Batman: The Masquerade Issue #13
In the last issue, Assamite Warrior Batman foiled the mad Malkavian Joker's plot to Dementate half of Gotham, and imprisoned him in the Camarilla prison Arkham for judgement by Prince Gordon. But it seems the Malkavian has instigated a fang-war between the two Nosferatu covens of Penguin and Two-Face, which Batman now rushes to stop with his new Gangrel sidekick, Robin.
The raw power of his vampiric body propelled Batman through the air, cape spread wide as he glided towards the industrial district. Jason, Batman's ward and sidekick, laughed as he glided alongside him. Much more newly embraced than Batman, he still found intense joy in this novel way of travel. Even Batman cracked a rare smile at his protege's fun. But as always, Batman's mind returned to the mission. Joker's cryptic words as Batman shut the door on his cell in Arkham were what now drew the dynamic duo towards the industrial district where Two-Face and Penguin's territory.
Soon enough the pair swooped down towards a part of the district that was lit up, where two groups of people were closing in on each other. Batman and Robin landed on an industrial crane, perched as he surveys the scene. The two groups were easy to tell apart, despite both being Nosferatu. Because of their respective deformities before the embrace being exaggerated by the clan curse, all of the vampires sired by Two-Face and Penguin to greater and lesser degrees looked the same. All of the Two-Face kindred had half their faces and upper bodies deformed in various ways, while their other half looked normal, while Penguin's Childers all had various ugly avian traits.
And there were the men themselves, staring each other down and arguing. Focusing his hearing, Batman caught their words.
"The Camarilla won't protect you this time Bird Fucker, the coin says you die tonight!"
"I think the both of you have forgotten who you're fucking with! I own the gun market in the city, you can't match our firepower!"
The Penguin was waving his umbrella around, it was likely a gun of some kind, as usual. But the Kindred behind him were decidedly more menacing, wielding an array of light machine guns, assault rifles, and 2 RPGs that Batman could spot. He also spotted a couple snipers in nearby buildings setting up shop. Meanwhile Two-Face's men were armed mostly with SMGs, handguns, and knives. Granted, Two-Face and his Childers were all a generation lower than Penguin and his, but that advantage in blood potency was easily crushed by heavier firepower.
Two-Face was likely going to lose.
Batman and Robin leapt into action as one, no words needing be said. They glided in swiftly, each peeling towards one group and throwing a handful of flash-smoke bombs. They explodes all around the thugs, their chemically made micro-bursts of UV light causing them all to recoil in pain as the smoke then spread and took away their sight.
Then Batman and Robin landed in their midst. Many kindred on both sides started panicking then, shooting blindly into smoke. Several vampires on both sides met their Final Death from stray bullets. Batman moved swiftly into battle, lashing out with precise strikes, maneuvering himself or his opponents so that he could land a solid blow to the back of their heads, blows that would likely knock a human's head clean off, but for the vampires was just enough to knock them out. Sounds from afar told Batman that Robin was carving a similar path through Penguin's clan, though from the sounds of it, Jason wasn't being as careful. Some of those burning sounds of Final Death were coinciding with the cracks of skulls.
Soon enough, it was down to Batman and Two-Face, just as the smoke was clearing. Robin was also staring down Penguin with a cocky grin.
"Harvey, this has to stop. The Joker played you, he Demented you to see your coin differently."
"Harvey's dead Batman! He broke when the acid hit our face, and he died when we were embraced! So stop calling us that!" Even as he raved his insanity at Batman, Two-Face kept his grip on his two Desert Eagle customs steadily trained on Batman.
"You're all dead, you hear me?" The Penguin yelled out from the side, pulling out a radio and screaming into it, "Snipers open fire!"
Everyone seemed to freeze for a tense moment, waiting for the sniper shots to ring out.
"Batgirl to B 'n R, snipers are taken care of." Batman and Robin both smirked then as Batgirl spoke to them over their radios.
"Aw, looks like your snipers got taken out by a girl Penguin." Robin taunted as he started bouncing on his toes before charging back into the fight. Snarling with rage, Penguin glowed a deep red while at the same time seeming to blur out to both sides. Robin's eyes widened with shock, knowing what was happening but not able to react in time as Penguin seemed to disappear and reappear behind Robin, swinging his umbrella full force and launching Robin across the district into a pile of scrap metal. Batman gasped as his protege was impaled on some pipes.
Two-Face took advantage of this momentary distraction, doing the same thing as Penguin to use both Potence and Obfuscate to keep Batman from seeing him coming while he laid an enhanced kick into his side, similarly launching Batman away.
Batman recovered himself mid-flight however, twisting and bouncing off the ground to land near Robin.
Penguin and Two-Face were panting now, glaring at each other. Use of their blood disciplines had drained their vitae, and many of their minions were down for the count. And sunrise wasn't too far away now.
"We'll end this on a different night! I hope your sidekick bites it Bats!" Penguin called out, his men quickly taking their cue and grabbing each other to run away, hopping into a manhole into the sewers.
Two-Face and his men similarly scattered, heading in a different direction and ducking into nearby back allies.
Batman didn't move for a moment, extending his senses to make sure none of the Nosferatu were planning to use Obfuscate to sneak up on him. Once sure, he turned to his Ward and tried to extricate him from the scrap metal. Robin tried to keep a brave face on, but was clearly in a lot of pain. It was only through his Fortitude discipline that he was still alive. Batgirl landed nearby as Batman was finished getting Robin out. She wordlessly came over and helped give Robin a blood-pack to help him heal. Robin drained the bag quickly and gave Batgirl his thanks, causing her to smile.
"You nearly got yourself killed Robin, you need to be more careful."
"I know, I'm sorry. I just didn't expect him to use two disciplines at once like that."
"It was a risky move, but you were putting the pressure on him. Keep in mind your advantages over opponents, you could have escaped upwards when he did that."
Jason palmed his face, groaning, "Right, grappling hook, I forgot."
"In vampire versus vampire fights, keep in mind our more mundane tools. They can change the terms of a battle in an instant."
"I'll do better." Robin said firmly, looking at Batman with earnest eyes.
Batman slowly felt his frown softening. "I know you will. You're a good soldier."
Batman turned then to Batgirl, who was smiling widely at this touching moment. Batman glared at her, which only caused her smile to grow bigger, but she knew better than to say anything.
"Come. We need to return to the Cave. Sunrise is soon." Batmans allies nodded in agreement and they took off.
"Alfred, we're on our way back. Have a couple blood-packs warmed up for us."
"Acknowledged Master Bruce." Came the butler's reply from in front of the Batcomputer. He breathed a sigh of relief that Jason was alright. Alfred made a mental note to prepare one of the blood-packs from an Olympic athlete for the young boy to help him regain his strength.
He quickly finished the preparations, getting the blood packs set to warm up to human internal temperatures when an alert sounded from the computer. Checking, it seemed a handful of vampires had somehow found the waterfall entrance to the Cave. Turning on security cameras, he found a crazed looking woman smiling up at the camera just as she chucked a rock and smashed it.
"Malkavians..." Alfred said after a moment's thought. Though they suffered under the yoke of madness, they often had incredible insight. Somehow this little handful of (likely Joker spawned) crazies had found their way to the Cave. "A Butler's job is never done." Alfred sighed, as he crisply turned and headed towards them. A wicked smile crossed his face as he entered the shadows.
Not long after, Batman and his sidekicks entered the cave and found Alfred tearing the head off the last Malkavian and letting the corpse fall to dust.
"Alfred!" Batman called out in concern as they all rushed over.
Alfred merely smiled and bowed in greeting. "Welcome back Master Bruce, Master Jason, and of course Miss Gordon."
Once sure he was ok, Jason and Barbara greeted Alfred as Batman asked what happened.
"Nothing much sir, just some uninvited guests. Taking care of them is well within my duties as the Butler."
"Hah, where in your job contract is the line 'kick vampire ass'?" Jason laughed, getting a laugh from Barbara and a wry smile from Bruce.
"Those chaps were practically thin-bloods, so you could say I was merely 'taking out the trash'." Alfred had a dark grin as he spoke, but shortly after he turned and fetched Bruce and Robin their blood packs.
Batman finally let himself relax a little. It was at times like this he was glad Alfred had agreed to become a ghoul, letting his vampire blood rejuvenate the old butler. With his own years of combat experience, and the vitae of an Assamite like Bruce, Alfred could easily be a front line soldier in the nightly battles, but he ultimately preferred to serve in the cave.
Meanwhile...at the supposedly abandoned Arkham Asylum, med student Harleen Quinzel is surprised to find that the place she was dared by her roommate to spend the night in has people within it. Sneaking around, she manages to catch snippets of conversations from the apparent guards and learns that this is apparently a place used by vampires to keep prisoners.
"Oh. My. God! Vampires are real!" Harleen quietly squeals to herself in delight. Like many women her age, she watches certain kinds of vampire movies and thus has a skewed view of what vampires are supposed to be. An otherwise smart woman, she gets caught up in her fantasies, and is startled when a voice calls out from one of the isolation ward's rooms.
"You don't belong here~!" A rasping voice sings, from behind the door. Glowing red eyes seem to pear out from the darkness of the small viewing hole.
Carefully, Harleen approaches and looks in, reaching to the side of the door and flicking on the lights in the room. She gasps in horror, but finds herself oddly attracted to the strange visage within. Wild green hair, vivid red eyes, deathly pale skin and a terrifying red smile like a Glasgow grin. It was the Joker! The villain had been a menace to Gotham for a couple months now. It had been believed that he was created by a chemical accident and was using some kind of chemicals from his crimes, but now its revealed to Harleen that he's in fact; "A vampire..."
"Indeed I am young lady, but you don't belong here. You could be killed for sneaking in here, in such fun and creative ways too." The Joker cackled madly for a moment, seeming to take delight in the idea of Harleen's painful death. But almost as soon as the laughing began, it stopped and he looked at her intensely. "Ah, you're here because of a joke! A prank! A dare! How delightful! Haha!"
"How?" Harleen Quinzel blinked is confusion, "How did you know that? Oh, can you read my mind?" She asked excitedly.
"No, wrong clan. I'm a Malkavian, we're a little mad, but we get incredible insight into the truths of the world, its one of the reasons I do what I do, after all, life's just one big joke!"
"Wow..." Harleen knew that she shouldn't stay, she knew that she should run away from this madman, but she found herself drawn to him for some reason she didn't understand, unaware that she was being dementated.
"Say...do you want to know what a ghoul is?" The Joker asked with a crazed toothy smile.
After dusk the next day, Batman and Robin swooped in on Catwoman's lair. Batman and his team had spent the day deliberating how to deal with the Nosferatu. Barbara informed them that Prince Gordon would be of minimal help, as he was spread thin doing damage control to maintain the masquerade. One of their only allies in the city after that was Catwoman, who they headed to see now. Swooping down into Crime Alley, they landed on a nondescript apartment that on the surface looked close to being condemned. A cat sat next the roof access door, calmly observing them, its eyes showing intilligent consideration.
"We need to speak with your master." Batman said, directly addressing the cat, who's eyes narrowed for a moment before turning and entering the catdoor at the bottom of the access door. Batman and Robin only had to wait for about 30 seconds before a buzzer sounded and the door swung open, the cat from before sitting there and waiting.
Batman and Robin quickly moved forward, Robin shutting the door behind him as they followed the cat down the stairs, through a hall, and into a room. The room was luxurious and exotic looking, countless works of arts of various kinds lined the walls and the floor was covered with mountains of silk pillows. A good 20 cats lounged aroumd the room, seemingly unconcerned and lazy like typical cats, but Batman saw how their eyes tracked him, or their ears twitched to follow the sounds of his movement.
And there, sitting on a couch, wearing a see-through silk nightie and draped across the couch, sat Selina Kyle. She was petting one of her cats, who was purring loudly. Upon seeing Kyle and how much her clothes didn't hide, Robin quickly turned away, the barest hint of red touching his pale cheeks, showing how embarrassed he was.
"Oh my, even your unlife must be young to be embarassed by me." Selina chuckled, before turning back to Batman. "And what can I do for you Bruce?"
Robin raised an eyebrow at her use of Batman's name, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. First that Talia woman and now Catwoman? I'm beginning to think Bruce might have a weakness for pretty girls. Robin thought to himself with a smirk as Batman ignored his look.
"I need your eyes and ears to tell me where Two-Face and Penguin are going to fight tonight, and if youre willing, I could use your help stopping them."
"Hm..." Selina purred for a moment seeming to think for a moment. "Ill tell you where Pen-Pen and Two-fer are going to have their little cat-fight, for free too as thanks for that...wonderful night last time."
Selina gave Bruce a smile like a cat that got all the canaries as robin made barfing expressions.
"But beyond that, I'll need payment to help stop them."
Without missing a beat Batman pulled out a gem and tossed it to her, which she snatched out of the air and looked at with great interest.
"Will a Cat's Eye gem from a tomb in Egypt suffice?"
"Mmm yes I believe it will." Selina said with a laugh, standing up and letting her nightie fall off her shoulders (causing Robin to gasp and look away again) and walked over to a tight black catsuit on a rack, "Just let me get dressed."
Minutes later the trio, plus a dozen cat-ghouls, leapt through the Gotham skies on their way to the docks. Through Catwoman's network of Cat-Ghoul spies, she had learned about where the next round was going to be fought. They arrived just in time as the two sub-clans had just started fighting, with many guns of various types being fired at each other as some wielded knives, chains, and rebar against their enemy. The night was still young, so there was little chance in scaring them out of fighting with the sun.
As they swooped down, Batman and Robin dispersed many UV-Smoke bombs like last time, covering the entire section of the docks with smoke and screaming vampires. Landing, Batman, Robin, Catwoman, and her ghouls made short work of the small army around them, with the cats being particularly vicious in taking down their opponents. When the smoke cleared, Penguin and Two-Face found themselves cornered together with Batman, Robin, Batgirl(who had arrived during the melee), Catwoman, and her ghouls surrounding them.
"Can't a Kindred settle a blood-feud in peace anymore?" Penguin grumbled, glaring at Catwoman and Batgirl.
"We're getting an annoying case of deja by." Two-Face growled, eyes glowing with rage at Batman and Robin.
"You two need to stop this, your actions are putting the masquerade at risk. Prince Gordon will be here soon, let him help you settle this."
"That weakling is no Prince! I don't obey him!"
"He'll sooner lock us up in Arkham, rather than let us settle things properly."
"You shouldn't even be fighting! Joker messed with your head Harvey!"
"Enough!" Two-Face roared out, eyes glowing red as he started using his disciplines. He charged forward at Batman, swing his desert eagle trying to clock Batman in the head while shooting with his other gun at point-blank range. Penguin meanwhile started spewing smoke out of his umbrella and used Obfuscate to disappear, reappearing behind Batgirl and hitting her with a roundhouse kick, launching her body into a nearby shed, nearly destroying it as she collapsed pimply to the ground, not moving.
"Batgirl!" Robin cried out, leaving his fight with Two-Face to try and help her. Batman growled angrily at losing the 2-1 advantage but focused on Harvey, using precise martial movements to disarm Harvey and then apply a rapid fire series of enhanced strikes, sending Two-Facevsagging to the ground before one hard boot to the face brought him down.
After his attack on Batgirl, Catwoman and her ghouls were quick and vicious in their counterattack. Penguin had tried to use Obfuscate again, but the Cat-ghouls senses were so fine that they had no problem keeping track of him, letting Catwoman lash out with her whip, ensnaring him around the neck and pulling him in, so she could beat him into submission. Jist before he lost consciousness, Penguin thought with some annoyance that he was getting turned on by Catwoman's dominating him.
With that, all the vampires were subdued, and Batman and Robin tried to help Barbara. She wasn't breathing. Batman was performing CPR, biting his tongue so that when he tried to blow air into her lungs, some blood would fall in her mouth to to try and heal her. After a few minutes of work, with Robin watching nervously and Catwoman with pity, Batgirl stirred, gasping for air and coughing out some of the blood in her mouth. Batman urged her to not move just yet, as she had many broken bones in dangerous places.
At that point Gordon and the rest of the Camarilla forces showed up, numerous nondescript black sedans and white vans, which numerous vampires and ghouls poured out of, springing out and staking all the Nosferatu, putting them in torpor for travel to Arkham. Gordon himself was barking orders at his Childer until he spotted Barbara. Running over, he had to br held back by Robin to stop him from touching Barbara and potentially damaging her delicate condition.
"What happened to her?!" He demanded, eyes red as he glared at Batman.
"Your great-granddaughter will live Gordon." Batman responded herself, slowly and carefully dripping blood from his finger into her mouth, careful not to make her choke.
"I was caught by surprise." Barbara grunted in pain, though she was visibly healing thanks to Batman's blood. "It wont happen again."
"You're damn right it won't." Gordon growled, glaring at Robin and shrugging him off. "I'm going to put an end to this stupidity." He muttered under his breath as he stalked away. Before he got too far away though, he stopped, turning back to Batman, he truffle said, "The Joker escaped. He got some ghoul kid to sneak in and spring him out. I want him back in his cell or dead by sunrise. And Barb isnt going with you."
Batman nodded, there was little else he could do. Barb would be unable to do anything for a while to come, even with the healing effects of Vampire blood. And whether or not she got to continue as Batgirl was ultimately a family matter, Bruce didn't really have a say in the matter.
"Bruce...I don't...I dont think I can feel my legs..."
Author's commentary: so I had this idea bouncing in my head for a while now, but I didnt want to start a whole other series while I'm still working on two. So I made this one-shot, its supposed to be an Elseworlds style series, as if its an issue in the middle of the series, so you can see where its coming from by references to the past, and you can feel where its going by recognizing the signs. I hope you like it, ill be working on the next chapter of Zelda soon.