Bruce Wayne sighed as he hung up his costume for the last time. The heart attack he'd had while trying to save that kidnapped girl had made one thing plain to him. He was too old to continue to be Batman, no matter how much he loathed the idea. However, when his only chance for survival and completing the mission had been picking up the gun and threatening the thug with it, he knew he could hide from that truth no longer. Walking up the steps out of the Batcave, he turned for one last look at who he once had been.
He also realized he would have to stop trying to fight Derek Powers attempted takeover of Wayne Enterprises. At least if a single company took over or absorbed the company, some vestige of his father's legacy would remain, as it was plain Bruce himself would have none of his own.
"Never again," he said to the cave at large, referring to both being Batman and fighting in general, turning off the lights one by one. As the cave went dark for what he was sure would be the last time, he turned to leave. However, noise deep in the cave - noise that wasn't caused by the resident bats - made him turn back to switch on the lights. The noise was from one of the vault rooms, where he stored those things recovered in battles with supervillains that he deemed too dangerous to leave anywhere far beyond his sight.
Striding confidently in, he brought no weapons with. While cruel eld had laid some grip on him, he did not feel as though he had succumbed completely as yet. He could still defend his home.
As he drew closer to the noise, however, he grew more cautious. The noise was coming from the vault in which he stored the dangerous magical artifacts. Pausing at the entrance, he picked up an nth-metal combat stave. The unique properties of the alloy disrupted any magical field it came in contact with, making it an ideal weapon for combatting magic users. Thus armed, he slowly opened the vault door, and then switched on the lights.
The first thing he noticed was that most of the artifacts had lost their eldritch glow, and the systems that had monitored their energy fields showed no magical reactions. Some of the artifacts even had cracks in their embedded gems. Their was also a large scorch mark in the floor in the center of the drained artifacts. A small white and purple shape was visible in the center of the blackened floor.
Bruce approached the shape carefully, holding his staff out ahead of him, just in case the figure was dangerous. He could feel his blood pumping faster as his body prepared for battle.
Before he could get any closer, his heart began to beat out of rhythm, having been pushed too hard as it was still recovering from the strain of earlier in the night. Clutching his chest, he staggered, falling to his knees, using the staff to hold himself up as he grunted in pain. He closed his eyes, struggling to regain focus and calm his labored heart.
A strange coolness flooded into his chest. Opening his eyes, he found himself wondering if maybe his heart had given out, and he had stumbled into the afterlife, or if perhaps the kidnapper from earlier had successfully killed him after all. He couldn't really find any other logical explanation for what he was seeing.
A tiny white unicorn with an expertly curled purple mane and tail looked up at him with bright blue eyes. A pale blue glow surrounded her horn, flowing from it into his chest, matching the cool sensation that eased his laboring, faltering heart. Feeling his levels of strength return to normal, he lowered himself all the way to the floor, letting the tiny filly crawl into his lap.
He began a more minute examination of the filly. Her coat was a pure white and very fine, meticulously cared for. Her mane was quite luxurious, and her horn a perfect spiral. The only marking of any sort on her body was a mark of three blue diamonds - the exact shade of her eyes and the glow from her horn - on each side of her rump. Her hooves also weren't what he expected of equine hooves, as they had a somewhat amorphous quality. Gently pressing his thumb into one of the filly's fore hooves, he felt it shift around his thumb and then grip.
Gently disentangling his thumb from her grip, he pushed himself to his feet, holding her in one arm as he made his way back out. For her part, the filly seemed fascinated with his clothing, running her hooves over the fabric and - at one point - nibbling on a button. Bruce couldn't stop himself from smiling. "What a rarity I've found," he mumbled under his breath.
The tiny filly swiveled her head to look up at him, her eyes wide.
"What?" he asked curiously. "Something to say?" He didn't actually expect her to speak.
The filly pointed to herself. "Wawity!" she said firmly.
Bruce stared. The creature he had found was not just unique to his experience, but capable of speech. "Your name...is Rarity?" he asked, intrigued.
Rarity nodded firmly. She then gasped, reaching towards the line of Batman costumes, seeming fascinated by them.
"No," Bruce said firmly. "Those aren't toys." He walked up the stairs, turning off the lights as he went up.
Rarity frowned, plainly pouting. She then looked up at him, her lips pursed as she begged.
"That won't work," Bruce replied firmly.
Rarity returned to her pouting.
Bruce chuckled. "Well, you're certainly going to be a handful," he said softly. "Should be interesting." He gently stroked her behind one ear, smiling as she leaned into the caress.