A/N: Note to self, do /not/ try to spell the word "Commissioner" at 10:35 at night. I'm not as much of a night owl as I used to be, happens when your brain finishes maturing in your mid twenties, but not a good idea. Speaking of which, WTF? I've been on for over a decade and I didn't even notice? Fuck I feel old!
Also I'm working on moving and trying to get our rental company to give us a few perks during the move to our new place. To do that, I need to clean a /lot/ of crud and dishes. DAMN MINECRAFT FOR SUCKING ME IN!
For those of you who have no idea WTF an EMP pulse is, watch Doomsday preppers or the national geographic special. Or the episode of Perfect Disaster about an EMP pulse.
The three boats paused outside the descending, sparking cloud of mist with no water. One was made of living sea weed, the other two simple motor boats. And three of Batman's most perennial enemies stood, one in each craft. The outcast, half redeemed, questioning, doubting Catwoman. The former DA turned gangster, full of wrath and tortured by anger, Two Face. And finally, the fanatical and half deluded self proclaimed avenger of the environment, Poison Ivy. The three of them stood around equidistant points of the cloud. "So..." Two Face started the conversation. "What are you two doing here?" The sneer on his evil side's face instantly put Catwoman on guard. Her gaze flicked to Poison Ivy.
The redhead cast her a glance. She'd seen the sneer too. Two Face wasn't being polite, he was sizing them up.
"I want to investigate this strange cloud. I heard some pretty weird rumors coming out of Metropolis about a similar one." Catwoman replied, tensing up a bit. She knew Two Face's reputation. He was pretty damn dangerous.
"I want samples, its making the seaweed under it grow pretty large. The fish underneath it are going crazy too." Poison Ivy pointed downwards.
Faint blue glows of bioluminescence illuminated fish darting back and forth in thick schools, snapping up bits of the seaweed, which grew back just as fast as it was consumed.
"Anything that can make a plant grow that fast, I want it." Poison Ivy said with a sneer. "What's it to a big strapping man like you Harvey? Scared somebody's gonna use it to make you even /more/ ugly than you are?"
Two Face had been flipping his coin in his hand as he spoke. Catwoman saw him move in slow motion.
"Lets see... who should I shoot first." Two face mused. "The Bat's pining fangirl, torn between the under world and the over world... or the bitch who nearly poisoned me to death... the choice is so hard." Oh shit, that was right. Catwoman realized, vaguely remembering Bruce mentioning the incident. Poison Ivy had made her debut in the Gotham Underworld by trying to poison Harvey Dent to death with a rare rose.
Catwoman's hand moved to the motor's pull cord and the rudder. Her eyes tracked the coin and Two Face's movements in slow motion. It landed. "heheheheheh, here kitty kitty kitty..." Two Face grinned enormously. He brought a beretta semi automatic pistol up and aimed it at Catwoman.
BANG! Catwoman had started the motor the instant Two Face had tightened his finger on the trigger. The bullet missed her head by an inch. The motor lurched forward, Catwoman's vision was temporarily obscured by the cloud as it came within feet of the water now. In the boat, Isis meowed in fear, pressing against her legs.
Then she blew out of the cloud towards Two Face, brought her cat of nine tails up, CRACK! The beretta went flying into the water. CRACK! A second shot with the cat o nine tails sent a double barreled shot gun flying out of the boat as well.
CRUNCH! Two enormous tentacles of seaweed snatched at Two Face's boat. Poison Ivy's hands were outstretched towards them. She made a grasping motion with one hand and a smacking motion with the other.
"Get him Red! Show him what for!" Harley was chewing her nails to nubs from her cell in sheer excitement as she watched the fight. "GET 'EM!"
"The fuck is your problem?" She heard Nygma grumbling on the floor above her.
"Hey Ed! Hey ED! Look out the window!" Harley's accent got thicker in her excitement, so 'window' came out 'winduh.'
"Holy!" Riddler had the common sense that Harley, too caught up in the fight, did not. "GUARD! There's a fight out in the harbor!"
"There's a WHAT?" The Guard was at her station at the end of the hall. Harley heard footsteps. "Holy... someone's gonna need a doctor after this!" Bootfalls echoing away and the guard's shout of "DOC! DOOOOOOOCCCC!"
"What are you yelling for at this time of night?" Doctor Bartholomew, the head doctor at Arkham Asylum came down to the main prisoner floor in his pajamas and doctor's coat.
"Look out the window Bart! Look at that!"
"WHAT? Oh damnit, get our emergency room ready. Someone's gonna need it with /this/ going on. If its not those three it will be Batman."
"I don't think we've ever been this close to an actual medical emergency." The guard was saying. "I'm a prison guard not a cop!"
"Get a stretcher ready, Matt will relieve you! Joseph! Maria!"
Harley called up to Riddler as the footsteps died away. "Why'd you do that? You know Red will give Two Face a womping and everything will be fine!"
"I don't know about that. That cloud is an enormous unknown in this puzzle. For all we know it could be explosive and send a gigantic fireball across the harbor. We're stuck in these cells and while the walls are stone, and thus blast resistant, I've seen them give under far less pressure than a firey shockwave from the harbor." which Harley supposed was true. How many times had she and Mister J blasted themselves out of Arkham with far less firepower at their disposal? Suddenly Harley felt much, much less confident in the safety and security of her position.
Two Face was flung from the boat, the turbulence made the second tentacle miss and knock the motor off of the boat Two face had been thrown from. The gangster went flying up into the cloud, easily fifty feet. He turned midair, going into a dive so he didn't belly flop. So clearly he would attack again if he got a chance. Catwoman had no doubt. He must have trained for combat in a boat, how else would he know that a belly flop would knock the air clean out of him and possibly end in him drowning?
Then there was a sudden downdraft. Lightning surged around the boat Catwoman was in, pale blue lightning. Isis screeched in fear at her feet.
Two Face's hand, the evil one, shot up from the water. The good one grabbed the boat, the evil one reached in, fumbled around, and came up with a hand grenade. "You bitches are going down with me! Hey PAMMY! CATCH!" He roared, throwing the grenade at Poison Ivy.
Poison Ivy snickered. "BATTER UP! Didn't anybody ever tell you how good I am at /softball/ Harv?" Poison Ivy used seaweed to crack the Grenade as high into the sky as she could. "Looks like I just hit a home run, this is why women are soooo superior to..."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The massive explosion, Isis' terrified shriek of warning, Poison Ivy's manic laughter as she attempted to continue her fight with Two Face in the wake of the hell she'd accidentally unleashed, these were the last things Catwoman heard.
"RED! YEAH YOU DID IT!" Harley cheered. Suddenly the clock radio in her cell, reading two thirty six am, fizzled out. The shockwaves of lightning rippled off the cloud. A huge burst of pale blue light shot into Gotham harbor.
Batman's head shot up in the Batmobile, locating the epicenter of the blast immediately. He gunned the ignition on the Batmobile only...
… the Batmobile was slowly gliding to a halt.
Penguin sat up in bed, his ears twitched slightly. Something was wrong. He grabbed his umbrella and crept to the kitchen, where the absence and wrongness seemed to be. Then he realized...
… the 'wrong' was the refrigerator not working. No familiar hum. Nothing. No lights outside, no appliance idle lights on items like the microwave, the coffee maker. Penguin flipped the kitchen light... nothing!
Commissioner Gordon's phone went off in his den where he'd finally crashed after an overload of paperwork stemming from the Apocalipse invasion. He'd picked it up. "Hello?"
"JIM! AT THE HARBOR! THREE OF THE ROGUES IN A BIG FI..." The phone stopped working. It had been Doctor Bartholomew though. And he sounded very, very panicked.
Then he looked outside. Across the city nighttime lights were flicking off in a /wave/ on the heals of the pale blue shockwave. "oh my god... BARB! BARBARA GET UP NOW!" He ran for his daughter's room.
"Daddy? I have finals next week." Barbara Gordon raised her head from the pillow. "What's wrong..."
"Get your emergency bag, stay under cover and wait for my signal and for gods sake be ARMED!"
"What's wrong?"
"A fight in the harbor, and its bad enough to..."
"... cut off the electrical grid." Riddler sighed. "oh boy, this isn't good at all. That shockwave must have let off an EMP."
"A what?" Harley demanded.
"An electromagnetic pulse!" A lightning wreathed teenage figure had been heading for a prepositioned meeting point. The voice in the radio was another teen. "It looks like your training with Batman might be postponed Virgil."
"Why?"
"Because right now, nothing made in Gotham after nineteen sixty is WORKING! AND ITS GONNA BE ABSOLUTE CHA..." the radio cut out.
"Please tell me the word that got cut off wasn't Chaos." Static muttered as he started searching the city for some sign of Batman.
"The generator..." Penguin moved to a hidden compartment in the wall and tried to rev up his emergency generator.
Nothing, no dice. Nothing happened.
"no computer, no cell phone, no lights, no clocks... WHAT THE FUCK IS WORKING HERE?" Barbara demanded in frustration. She started jabbing at her Bat communicator. "WHAATTTT? BUT BATMAN'S GADGETS DON'T BREAK LIKE THIS!"
"The whole city is going dark..." The female guard, Maria looked around in shock.
"Yes, but it also makes /that/ easier to see!" Doctor Bartholomew pointed out into the water.
An enormous glowing purple mass was swimming towards them.
Maria raised her gun... only for a deep, anguished meeeooooww to sound from the deeply rich purple mass.
The enormous, glowing purple cat rose shakily out of the water, spreading enormous black bat wings. A shinto shrine rope was wrapped around its neck in place of a collar, shrine bells standing up behind her and the rice paper tassles flapping about in the breeze, perfectly dry despite the fact that the cat was soaked. Tall, graceful, enormous rippling muscles in every sinew, it raised itself up, mewling like a much smaller animal. The tail, split in two with the webbing of a bat's tail between the two tails, lashed back and forth and the cat's ears were flat against its head. The animal mewled piteously again and gently pulled the glowing, black spandex and leather clad figure from its back.
Catwoman fell to the ground, coughing up sea water. A huge, purplish black panther like aura stood out around her, with outsized claws and her costume had formed a split cat tail which twitched as if under its own power.
"Get her inside! Selena dear can you hear me? Get her in the isolation ward don't lock her up just let her rest!" Bartholomew knew enough about Meta humans now to know a fresh mutation when he saw one. Sure enough when he pulled her mask off, Catwoman had cat ears and claws.
"Any sign of Red, Ed?"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Riddler hissed. "and i'm not looking, I'm going to try to go back to sleep because if I watch much more my brain is going to keep me awake ALL NIGHT!" That was a common complaint with the Riddler when he saw something going on in the harbor that caught his attention. HIs brain typically would not leave him alone for hours.
The stretcher rolling in alerted them both. Unable to sleep still, Harley peered outside her window. She saw the pale, glowing, greenish blue mass of seaweed moving surreptitiously towards the shore and realized Poison Ivy must be in or under it somehow.
"Good goin red, show that guy what for." Harley whispered, rolling over and trying to go to bed.
"You're going to be alright Selena, if the powers on again I'll call Batman in the morning."
"It won't be doc..." Riddler grumbled.
"What won't be Edward?"
"The power. That was an EMP that cloud let off. Anything in Gotham made post nineteen sixty is toasted. The grid's gonna take years to fix. Hope you got a hand pump for the water and a spot picked out for your outhouse."
Batman knew from the position of the stars that Barbara was nearest. He took out his grappling hook, aimed at the nearest rooftop, and took off.
Barbara had just gotten changed and was crawling out her window with her emergency bag when Batman arrived. "Hey, good to see you. Dad ran off for the harbor just as the stuff hit. What's going on?"
"An EMP let off by a fight directly under that cloud in the harbor. Your father's probably going to stop at the police stables first. With the grid down and cars not working he's going to need a horse to get to the harbor before morning."
"I didn't know dad could ride."
"He probably can't." Batman stated didactically.
Batman was right. When they slipped into the stables they heard. "hey there Betty, easy easy!" And angry snorting and stomping.
"You forgot the blanket and your straps are twisted." An emergency flare burst to life and Batman's face was illuminated in the red flame.
"How'd you know where to find me?"
"The logical choice commissioner, when an EMP blast strong enough to take out the batmobile hits, every police car in the city is likely out."
"made sense to us!" A pair of emergency candles bobbed into view. It was Montoya and Bullock, moving cautiously in the dark.
Batgirl snorted. "i'll bet Bull in a China Shop Bullock can't ride either." She couldn't help sticking out her tongue at Bullock.
"But I can. We'll get these horses saddled up and ready to go by 0600 commish." Montoya told Gordon. "Just get riding."
"We've got to get to the harbor. I'll need a standard forensic kit and a signal whistle."
"I recommend a first aid kit and a feed bag while you're at it. Most officers aren't used to a squad car they have to feed, comfort and pet. For the duration of the emergency Commish Black Betty over there is your best friend and your lifeline as an officer." Montoya was rifling through the chests in the stables with ease of practice. "Now, you've got that saddle cinched too tight. Let /me/ tack up your mounts."
"I'll help, I'm really good at riding." Batgirl got started alongside her.
"Good, we need all these horses ready to go. Odds are the mounted police corps will be in by morning to get to work, maybe a few before then."
Tim Drake slept fitfully in his bed at Wayne Manor, while Yoruichi watched the skies and the lights emanating from the harbor. "This isn't good." Yoruichi spoke her first words in fourty eight hours. Yoruichi debated briefly to herself as to whether or not she should try to wake up Timothy, clearly he was a protector of the city and would be needed very soon. But if "Shadow" became too smart, would Batman begin to question whether she was really a cat?
"Meeeoooooow!" Coming to a decision, Yoruichi started up a cat's solicitation purr (1) and started licking Timothy's face.
"Nnnngggg..." The boy rolled over.
"Meeeooooooooooooooooo!" Yoruichi yowled urgently.
Tim rolled over, Yoruichi sweatdropped. "This kid sleeps like the DEAD." Yoruichi cursed quietly. "What is it with teenagers and sleeping like rocks?"
"RAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!" Yoruichi yowled and dug her claws into Tim's shoulder.
"yaaaaaaaaaaah!" Yoruichi had to dodge the batarang or whatever the bird thingies were, yowling in fear.
"Huh?" Tim turned, looking out the window, blinking sleepily.
"Meow!" Yoruichi hopped up onto the windowsill and pawed at the window. "meeeooorrrr!" She started purring and rubbing against Tim's shoulder.
"What's wrong Shadow?"
"Mrrooooww!" The waves of pale blue light, massive shockwaves of reishi, emanated out from the harbor.
"Oh boy! I'll get my suit!"
Tim ran down the hallway. "DICK! ALFRED! LOOK OUTSIDE! GET YOUR SUIT DICK!" The boy pelted down the hallway at top speed and started pounding on Dick Greyson's bedroom door.
"urrggg, what is it Tim?"
"Look out the window Dick! Something's wrong at the harbor!"
Alfred was already pulling on his coat. "Master Dick, Master Tim, suit up. Master Bruce will be needing a mount. As will many people."
"Do we /really/ have a Bat Horse?" Tim's imagination was running wild with images of horses with bat wings and imposing armor and glowing red eyes.
"Yes we do Master Timothy, his name is Duke. Master Dick, you'll be leading Duke. He knows we have to get him to Master Bruce, he'll run side saddle with you."
Yoruichi meowed and rubbed between Tim's ankles. "Shadow, you shouldn't come. This will be dangerous."
"Meeooow!" Yoruichi insisted on following Tim. She needed to get a good look at the source of that Reishi. She was the only shinigami on scene and her membership in the omnikitsudo had been reinstated. That meant she had to respond to potential spiritual threats, alternate universe or not.
The two boys ran off to get changed. Alfred picked up Yoruichi. "So you want to go too Shadow? Well then." He gently pressed a mask onto Yoruichi's face and gave her a collar with a bird shaped bell on it. Then he strapped a harness with a first aid kit and a robin bird icon on it around her chest. Yoruichi preened smugly, but the final touch, the rich roan red horse with the red saddle and red basket attached to the side, had her settling down for the ride with a purr.
Robin and Nightwing ran out of the changing room. "Right, there's one here each for Batgirl and Batman, Nightwing, you need to drive these horses to Batman, and be careful. With cars not working nearly everyone in the city will be wanting a horse soon." Alfred said quietly. "I've got an emergency ration pack for you each with a flare gun. Godspeed, and remember, all communications, all cars, all signal lights, anything that runs on electricity is not functioning."
"Kalel... get up..." J'on shook Superman in his bed on the Watchtower's senior officer deck, gently nudging the kryptonian's mind.
"nnnggg... gimme a minute J'on, what is it?"
"A mass burst of energy from the cloud above Gotham Harbor. The surge caused an EMP and there's still lightning appearing in bursts in the city. Satilites picked up a three way brawl between Poison Ivy, Two Face and Catwoman. Catwoman was injured, she washed up on the shores of Arkham Island. Two Face and Poison Ivy's whereabouts are unknown."
Superman swore. "I need a few minutes to wake up, contact Amanda Waller and warn her of the power outage. Then have fresh emergency generators sent to Gotham's hospitals and start getting emergency supplies loaded into the javelins and ready to roll. THEN get as many magic using or psychic or spirit using types as you can. We'll need all the tech types we can to assess the damage. Leave the magic users, psychics, ecetera to help out in the city."
"Alright..." J'on fazed through the ceiling in his haste to follow Superman's orders.
Mister Terrific and Booster Gold were the first to be awakened. Then Zatanna, Etrigan, Fate was planetside but he sent a message to get to Gotham with as many relief supplies as he could carry. Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman were next. And finally, feeling an elemental a non meta and one more flier would round out their group nicely, Fire, Vigilante and Shining Knight.
"All we know is it came from one of the clouds that Zatanna and Etrigan were studying, it happened following a fight between three of Batman's rogues gallery /and/ Gotham currently has no power. Booster, Terrific, your technical skills will be critical. You're to lay low and assess the damage to the power system. Do whatever good deeds you can while your boots are on the ground but your primary objective is to find out what barriers it would be to get the power running. Shining Knight, you and Vigilante go to the mayor's office and alert him to what's happened. Zatanna, Etrigan, I need to figure out exactly how a wave of spirit energy coming from that cloud could create an EMP. Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, be polite, this /is/ Batman's city you'll be working in. See if you can find volunteers willing to help. Check churches and shelters. Fire, you need to put every area hospital, fire station and police station on alert. Get emergency responders OUT OF BED. And be very careful, remember, in Gotham the criminals far outnumber law enforcement."
J'on stepped onto the platform with the others, and signaled the late night tech to teleport them to Gotham.
Yoruichi kept her ears alert from Robin's saddlebag, senses too. Whenever something potentially hazardous was sighted, she'd yowl.
"HEY DOWN THERE!" A voice shouted down. The birds were just starting to sing, indicating to Yoruichi that it was likely somewhere between 3 and 5 in the morning. Not that you could tell if the sun was coming up. The mist was thick over Gotham.
Robin and Nightwing looked up at the balcony. "Heh, Penguin! What woke you up?"
"My fridge went out."
"With your knees lately Penguin, I'm surprised the pain didn't wake you up! you'd better either find one of your old hideouts and bolt the door shut behind you or get that Model T you've been crowing over for two whole months out and get out of dodge!" Nightwing called up to the portly, birdlike man in his nightgown on the balcony. "It might get rough around here come morning."
"Is that so? How bad is it?"
"Real bad, it could take months to fix Penguin." Nightwing answered up.
"Meeooow?" Yoruichi poked her head up, studying the man.
"Heh, you got a bird cat did you Robin? Here, got something for the pretty kitty." Penguin ducked inside his apartment for a moment and tossed a fish, about six inches long and wrapped in butcher's paper, down. "It will go bad with the power out anyway. Better to not let it go to waste."
Robin caught the fish, prying the package open for Yoruichi, who started to nibble bits off, purring happily.
"Wow, Penguin really must be getting old if he's giving /our/ animals food." Robin snickered as they rode off.
"aw he's just depressed because his knees got to bad to pull off robberies anymore. Didn't you hear? He's gonna need prosthetic ones at the rate he's going. Now he's stuck being a bar tender. That said, Penguin's really good at listening to sob stories. Went to the Iceburg lounge after my last girlfriend broke up with me. He treated me to wine, had to pay for the meal but the wine was good and it was free." Nightwing chuckled.
Yoruichi blinked, realizing the man must be a retired thief. Ah well, getting old must suck immensely for humans.
She kept crouched, ears alert and perked while she nibbled her fish. It didn't take long for most of it to be gone. Yoruichi gulped the last bit of flesh and then started on the eyes. It had been gutted already, which was fortunate as Robin's nice clean saddle basket would be soiled if it still had guts. But...
"aaauuug, SHADOOOW!" Robin plucked up the nearly stripped fish and tossed it out into a nearby garbage can. "Thats GROSS!"
Yoruichi was rather peeved, in some countries the eyes of an animal were a delicacy. They tended to be primarily fluid, meaning that eating them could help stave off dehydration by just a mite, and they were soft enough to eat if you were ill. Yes, animal eyes were rather useful in a pinch. And hadn't he ever heard of the nose to tail movement?
"Thats the harbor. Look at that!" Nightwing pointed to the undulating glowing seaweed on the beach. A huge mass of it in the shape of a person lay in the center. The seaweed was glowing with the pale blue slimy sparking stuff.
"Robin hold the leads." Nightwing cautiously got down, pulling a pair of Nth metal cuffs out and readying them just in case Poison Ivy had somehow been supercharged.
Then the seaweed slithered back into the water, withdrawing and Poison Ivy, glowing pale blue on the ground, lay there coughing. Nightwing got the handcuffs on Ivy and gave her a 24 ounce bottle of water and a couple of granola bars. Then he chained her to the lifeguard station, the plant user glowered at him before laying back in the sand and getting some seriously needed rest. She had electricity wounds anyway. Ivy was more sore right then than she'd ever been in her life.
Nightwing and Robin rode along the mist covered beach, searching for Batman and possibly Batgirl. The mist was cloud matter, not regular mist, and it was spreading. "NIGHTWING!" The shout went up. That was Commisioner Gordon, he looked left, then right, and there he saw the commisioner crouched over a soggy, soaking wet, handcuffed and dazed Two Face. The gangster was wearing some kind of strange armor, vaguely resembling a chess piece, a black bishop and a white knight seemed to form the helmet of the arrangement. Simple black and white plates formed the rest. A roman short sword and infantry shield had been tossed a few feet away up the beach.
"Batman ran off into the mist to get something." Batgirl came from the direction of the water, dragging an enormous glowing stretch of seaweed. "I found this at the battle site. Its bull kelp, and its /seriously/ mutated. This density change is too fast for poison ivy. Her power takes /days/ to mutate a plant. This took hours. I'd say its almost as strong as kevlar." She pulled out a batarang and tried to slash a sample off. She managed to get a few pieces till she came to the pod that usually held the seeds of the kelp. It glowed brilliant blue. Batgirl threw it away from her just in time, it went off with about the strength and noise of a cherry bomb.
"We should watch for poison ivy trying one of those." Robin grinned. "Perfect for an explosive distraction." He bent down to investigate the odd sword. "hey, there's blue slime on this shield..." He pulled out a sample vial and took a quick scraping.
"That looks like what mutated this kelp Robin be careful." Batgirl warned him. "Nightwing please tell me you have a picket line and pin for those horses?"
At that moment Duke's ears perked up, the stallion whinnied, breaking free of Nightwing's grip and dashing up the beach, knocking Nightwing flat on his ass. "Uh, yeah but I think I'm a bit..."
Galloping noises echoed in the spreading mist. Duke came galloping out of the thickening supernatural fog with Batman on his back. Batman had a mildly smug expression on his face. "Never could fool Duke's ears." He patted the horse affectionately on the head. "Must have heard me fifty feet away and came running."
"Meeeoooow!" Yoruichi hopped off the basket she'd ridden in. She darted over to Two Face, sniffing him. Then the kelp, prodding it with her paw.
"you got a pet now Robin?" Gordon peered down at Yoruichi.
"Yep... Shadow's the Bat Kitty, at least until I come up with a better title."
Batgirl chuckled. "Robin's been attached to that thing ever since Batman got her for him. She's very alert for a cat."
"Uhuh! She woke me up out of a sound sleep when the burst went off, meowing and scratching. Then went streaking away and I found her on my costume!" Robin was inventing a few details there.
Batgirl reached up, gently stroking the mare that she'd selected for her emergency mount. The horse was a gorgeous cross between an Arabian and a Morgan horse, with beautiful roan red and pale grey markings. "Easy girl easy..." She rubbed the horse's nose and tried to soothe her, but it was clear the horse was nervous about something.
Yoruichi was sniffing around the general area. She started batting the seaweed with her paws, then extended her claws and sliced at it. Her claws broke off, rather painfully. Yoruichi yowled painfully, flexing the injured digits. This mutation, its the result of reishi combined with a powerful latent reiatsu. This dimension is full of surprises. Yoruichi decided against biting it. Poison Ivy has some very powerful latent potential.
Batgirl finished getting her samples and sighed. "We need some way to get Two Face to Arkham, but all the cars are busted."
"correction, every car made after 1970ish." Nightwing argued.
"He's right." Batman didn't look happy at that. "Only classic cars would be working about now. None of which are useful as paddy wagons without some modifications to make them armored and bullet proof." He turned to eye Duke speculatively. Could the stallion carry a dazed criminal /and/ himself?
Penguin had started up his pride and joy, a model T car, restored to full working order. He was an old man, or getting close to it but he had a business, and he had many many toys, some of them useful for something /other/ than playing and shows of machismo.
This was one of them.
The man shoved a number of bags in the back and left for a cache site near Cape Carmine Lighthouse, taking the coastal road. He'd have to take a detour when he got near Ace Chemicals but... he should be able to leave the city before dawn. "never thought I'd have to get out of dodge after giving up crime." Penguin muttered. "I must have put those caches in a decade ago." Penguin was getting close now, going slowly and quietly and listening for any sign of attack. Cape Carmine was Bane's territory, and he knew full well that if Bane were aware of the situation and caught him fleeing Gotham that Penguin would be robbed of anything he had on him /including/ the car.
"HEY! HEY HEY!" That was a very familiar female voice. Penguin slammed the breaks, head perking up.
Penguin stopped the car. He followed the voice calling out. "Pam?"
"Near the lifeguard station! Hey penguin get me out of here!" That was Poison Ivy alright.
"My young flower." Penguin sighed as he found her. "Glad I heard your cries. Powers out all over the city. If you're smart you'll get out of dodge. I can give you a ride. I'll even share my cache. You have no idea how glad I am to see a familiar face that's not likely to jump me. Especially this close to Cape Carmine."
"No need, I have a hideout and lab thirty miles from Central City. You can stay with me, might jeopardize your freedom though. But boy do I have a story to tell /you!/"
"I have a nice little cabin in the poconoes, no need to worry on my account. I'll drop you at your place at Central then head north for some well needed R and R." Agreed Penguin as he carefully picked the lock. The cuffs swung open. "C'mon." Poison Ivy had absolutely no objections. She scribbled a note for nightwing, hopped onto the back of the model T, opened her bottle of water and started to drink. It was gone in minutes, then the granola bars took half as much time. Finding a couple of hay bales, a wool blanket and a canvas tarp, Ivy made a hasty bed for herself and fell asleep.
Penguin had no intention whatsoever of asking something in return from Poison Ivy. She knew the woman's reputation as a 'Man eater.' But more importantly, he wasn't a thief anymore. Exchanging kindness for money was no longer his way. Penguin adjusted his knees in the driver's seat and instantly regretted not adding thicker padding. "Damn knees. I swear I'm going to get that blasted prosthetic surgery when this is done! Titanium knee joints don't sound half bad the shape my legs are in!"
He sighed, focusing on the road, melancholy of the situation in Gotham and his own age set in. The glory days were over. Time, and eventually Death caught up to us all. Every creek of his ailing joints reminded the former thief that life was precious. But Death and aging were going to take him from this life complaining like a crotchety old man the whole way. "Damn bones!"
Yoruichi looked up at the mist covered sky, the mist of reishi was rapidly flowing over Gotham. Fertile ground for a quincy if Uryu were here. A pity...
She concluded her investigation of the site and retired to Robin's saddle basket. Samples were being packed up. Batman had figured out how to get Two Face onto the police horse Batgirl was no longer riding. Learned it from Jonah Hex on their strange time travel journey awhile back.
"Lets do this." Commisioner Gordon cracked his neck a bit. "Damnit, I hope I'm not stuck riding a horse to work. That would be absolute murder on my back." He checked the halter nervously. "Right, I got a call just before the power went out from Doctor Bartholomew at Arkham. He was reporting a fight in Gotham Harbor. We should make sure Arkham's gates aren't swinging wide open and we have to bring two face there anyway."
"I was going to visit Harley today." Batman said quietly. "To encourage her in her rehabilitation. Might have to cut that short."
"She having any problems beyond the usual?" Gordon asked him as they started riding towards the clifftop on the edge of town where Arkham was located. The last time Arkham had declared Harley Quinn 'cured' a misunderstanding had comically snowballed out of control and left a terrified Harley running for the hills till Batman convinced her to come down, calm down, and come back to the police station to explain the whole sorry, and amusing tale. It had been all Commissioner Gordon could do not to laugh at the poor woman's bad luck. The sun was rising over the hills, and while he was quite friendly with Doctor Bartholomew, talk of Harley reminded him that he'd be heading to a prison hospital full of supervillains that /hated/ his guts.
"Insomnia, only been getting three hours a night. The disturbance last night likely means she got none." Batman sighed. "I'd /like/ to see her rehabilitated and as far from the Joker as possible. Deprives him of a pawn. Not to mention I don't think she was cut out for the criminal lifestyle in the first place."
"And we don't get to rehabilitate any costumed crazies. Catwoman's been seen even if she hasn't committed any crimes. I've gotten several tips left under the bat signal that I know for a fact are her hand writing."
"Yes, I know. I read them and put them back." Batman's tone was only slightly smug.
"Really... you let me have something from one of your rogues. I thought for sure you'd put them in your trophy hall if you got them."
"They're anonymous tips as far as I'm concerned, and addressed to you." Batman kept his voice quiet. It was just conversation, something he wasn't too keen on.
They rode through the dark, misty Gotham waterfront. "I wonder, if this mist made the kelp grow huge, what about us for breathing it." Batgirl wondered, riding at the back with Robin.
"I don't know..." Robin shuddered. "I don't want to think about it."
Batgirl gulped. "I mean, Gigantism usually occurs enmasse where there's an over abundance of oxygen. So maybe the size and density of the kelp just means that there was lots of oxygen for it... but... aaaaggg, the thought makes my head hurt! I mean seriously, what's the consequences of breathing this stuff in? Its making me sick just thinking about it."
"Actually thats a pretty good point." Batman looked up towards the cloud's origin point. "But I think its effect is different on humans and that the mist interacted with Poison Ivy's power to make that kelp so big and dense. Think about it. We /found/ Two Face with that armor on him, the sword and shield too. There are a lot of duality related things that Two Face has used in his crimes none of them were chess. The white knight? Psychologically indicative of Harvey Dent. The black bishop, the piece named for a church official who's rank is usually associated with judgemental attitudes in the eyes of non clergy. If combined with the color black, the black bishop scheme in the armor could be interpreted as "evil judgement." In other words, his dark half or Two Face." Batman mused. "This is just speculation, but perhaps that mist brings the subconscious minds of certain people to life."
"That could explain why Poison Ivy was covered in sea... oh SHIT!" Nightwing urged his horse around to the lifeguard station where he'd chained Ivy.
By the time the rest of their party arrived at the lifeguard station, Poison Ivy was gone and Nightwing was holding the note in his hand, stunned, a look of shock on his face. Robin plucked the note from nightwing's hand. "Dear Nightwing, thanks for the water and protien bars, since you decided to be nice to me, I decided to be nice in return and not sell the Nth metal in those cuffs on the black market. I'm getting out of dodge for a few months, see you sucker, Poison Ivy." Nightwing finished with something rude. Robin started laughing.
Batman's face started twitching.
"But there was no way she could have gotten out of those cuffs! They were Nth metal!"
"which is primarily effective against magic users. Useful for subduing members of the al Ghul family, like Talia, who specialize in magic but NOT for Meta Humans." Batman scolded Nightwing. "You got careless because it was an emergency, now WHAT did you find her in..."
"Um... armor, made from that seaweed." Nightwing was trying to swallow his embarassment and frustration. Poison Ivy had gotten the better of him repeatedly when he was Robin. And he thought he'd matured beyond the point where she could get the better of him. But he'd been in a hurry. He shoved his returned Nth metal cuffs into a plastic bag to preserve any tool mark evidence and shoved them into his saddle bag.
Yoruichi mused over how much Batman had figured out already about the reishi fog filling the city. Anyone who was sensitive to it would have their spiritual powers awakened and hundreds, possibly thousands more would develop the ability to see ghosts. (2)
"Again, Poison Ivy's subconscious... she likes to show herself to be as strong as the men and have the advantage of distracting them with a seductive exterior /and/ she's obsessed with plants due to her existing ability to control them." Batman mused. "As I said subconscious mind."
Nightwing frowned. "I don't want to know what's in /my/ subconscious mind."
"Heh, knowing the four of us we'd probably have pretty screwed up subconsciouses." Robin giggled.
"I won't have anything for it to bring out." Batman said quietly. "Batman /is/ my subconscious brought to life already." He glanced guardedly at the commisioner for a moment, as though he'd said something he shouldn't.
Yoruichi wondered if maybe Gordon-san knew the man beneath that mask but... none of her business.
"Heh, probably." The police commisioner just chuckled at that. "We're nearly to Arkham I think."
"no, we're not at a high enough elevation, two more miles." Batman told him.
"how do you /know/ that?" Gordon demanded.
"I know this city, including its beaches, and the approach to Arkham especially, very well Commissioner." Batman said quietly. "Further, its not "two miles or so to go" it is two miles with a twenty yard margin for error."
"Wanna bet..." The Commissioner got a determined glint in his eye. "Tell you what, I'll buy you a cup of coffee if you can prove that once the fog clears. I dunno, shove a batarang somewhere nearby here or something to mark the start point for our bet."
Batman smirked, an eyebrow quirking. "you're on." Batman slipped off his horse and moved over to a nearby tree. He climbed about ten feet up and shoved the batarang into the wood. "Go ahead... mark the location in your mind and come back here when the mist is gone."
Laughing, Gordon rode over to the tree and noted the location. "Concealed to keep a passerby from finding it I'll bet."
"not enough people look up." Batman responded simply as he got back onto Duke's back. "Its how I keep getting the drop on criminals over and over, repeatedly. An assault from above is rarely noted by your average person until its too late. Same principle." (3)
The ascent up the hill was mostly quiet, and as they rounded the final bend, Yoruichi caught her first glimpse of Arkham asylum. It reminded her of some human ghost stories about haunted houses. Yoruichi shuddered a bit in the saddle.
As they entered the gates, commissioner Gordon called out "Hellooooo! Anybody home?"
There was a soft growl. A huge figure reared up out of the mist, which seemed to be thinner up here. The giant ebony black cat lifted itself from where it had been lying outside the front door. It had two tails, and as they twitched behind it, Yoruichi caught sight of the webbed tail rudder of a bat. The tips of those tails had pale blue flames on them. Pale blue flames covered the cat's paws and the tips of her very batlike ears. A shrine rope served as harness and collar for the beast, two shrine bells sticking out behind it like an extra pair of ears. The white papery strips on the shrine rope dangled over the enormous cat's chest. The cat opened two enormous bat wings from its back. There was a pale white marking on its chest, vaguely shaped like the bat family's icon.
The cat stepped forwards, Gordon winced, ready to turn tail and run. But the cat ignored him, moving to gently push at Batman's hand, purring quite happily. Batman's eyes widened briefly. "Isis?"
1. Cats have two purrs, the happy purr, and the solicitation purr which means they want something. The latter is slightly higher in pitch than the former. (source, BBC Horizon 2013)
2. That said, besides the ghost seeing bit, I have /no clue/ what sort of spirit power Joker and Scarecrow would have. Knowing Joker, it would involve fire, poison and explosives, knowing scarecrow it would probably be some kind of illusion that compliments his fear gas. The problem is I'm not sure how Batman will fare against regular hollows and arrancars, let alone souped up Reishi enhanced versions of his rogue's gallery. So /not everyone/ is getting spirit powers. Just my favorites. XPPPPP sorry Joker, Riddler and Scarecrow. I hate all three of you and you can kiss my ass. In a fic I never published, Scarecrow got gutted by a hollow and only survived because the Titans caught the hollow attack in progress and had a water/ice user with them as a guest that froze his wounds shut. Likewise, in said unpublished fic Joker's legs got smashed by a hollow, multiple fractures, months in traction, and all he could say was "IT WAS FUCKING WORTH IT! DID YOU SEE THE LOOK ON THAT GRIMMJOW KITTY'S FACE WHEN HE SAW THE SIZE OF THE EXPLOSION FROM MY JOKER BOMB?" Grimmjow, meanwhile, doesn't need Joker Toxin to be laughing his head off at the whole situation back in Hueco Mundo. "aww yeaaaah, Joker soul seasoned with that FUCKING TOXIN of his! I'm salivating! Aizen-sama lemme go eat him in the hospital!"
3. And its a principle used in marketing in stores all over the real world as well as in real life situations where concealment is called for such as a surveillance camera. In addition retail stores like to put the most expensive items at a person's eye level, and the least expensive at the top and bottom of the rack because people tend to look on their eye level. Children's items like toys, and sweets tend to be at the level of the shopping cart, perfect for grabby toddlers. Batman is simply using the neurology of the human senses to make sure his marker isn't disturbed.