Gotham National Bank was hell on earth.
The line was unending, and it moved so slow. Too make bad things worse my phone was almost dead. So it was a long, boring, unescapeable wait. There wasn't even a chair to sit in. Mom had made me leave my book in the car.
I tried to keep myself busy, but there was only so many times I could count the ceiling tiles, the cameras, the exits, the tellers, the security guards, and of course the people standing in line.
"Mom, I don't think that we'll make it to the front before the bank closes." I told her. It was almost 11 P.M. Gotham National was owned by Bruce Wayne, and when he wasn't throwing parties and galas and what-ever-else rich playboys did, he seemed like a cool dude. One point in favor of this was the fact he kept his banks open late, because most people couldn't take off work to make neccesary trips to the bank. It was something that I had complained about before moving to Gotham plenty of times.
"I have to open a new account tonight." She told me. That 'Stop complaining or you'll be grounded' tone all mothers could use. I shrugged. The new apartment didn't even have WiFi yet. What was there to be grounded from? My books? My manga?
"So where are you from?" A lady from behind us asked. "Your accent isn't Gotham."
"Oklahoma," My mom answered. "I just got a job at Wayne Entreprises. Had to move up here." Mom smiled. She taught people how to run new computer programs. The records keeping kind mostly, but she said with training she could teach just about anything. The thing was: she was awful at everything computer. She was just such a good people person she could translate actual IT technobable in to easy to understand English. Perfect for teaching experts and newbies alike.
I was less of a people person. I prefered books, weapons, and videogames to living breathing individuals. That was kinda a lie. I was desperate for friends. I had been in Gotham for two weeks, and hadn't talked to anyone except my mom and younger siblings. It was mildly distressing.
I half listened to the conversation. Mom was getting a rundown of the 'worst' places in Gotham to be in at night. Explanations of Gotham's different villains and how not to attract attention. It was interesting stuff.
Catwoman was okay to run into, if you werent a rich asshole or a security guard.
Poison Ivy was best avoided by avoiding the botanical gardens.
The Riddler was 50/50 depending on his mood. Buy a riddle book or two, was the best advice.
Anarky didn't mess with 'normal' people very much. The lady said she actually had a nice debate with him once.
Killer Croc was easy to avoid as long as you stayed out of the sewers.
Penguin, Black Mask, and the Falcones would only mess up people who crossed them. It was best to stay uninvolved.
At all costs avoid the Scarecrow, Harly Quinn, or the Joker.
This lady sounded like she knew what was what. "You know alot about the city." I commented. "Been here awhile?"
"Since forever it seems like." She told me. "I'm Doctor Thomkins. I run a clinic in Crime Alley." I shook her hand. Even in the country I knew the kind of place Crime Alley was. This middle aged Doctor had to have the nerves of a combat medic to run a free clinic in such a place.
"I'm Lee Michaels." I introduced myself. I got a strange look. It was the Asian name with the white face and blond hair. "Yeah, Dad's a Marine. He named me after a corpsman that saved his life." The doctor snorted.
"I knew a guy named Jane for the same reason." She told me in a conspirtitorial tone. "He's a Doctor, absolute worst bedside manner you've ever seen. I think it's because every dude that needed a colonoscopy picked him to do it because they thought he was a girl." Mom laughed. I snorted.
The line seemed to move much faster as we chatted with Dr. Thomkins. Eventually we made it to third in line. I checked my watch, twenty minutes till close. I nodded. Sweet.
The flatscreen TV that had been playing some cooking show switched to an emergency news broadcast. "Reports are coming in that Joker has escaped from Arkham Asylum approximately twenty minutes ag-" The chanoel went away in a wash of static. The cooking channel didn't come back on either.
I was barely able to catch the flare of an explosion out the window. A lime green explosion. "Where's the transmitter tower for that station." I asked.
"The other side of town, in the Cauldron." Our apartment was about half a mile from GCPD headquarters. Far away from the the explosion. I sighed with a bit of relief. My little siblings are safe.
"Excuse me." The bank manager had a megaphone. "I'm sorry everyone, but due to the emergency situation the bank will be closing immedi-"
A single shot rang out. The Manager looked down at his chest confused. His grey business suit darkened with blood.
He collapsed. People started screaming.
I pulled my mom and Dr. Thomkins down to a crouch just as a burst of automatic fire quieted everyone. I looked at the eight armed men who had just entered the bank. They wore leather jackets over hoodies, the hoods dyed a bright red and they all wore full face masks, also red.
"The Red Hood Gang." Thomkins whispered.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm just a humble bank robber," one of the men announced to the crowd. "I don't particularily care for murder, so as long as no one does anything stupid nobody else will die."
"These guys are smart. I think they wait for Joker to breaks out to distract Batman before robbing a place." Dr. Thompkins whispered.
"Okay everone. I'm only going to ask once. Everyone will form a line and put their phones in a bag my associate is holding. After that everyone will sit in a corner while we gather the bank's money. No one else has to die today." This line moved far faster than the line for the teller.
I calmly walked past the man, tossing my Galaxy S7 Edge into the bag. Mom followed close behind me, also tossing her phone in the beg, Dr Thompkins did to. The tellers were ushered into the line too.
"Boss! Someone tripped the silent alarm." One of the gang members shouted out. Rifles leveled at the tellers.
"Well. That is unfortunate." The leader spoke up. "Whoever pushed the button is responsible for five lives." The leader pointed at random people, including my mom.
His men pushed them against the wall then cleared out. The leader changed magazines in his rifle, a G36C some part of my mind coughed up despite the horror I was feeling, and brought it to his shoulder. Tauntingly sweeping the barrel across the five hostages, like he couldn't decide which end to start with.
Dr. Thomkins put her hand on my shoulder, and squeezed tight. I closed my eyes.
To hell with keeping it a secret.
My fingers bent into shapes that had been long practiced since before I had these powers. Ox-Rabbit-Snake, I opened my eyes. Everything froze, or it seemed to. It was like putting on glasses for the first time. Or the difference between 480p and 1080 Ultra HD. And everything was in slow motion. Everything except me.
Sharingan. I could see the red eyes in the reflection in a mirror eighty feet away, with perfect detail. The single comma like tomoe in each eye spun lazily around my pupil.
Lightning flared into existance with a screach.
I vanished, or it seemed like I did. In reality I moved fast enough the ordinary untrained human eye couldn't track. I stood next to the leader of the gang. My lightning encased hand cut down through the German made rifle like a warm knife through butter, right in front of the trigger but behind the magazine. The rifle was permanently disabled. My other hand simply curled into a fist and followed through. It smashed into the ballistic armor the bank robbor wore under his clothes. The ceramic plate shattered and the man flew twenty feet, and slid across the nice tile another ten feet before stopping. A few of his ribs might have broken.
One down, seven to go.
Three men had their rifles slung, hands digging in the drawer cash at the tellers' stations, anther two men had both rifles on the floor as they worked over a small computer connected by several wires into the wall just beside the vault, obviously trying to open the vault. The last two were still had their rifles down, but were starting to bring them up.
I raised the lightning wrapped hand, time to stack the deck even more in my favor. I flared the lighting as much as I could. "Chidori!" The bank went dark. My eyes adjusted instantly, I barely noticed the difference. My vision was perfectly fine in the dark. I took the opertunity to pull up my hood. Despite it being August, Gotham's nights were best weathered with a hoodie.
Two thirds of my chakra gone in a single move. Normally I could do a Chidori about five times before total, pass out exhaustion. Instead I overcharged it. The surge of lighting creating an EMP like effect. Wiping both cameras and the lights in a single move.
I vanished again, appearing behind the two who were still bringing their rifles up. I simply smashed their heads together. Chakra enhancement, and my own strength made it easy.
I had to take a breath. Moving that fast wasn't easy.
One of the computer experts had his rifles raised. I dashed over there, I was noticably slower. Instead of vanising and reappearing, I was simply blurring. A high kick landed in his masked face, he smacked into the wall. The other one swung his rifle like a club, I dropped into a spin. His shin broke with a sickening crack.
"Shoot the hostages!" The leader wheezed from his prone position on the floor. I hesitated.
The three robbers who had been gathering the drawer cash, raised rifles. There was more than forty people bunched up there! A single bullet could hit four or five people.
I vanished again, faster than I ever had before. I appeared in a crouch in front of the mass of hostages. In slow motion I saw the first trigger pull back, a flash, and in the flare of fire that came out the muzzle, I could see the bullet.
My fingers danced, Tiger-Rabbit-Boar-Dog then slammed into the ground, "Mud Wall!" I screamed, my voice hoarse. The Mud Wall was just about as tiring as a Chidori. I was certain Doton wasn't my nature affinity.
A solid yard of hardened Earth rose up infront of me. It reached a solid height of about eight feet and more than thirty foot long. More than enough to cover me and all the hostages.
I stayed crouched until the deafening barrage of automatic fire cut to a halt, there were three seperate clatters, close enough to almost be one solid sound. Empty magazines. I leapt. There was a four foot gap, between the top of the Mud Wall and the balcony overhead. More than enough space.
I had to flip to land feet first, but I landed feet first just in front of the middle shooter. He screamed, dropping the magazine he had just been about to slam into the G36C. I snatched his wrist still holding the gun, and squeezed. I didn't stop squeezing till I felt something pop. Then I shoulder checked him. He flew back into a wall.
I grabbed the man on the left and swung him like a baseball bat into the man on the right. They weren't getting up anytime soon.
The leader had gotten up, a revolver held in his hand. "Don't move freak." The large caliber pistol shakily pointed in my direction, and he was barely standing, his other hand cradling his ribs.
He fired, the bullet moved in slow motion.
A Chidori flared into existance in my left hand. It chirped once.
The bullet moved closer. The Chidori chirped again.
I charged forward, swung and continued towards the man.
I aimed to cut the bullet in half, the result however, was more like me disentigrating the bullet.
I cut his revolver in half, careful not to hit any bullets and potentially set them off. I've cut appart many things while practicing the Chidori, but I hadn't seen what it would do to a bullet.
The blazing Chidori paused in front of his throat. My hand shook.
I could kill him. Perhaps I should. He would've killed my mother.
Mom wouldn't like that though.
I'm better than him.
I pressed the Chidori to his chest, letting the electricity flow.
There was a kerzap, a smell of ozone and singed hair, and a yelp. He passed out.
I sighed. Fighting like that was tiring, and stressful. I jogged to the Mud Wall, and swiped my Chidori though it. The Mud Wall collapsed, and my Chidori sputtered and died like a mower that had run out of gas.
"Alright everybody, go home." I announced in a voice that seemed powerful. Or at least I hope it did, I was almost to tired to care.
The crowd swarmed past me, they were almost as scared of me as they were of the bank robbers. Something nasty wormed its way into my gut.
Doctor Thomkins stopped right by me and leaned in close, "I won't tell anyone." She had disappeared into the crowd by the time I had turned. I was thankful for that.
My mom came up next to me, "We're lucky that hero came in when he did." She told me. I wasn't sure if she hadn't recognized it as me, if she was pretending to have not noticed, or if she was refusing to believe it. That awful feeling in my stomach tripled.
"Yeah. Lucky."
NANANANANA
"Master Bruce, you can come home. The situation at the bank is resolved. GCPD have already taken custody of the Red Hood Gang."
"Explain." Batman barked. Resolved could be any number of things, all the hostages could be dead. Robin tensed beside him. He looked worried, but he had grasped that this wasn't the time to make a joke. Maybe he was still dealing with the horror of dealing with the Joker. Batman knew he was more brutal to the criminals he fought, and more caustic to his allies after dealing with the maniac. The Batmobile sped up, slaughtering the speed limit rather than just murdering it.
"It appears that while the robbery was taking a place, one of the civilians was a meta-human. An unknown meta-human." Alfred needed to work on his delivery. Batman was only growing more tense with each new tidbit of information.
Batman internally cursed, a rookie hero, especially one with powers could have gotten civilians killed. If there was a single death, even if it was an accident, Batman would bring the well intentioned person in. "Casualties?" Batman asked roughly. He noticed Robin tense.
"Zero amongst the civilians, sir. Eight would be bank robers in the hospital, the worst with a pair of broken ribs. No deaths. There seems to be a power outage at the bank and the adjoining buildings. The Justice League satalite data shows an energy reading very similar to an EMP." Batman eased up on the accelerator but continued to the bank. The meta-human was very lucky.
"The banks standard cameras were victims of the EMP, three of your cameras however managed to withstand the pulse. I have the footage ready for your review when you return to the cave." Batman frowned. Alfred could transmit the footage to the Batmobile, or even to the holo-projector on his gauntlet if his oldest friend was worried about his driving and wanted to wait for him to stop.
In Batman's personal ear comm. the butlers voice continued. "Might I remind you that tonight is a school night." Batman glanced at Robin. He knew the boy could go for days if required, but it wasn't required now. Batman checked the clock, it was approaching one in the moring.
Batman spun the Batmobile around, towards the cave. Towards home. Dick sighed in relief, and collapsed into his seat.
"Alfred, have the footage ready for review on my tablet, me and Dick will go over it during breakfast."
It was barely noticeable, but there was a slight edge of approval in Alfred's tone.
Bruce smiled.
NANANANANA
Bruce Wayne had been up since four. He had reviewed the footage ten times, gone over Lee Michael's file twenty times, and tore through Olivia Michael's (the meta's mother) file seven times. He had checked the files on the boys two siblings (Caleb [12] and Angela [10]) twice. Each. The vigilante crashed into the seat at the table. Even Alfred's best breakfast wasn't pulling him out of his mood.
It was just that the boy's powers were so, damn, familiar. He had gone through the files of every single meta-human he knew of (which was a lot) to check for similar powers, but he hadn't found a single match. Bruce just couldn't figure it out.
"Having trouble Master Bruce." The butler asked while placing a full plater infront of an almost asleep Dick Grayson. The boy blindly reached for a fork. He perked up immediatly when he got some food in his mouth. The boy started shoveling food into his mouth
"Lee's powers. There's something familiar about them. I can't figure out what it is." Bruce explained as he stabbed an egg with his fork.
The butler shrugged, "Perhas Master Richard will know something."
Bruce looked to Dick, the boy placed a heaping fork into his mouth and made a rapid grabbing motion with his free hand, it was a motion that could only be translated as 'gimme.' Bruce sighed, and slid the tablet to the acrobat.
Dick watched the video from the begining, about a minute before the gang had entered the bank. Bruce admired the boy's focus, Dick Grayson was motivated. Bruce had the video memorized down to the second, so he immediatly caught on to when the Lee's hand exploaded with electricity, Dick was in full Robin mode. Dick paused the video, rewound it, and zoomed in. He patiently waited for the image to enhance.
The boy choked, coughed and spit. Half chewed egg hit the table, and Dick coughed again. Bruce was on his feet about to help the boy when Dick shook his head. He sucked in air and tapped the screen a few times. "Sharingan. Chidori." Dick rasped, and then coughed some more. "Naruto." Dick slid the tablet back to Bruce.
Bruce recognized Naruto as an anime. One that Dick didn't watch very much. He looked down towards the screen, it was zoomed up on Lee's face. Dick had looped the video and had slowed it down. Lee closed his eyes, blue Bruce absently noticed, and then opened them. The eyes were a glowing red, with a comma drifting around the pupil.
Dick regained his breath. "Some Naruto weeb got superpowers." He stated it like it was a crime equal to causing the apocalypse.
Alfred started to clean up the bits of egg. His shoulders shaking in repressed laughter, "I thought Master Richard would recognize it."