"Please allow me to introduce myself/I'm a man of wealth and taste..."
The dark shape rolled to a halt behind the gun-toting mobsters, waiting for a lull in the raging gunfight between them and the hooded thugs daring to impersonate its true owner. As the lead gunman - a pony-tailed and bearded man known only as the Chechen – and a young-ish man in a suit (I.D.'ed as Doctor Jonathan Crane - aka Scarecrow) turned in surprise, it momentarily powered down all locomotive systems.
Roughly fifteen feet long and half again as high, the wheeled monstrosity sported various armor plates welded together in a seemingly ungainly fashion. Were it not for the fact that Crane himself had seen it in action not even a year ago after his break-out from Arkham, he'd almost be tempted to believe that the "clunker" idling before him would never stand up to the assault his compatriots would be more than happy to rain upon it.
Seconds before the others could bring their guns to bear on the chosen vehicle of Gotham's own dark vigilante, a screen within lit up with a single word. Were one sitting within the chassis of the heavily armored pseudo-tank and of a mind to do so, one might, perhaps, have picked up on a thrill of vindictive glee emanating the screen as it blared its' message: "INTIMIDATE".
A rocket fired from one of the two front "prongs" of the Tumbler forced the humans in front of it to scatter as it impacted against the white van sat opposite. Amidst the explosion, the darker persona of Gotham's Favorite Son made himself known, elbowing an imposter to the cape and cowl in the face before launching himself at both mobsters and phony Bat-men alike.
Such was the ferocity of his attack that the Chechen could only stare for a full three seconds before turning and shouting an order to the underling holding his dogs on thick chains. Released from their bonds at last, they barrelled at the black Kevlar-garbed combatant and jumped on him. Batman managed to deal with the over-zealous animals, but not before their master had made good his escape. Dislodging the last one by swinging it into the support pillar, he spied the final white van attempting to leave. Not this time, he thought as he jumped onto the side of the speeding van. Knowing the sliding side door would be locked, he unhooked a cutting tool from his belt and began applying it to the fragile metal.
Unexpectedly, the driver of his unwitting vehicular victim swerved dangerously close to another support pillar. While it wasn't close enough to damage the van itself (no more than it was already, at any rate) it was certainly close enough to knock Batman from his perch on the side of the van. Rising, he grimaced and exhaled roughly. Screw this. I try playing nicely, and he throws me against a stack of cement. He climbed on top of the barrier and looked down, running quick figures in his head before coming to a final conclusion. Hope he's insured, for his sake. With that final thought he jumped from the ledge separating spiralling pavement from open air as the van left the ramp, bringing it to ground level.
His landing all but completely flattened the roof of the van, shattering every window on it as the framework twisted under the sudden strain. Batman inwardly clapped himself on the back for installing the shock absorbers in his boots before jumping down and ripping open the driver's side door, yanking out the suited and burlap-sack-faced driver and throwing him none-too-gently onto the ground. Sitting him up, a gloved hand pulled off the sack to reveal the youthful features of the man who had, a year previously, almost dealt irreparable damage to Gotham.
Working quickly, he bound the by-now nearly-conscious fake Bat-men beside the equally restrained Crane. As the leader of the gang turned his eyes toward the Caped Crusader, Batman growled at him, "Don't let me catch you out here again," before turning and heading back toward the Tumbler. The response he got was indignant. "We're trying to help you!"
Climbing onto his personal transport he snarled back, "I don't need help!" Crane's interjection ("Not my diagnosis!") was lost and ignored as the Bat Gang leader responded with a more irate tone than before. "What makes you different to us? What gives you the right?!" Batman's reply came just as the top of the Tumbler slid shut. "I'm not wearing hockey masks."
-0-0-0-
The ride "home" – what passed for home these days, seeing as how Wayne Manor (and all subsequent extensions) was still undergoing reconstruction – was silent save the roar of the powerful engine. For the most part, anyway. The consciousness within the pseudo-tank grinned to itself. -That was fun. We should definitely do it again,- he thought before remembering the nasty hit his passenger/driver had taken, as well as the near mauling he'd sustained by those fierce canines. Humans were fragile things, Kevlar bodysuit or not; their bodies simply did not have the structural resilience of certain other species. Such as, for example, the life form in which Gotham's Dark Knight now rode.
Older than the original natives of this planet by a good six or seven millennia, he himself had seen tougher creatures than this single human trampled underfoot in the wake of a stampeding charge of his own kind. The distress over his charge's injuries would have been greater had he not, nearly a full solar cycle ago, witnessed the man's near-supernatural ability to simply ignore any pain inflicted upon him. He'd been severely poisoned, for Primus' sake, and not three hours after he'd recovered he'd been up and moving around, driving on rooftops and dodging several elements of the local law enforcement. All of this after initiating a "beatdown", as the humans termed it, upon Dr. Crane and his then-associates and rescuing a human femme from near-irrevocable brain damage.
The mech had met several vigilante-esque characters in his time, but few were as resilient and battle-hardened as this "Batman" character that the Wayne heir had concocted. Wayne himself was no slouch either; able to perfectly balance the "billionaire-playboy" persona with a ruthless "frag-me-off-and-I'll-feed-you-your-optics" attitude of which Megatron and a handful of his elite would be admiring.
His internal musing was cut off as Wayne inserted a portable flash drive and music began blaring out of the onboard speakers. Amid the drumbeats and screams, the mech accessed his Internet connection to identify the sound playing through his systems. "Pleased to meet you/Hope you guess my name!" -No need to guess, friend. A strange introduction to a rather fitting song,- he chuckled to himself. Any further contemplation was cut off as his comm registered an incoming call.
His attempts to trace the originating location drew him up short. -Egypt? What are they doing in Egypt? Oh, yes, that's right...- [So you all survived,] he sent. The gruff response he received was unmistakably Ironhide's. [Only just. Ratchet tells me my spark casing was nearly fractured, Chromia and Flareup are offline, and Prime...frankly, I'm surprised he's still standing.] Surprise flooded the Tumbler-mech. [What exactly happened out there?!] [I'm sending you the details. Those are the worst of the injuries, but I can tell you now no-one left that fragging sand-Pit unscathed.] An alert pinged across his connection as the absent Weapons Specialist began his end of the transfer.
[I'm going for some recharge – medic's orders. We'll check in after we return to Diego Garcia.] The "crate" that led to the stand-in Batcave was just ahead and Bruce unplugged his flash drive, alerting his transport. [Very well. I'll send you and Prime my status report then.]
[ Mirage out.]
-0-0-0-
Evenin' folks, and welcome to something inspired by a concept art that I'm relatively certain every TF fan has seen by now (if not, hang your head in shame while you Google "tumbler transformer"). The Rolling Stones' iconic track was playing through my head non-stop as I brainstormed and wrote this, hence the name. This one'll be updated at a slightly slower rate than How We Came To Be (seeing as I'm focusing most of my idea-stuff on that), but not by very much. I think we can pretty much guess how this'll turn out, but there's gonna be one big difference between this and TDK. Go ahead. Guess. I dares ya :P
Next time: Mirage gets debriefed on Egypt; another familiar face shows himself; and Bruce notices something strange...