Batman: Project
It was late, later than any normal citizen would dare stay awake, especially in a town like Gotham.
The current time was something Batman was only aware of in a clinical sense however. Something to be acknowledged and dismissed in short order as he followed, or at least *attempted* to follow, another lead.
He sat quietly within the Batcave, hands clasped before his chin, cowl illuminated only by the flickering lights of the computer.
What little face was bare was set into a deep scowl.
"Computer," he said with a gravelly voice, "run this and all relevant files through decryption process epsilon."
The computer gave a small beep of acknowledgement as it set to work.
Behind his chair, Batman could make out the sound of Alfred's clear steps making its way towards him.
"Some tea, Master Bruce? Or perhaps you would prefer something a little more filling," the butler inquired. The man let out a small scoff. "Unless your most recently foray into this project is going to prove more fulfilling than any of your other attempts."
Batman sat back with a sigh, pulling down his cowl as he did so. "Something to eat would be great Alfred. I have a small feeling that this won't lead anywhere successful."
'This' was a small video file, one taken by a security camera of a building in the depths of a Japanese mega-town known a N-city. It depicted, with shocking clarity after Batman had run it through a few programs, an average street with cars zooming back and forth while people meandered down the sidewalks.
A ball bounced into the street, followed in short order by a young girl. Car headed down the road, ignorant of the situation kept speeding down full-sale.
And then the reason Batman was so concerned about this video at all came up. A white figure blurred into motion, far faster than a human should be able to move.
It landed lightly in front of car, wrapped itself around the girl, and then with a crunch took the full impact of the car on its back.
Instead of the expected double fatality the car itself was one to collapse and crunch around the one in white.
Batman munched on some toast as he considered the video yet again. It was clearly a metahuman acting out here. Normally that would not be a concern of his, and indeed he would have offered a small amount of praise to whomever was acting the hero here.
No, the real issue was two-fold. Firstly, this was but one of many dozens of similar reports he'd found and received. Each video had the same general set up. Something was going to go wrong and a meta would appear to solve the issue. They all seemed to have different general outfits and colors, but beyond that he couldn't quite tell, which led into the second issue.
No matter what program he ran, no matter how he tackled the it nothing seemed to clean up the interference that lay over the collective of metas.
Another beep came from the computer, signaling the completion of his latest attempt decryption process, a little gift from Cyborg after he, eventually, asked for a small bit of assistance.
He loaded up the relevant scene and once again witnessed a white blob save a child. While not disappointed that the attempt failed, this was still worrying to Batman.
In the process of some of his other attempts to identify the various figures in the videos he'd done some more digging into N-city and was surprised to see that they didn't have a meta-human population, or any kind of powered individuals.
There were indications of criminal presence certainly, a town this large was guaranteed to have an infestation, and in this case, it appeared a Russian group had moved. Other than that, there was nothing, at least not until 8 months ago. At that point they practically exploded onto the scene, each was hidden by the same effect.
It was shorty after this that the he began to hear reports in Russia of powerful weaponry moving throughout the underground, with an indication's of them coming from N-city. Someone else may have dismissed the report as 'just a coincidence', but Batman had learned in his time as a detective there was no such thing as a coincidence.
It seemed to Batman that, somehow, someone had developed technology to *create* metahumans as well as disguise them from any form of surveillance, and now they had started to move on to creating weapons.
It would only be a matter of time till those weapons made their way to Gotham, and that was something that could not be allowed; the thought of Penguin's goons running around with the fire power to blow down a building was not endearing.
It seemed then that there was a single course of action here now.
"Alfred," Batman called back to his loyal assistant, "make arrangements for Bruce Wayne to take a business trip to N-City. I have a feeling this might take a little time to reach the bottom of."
Ever competent, Alfred immediately got to work. "Certainly sir. Shall I make a request for Masters Damian or Richard to return in the mean time to watch over things while you are away?"
Batman dismissed the idea in short order as he went to prepare some relevant tools for his mission. "Things have been quiet here recently, and not in an on-coming storm way. Unless something unexpected develops leave them to their current work."
Walking past his room of confiscated equipment he slapped a button and watched as the armory slowly revealed itself.
It was time to gear up.
Bruce Wayne settled into his seat on his private jet. Some people might have felt that it was a little ostentatious and indeed a little wasteful to use a private jet to make a business trip, but well, those people didn't own a personal fleet. They needed to stretch their wings every now and then.
More importantly, this would give him the time and privacy he needed to refresh his Japanese. It had been years since he had learned it, one of many he'd picked up in during his training to truly assume his role as the Batman.
It wasn't something he'd had to use often, but the knowledge stuck around. He'd have it back in hand before the trip was half over.
And an effective way to train would be to look over the dossier of the company he'd be meeting with for his disguise.
He looked over the documents he had and learned what there was to know.
It was a small company, at least compared to the kinds of dealings that Wayne Corp usually worked to acquire, only really having a presence in N-city, focused mainly on supplying the area with a unique brand of mobile phone. The owner seemed rather attached to the company as well, holding a rhetoric of teamwork and togetherness deep to the core of the company's values. All around it seemed like doubtful that Bruce was getting to get much out his meeting with the board of directors, which suited him just fine.
Satisfied with his understanding of who he was working with, Bruce next looked over who his guide would be. It seemed to be a young go-getter in the company by the name of Sanae Mukou. She first joined the ranks shortly after graduating near the top of her class at a local university. Although the file mentioned a level of strictness and expectation, to an almost unhealthy degree, her results spoke for themselves. Every project she joined would quickly achieve its results, even if Sanae herself was quickly shuffled around to a new group to avoid intergroup conflict.
Bruce supposed this might have even been a kind of reward for her. A chance to open relations with another business without having do deal with all the hustle and bustle of any of her coworkers interfering. Well, he would be remiss to let this chance slip by. He'd have to slip her an offer to join one of the subsidiaries Wayne Corp had in Japan. They were always looking for talented go getters in that area.
With the remaining segment of the flight left, it was time to look over some more serious business. Alfred had gathered up information on the various underground groups in the area.
There was something of a stalemate in the area. Not all too surprising for such a town. Without a powerful, or strong will individual in the area there wasn't much room for growth and conflict among the groups.
There was however, a trend about someone known as 'Calamity Mary.' It seemed that the various factions had struck at each other using this Mary, though reports did not detail how they went about this.
Still, that would be something to begin to check out once night fell and Batman could take the leading role.
The files contained little else though, not enough to give any indication about what organization was holed up in the area. It was unfortunate, but not insurmountable. After all, if worst came to worst and he wasn't able to find anything before the allotted time for this business deal was up then Bruce would simply be struck by a love of Japanese culture and would stay as long as he needed to.
There really were perks to being a party animal.
Settling in as plane made its final approach, Bruce let out a comfortable sigh.
If this all went to plan he'd be back in Gotham hunting down societies scum in less than a week.