Gotham City Heroes (rewritten version)

by Batfan98

Chapter 4 Something In Common

"That...movie...was..." Scootaloo paused before throwing her forelegs up into the air excitedly "Awesome!"

Yesterday it was established that she will be staying here at Wayne Manor under Bruce's care, which Scootaloo felt was fitting since while she admired the other superheroes in this world, she didn't know them. So it was the best option for her to be in Bruce's custody.

She's looked up more info about each member about the Justice League and found out more info about each member. Wonder Woman is a warrior princess from a far away, isolated island called Themyscira, also known as Paradise Island, the home of a mythical tribe of female warriors known as the Amazons.

She also read up that Aquaman is the king of a mythical, legendary, underwater city called Atlantis, and is the ruler of Earth's entire ocean. As for Green Lantern, he holds a powerful ring that can give him the ability to fly and create anything with his mind. And the Flash has the ability of super speed and protects Central City; Scoots wondered if Rainbow Dash would love to have a race with this guy.

She's read up other information on other superheroes like the Teen Titans. Turns out there are two generations of them; the first consisting of Robin, Starfire, Cyborg when he was a teen, Aqualad, Speedy, and Kid Flash. Currently the second generation consists of Red Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, a new Aqualad, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle.

Scootaloo pretty much spent all day looking up info on the Batcomputer that she got pretty tired of it. When she got done, Bruce was already leaving to go out on patrol as Batman. Alfred made her mashed potatoes and steamed carrots for dinner and insisted she'd watch a movie on something they called a VHS player.

Apparently it was something that allowed you to watch movies, as long as you had the VHS. Now Alfred wasn't much of a person who watched film all the time, he'd only watch it occasionally. Normally his type of genre would be drama, but he knew that kids like Scootaloo wouldn't be interested in something like that and decided to give her something that many kids recognize and love: Robin Hood.

He remembered reading the book in his childhood and a movie adaptation would be something of Scootaloo's interest.
He left the filly to watch the film in her room and she found herself to be interested. The romance bored her, but what made her enjoy it was the action and feel of adventure. She felt as though this was more of a movie Sweetie Belle or Applebloom would enjoy, but she just liked it. Although Robin Hood was something Scootaloo dreamed of being. A hero.

That's something that Scootaloo wanted to be, a hero. Flying aside, it was something she wanted to accomplish. She wanted to stand up for others and fight someone or something preying on the weak and defenseless. What she hated was being thought of as something weak. For once, she wants to prove she's capable of something like that. But the main reason was something else. One reason that has been personal for her for years.

She heard a knock on the door before Bruce came in.

"Hey, Bruce." Scootaloo smiled.

Bruce gave somewhat of a small smile back "Hello, Scootaloo." he came over and sat down on the bed next to the filly "I just wanted to see how you're doing."

Scootaloo shrugged casually "Eh, I'm doing alright."

Bruce nodded as he turned his head to look at the TV. "What are you watching?"

"Attack of the Martians." Scootaloo answered "Earlier, Alfred taught me how to use the TV, and I came across this."

Bruce turned his head back to her "How was it, then?"

"It was awesome." She said "I love those fight scenes with the space ships, it was so cool!" she gave an excited squeal.

Bruce had to admit, he was starting to fond this filly. She reminded him of Dick, Tim, and Jason.

"By the way," Scootaloo said "did humans ever make spaceships?"

"Well," Bruce shrugged "they made a rocket that sent someone to the moon."

Scootaloo smiled with interest "That sounds really cool!"

Bruce nodded as he slightly chuckled.

"What do you think of this world anyway?" he asked.

Scootaloo smiled as she got all excited "I think it's amazing. I mean superheroes exist, isn't that awesome?" but suddenly her mood changed as she frowned with her ears tucked and her head lowered. "If only my friends were here to see this."

Bruce felt sympathy for the filly as he rubbed the back of her head "I'm so sorry this happened."

Scoots averted her eyes to him "Thanks."

"What were they like?" Bruce asked before removing his hand from the filly's head.

"They were great ponies," she smiled, but her voice still said "back home I had these two best friends who were my age. They were a unicorn named Sweetie Belle and an earth pony named Applebloom, together we were the Cutie Mark Crusaders."

"Why'd you call yourselves that?" Bruce asked.

"Because we were trying to find our cutie marks."

Bruce looked as if he was confused by what a 'cutie mark' even was.

"You don't know what that is, do you?" Scootaloo asked.

Bruce shook his head "I'm afraid not."

"Well," Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head "y'see, it's a mark that ponies get on their flanks that represents their special talent." she stood up on all fours and pointed to her flank "I don't have one, because I haven't figured out my special talent yet." she sat back down.

"I see," Bruce said, rubbing his chin. "I take it your friends didn't have their marks either?"

Scootaloo shook her head "No, but we'd always try to find them."

Bruce nodded in understanding "Did you have other friends?"

Scoots smiled brightly as she nodded "Yes, they were Applejack, a farm earth pony who's Applebloom's big sister. Rarity, a unicorn fasion designer who's Sweetie Belle's big sister. Pinkie Pie, an earth pony who loves throwing parties. Fluttershy, a pegasus pony who loves and takes care of animals. Twilight Sparkle, who's that alicorn pony I mentioned earlier, and she is the princess of friendship."

Bruce raised an eyebrow "The princess of friendship?"

Scootaloo nodded "Yeah, that is something in the human world right?"

Bruce nodded "Yes, but why would someone need to be a royal monarch for it?"

"Because Twilight has learned so much about friendship, that she needs to help share it with other ponies." Scootaloo explained.

Bruce still didn't understand "But how can you govern friendship?"

"Um, you don't govern it," Scootaloo corrected "it's an important element that is used in equestria. Ponies say it's the strongest magic their is."

"Figuratively or litterally?" Bruce asked.

Scootaloo averted her eyes in thought for a moment before shrugging "I don't know. Maybe both?"

How could friendship be used as magic? Even though he's the world's greatest detective he's gonna have a hard time figuring that out.

"And I haven't told you about the coolest pony I know," Scootaloo exclaimed "Rainbow Dash. The coolest, fastest, and greatest pony to ever live."

"What's she capable of?" Bruce asked, slightly smiling at the filly's excitement.

"Well, she's so fast that she can perform amazing stunts like the buccaneer blaze and the sonic rainboom."

"Sounds like you're her biggest fan." Bruce said.

Scoots nodded "I was, but now I'm more than that. I'm practically her sister."

"So you two were close then?"

Bruce received a nod from Scoots "Yeah. In a way, she's like my family."

"What about your real family?"

To this, Scootaloo's mood was quick to change as she lowered her head. Bruce quickly realized his mistake and let his head scold himself.

"I'm sorry," Bruce rubbed the back of her neck "I didn't know."

The filly sighed "It's okay, you didn't know."

Bruce lowered his head as well "When I was eight, I lost my parents too."

Scootaloo turned her head towards him "I know, Alfred told me."

Bruce averted his head to the filly "How did it happen?"

"Well," Scoots rubbed her foreleg "my dad was a member of the royal army and went off to war when I was six." he eyes were getting teary as she sniffed "He never came back." her voice cracked. "After that it was just my mom taking care of me, but a year later she got sick and she...and she..." she couldn't go on and buried her head in her hooves as she sobbed.

She felt an arm wrap around her as it pulled her gently. Scootaloo looked up with teary eyes to see that it was Bruce who was holding her next to him with a single arm. She responded with burrying her head in his chest and wrapped her to forelegs around him as Bruce wrapped his other arm around to hold her.

Scootaloo cried in his chest for a while until she turned her head to the right, resting her cheek on Bruce's chest and averted her eyes upwards to look at him.

"You know," she sniffed "for a long time, I wanted to be a hero just like my parents."

Bruce averted his head downwards "You did?"

Scootaloo nodded "Mhmm, my dad was a soldier, as you know, and my mom was a surgeon."

Bruce gave a small smile "My dad was a surgeon too."

Scootaloo gave a teary smile as she nodded slowly "I know, Alfred told me. Your parents sounded like they were great people."

Bruce nodded "They were."

"Too bad we both had to loose 'em when we weren't ready for it." she lowered her eyes as her smile disappeared.

Bruce's smile disappeared as well as he closed his eyes and lowered his head sadly.

"Looks like we both have something in common, don't we?"

Bruce nodded again "Yes, as a matter of fact we do."

Author's Note:

Now some of you might be thinking why there are two Aqualads, well to answer your questions since there are two that we know of, I thought I would wright that once Aqualad has taken the mantle and left it some time later and a new Aqualad beared it. The first one being Garth and the second one is Jackson Hyde. PS: Also, happy 4th of July everybody.

Edit: Hey, guys. I just decided to get rid of the fact that Scootaloo watched Star Wars and instead a Robin Hood film for these reasons. 1. I want to make this world timeless and fantastical, so I feel references to pop culture would ruin it. 2. I thought her watching Robin Hood would be good foreshadowing. That's all. See ya.

Comments

[badninja]

Not bad. It is nice to see Bruce bonding with Scootaloo so well. One edit I caught was when you where talking about Wonder Women you used car instead of the word far. Otherwise great chapter!

[Batfan98]

9024892
Thank you so much for pointing that out, I just fixed it.