Grey Area Ch. 1
Reunion
Monokrome stood on the roof of the Wayne Enterprises building in the center of Gotham City, his tattered cape flowing in the wind. All around him, Gotham was a war-zone. A couple miles to his left, a squad of Brainiac's incursion bots fought in vain against the exobyte victims in order to put them back in their pods, while to his right, a brownish-green haze covered a few city blocks where Scarecrow was attempting to take advantage of the chaos by gassing the surrounding area. Monokrome sighed. Just another night in Gotham City.
Monokrome was an imposing figure. He was six feet tall and his broad-shouldered frame was concealed beneath a black suit covered in light grey pieces of what some described as "future cop body armor", with the exception of his gauntlets, which had a more organic look to them sporting two curved spikes on the sides. A tattered cape hung from his shoulders and his head was concealed beneath a black helmet sporting two "bat ears" coming from the side, the telltale sign of a hero under Batman's teachings.
Normally Monokrome would be out with his fellow heroes, fighting tooth and nail to repel Brainiac's forces until everything went back to normal, but when you're a deputy member of the Justice League, you have to do what the League says, and tonight, Monokrome was put on Chaos Patrol, or as they called it in the water-room, 'Thug Duty'. Thug Duty was a rotary duty that had the unlucky hero patrolling around the city looking for petty criminals hoping to take advantage of the ensuing chaos, muggers, thieves, thugs, and the lot. It was very demeaning work, but someone had to do it.
Monokrome checked the radar in his helmet's heads-up display one more time to see if there were any persons-of-ill-will around. Finding none, he glided to the next sector to scan again.
Being a cop in the GCPD, Monokrome, then known as Detective Richard Grare, was frequently granted his wish for excitement and adventure, but his personal quest for justice was usually left starving. While the GCPD was by no means incompetent, it seemed only criminals brought in by the Bat family had any charges stick to them, although Grare had always suspected that their method of evidence gathering was on the other side of the legal line. The only arrest Grare had ever had that ended in a guilty verdict was one of Falcone's hitmen, Victor Hashan, but that had been pure luck. It wasn't until the Brainiac Invasion as well as the exobyte infestation that he had ever felt that he made a difference in the world.
Monokrome was interrupted from his reminiscence by a red dot appearing on his radar, indicating a silent alarm being triggered. Monokrome tracked it to the roof of a nearby building where a thug was trying to pick the lock. Monokrome smiled beneath his helmet. He pulled his bone-hilt katana from his back and walked up behind the would-be thief. The thug in question noticed the shadow a second too late and turned around just in time to be smacked across the face by the flat of the blade. The poor guy never stood a chance.
He stayed conscious just long enough to groan at the black and white hero standing above him.
"Can't a guy catch a break?" he spat.
"Never," Monokrome said as he snapped cuffs around his wrists and a beacon in his pocket. The police would pick up the petty criminal once they got a signal from the beacon and haul him off to jail.
"Stuck with thug duty tonight, Monokrome?"
Monokrome turned around just to see a woman in a black trench coat and red shirt flying towards him with red mechanical wings, her eyes glowing bright white.
"It would seem so, Sachel," Monokrome responded, "What brings you to Gotham? I thought Superman had your schedule full for the whole week."
The hero known as Sachel sighed, brushing her short black hair out of her eyes, "He did, but Metallo is not near as troublesome when none of his circuits are connected."
Monokrome nodded. The Man of Steel must have been crazy to think woman nicknamed the Angel of Technology would have any trouble with a robotic opponent. He must have been testing her.
"So what brings you here?"
Another sigh, "Apparently the Joker is warring at Bane again, but all of Batman's protégés are 'busy'." Monokrome the jibe fall on deaf ears. It wasn't his fault he was on Thug Duty.
Sachel smiled, "So with my schedule clear for the rest of the week, I volunteered to go in. Who knows, maybe I'll end up getting a trophy for myself." Sachel said this while eying Monokrome's belt, which he had taken from Bane after he and Nightwing had taken him down some time ago. Being one of Monokrome's first tussles, he felt it was worth something to remember it by.
A beep on Monokrome's helmet pointed him to a car alarm down the alley. Sachel smiled and lifted off.
"Duty calls," Sachel chided, "See you around, Krome boy."
Monokrome watched her go and then went after the car thief. He wasn't far, just under the train tracks two blocks away. He dropped to the ground silently, or at least as silently as armored boots would allow. The car thief was a few yards ahead, attempting to break into a red sports car with a license plate that read 'F1ASH 2'. Catchy. Monokrome crept up behind the crook, this time deciding to dispatch him with a quick mind burst. Before he could send the painful though on its path, however, the car thief whipped around and delivered a sharp uppercut to his jaw. Monokrome found himself lifted up off his feet and before landing painfully on his back. Luckily his helmet had taken most of the damage, but it had still hurt. Getting to his feet, Monokrome saw the thief had shed his street clothes to reveal a black, gray, and yellow clad being with a hooded cape, a shaded mask, and a shuriken emblem on his chest. He was one of the new villains, an exobyte victim who decided to use his newfound abilities for his own selfish needs.
The villain had tossed the crowbar aside and replaced it with two energy blaster pistols, both pointed at the fallen heroes head.
"Don't move," the villain growled. These were orders that Monokrome usually was forced to obey under gunpoint, but then again, usually never used to include Monokrome being a super-acrobat with mental powers. Monokrome sent a mental beam at the hooded figure, lifting the villain off the ground and sending a nearby trash can crashing into him. Monokrome had his katana out in an instant and swung it at the villain hard, but the shadowy figure was quick to recover and deflected it easily with his pistols. Monokrome swung his sword at the villain time and time again, but the villain was proficient in hand-to-hand combat, and parried every blow. The villain began firing at Monokrome, though whatever shot that Monokrome didn't dodge was batted aside by his blade. He swung at the villain again, but the villain was quick and he managed to roll away from the hero all the while still firing his guns.
Two bullets managed to graze Monokrome's left arm and leg, cutting through his shirt and pants and causing him to back into the car. Not giving him a chance to recover, the villain threw an explosive shuriken at the fallen hero, embedding it in the car right in front of Monokrome's face. The black-and-white clad hero had barely enough time to process the flashing object in front of him before it exploded, temporarily blinding him as the explosion clouded his mask's eye holes. He was weakened, blinded, and on the ground. Monokrome didn't have to be an expert to figure out that this was the perfect time for the villain to strike. Using the nearing footsteps as a compass, Monokrome released three telepathic blades in the villain's general direction. Two of them missed by a mile, but the center one hit the villain head on, blasting the villain right in the chest. Monokrome's vision cleared just as the villain was lifted off his feet and landed on his back hard, lying exactly the way Monokrome had only a moment earlier.
Before Monokrome had a chance to celebrate, however, the villain leaped to his feet and shot a grapple at the nearest building. He was out of sight before Monokrome had the chance to pull out his own grapple, but before he left, Monokrome noticed a white card left by the villain. He picked it up, and was shocked by what it said.
"Well fought, Detective Grare."
