Chapter Text
If the city were sentient - not the strangest thing that might ever happen in this part of the world - Gotham would have known exactly the moment that hell came to town.
The skies were dark, thundering rain meeting crashing ocean waves, and out of the darkness emerged a lone, sodden figure on the dock. Unnaturally large, one hand fisted in a tangled mass of robes dragging behind them while the other gestured wildly, and though even Gotham would have struggled to hear what the figure was yelling at the world, it was obvious that it was not polite.
Despite the conditions, there are few places a person can go in Gotham and not trespass on a heavily guarded territory of some gangster or occasional clown prince.
That day’s unlucky ACME henchman had long become immune to the threat of oddballs in costume and so approached the bedraggled shape with the confidence of a man who has rolled the dice and won too many times. His method was simple: threats and force. He was big enough and ugly enough for that to work, mostly.
But the newcomer seemed more put out by the weather than the gun. The henchman’s confusion might explain why he didn’t notice the surge, the water level rising at the edge of the dock.
When he lost his footing and was swept into the Atlantic, the last thing he saw was the figure, standing with ease on the dock, unaffected.
Never sparing the drowning man a glance.