Gotham Proceedings: Red Dragon

[Abishai100]

The greatest trial involving an unimaginable demonic killer was to begin that would illuminate the jurisprudence and pedestrian civics corruption in a city called Gotham.


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Prosecutor: "Would you please tell the court your name and criminal alias."
Red Dragon: "My name is Max, but I call myself the Red Dragon."
Prosecutor: "Now, Max, what is it that you think you did, and what do you think this trial is about?"
Red Dragon: "Between 1993 and 1999, I committed a series of prostitute kidnappings and systematic psychological torture and killings. I think this trial is about why I chose to kill prostitutes."
Prosecutor: "I think you're partially correct. Why prostitutes, Max?"
Red Dragon: "I lived in Los Angeles (nicknamed Gotham) where prostitution has become rampant, so I committed the crimes to grab the attention of the police and the people. I felt there was no other normal way to get political attention."
Prosecutor: "When you kidnapped these prostitutes, what did you do to them?"
Red Dragon: "I would take them back to my apartment and put on Halloween vampire fake blood and say to them, 'See how you are morbidly curious about blood and vampires, even though you are a prostitute? It is because you live in a corrupt world and have become morally numb to it, so I will tell the newspapers of your demise.' Then I would slit their throats with a knife as painlessly as possible but they would simply bleed to death."
Prosecutor: "I see. How many prostitutes did you do this to in all?"
Red Dragon: "About 15. I let one go, because she kept crying and saying to me, 'I will stop being a prostitute!'"
Prosecutor: "Max, do you think the publicity surrounding these crimes and the media attention this trial is receiving --- there is already a movie in the works titled 'Red Dragon' about your crimes --- will gather the jurisprudence management attention you felt that corrupt policemen/politicians were failing to cultivate?"
Red Dragon: "Yes, yes. I think it will."
Prosecutor: "And if your mission fails, Max, will you regret your crimes?"
Red Dragon: "If my mission fails, I will still believe the prostitutes I used were saints for the cause."
Prosecutor: "Then it is my duty as a legal servant, Max, to prove that at least one of these so-called mission saint prostitutes did not wish to be part of your crusade and were therefore actual saints to your bloody vigilantism crimes."
Red Dragon: "Prove what you must. These prostitutes will never be forgotten. I have revealed Los Angeles (Gotham) to be a den of legal neglect."

End of court transcript extract.
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We the jury find the defendant, Max Hytner, also known as Red Dragon, guilty of murder but innocent of political slander.

This trial was covered by reporters working for the Gotham Gazette as well as social scientists working for Wayne Industries.

"Mr. Wayne, care to comment?"
"Sure. I look forward to the Red Dragon film. I think the arts always heal souls wounded by crime."




Judgment at Nuremberg (Film)

 

[Abishai100]

Fatherland: A Dark Fable


Here is a spin on the same story but told through the perspective of unchecked crime in a Los Angeles which has become something like a true Dark City and in which our prophetic maniac the Red Dragon is now supreme warlock.

This short-story reworking was inspired by the Nazi-premonition story Fatherland (Robert Harris).



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The Gotham Gazette reported on Sunday, April 3, 1995 that Bruce Wayne was found murdered in his estate along with his butler Alfred Pennyworth. Ironically, Batman was also reported as mysteriously missing, and Gotham City Commissioner Jim Gordon had no comment about the strange coincidence. Meanwhile, Red Dragon's crime spree continues and four more prostitutes are found dead.


Red Dragon: "This city is mine. It's 1996 now, and I propose we create a syndicated take-over of Los Angeles.

Bishop: "Great idea, cruel and ugly lord, but who should we recruit?"

Red Dragon: "To cleanse a city that is plagued with laziness, we need a gang of energetic maniacs, masked and titled."

Bishop: "Awesome! This has real potential. What should we call this gang?"

Red Dragon: "We'll train our criminal cohorts, Bishop, and we'll call this gang the Black Mask Brigade."

Bishop: "Wow! First, you killed Bruce Wayne, and now, you'll be LA's first evil king."


Two more years pass by, and Batman is still nowhere to be found. Crime in Los Angeles is now limited to gang-related murders of vagrants, tourists, and policemen, and Red Dragon's Black Mask Brigade is calling itself the New Reich. The Gotham Gazette reported that in 1998, the Black Mask Brigade was responsible for the extermination of a dozen police officers who flocked to a charity ball. The tone of Los Angeles (and in America) is one of pure blood-panic.

A young GCPD police officer named Robin Blake can not believe what is happening, and he wonders where Batman is, now that Red Dragon is Los Angeles's new evil king. Robin is confounded and decides to visit his old friend, an eccentric scientist named Thomas Hoyt who has been working on some kind of a time-travel device.

Robin discovers that Dr. Hoyt has managed to devise a time-travel portal opening mechanism which enables the traveller to go back into the past (and back to the present) but not into the future. Robin decides to volunteer to be the first traveller; he wants to go back to the day Bruce Wayne was murdered and try to find Batman. Commissioner Gordon has not helped Robin in any way, fearing any retribution from Red Dragon's Black Mask Brigade.

Robin goes through time and finds himself in 1995 on the day Bruce Wayne was murdered. He convinces Mr. Wayne to hide with him and avoid Red Dragon's ominous sphere of influence. While in hiding, Bruce tells Robin he is Batman, convinced that Robin is right about Red Dragon.


Bruce Wayne/Batman: "Red Dragon's bloodlust for prostitutes in his so-called anti-corruption LA crusade spells evil."

Robin: "Let's get you back to 1998 and surprise Red Dragon's Black Mask Brigade with the heroic Batman!"


Red Dragon's Black Mask Brigade plans to burn down the White House (Washington) on Devil's Night 1998, the night before Halloween Eve. When they flock to the White House lawn, they are shocked to find two masked vigilantes (Batman and Robin) there to spray them with a corrosive acid which melts their machine guns and a deadly gas which renders them unconscious. Two months later, Batman and Robin arrest Red Dragon and his timely trial (during which he is convicted) ensues on Christmas 1998.


Robin: "Well, Bruce, we can't take you back to your time, on the day you were murdered, but you're here now with us!"

Bruce/Batman: "Yes, thanks Robin. Lost years in the universe was the price to pay to foil the wicked Red Dragon."


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Fatherland (Film)

 

[Abishai100]

Gram's Arrest of Red Dragon

Here's a prequel story, referencing similar themes.

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Red Dragon decided to recruit himself to the Taliban, prior to being arrested. They admired his sense of savagery and efficient attitudes towards hand-to-hand combat. Red Dragon rose up the ranks in the Taliban and became their official masked spy working against the CIA in Afghanistan, Moscow, and Cuba. He would sometimes pull out the teeth of the killed enemy soldiers with pliers and keep them as special souvenirs (these 'souvenirs' would later be collected in the official American Red Dragon Crime Museum in Chicago, Illinois).

During his work in Afghanistan, Red Dragon learned of special radical anti-Western recruitment of Muslim women for terrorism-assistive activities (e.g., transporting bombs, housing guerrilla, serving as messengers for the Taliban). There, Red Dragon ran into a special hot-shot rookie CIA operative named Officer Gram who quickly started tracking him for his bizarre tooth-pulling activity. Gram tracked Red Dragon down and there was an apocalyptic showdown between the two (involving pistols) at the New York Yankees baseball stadium.

Red Dragon parachuted into the NY Yankees much hyped game against their 'upstart rivals' the Boston Red Sox being held at Yankee Stadium. He pulled out a machine gun, a megaphone, grabbed a hostage and threatened to shoot him unless the camera gave him airplay, and when he was quickly granted TV airtime, Red Dragon used the opportunity to make the following claim: "I challenge Officer Gram of the American CIA to confront me here during the 7th Inning Stretch of this game. We'll simply have a gentleman's skill-pressured shooting competition --- a gun-fight."

Thirty minutes later, Officer Gram arrived at Yankees Stadium to meet the challenge of the Red Dragon. Gram carried with him his favorite handgun, a Magnum. The two walked out into the field during the 7th Inning Stretch and stood back-to-back and started walking away from each other at timed paces until given permission to turn around and try to shoot the other (with perfect accuracy). Gram prevailed, his shot being a tad quicker than Red Dragon's otherwise rather very elegant gun-shot (a Colt weapon used) towards Grams' ribs. Red Dragon surrendered and awaited his incarceration, and as he was being hauled away to a maximum security mental rehabilitation center in Washington, Gram couldn't resist asking the strange psychotic why he let himself be so easily arrested after loosing the gunfight, to which the eerie Red Dragon replied, "Deranged convictions are put to the test of doubt when considering the failure to report with adequate skill in the arena of 'violence field technique'!" The trial of the great Red Dragon was now approaching.




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