So, contrary to what all the anime/video game shippings listed on my profile may lead you to believe, my first story is not a romance but an action/adventure story...about Batman. This is not associated with any established Batman continuity but is set in my own continuity which is an odd mish-mosh of the comics, Arkham games, and Dark Knight movies. This is my first upload so please read and review and throw any comments my way on how I can improve my writing. Hope you enjoy the story. -Solo.
Batman and The Crystal Master
Chapter 1: Prologue
The man walked through the dark hallway swiftly with briefcase in hand accompanied by two bodyguards. He was tall, with slicked back blonde hair and light stubble on his face. His guards had shaven heads and sunglasses, earpieces running into their jackets via a wire. The three suited men eventually reached the end of the hall where another man waited for them in the room behind the door.
This man stood about six-three and was extremely muscular. He wore military pants and boots with a heavy flak jacket covering his otherwise bare torso. An brown overcoat with a large collar, inside lined completely with white fleece, reached down to his knees and covering most of his body. An intimidating gas mask covered in pipes obscured much of his face. He and the blonde man stared each other down before the blonde man broke the silence.
"So you must be Bane. I'm Mr. Barrigan."
"Yes, I know. I understand you have a job for me." Bane replied in his British accented voice, electronically muffled by his mask.
Barrigan nodded and moved over to the table in the room. His bodyguards followed, obviously intimidated by Bane's imposing physical presence. Barrigan put the briefcase on the table and opened it to reveal an enormous sum of money.
"The job is to bring me Dr. Elias Mephisto, alive. You get 250,000 up front, the other half upon delivery." Barrigan said, closing the briefcase and handing it to Bane.
"Thank you Mr. Barrigan. Pleasure doing business with you." Bane replied, taking the case.
"There're a few burner phones in the case. I'll send you the location of the exchange and they have the number of my own burner if you need anything." said Barrigan as all of the men cleared out of the room.
It was now the middle of the night when an armored van pulled over in a cliffside parking lot overlooking a private upper middle-class estate. Inside, the mercenaries laid out their plans. Bane's lieutenant, Bird, sat in the driver's seat. He was a muscular man clad in military gear with a shaven head and a black bird symbol tattooed on the lower half of his face. In the back of the van, surrounded by computer equipment, was Bane's other lieutenant, Barsad. He was also wearing military gear and had short, neat brown hair and a heavy amount of stubble on his face. While he wasn't as large or muscular as Bird but Bane trusted his skills and knowledge. Sitting next to him were Bane and a standard looking grunt. Barsad spoke up.
"We've already hacked the security system of the house and disarmed it. You can enter completely undetected."
"There's been a lot of electricity going to that house. Maybe the Doc's working on some experiment lately." Bird added from the front seat.
"We'll collect whatever it is and see if it's relevant to our client once we have the good Doctor in hand." Bane replied as the back of the doors of the van opened and two mercenaries stepped in.
"Boss, the cable's all set. You're good to go." said one of the men.
"Very well. Stand by and wait for my return." replied Bane as he got out of the van, leaving his overcoat behind and revealing his massively built arms and a leather bracer on his right forearm and hand.
The other men nodded in acknowledgement as Bane made his way to the edge of the cliff. He hooked himself up to the cable that his men had set up and rappelled down the wall of rock below. Once he landed on the ground he unclipped himself from the cable and ran towards the house in the distance. He bobbed and weaved behind the few trees around him, using the shadows to keep himself concealed. He soon reached the home and got to the back door. He broke the door knob and the top lock off with his bare hands, allowing him to manipulate the innards of the door directly. Nothing happened as the door opened confirming that the security system was disabled. He was in.
Bane quickly made his way to the most obvious place to look, the bedroom upstairs. It was empty although the bedding was tossed around and looked like it had been slept in recently. Seeing that the room was clear Bane swept the rest of the second floor and moved back downstairs. Sweeping through he saw a door slightly ajar with light coming from beyond it. Upon getting closer to the door he heard a long beeping noise from the room it held below. He dove to the ground as the door and the room suddenly exploded. Bane got up as he saw in a shiny purple suit of what seemed like crystalline armor. It had spiked up shoulder plates as well as spiked kneecaps and elbows. The helmet had three upward protrusions on the top right above a thin, glowing blue visor.
"Dr. Mephisto!?" Bane questioned the man.
"Not anymore. I am Mephistopheles!" answered the figure in a robotically muffled voice. "Who are you?"
"It doesn't matter who I am, what matters is that I'm here for you." Bane stated.
"I'd like to see you try."
The two figures sized each other up, anticipating action. Seeing no hurry from his opponent, Bane made the first move. He punched the man in the chest and face with great force to seemingly no effect. He finished with a brutal kick to the stomach that pushed Mephistopheles back several feet.
"My turn."
He jumped forward and threw a punch. Bane tried to catch that fist but was pushed back by the force of the impact. Mephistopheles followed up by prying Bane's arms out of the way and unleashing a flurry of punches to the torso, topped off by thrusting both fists forward at once. Bane blocked the last attack with his arms but was thrown back through a wall. He quickly got up and scrambled into the hallways. The current situation was seemingly hopeless and Bane knew it. He pushed a button on the left side of his mask and, knowing his foe was looking for him, pushed another on the right side. The sound of gas releasing was heard followed by Bane taking a deep breath. He then fell unconscious, his vitals virtually nonexistent as the armored figure approached.
"I guess the blunt trauma was too much for his body to handle." he mused as he left the building while it slowly caught fire around him from the earlier explosion.
Bane awoke suddenly, his breathing slow as the sound of gas being released filled his ears. He looked around the slightly charred area when he noticed Barsad walk up to him as other mercenaries combed the debris.
"Boss, are you all right? We picked up the distress signal from when you used the knockout gas."
"I'm fine, the wake up stim has taken effect. Bring me up to speed." said Bane as he pushed the left button on his mask again.
"We were at the ready as soon as we heard the explosion. We blocked the roads to make sure police and emergency services couldn't interfere." Barsad explained.
"Very well done. What of the house, did you see someone leave?"
"A man in some kind of armor."
"Did you engage him?"
"Took two shots with my sniper rifle. It was completely useless and he escaped into some kind of tunnel nearby."
"Good, then he is alive. That man is our target."
"Dr. Mephisto!? How the hell did he get that suit?" asked Barsad looking dumbfounded.
"I don't know, but we're going to find out. He blew up the basement with that bomb, sweep it for anything useful." Bane ordered as he pulled a tiny SD card from the left side of his mask. "Barsad, pull the audio from the recorder on my mask." he instructed, handing the card to his lieutenant.
Back in the van Barsad and Bane listened intently to the audio now on the computer. They heard the sound of gas releasing and Bane inhaling sharply followed by the sound of him falling to the floor. They heard the footsteps of another person before he spoke.
"I guess the blunt trauma was too much for his body to handle." followed by more footsteps that faded away.
"He is a scientist of many disciplines. Good thing biology and forensics are not among them." Barsad said, laughing to himself slightly.
"That's all? I guess he wasn't cocky enough to blab about where he's going. Mierda." said Bane cursing under his breath, briefly regressing into his native Hispanic accent in his anger.
"With respect, why did you think that would actually work?" asked Barsad cocking his eyebrow.
"Never underestimate people's overconfidence and ego my friend." came Bane's reply.
Suddenly the radio began to buzz as Bird's voice came through from the other end.
"Boss, we finished our sweep of the house. The lab in the basement was burned down almost completely but we managed to salvage some things. We're heading back now."
A short while later the mercenaries returned to the now fully assembled convoy. On the metal counter top in the van sat a box containing some scraps of destroyed papers, some small purple crystals, and a heavily damaged computer. Bane looked at the sheets of paper and quickly concluded that they were documents that their target most likely valued. He handed them to Bird and simply nodded. Bird took them and immediately began examining them to see what he could learn. Barsad picked up the crystal, eying it suspiciously.
"This is what that armor was made of. It's crystal though. Makes you wonder how he made that suit." he wondered aloud.
"It's most likely Galvanite, that artificial crystal he invented. Not much is known about it since the scientific community swept it under the rug but it's supposed to be harder than diamond." stated Bane in response.
"That would explain a lot." said Barsad in an irritated voice.
Bane was now taking apart the damaged computer tower and found that the hard drive was relatively unharmed compared to the rest.
"We may be able to salvage some data from this. Set it up and see if you can find out where the good Doctor is headed." ordered Bane. "I'll call our client, we need to talk."
Bane stepped outside as Bird continued to work on the documents and Barsad began to set up the hard drive. He took out one of the cell phones that was given to him in the briefcase and dialed the number stored in it. The other end rang until a tired, groggy voice came through.
"Barrigan."
"Ah Mr. Barrigan, good to hear from you." Bane answered, almost jovially.
"Bane? What is it, you catch him already? You're as good as they say." came his reply.
"Now now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. He escaped." Bane said flatly.
"What!? How!?"
"With some kind of suit of powered armor. Anything you want to tell me?" Bane demanded.
"No, I had no idea he had something like that. I take it you want to meet up and renegotiate the contract?"
"Correct."
"Alright. It's still dark. Meet me in the same building as before." Barrigan said followed by the two men hanging up.
They soon found themselves back in the same abandoned building as earlier that night. They stood facing each other in the dimly lit room, Barrigan accompanied by his bodyguards.
"So, can you still capture him?" Barrigan asked.
"Yes, my men are finding out where he is headed as we speak." came Bane's reply. "I want double the pay for this job now due to the heightened risk level."
"I won't pay you double. That's too much for one job, even if it's you." Barrigan said. "I'll give you an additional fifty percent. You'll get that upon delivery and I'll give you the rest of the original fee now for your trouble."
Barrigan stepped forward holding out a briefcase. Bane eyed the case curiously.
"Very well, thank you Mr. Barrigan." said Bane, taking the case. They left shortly after with Bane heading back to his convoy. He was greeted by Barsad who took the briefcase from him.
"How were negotiations?"
"We got an extra fifty percent." said Bane.
"Only fifty? You usually double it."
"If I rejected or killed every client that gave us a counter offer we wouldn't have any clients." Bane said flatly. "Besides, he respects the people he hires. That respect goes a long way in my book."
"Well in any case I have some good news. The hard drive scrub was a success. We were able to find out where the Doctor is headed from the information on it."
"Where."
Barsad simply smiled and replied, "Gotham City."
So that took a lot of work. I'll try and upload as often as I can but I have other things to do like school, work, video games, etc. I'm also most likely going to be working on some other stories alongside this one so I'll do what I can. -Solo