoke to Torchwick, one of the men, Steiss, walked away from the group, and made his way into the path of freight containers, for the opened one at a distance from the others.

"The bears go straight to the dealers?" Cardin asked, trying to grasp Torchwick's method of hiding his drugs.

"Yeah, and the rabbits go to the man in the Narrows."

"What's the difference?"

"Ignorance is bliss, my friend. Don't burden yourself with the secrets of scary people."

Steiss reached into the darkness of the container for a box. But, instead of grabbing something, he felt a rough hand grasp his, and tug him into the darkness. He screamed in panic, only for it to be cut off.

His cry didn't go unheard, and the men loading the truck turned around, noticing his disappearance.

"Hey!" one of them called. "Steiss!"

There was no response.

Two men stepped away from the truck, approaching the container. They weren't scared, but they were growing nervous. They didn't know what happened to Steiss, but they knew he wasn't one to joke. Something had attacked him. And that something was hiding in the container.

"Steiss?"

There was no reply from Steiss. Instead, something flew overhead, crashing into a light overhead. The area around the two went dark, only lit by the lights in the distance, and the glow of the moon above.

One of the men reached down, picking up the object that had been tossed over their heads. It was shaped like a bat. He turned around to look at the other, who was staring upwards, a look of complete terror in his eyes.

"What?"

He looked up, and immediately saw what his partner was looking at.

Hanging upside down from a crane above was a massive, humanoid, bat-like creature, which glared down at them silently.

Suddenly, the creature dropped down to them, spreading massive wings, and crashing down on them.

Their screams were heard by everyone this time. Immediately, caution settled upon everyone in the area, including Torchwick and Cardin.

"I'll check it," Cardin said, nervous but not scared.

Yet.

Neo was the first to run into the maze of freight containers, looking for the attacker. More men ran in, weapons in hand, joining in the search.

Nobody saw it. There was only glimpses of something leaping over the gaps between the containers, and the sound of gunfire in a desperate attempt to shoot it. While most of the men stayed together, Neo was the only one brave enough to take on the aggressor head-on.

Cardin ran back to Torchwick, now definitely scared by whatever was happening.

"There's a problem over there! We'd better bail!"

Torchwick chuckled, not intimidated at all. "They're trying to scare us. You're giving them what they want. Go ahead and run, like a coward."

Not at all to Roman's surprise, Cardin did as he said, running to get as far away from the docks as possible.

Neo was growing nervous. Over and over, she'd caught a glimpse of something moving. Once or twice, she made it to where she'd seen the thing, but it was already gone.

She heard another noise, and looked up to see something leap over the crates above her. She leapt to the crates to look for it, but it was already gone. At this point, she was starting to feel fear inside.

She backed up, looking up, she looked left, right, she looked behind her, and she saw a bat-shaped demon raising its wings over her, shrouding her vision in darkness.

The men crowded together could hear the sound of a body hitting a crate, and they tensed up, not knowing what had happened.

Suddenly, a massive bat leapt in the middle of the crowd, and attacked them.

Roman could hear the sound of a scuffle. Confused, and hoping to find the fools attacking him, he followed the noise around a corner. But what he saw wasn't what he'd expected. A crowd of his men were being attacked by a black figure, moving at such incredible speeds, he couldn't make out what it was. But it looked like a giant, humanoid bat.

Fearful, Torchwick ran back for his car, knowing that if that bat-thing could take on all of those men at the same time at those speeds, he could have a difficult time dealing with it.

He climbed into his car, and slapped the seat of his driver. "Step on it!"

But the driver was lying unconscious on the steering wheel.

Outside, the sound of the fight had subsided, and Torchwick had a strange feeling that someone, or something, was watching him. He wasn't scared, but he was certainly on edge. He reached for his weapon, and started to load it with ammunition. He felt something shaking the car. Something was climbing onto the roof. He looked to the windows around him, and saw something black covering them, hiding the outside.

"What the hell are you?!" he said, the stress starting to build.

Suddenly, a black fist burst through the sunroof, grasping Torchwick by the suit, and pulling him through the roof. In an instant, he found himself face-to-face with a strange creature, with a humanoid body, a bat-shaped head, wings that draped over the windows, a bat emblem on its chest, and a human chin.

For the first time in years, Roman was terrified. He felt the power of fear within him. But it wasn't the creature's body that terrified him. It was its eyes. Those blue eyes glared at him with a hate he never saw before. Hate that burned into his soul, and left his once brave spirit into a terrified shadow if its former self.

Before he could say anything to it, the creature answered his question in a low, animalistic growl of a voice.

"I'm Batman!"

Batman. The name sent shivers down his spine. It was a horrifying name, which left him speechless, unable even to cry for help to anyone nearby.

Batman thrust his head forward, bashing it against Roman's face, and rendering him unconscious. As he lifted Roman into his arms to carry him away, he noticed someone familiar turn a corner.

Batman looked up, and saw a homeless man. Bruce Wayne recognized him as the man whose jacket he had bought so many years ago, before he ever left Vale. The man stared at him, jaw dropped, still wearing the coat he had given him that night, and it was not nearly as nice as he remembered. Still, it was good to see him again, despite how brief they knew each other.

"Nice coat."

With that, he used the grapnel line to pull himself up, with the unconscious Roman in his hands. If he had stayed for a second longer, he would have heard the man speak.

"Thanks . . ."