Gotham City, Equestria

by Kumquatodor

Road to Gotham

The Mane Six and Princess Luna gathered in the back of Luna's personal train. The car was fairly luxurious, with a dining area and, most important of all, privacy. Privacy was a good thing because, if ponies knew that there was such a place as Gotham City, there would be outrage.

“So what's our mission, Princess?” Applejack finally asked. The Mane Six had asked this before, but Luna only responded with “There are too many people around”. When the Six were asked to help, they had only been told that they would be leaving to Gotham City for a few months on a semi-dangerous mission. With a little convincing to Fluttershy, they had all agreed to leave. Now that they were on their way, away from any eaves-droppers, Luna would explain.

“What do any of you know about Gotham City?” she asked.

“Well,” Twilight started. “I know it's a port city, famous for its Gothic architecture, and that it is supposedly cursed.”

“How is 'Gotham' a name for a city?” Dash quipped.

Pinkie replied with, “Maybe it's because of the architecture. Still needs more 'pony' in the name. 'Trotham' or–”

“Regardless, there's also a relatively high violent crime rate,” Luna interrupted, neither able nor willing to listen to one of Pinkie's tangents.

“Whatdya mean?” asked Applejack.

“There's a...” Luna thought about how best to explain it. “high likelihood of being attacked if you go some places at night.”

“By manticores or hydras?” Rarity questioned. Luna mentally groaned. Naivety, it seemed, was the price of utopia.

8 weeks ago.

Luna trotted through the corridor on the way to meet her sister for a security briefing. Her first since returning from her banishment. Her first since she went insane. Her first since threatening complete omnicide. She gulped.

"So, Princess..." her personal guard, Quick Wing, said, trying to ease the tension. "How's the Modern Equestrian lessons going?"

"Quite fine." she said, remembering to be short-winded. "I have the basics, apparently, but no-pony can tell my S's from my F's. And I still have no idea why 'the Royal We' went out of style."

Quick Wing chuckled. "Why did 'the We' even come in to style?"

"You'd be surprised the unity it creates." She smiled. This was one of the few ponies outside the Six and her sister who had discovered, "No, you don't have to kiss her hooves or run screaming or stay mute until she leaves".

"Musta needed unity after the Discord and Windigo thing, eh?"

"Indeed..." Luna responded.

"I'm awfully happy that stuff like war never really happens anymore."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "What about in Griffornia?"

It was now Quick Wing's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What about Griffornia?"

"Surely there exists war?"

"Conflicts, maybe. But war? Nah! No real crime, either."

They arrived at the destination, where Quick Wing left the sisters to themselves."Bye" he said with a wave. Luna nodded. Luna hesitantly entered the room, where she was met with her sister's hug.

"Sister! How are you?" Celestia beamed.

"Fine, dear sister..." she looked around. A relatively small room, with an oak table that had a few files on it, and a large map on the wall. "How... is violence in the world?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Celestia responded breaking the hug,

"We -- I... was just talking with Quick Wing. He stated that violence didn't happen any more... Is this true? Has war ended? Has murder, rape, starvation, all ended?"

"Well... Equestria's a utopia... We've had minor conflicts, but... No war... No crime, either..."

"What of the rest of... Equus? What of Griffornia or Draconia or Canaaine?" Luna might not have been the cunning tactician her sister was, but she was still a genius in her own right, inventor of the abacus. She knew the fact that Celestia hadn't answered immediately was cause for concern.

"If we were to describe the peace and happiness levels..." Celestia floated a paper over to Luna who took the paper in trembling hooves.

Peace Levels (Harmony Units)

Crystal Empire -- 9,001

Equestria -- 7,500

Draconia -- 4,000

Canaaine -- 3,500

Changeling Kingdom -- 3,430

Grifornia -- 3,000

Star City --2,500

Tartarus -- 1,000

Gotham -- 250

"Oh, sister..." Luna beamed. "This... This..."

"That's why I called you here. D-Do you see "Gotham"?

"Y-yes... It's less harmonious than Tartarus itself!"

"Yes. It is also a city in Equestria."

Luna stared at her sister, her mouth a gape. "Celestia..."

"That's why I called you here. The situation stands..."

Luna took a deep breath willing herself not to cry in frustration, and said, “There are 235 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens a year.”

The ponies looked in awe. This was absolutely unacceptable. Everywhere else in Equestria, foalnappers would beg for forgiveness if they accidentally harmed their hostages.

Rainbow Dash remembered Gilda telling her about Griffonia's less Utopian society, spending a large amount of time explaining what filly-abuse was. Rainbow nearly refused to believe that this happened more than once a century. That month, Rainbow petitioned for this to be stopped, but Princess Celestia responded "I would if I could, but... I can't fix a sovereign nation without invasions, and... even if I could... I don't know how I would stop this problem..." It hurt, knowing that Celestia was not omniscient. Of course, the ponies all knew she wasn't omniscient, but knowing a fact and being forced to confront it were to very different things. And every pony knew that they were going to have to confront facts once more.

“How could a city become that bad?” Fluttershy half-asked, half-whimpered while hiding behind Rainbow Dash, shaking at the thought of her destination.

Luna looked down at her hooves. “We tried to help. We truly did. And we failed every step of the way. We sent millions of bits to the mayor, but the money seemed to just... disappear. We would have investigated, but the Mayor ended up... dead... the next month. Tia calls Gotham her biggest failure... She even imposed martial law... Gotham only destabilized further.” The ponies all looked green. Fluttershy was in the dining area now, hiding under a table, shaking uncontrollably while Pinkie's mane straightened.

“Who did it?” Rainbow Dash asked, recovering from the momentary sickness.

“We don't know,” Luna responded. “I sent my best team to investigate possible corruption a few months back. An assassin, Deathstroke, decided to dampen that plan. We found eight of the guard floating in a lake. Two were never found. And one was found in the sewers, apparently eaten by a very large crocodile.” Luna looked up at her friends, the ponies that forgave her for turning into Nightmare. “You see why I didn't want normal civilians to hear about the place..”

“But crocodiles are nice!” protested Pinkie Pie, her main inflating slightly. “I mean, sure, one might nibble on your leg, but they would never EAT you! They are nice and wonderful and––”

“That's another thing,” Luna interrupted, feeling slightly bad about treating Pinkie that way. “This place seems to be like the Everfree Forest. The sky is different. Plants grow as they wish, though hard-working ponies have kept them in their place. Animals are more violent. Why people stayed here, I've no idea.”

Fluttershy crawled out from under the table. She was crying.“Can't I go home?”

“We need you to be here so we can fix the city.” Luna responded gently.

“No you don't. You all can do it yourselves. I'm not needed!”

“Please, Fluttershy, the Mane Six are needed to inspire the ponies to be more friendly. Please. We need you.” Luna was almost begging. She hate putting a pony into this position. Fluttershy was still shivering, crying a bit. With all the pressure put on her, she felt like she was going to crack, even with all her friends comforting her.

“We'll be staying at Mayne Manor," Luna continued, ignoring all the guilt building in her. "It's the safest place in the city. It's probably even more secure than the castle. Bruce Mayne has state-of-the-art security in place. I pinkie promise you will be safe. I wouldn't have asked you to come if Mayne hadn't offered to let us stay at his mansion.”

Fluttershy thought for a moment, then nodded. The city needed her, so she had to be strong. “Okay,” she whispered, then she went back under the table and curled into a ball. Pinkie and Rarity went to comfort her.

“Bruce Mayne is still alive?” she asked.

“Yes. Apparently, he was studying in Trottingham this whole time.” Luna answered, a slightly knowing smile on her face.

“What studying was he doing that took 10 years?!”

“I do not know. Perhaps you should ask him.”

Luna looked around, then remembered that she had one last announcement. How am I going to say this? She thought about it for several seconds, all the while leaving Twilight to stare at her.

“Princess?” Twilight asked. “Is everything okay?”

“What? Oh. Um... Yes. Everything's fine.” Luna stepped away from Twilight a little, then called for all the ponies' attentions. “Some ponies claim there is a bat-monster in Gotham, but I assure you: there is NO monster.”

Pinkie seemed to understand completely and immediately went back to planning a “Going Home” party for later. The other five took a few seconds to comprehend what they'd just heard, but when they did they all nodded and went back to their business. Rarity was still comforting Fluttershy.

Meanwhile, Luna went on explaining the mission: be beacons of hope to show that the city could be better.

Twilight was multitasking, thinking about the Bat-monster and planning possible methods to succeed. Luna said that it didn't exist, but Twilight was still curious. How did this superstition come about? What if there was a bat-monster. Surely bats would prefer warmer climates. So many questions formed... What was that about Gotham?

Comments

[Cobrawolf_Meiji2012]

I am Bate-mare Good start for the story

[Kumquatodor]

3689311

Thanks. Any idea what to call him?

I was thinking about just calling him the Bat.