Some are grand and terrible, others as small as flecks of dust. He can see all of them with these eyes of his, eyes that are not eyes. He sees into the souls of mortal men, such receptacles of ignorant delusion that they are. He sees into the core of star-eaters and finds their souls pure and alight with violence. Through both gods and men alike, through their folly and fears, right down into the exquisite tapestry of their passion and their pain does he peer. And in peering, he sees the beginning of things and their many endings; the way things stretch out in the multitudes of could have been's and what if's.

So many heroes. So many who have failed and fewer who have won. Endless strands of the future dangle from his fingertips, unraveling in a cacophony of sound that only he can understand and appreciate. A symphony of sorrow.

He looks into the future, yes, but so too the past.

One must always make time to look into the past, he tells his pets.

It is what has made him what he is, after all. What has turned and twisted the course of his lives. Often when he does so he frowns but only just, the rictus that is fixed to his face relaxing and, for a moment, he is something of the man he used to be. He is still Bruce Wayne, except that he isn't, so far removed is he from his origin that he is his own entity. And though his vision is fixed to that ever-quivering point, his other many eyes transcend the fabric of this coil and are always tethered to the past.

In this liminal space when the many worlds are quiet and the sky above is as he prefers it (bruised to bloody, smudged by violence like a battered housewife), he can almost hear the piteous cries of those multitudes on their Earths. He sways to the sound, humming lowly. When thunder rolls in the distance, he rises from the throne he has made for himself from the soft, fleshy pelts of his enemies to sniff at the wind, drawing great gulps of air which tastes like gasoline and iron and waste.

He senses something is different. A door opens. A portal to another World.

His pets clamber to their master's side as he passes therein, their taloned fingers digging through dirt and gore, shredding the sinew that is his dais to worship at his feet. They’ve eaten their fill of the decay around them but still they are hungry, all sharp teeth and always-empty bellies. Crow, crow, crow, they sing with voices like sandpaper. They are his children and yet they are not, he realizes, weaker wanna-be prototypes of the creatures he once knew, plucked from their home Worlds like ripened berries into which he could sink his teeth and drink his fill. Still, he decides with a smile like a razor blade, They will do. For what is a Robin without his Bat?

He looks with his eyes and sees that it is dusk in this World. The thoroughfare in which he stands is unfamiliar, abandoned, overgrown with weeds. His children are restless at the end of their chains. Crow, crow, crow they whine, eager to explore, to defile, to devour. "Bar!" he barks suddenly, turning his face towards the tallest of the three, smile faltering when he backhands him. The creatures hiss and grunt as one but pacify themselves, nuzzling into the leather of their master's boot. His children understand; this command is universal, spanning distances. They quiet, still for the moment as he surveys this new terrain; this new world which is to be his World. A nearby sign invites his inspection.

The name of this place. Established date.

His smile spreads.

It is no wonder his children are so anxious.

"Give us a tour then," he laughs and laughs and laughs.