Chapter 2
> "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
— Edmund Burke
The night was still breathing.
The streets of Gotham were painted in shadow, and somewhere between flickering streetlights and sirens in the distance — a woman ran.
She ran like death was behind her.
Because it was.
She tore through the concrete maze of alleys and streets, gasping for air, sobbing, nearly collapsing, but she didn't stop until the blinding red and blue lights of the Gotham City Police Department came into view.
She burst through the front doors.
A young officer at the desk stood, alarmed.
"Ma'am? What happened? Are you hurt?"
She couldn't speak. She was shaking, covered in dirt and blood that wasn't hers. Her eyes were frozen wide open, staring past the officer into the memory of what she'd seen.
Death had a voice.
And it said: the raven of death is back
---
Fifteen minutes later, sirens wailed through the neighborhood.
Squad cars surrounded the alley behind the salon.
Detectives arrived first, but they didn't know what to make of the scene. The call described an assault. What they found was a massacre.
Lieutenant James Gordon stood in the center of it.
Even in a city as rotten as Gotham, the sight forced him to go still.
The corpse was unrecognizable. The man's head… wasn't a head anymore. It was mush — bits of skull clinging to muscle, bone dust smeared on brick walls. Blood soaked the pavement in a way that didn't look random. It looked… focused. Personal.
Several officers had to step away.
They'd seen Joker victims. Scarecrow toxin overdoses. Zsasz's little art shows.
But this? This was pure rage.
Gordon exhaled, steadying himself.
He didn't need to ask who had done it — he could tell. This wasn't some new killer or drugged-up freak. It wasn't Penguin, it wasn't Bane.
It was someone else.
He looked up.
And there he was. Standing above on a rooftop, like a gargoyle carved into the skyline — Batman. With Robin beside him, quiet.
Gordon told the officers to take over and made his way to the roof.
---
The wind was sharp up there.
He approached them slowly, his voice low.
"This isn't your style."
Batman didn't turn around. He just stared down at the alley, at the blood, the broken body.
"We were too late."
Robin stayed quiet, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
Batman continued, voice like stone. "A boy. Teenager. Normal black clothes. Steel pipe. Mask. Hoodie. He wasn't there to save her. He didn't even look at her. He just wanted to kill the man… and he did."
Gordon narrowed his eyes. "You said boy?"
Batman nodded. "Not older than 20 maybe. But his eyes… they were empty. Not afraid. Not angry. Just… hollow."
Gordon sighed, hand on his hip. "Any idea who he is?"
"No," Batman answered. "He didn't leave a trace."
Gordon shook his head, almost in disbelief. "This city is cursed."
He turned and looked down again at the alley. "We've had killers. We've had monsters. But this… this is a kid doing executions."
Batman said nothing.
Robin finally spoke. "He called himself something…"
Both Gordon and Batman looked at him.
Robin's voice was quiet. "The Raven of Death."
The wind howled across the rooftop.
---
Back at the Batcave, silence reigned.
The only sound was the soft whirring of computers, the flickering light of camera feeds, and Batman's quiet typing. His face was set in stone, eyes flicking across every angle of the alley. Street cams. Storefronts. Traffic lights.
Nothing.
All he got were glimpses.
A figure walking into the alley. Hood up. Mask on. He moved like smoke, head low, avoiding every lens like he knew where they were. He stayed in blind spots. No face. No voice.
The next image showed him leaving. Same hoodie. Same walk. Pipe in hand.
Still no face.
Batman paused the footage.
He zoomed in on the frame, looking for anything — a logo, a shoe brand, a thread out of place. Nothing. The boy was methodical. Almost military. But young.
"Someone trained him," Bruce muttered under his breath. "Or he trained himself."
Robin stood behind him. "He could've killed the woman too."
Batman didn't respond.
Robin added, "But he didn't."
"That doesn't make him a hero," Batman said.
"No," Robin agreed. "But it doesn't make him a monster either."
---
Somewhere else in Gotham…
The boy sat alone in a silent room.
It was barely furnished — a mattress, a cracked mirror, and a map of Gotham with red string pinned across different points of the city. Some marked with names. Others with photos.
Matthew Vale.
No one knew his name.
No one knew he existed.
He sat cross-legged, his black mask on the table in front of him. Blood still stained the pipe beside it. He picked up a cloth and slowly wiped it clean.
No music. No TV. No sound.
Only breath. Stillness.
In the mirror, his face was pale, untouched by emotion. His eyes stared back at him, black and sharp. His hands were calm. Controlled.
He wasn't thinking about the man he'd killed.
He was thinking about the next one.
---
Back in the Batcave…
The footage played on loop.
Batman sat motionless, deep in thought.
Gordon's words echoed in his head: "This isn't your style."
No. It wasn't.
This boy wasn't a copycat.
He wasn't a vigilante.
He was a predator who chose his prey carefully. Who waited for the right moment and struck with no hesitation, no mercy, and no fear.
A ghost.
And right now… Gotham had no idea he existed.
Batman narrowed his eyes.
"We'll find him."
But somewhere in the city, The Raven of Death was already watching.
---
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