Batman Legacy
Copyright© 2025 by Uruks
Chapter 3
Action/Adventure Story: Chapter 3 - The origin story of Batman meant to capture the grit and spirit of the comics. This is just a fanfiction and is not meant for commercial use. While I do my best to honor the original story of Batman, I admit that it has my personal flair in it that you may notice if you're familiar with my work. I used AI to help me refine the book, but the dialogue, plot, and tone are all mine. I've always loved Batman and wanted to write my own fanfic that includes Gotham's full story and his legend. Enjoy.
Caution: This Action/Adventure Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Romantic Heterosexual Crime Fan Fiction Superhero Science Fiction
The Wilderness
They traveled for many days after Henri left his father’s home—then many weeks.
Then months. Across the breadth of Europe they moved, slipping like shadows through forests, along riverbanks, through battered old roads trod by merchants and soldiers alike. Vandal Savage kept them in constant motion, never lingering in a village for more than a night, sometimes not even that. The only pattern to their journey was its refusal to follow one.
Henri had left wearing the garments of a healer and a nobleman’s ward; Vandal insisted he shed them immediately. They reemerged in coarse furs, leather jerkins, and the roughened clothes of mercenaries—anonymous, forgettable. It was a practical disguise, one Vandal donned with surprising ease for someone who carried himself like a king.
“It is only a matter of time before someone comes looking for you,” Vandal said the first night as they sat before a fire of damp wood. “Better we are taken for sellswords than noblemen.”
Henri said nothing. He simply nodded and tightened his cloak.
After that, Vandal spoke little. Days passed in silence, broken only by the tread of boots through pine needles or the creaking of saddlebags. Henri asked once or twice where they were going.
“Forward,” Vandal replied. “Toward your future.”
Henri learned not to ask again. What unsettled him far more than the silence was the way Vandal watched him: not with curiosity, but with appraisal. Always observing. Always measuring. As though he were waiting to see whether Henri’s resolve would fracture—whether his heart might falter.
The wilderness tested Henri more than once. The first trial came in the mountains—a jagged stretch of cold stone and pine where the moon seemed too far away to warm anything but the uppermost peaks. Henri heard the wolves before he saw them: low growls threading through the darkness, the crunch of snow beneath cautious paws. Their eyes glinted like tiny lanterns as they flanked the two travelers, weaving between the trees with predatory patience.
Henri’s hand tightened around the hilt of his knife. “Savage,” he whispered. “They’re circling.”
Vandal didn’t even reach for a weapon. He only stood there, arms folded, observing Henri with that same unsettling calm. “Yes,” he said. “How will you respond?”
Respond? Henri felt his pulse roaring in his ears. He crouched low, brandishing the knife and a long branch he tore from a nearby fir, hoping the firelight made him seem larger. The wolves crept closer—lean, hungry things, ribs showing beneath their winter coats. One lunged, snapping at Henri’s leg. Henri slashed, missing by inches. Another darted behind him, teeth grazing the back of his boot.
He struck at them repeatedly—shouting, kicking, waving his makeshift torch through the air. Sparks flew. Snarls erupted. The wolves were relentless.
Yet as they circled, Henri noticed something strange. They never approached Vandal. Not even to test him. Not even to sniff. The wolves seemed unable to look directly at him, their hackles rising whenever they drew too near. They skirted around him like he was a bonfire—an instinctive, primal dread pulling them away. And Vandal Savage? He merely stood there, smirking faintly, watching Henri fight for his life as though it were a training exercise.
It dawned on Henri, between heartbeats, between blows, between snarls: They feared him. Animals feared him. Something in him was wrong.
Finally, one wolf lunged too boldly, and Henri—burning with desperation—rammed his knife deep into its chest. The creature yelped, thrashed, and collapsed. The others recoiled, startled by the sudden death of their packmate. With a chorus of growls, they fled into the darkness. Henri staggered backward, breath ragged, shaking from both exertion and adrenaline.
Vandal clapped slowly. “Adequate,” he said. “You learn quickly.”
Henri felt less proud than unnerved. But the wolves were only the beginning. A week later, in a dense thicket near the foothills of the Carpathians, Henri nearly died. He had left camp briefly to collect firewood and check a nearby stream for tracks—something Vandal suggested he “learn to do properly.” The underbrush was thick and tangled, muffling sound. Henri crouched low, brushing aside ferns when a rustle broke the quiet.
Then the world exploded. A massive boar burst from the brush—huge, bristled, its tusks curved like daggers. It charged with astonishing speed, a bellowing roar tearing from its throat. Henri barely had time to shout. The beast slammed into him like a hammer, its tusk ripping through the hem of his coat and barely missing his belly.
Henri rolled, scrambling to his feet, drawing his knife in one frantic motion. The boar came again. He dodged left, feeling hot breath on his thigh. The third charge knocked him into the base of a tree, the impact sending stars across his vision. His knife clattered to the dirt.
Henri dove for it, fingers brushing the hilt just as the boar thundered toward him for the killing strike. With a shout—half terror, half defiance—Henri thrust upward, burying the blade into the animal’s neck. The boar squealed, staggering, blood pouring hot across Henri’s arm.
He pushed harder. The beast shuddered once, twice ... and fell. Henri collapsed beside it, panting, shaking violently. His entire body ached. His hands were slick with blood—his and the boar’s. He lay there for several seconds, gathering breath, before he realized:
Vandal had watched the entire encounter from a few paces away. He leaned against a tree, arms folded, as relaxed as if he were admiring a sunset.
“You hesitated at the start,” Vandal said lightly. “Had it gone an inch further right, it would have opened your belly.”
Henri glared up at him. “Why didn’t you help?!”
Savage shrugged. “I needed to see whether you would survive.”
Henri felt cold.
Savage stepped forward, boot nudging the dead boar. “You did well,” he said. “Better than many.”
But his praise was thin, almost mocking. That night, as Henri roasted strips of boar meat over the fire, he felt Vandal watching him—ever critical, ever amused. Henri tried to steady his hands, but they still shook.
“You begin to understand the wilderness,” Vandal murmured. “You will face many more trials. But fear not.”
His eyes gleamed in the firelight—dark, bottomless, ancient. “Should you survive long enough,” he said. “You will look back on wolves and boars as trifles.”
Once, in the dead of night, a massive brown bear barreled into their camp, roaring, the sound so deep it seemed to shake the marrow in Henri’s bones. Its eyes gleamed with feral hunger, and its breath steamed through the cold air in thick, ghostly plumes. The beast was enormous — a living wall of fur and muscle — its claws catching the firelight like curved blades.
Henri’s instincts surged in a blind panic. He snatched a burning brand from the fire, the heat biting into his palm, and grabbed for the hunting spear. He fully intended to scream, to wave the flames, to frighten the creature away before it tore them to pieces.
But then he saw Vandal. Savage didn’t flinch. Didn’t startle. Didn’t even rise from where he sat. Instead, he lifted his head with a slow, languid interest — like a man roused from a pleasant dream. His lips curled into a smile. And it wasn’t brave or confident or even reckless. It was hungry. A terrible, delighted smile — a predator recognizing another predator.
Henri’s blood went cold. Vandal rose to his feet, towering, casting a warped giant’s shadow across the trees.
“Step back,” he said.
His voice was calm. Too calm. Like someone asking for a bit more wine at supper. Henri froze — not out of obedience, but because something in Vandal’s tone seemed to reach inside his spine and tighten every tendon.
The bear lunged. And Vandal stepped forward to meet it. He didn’t dodge like a man. He moved like a shadow peeling itself from the ground, sliding to the side with impossible ease, his body bending in ways that felt unnatural — inhuman. The bear’s claws swept through the space where he had been an instant before, slashing the air so hard Henri heard the wind scream.
Savage closed the distance with a gait too smooth, too fluid, as if gravity treated him differently. His fist lashed out, burying itself in the creature’s ribs with a sound no flesh should ever make. The crack echoed across the clearing — sharp, clean, obscene.
The bear howled, staggering to one side. Henri’s torch wavered violently in his trembling grip. His mind couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. The bear was massive. Its weight alone would crush a man. But Vandal moved around it like a serpent made of iron, weaving between its snapping jaws, its claws slicing empty air as though reality itself shifted to spare him.
Then the beast, maddened with pain, reared up on its hind legs — towering, monstrous. Vandal stepped closer. Closer. He lifted his hands, almost gently, and seized its skull. Henri heard the bear grunt — a shocked, strangled sound — and saw its eyes widen.
Then Savage twisted. The snap was so loud Henri thought a tree had been felled. The bear’s body convulsed once, then collapsed at Vandal’s feet in a heavy, shuddering thump that sent dust and pine needles spiraling. The forest fell silent.
Savage stood over the corpse, breathing steadily, almost serenely, as though he had just finished a mild exercise. Firelight licked up his frame, casting monstrous shadows up the trees behind him — long, skeletal silhouettes that made the night seem alive and watching.
Henri didn’t move. He couldn’t. The torch shook in his hand so violently the flames sputtered and spat sparks. Vandal turned toward him slowly, that same delighted, terrible smile spreading back across his face — a man who had just eaten a feast and was already eager for dessert.
Henri felt a cold knife of realization slide beneath his ribs. The bear had been frightening. But Vandal Savage was something else entirely. Something the wilderness itself obeyed. And as he stared at Savage in the darkness, Henri understood that the forest had gone quiet not just because the bear had died. The forest was afraid of him too.
They dined on bear meat that night. Henri could hardly chew, his stomach knotting every time he looked across the fire at Vandal Savage, who ripped into the roasted meat with calm satisfaction, the body of the slain bear lying just beyond the light. Savage noticed Henri’s staring—noticed the terror in his eyes—and smiled wickedly.
“You will learn to do the same,” Vandal said, licking grease from his fingers with deliberate slowness. “When the change comes over you, not only will your life be extended, but if you train hard enough, your body will also transcend its natural limits.”
Henri felt his breath catch, torn between awe and revulsion.
“You will soon become the most fearsome creature on this earth,” Vandal continued, tossing a bone into the fire. “More beast than man. Most natural pursuits will become quite trivial to you at that point.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, the fire hissing as a drop of rain landed on the ashes.
Vandal leaned forward, his eyes gleaming like polished obsidian. “Of course,” he said, voice smooth as silk. “You will never be greater than me.”
He bared his teeth in a smile that was not wholly human. “But it will be entertaining to see you try.”
The Desert
They traveled south, skirting the Mediterranean, and soon the forests of Europe were nothing more than memories of cold wind and clawing branches. The land flattened, dried, hardened. Soil became sand. Pines became palms. The air lost its damp bite and took on the dry furnace heat that Henri had grown up beneath.
The deserts of the Middle East opened before them—vast and golden, a world Henri recognized in a way he never had the wilds of Europe. This was the landscape of his youth. He had grown up following crusaders through blistering sun and starlit nights, learning where to find water, how to read dunes, how to sleep with sand hissing around his ears. Here, the terrain belonged to him. But the man beside him did not.
Henri could not outrun his terror of Vandal Savage. Nor his fascination. Vandal moved like a mountain that had learned to walk, like a predator that did not know how to fear anything under the sun. Henri found himself watching him constantly ... studying him ... imagining that power inside his own skin. Imagining a life unbound by time. Imagining Sora’s killers crushed beneath a hand that could not tire or grow old.
He wanted to become him. Or surpass him. Yet even now—after months together—he knew almost nothing about what kind of man Vandal truly was. Only that he was terrifyingly old, terrifyingly strong, and terrifying in his indifference to the world around him. One night, camped beside a small fire half-buried by shifting dunes, Henri finally gathered the courage to ask a question that had weighed on him since the moment they began their journey.
He stared into the flames and said quietly, “How old are you, Savage? What age were you born in?”
For the first time since Henri had met him, Vandal Savage actually looked surprised. It wasn’t much—just a slight lift of the brow, a faint pause in the way he fed a branch into the fire—but it was enough. Then that surprise curled into a slow, pleased smile, as if being caught off guard was a rarity he intended to savor like fine wine.
Vandal turned his attention back to the flames. He stirred them. Fed them. Watched them dance. “I was born,” he said. “In a time when time itself didn’t have a name.”
Henri felt the back of his neck prickle.
“Most of the humans in the world—if they could be called that—were little more than savages.” A faint gleam lit Vandal’s eyes. “I was no exception.”
Henri leaned forward, the heat of the fire warming one side of his face, the chill of dread cooling the other.
Vandal’s voice dropped into something hollow, ancient. “It was only by chance that I happened upon immortality. A random cosmic prank. Perhaps that is all life is, in the end. Just an unexplainable phenomenon without meaning or purpose.”
A gust of desert wind hissed across the sand. The fire guttered.
“No more unique than the sun setting,” Vandal went on. “Or the moon rising. An indifferent and cold light only given beauty by those who wish to find beauty in such things ... because they cannot accept the monotony and hollowness of existence.”
Henri felt something cold bloom in his chest. For the first time, he understood Vandal Savage—not as a warrior, not as a demon, but as a man who had lived too long. A man who had stared at eternity until all meaning drained out of it. And yet Henri could not stop himself from asking the question that burned inside him:
“And how did you become an immortal? You still haven’t told me what is required.”
Vandal’s cold smile deepened. “My path to immortality will likely be different from yours.”
Henri blinked. His jaw tightened. “So we’ve come all this way,” Henri said bitterly. “And you tell me you don’t have a surefire method for attaining immortality?”
Savage laughed—low, amused, almost delighted by Henri’s frustration. “I told you from the beginning, your chances of surviving the process are slim at best.”
His teeth flashed in the firelight. “But I do have a method.” He paused a moment before adding, “But I will tell you this. All who attempted it before you have died ... horribly so.”
Henri’s stomach knotted. His voice dropped. “Then why do you think I will live when the others have died?”
Vandal grinned, showing too much tooth, too much hunger. It made him look like something the desert itself had dredged up. Something old. Something wrong.
“Because you want to die.” His voice was soft but merciless. “You want it—even now—do you not?”
Henri hesitated. And then slowly ... painfully ... nodded. “Yes.” His voice cracked. “Ever since ... Sora was taken from me, I have longed for death. All that I have experienced since then has only enhanced that yearning.”
He looked out at the horizon—dark dunes under a starless sky. “And yet, I cannot let myself die ... not until I carve something meaningful from this life.” His voice steadied with conviction. “Perhaps that will give meaning to Sora’s death. Perhaps it will also give meaning to the lives and deaths of Brother Mathieu and my father.”
He turned back to Savage. Savage was smiling—an eerie, delighted smile. A scientist observing a successful experiment. Henri realized with a jolt that Vandal found him as fascinating as Henri found the immortal.
Vandal leaned forward, his voice like silk stretched over stone. “There is a vitality in that sort of existence,” he murmured. “One that the others did not possess.”
His eyes gleamed, reflecting the fire and something darker beneath it. “In the end, Henri ... I’m just as curious as you.”
The desert wind sighed. The flames flickered. The night pressed in tight around them.
“To see,” Vandal finished softly. “If meaning can be carved out of a meaningless world.”
Henri swallowed, gathering the courage to force the question that had been gnawing at him since the moment he agreed to follow this monster across continents.
“But...” he hesitated. “It’s still more likely that I will die from the attempt, is it not?”
Savage gave a small, amused laugh—low and cold. “I would think that would only enhance the offer for you.”
Henri let out a slow breath. Half frustration, half resignation. It was painfully, infuriatingly true. He looked away from Savage, toward the vast, empty desert as if it might hold some other future for him. It didn’t.
“I suppose you have a point,” he whispered. “This is all I have left. This mad quest. If I were to fail ... I wouldn’t want to go on living.”
His voice hardened. “So either I will fail and die ... or I shall become an immortal, and live. Live and master the power needed to enact my vision upon the world.”
He did not look at Savage as he spoke the next words. “There is nothing else for me. My fate is sealed.”
The fire crackled quietly. Savage’s eyes fixed on him—dark, ancient, hungry—and a whisper slipped from him, equal parts admiration and delight.
“How utterly fascinating.”
The Himalayas
They journeyed through the desert for what felt like an eternity—days carved into weeks, weeks carved into months. Sandstorms lashed at them, sun hammered down on their backs, and Henri felt his skin tighten and crack under its merciless heat. But he adapted. He always had, and this time was no different.
And just when he’d become reacquainted with the desert’s cruelty—the blistering days, the frigid nights, the way water clung to life only by stubborn miracle—the heat began to ebb. Dry winds softened. The horizon grew jagged. The sand gave way to stone, and the stone gave way to something far worse.
Cold. The kind of cold that lived in the marrow. The kind that gnawed at the bones. Henri tightened his furs, breath fogging before him in quick, uneven puffs as he stared up at the towering white peaks rising into the heavens.
The Himalayas. He balked, teeth beginning to chatter despite his best efforts. But beneath the discomfort ... something else flickered. A thin, fierce thread of satisfaction.
“My research indicated this area,” Henri said, voice trembling only slightly. “Some have theorized of there being waters here ... with healing properties. Many have attributed the waters to having originated from Christ himself. Taken from Jerusalem after his crucifixion and brought here to these mountains by His followers.”
Vandal gave a slight snort, the sound barely human in the frosted air. “I remember that time.”
Henri froze mid-step. He turned slowly, staring at the immortal. Savage continued walking, unbothered by the treacherous terrain, his massive bootprints marking the snow like tracks of some ancient beast.
“I never would’ve thought,” Savage went on. “That any man could make such an impact on the world ... without conquest.”
Henri stared at him, stunned. Savage’s face, usually carved from cold stone, now held a hint of something ugly—loathing mixed with something more complicated.
“That man,” Vandal said, voice edged with frustration and a strange, simmering confusion. “To this day, I don’t know what he was. I couldn’t tell you if he was truly the son of God, as he claimed.”
The wind whipped around them, carrying snow like shards of ground bone.
“All I know is that I couldn’t stomach his sermons of peace and goodwill toward man.” Vandal’s jaw clenched, the muscles rigid beneath his skin. “It made my skin crawl, just being near him. He made me feel like a child—when I was his elder by millennia.”
Henri felt the world tilt. His breath hitched, fogging the air between them. Savage snarled suddenly, anger flashing hot and violent across his features. It was the first time Henri had seen him truly lose composure.
“I wanted to kill him,” Vandal spat. “But I was too frightened to try, for some reason. Maybe I feared the divine wrath of his supposed father ... or maybe a part of me found his sermons too interesting to silence.”
He turned away, the snow crunching loudly under his boots. “Either way,” Vandal continued, his voice softer but laden with disdain. “Whether he was a God or not, his followers are mortal enough. Just as fallible as all humans, clumsy in the way they go about enacting his teachings. Sometimes even contradicting his message outright.”
He exhaled sharply, the sound like a growl. “I wonder if he himself would be disgusted by some of the things his students have wrought upon the world in his name.”
Henri stood there, utterly stupefied. The idea that Vandal Savage had lived through that era—had met Christ—was beyond overwhelming. And the bitter melancholy in the immortal’s voice chilled Henri more than the Himalayan winds ever could.