003 The One Rule

Looking at the city of Gotham while standing on the balcony of his mansion was somewhat relaxing.

It was weird to think that this very city would soon become a literal pit of vipers, filled with villains to the brim.

This whole world was such that heroism always meets villainous selfishness.

Bruce knew that it would be inevitable, the question now is, which villains would appear? And how strong of a threat would they become?

Batman had one rule, not to kill. It was his very identity. A motto that was more often than not challenged.

But was this a limitation that all the heroes could afford right now? If any at all?

Most variants of Spider-Man were trying to copy that moral compass and had a lot of success in doing so. Yet sacrifice followed...

So in in the end, in Bruce's mind, it was futile.

Thinking about losing something else brought him discomfort again and his grip on the railing of the balcony made his knuckles whiten.

His new family is gone. The parents that he came to love were dead. There was a lingering hate inside him that burned deeply and it did consume some part of him.

Only by calming himself, he could get a clear thought again.

That moment...He was unable to do anything. Only if he had known sooner...maybe he could have saved them then...

It made him wonder how the original was thinking about this matter. Would he still go the same path, knowing the same things?

They did blame themselves for their deaths...They had that one in common...Yet he felt more hate than anything.

He was not seeing the point of letting murderers run around freely...

It made him remember that moment again and he closed his eyes with a frown.

When he opened them he actually saw himself holding a gun and aiming at someone. The next moment the gun fired.

But that is not what happened. It is only what he would wish he had done by now. Especially ever since he saw the news about his verdict...

---

It was late at night when the accident happened. Bruce had picked up the gun that the criminal had dropped when he was shot in the leg by the police officer.

And tears were running down his eyes and the gun pointed straight at the criminal and the officer that was already holding him in custody.

"Kid, calm down! Put the gun down." The officer tried to reason with the child that had the gun now. The face of the kid grimacing from anger and hate.

"You killed them! Why!!?" Bruce screamed back.

The officer frowned at him and could only look saddened.

"It won't bring them back if you shoot him now..." The cop tried to use a soothing voice so that he would lessen the kids anger.

Bruce gritted his teeth and his breathing accelerated to the point where the gun started to sway around slightly from his overused strength.

"Hey...hey, kid I...I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to go this way, I swear! I only wanted to get their money! They started fidgeting and...." The criminal started to plead now after seeing that he would be killed if nothing happened.

"Shut up right now!" The cop pulled at the handcuffs so that this guy would stop talking. He clearly didn't make this better.

Bruce suddenly stopped paying attention to the two and lowered the gun.

It was not because he stopped hating the guy, but what he saw was his parents standing behind the officer a few paces back.

"Don't do it. Live on, Bruce." The voice of his father traveled to him and it confused him.

His gaze wandered over to his parent's corpses and then back to the figures again. Was he going crazy?

But before he could say anything to them he saw them walk away. And only a woman stayed and took a quick look at him before following them until they vanished.

That woman. He knew her from his past. No, even in his new life.

'So that is what you are...' He dropped the gun and looked downcast. Reality hit him again and the realization told him that even killing this man would not change anything now.

The officer came over after some time passed. Another police officer har already took the culprit and put him into a police car.

The cop placed a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "You did the right thing, kid. He will get his punishment. It doesn't mean you have to bloody your hands."

Bruce jsut remained silent until another voice rang out to him.

"Master Bruce!" Alfred shouted and ran to the two.

"Is he family?" The cop asked the kid and Bruce only nodded. But to make sure he still asked the butler to reconfirm.

"Yes...I'm the butler of the Wayne family." Alfred also looked rather sad at that moment and kept looking at Bruce.

"Alright, we will stay in contact. Here is my card so you can get in touch with me." The office said and gave Alfred his card.

"I will. Officer Gordon." Alfred nodded after taking a look at the card and the name on it.

That got Bruce to look up again at the officer. A small frown appeared on his face until he looked down again. This time in thought. Later in the mansion, he would close himself up in his room for a while.

---

'Fate is such a dickhead...' Bruce sighed after seeing the accident flash past him again.

Yet this was not even the worst of it all. Soon galactical threats will appear left and right. And the ones at the brunt of it all are humans. They are the ones that will suffer the most.

The only thing he could at least consider a blessing in all this is that he has some time to prepare. In the simulation, years passed before anything major seemed to happen.

Logically speaking it wasn't a surefire thing to always be the case. But he believed in it for now.

And what is Batman's best trait? To be prepared accordingly.

He could make plans for Gotham. Hinder certain Villains to ever be created. Some are even Batman's own mistakes that created them.

And even looking beyond this city. Thanos, Darkseid, and all the other lunatics that roamed the universe to conquer.

Given enough time to prepare, there should always be a solution. If that was not the case, then soon no one would live.

...

At least, if he remembered his very thin knowledge of some comics correctly.

And who could really tell what comic version was active right now with this clusterfuck of doom?

The interactions between them, villains and heroes alike, could also vary greatly. Some may even not exist since they very much overlapped with other versions of themselves. Maybe some heroes in Marvel are just unfortunate enough to end up villains in DC and vice versa.

Makes the petty poking at each other kinda ironic.

'Man, my head already starts to hurt again thinking about it. I should just prepare to get as much knowledge into my head as possible. With that base, I can work on further things.'

That was the result for him. He would start there and get himself up to par in his unsimulated life.

There were always two choices for him when using his ability.

He could simulate randomly, completely ignoring his innate abilities or he could take his current world or innate abilities into consideration.

In one case he could earn greater rewards depending on the simulation, and in the other, his innate talents could help out or even evolve further.

A weird tradeoff that he did gamble on in his first simulation to increase his innate ability to absorb knowledge later.