The streets of Gotham didn't just need a new criminal; they needed a nightmare. I realized quickly that if I wanted to control this city, I couldn't just be another guy with a gun. I had to be an urban legend—the kind that made even the most hardened hitmen check under their beds.
I didn't just clear out the warehouse. I turned it into a slaughterhouse.
The Butchery at the Bowery
As my Shadow Warriors descended, I stopped using the Glock. It was too clean, too distant. Instead, I commanded the shadows to manifest jagged, obsidian blades.
"Don't just kill them," I whispered to the red-eyed figures. "Make them scream."
The air filled with the sound of tearing meat and shattering bone. One thug tried to scramble away, but a Shadow Warrior emerged from his own shadow, grabbing his ankles and pulling him halfway into the floorboards before snapping his spine like a dry twig.
I walked through the chaos, my boots splashing in thickening crimson. Another guard lunged at me with a combat knife. I let him. He buried the blade in my stomach. I didn't even blink; I just grabbed his wrist and twisted until the radius bone burst through the skin.
"My turn," I said, my voice distorted by the growing power of my Spirit attribute.
I drove my hand into his chest, not with a weapon, but with raw, supernatural force. When I pulled back, I wasn't just holding his heart—I was holding the attention of everyone in the room.
The Final Display
By the time I reached Vinny, the warehouse was silent, save for the dripping of blood from the rafters. I didn't just threaten him. I dragged him to the front window, overlooking the busy street below.
"Look at them, Vinny," I said, pressing his face against the glass. "They think Batman is the scariest thing in this city. Let's correct that."
I didn't kill him quickly. I let the Shadow Warriors systematically dismantle his limbs while he was still conscious, his screams echoing out into the Gotham night. When I was done, I hung what was left of him from the warehouse sign using coils of living shadow.
[NOTIFICATION]
Infamy Gained: Low-Level Dread
Public Awareness: 5%
Gains from Brutality: +2 Spirit (Fear Harvest)
Current Status:
Strength: 13
Agility: 12
Defense: 12
Spirit: 13
The Aftermath
I felt the familiar tug of the system as I stepped back into the darkness. I didn't need to die this time to move. I melted into the Shadow Kingdom, leaving behind a scene so gruesome that even the GCPD's veteran's would lose their lunch.
Within an hour, the "Slaughter at the Bowery" was all over the police scanners. The descriptions were consistent: a man who couldn't be killed, accompanied by demons made of ink and spite.
I wasn't an anti-hero because I was "good." I was an anti-hero because I was the only monster the other monsters were afraid of.
I looked at my hands. They were stained red, but I felt stronger than ever. The city was starting to notice. And once the city noticed, the big fish would come to investigate.