Chapter 01: Reunited

Location: Gotham City
Time: midnight

This is my 25th day out on patrol around Gotham city since I started being the new 'Batman'. The crime rate has gone down a bit since I took over as Gotham's lone vigilante, and it shows in the common persons face. Unlike the previous vigilante of the night, I am no great martial artist or nearly as gentle, I don't have the physical prowess to be able to do risk holding back. My only real strength is my mind. I knew if I wanted to fight this war that I'd have to take the time to play to my strengths.
However, even if I can make this job lean to the side of intellect I still must be able to deal with the physical aspects of the jobs when they arise. To this end I made a tool to level the playing field. I developed a high tech prosthetic armor that give me the boost I need to compete with the villains. It's truly a master piece of technology. It has an in-built booster system in the soles of the suits powered by a nano-nuclear battery that I've recently finished work on. A whole system of super lightweight and strong prosthetic muscles and skeleton system run along the frame of the armor upping my strength by three times. Over this system is a set super durable layered plates designed to stop bullets and knives. A combination of titanium overlaid with ceramic and a Kevlar under level if all else fails. The suit has an in-built utility belt along the waist that hides several useful devices I couldn't fit into the systems of suit or decided were best left to my hands. This suits purpose is the protection of Gotham and by extension me.

It is designed to move the exact way that a human body does and form fitting to the point that it doesn't inhibit any of my movements in anyway whatsoever or add too much height so I can be aware of my movements like it's a second skin. This suit is inspired by the Batman's own, however besides the horns on my cowl and the Bat symbol I've changed the costume almost completely. Unlike my predecessor's outfit my face is completely covered by my cowl and I've done away with the theatrical parts like the cape.

As I approach my destination I begin to disengage my propulsion system and l land with a clang on the roof of the neighborhood my target has been spotted in lately. I've gotten so used to the jarring landing and the way that the suit works over the course of the time I've been at this that it doesn't even surprise me anymore. I activate my search systems and begin to search for the person I need with a little assistance from my suit. Each face I see pulls up a name age and any felony level crimes they've committed. It's a little thing I've given myself since I know I need to be able to figure out enemies and since I'm not too familiar with the criminals yet and their goons I need to be aware of such things. I've managed this by hacking into the GCPD's and the DMV's database make my info network.

My display beeps as it and I spot my target on the ground, he's looking around nervously for any signs of a tail. He won't see anyone unless he looks up and can see my black and gray armor as it blends into the shadow. He takes one last look behind him and then he quickly enters the alley way behind him and tries to blend into the shadows. I move my hand along my wrist to the switch that I've strategically placed there and activate my stealth mode. My armor suddenly starts running silently; not that the armor runs loudly when not in stealth mode, but it runs even quieter and seals up any breaches in my armor so that I'm ready for any combat scenario I might encounter.
I hop down from the roof I'm perched on and land like a cat in the alleyway behind my target. I've been very happy to see that the sound suppression equipment I've been designing is working perfectly. My target approaches a faded blue and rusted door with a slot at eye level nervously and glances behind himself once more still not seeing me. I creep closer as he knocks on the door in what I can only assume is the secret way. The slot in the door opened and eyes peer out at my target. My analysis software goes into over drive and analyses the eyes for a match in my database. I get a match almost immediately, his name is Zachary Stuart, a low level bouncer who has a history of work for Anarchy. My info tells me that he'd just posted bail yesterday for assault and battery and I'm sure he's already up to the same stuff again.
"What do you want?" Comes his feint voice through the door; his voice is so muffled by the door that even my equipment can barely make out his words.
"I need a fix man," said the man raising his hand to the door. It's shaking violently and it's sickeningly pale.
The eye slot closes and after a few seconds the sounds of multiple locks being undone can be heard through the door, and before the door can even fully open the door man had rushed in… and I'm right there behind him. As I deash forward the movement catches Zachary's attention and he sees me and tries to slam the door closed but I'm far too fast for him.
My hands catch's the door before it closes and I push it open. Zachary cries out in pain as he's sent flying back through the air and into the wall beyond. He's instantly knocked out cold by the impact against the wall. My target takes the time to watch this all happens before he gathers what little sense he has left and tries to run deeper into what appears to be a small building. He makes it to the end of the hall and I must admit that he's fast, however not faster than my grappling gun. In one clean motion, I reach to my thigh and draw my grappling gun and take aim at him. I fire it and the hook pierces his leg completely. He screams out in pain as he falls to the ground and I reel him back to me. I detach the cable and walk over to my screaming victim and pick him up by his shirt.
"Where is he?" My voice comes out in no more than a whisper, but my voice changer distorts and enhances my voice into a deep commanding voice that makes people stop and cower when I speak.
The man is going into shock, I don't have much time.
"Don't make me repeat myself," I say shaking him.
"He's...," he begins before his eyes roll into the back of his head and he feint's.
I curse silently and drop him onto the floor angrily. My hand goes up to my helmet and activates my link with my home base.
"Casper; I fucked up.," I say the anger seeping into my voice.
"I know that you idiot, don't forget that I can see what you can see," he replied angrily. "You need to use less brutal methods if you want to keep them conscious. You shot him in the leg and then scared him half to death and it's not the best way to do that."
I concur with his statement, but doesn't mean he has to know.
"Just take care of this safe house while I hunt down more information," said Casper cutting the link off at his end.
I take my hand away from my cowl and look around. It's a hole in the wall at best. One large room leads into hallway that connects to a few other rooms. I walk down the hall way and open the doors; one's a bathroom, another is a filthy bedroom with needles strewn acroos the floor and an unconscious or dead drug user on the ground lost to reality. Besides a bunch of crates stuffed in a corner I didn't see anything of any importance to me. I activate my multi-Scanner system and look around. The scanner beeps signifying that it was done. The data is presented to me I'm one eye. I cycle through the data by twirling my index finger forward. Nothing on night vision, Thermal shows Zachary's foot steps. I follow them with my eyes and then stop. They continue throw to a wall. I exit the scans and walk to the wall and inspect it. No inscriptions or loose bricks means one thing. I push on the wall and it gives way with almost no resistance at all. I smirk underneath my helm and enter the passage beyond.

'This might be it' I whisper to myself.

As I walked down the passageway I could feel a rhythmic pulsation of vibrations through the floor. As I continued down the hall the sounds of music aligning with the vibrations I felt earlier filled my ears. I can tell it's coming from the other end of the hall. Someone is playing music very loudly, and my face contorted into a smirk at this; it means I'm definitely in the right place.

...
Location: Above Gotham City
Time: 12:45

I'm tired of looking for him already. As if the flight over wasn't enough but I've been searching since yesterday nonstop. However, I don't have the luxury of sleep now. I need to find Batman fast and find out what he knows about these disappearances. There will be plenty of time for rest when Diana is safe I tell myself. I need the information he has on what's going on to do that. That's when I heard it, a large explosion that sent dust and rubble flying all over. I smirk and thank the Gods that villains are always so god damn loud.

Location: Gotham City
Time: 12:25

I looked around the corner of the hallway and see a dance party going on. Strobe lights are flashing on and off everywhere flashing in a confusing array of greens, reds and yellow's, I watch as the song comes to an end and then I wait to see what's going to happen next. Then all the lights go out. I forcibly disengaged my night vision and waited. Then the band begins to wind down and in the center of the room a lone light turns on and it focuses on one man standing before the crowd hands raised as if in triumph. He's wearing the colors of a king and has a cape to match. His body is lean and muscular, that of an athlete in his prime. His lepard print button down shows his athletic body off. His face is beautiful to say the least. For a moment, he holds his pose and then he spoke finally.
"I am Anarchy," he said simply, and the crowd went wild.
He waited for them to calm before he continued.
"Gotham is in a stagnant state of degradation, and crime. Even with the Batman beatings heads in left and right our world doesn't change, it doesn't get better or worse just stays the same, and what kind of fun is that? It's not! The only chance of change my children is to send the world into chaos and then to reshape it in our image," I've finally heard enough. I aim for the lights and then fire my Bat-a-rang from my wrist. The shoot is true, strong and silent. It destroys the light and sends the person who manned it to come to crash to the ground. My night vision kicked in and I jumped down on the stage. I land on the stage silently, but I know he'd already know I'm here. I turn to him but the sudden light from the strobe lights turning back on and blinded me momentarily. I cursed as bullets hit my armor and I am forced to dodge to my right. I hit what felt like a wall and looked up. It was a giant of a man, muscles rippled under his shirt like great cords. He smirked at me before he grabbed me and held me in place. More lights turned on and I am presented with a view of my nemesis.

"Why if it isn't our good friend Batman," he said dramatically posing while holding his mic to his mouth.

"Trying to shut down the party, are we? No one will shut down this party ever again not even the great Batman," he said smirking.

"Because in one week," he said as he turned from me to the crowd.

"My dear friends that's right, in one week we'll take over this pathetic town and then we'll move onto the world. So, mark you're calendars and write to your lovers, mother, and best friends; get them hyped up because the world is changing soon enough," as he finished he turned to me, "in fact we'll start here and now by killing the bat!"

"I'll see you in a week," said Anarchy as he smirked at me and drew his finger over his throat to the man that held me and then turned away and walked away and dropped the mic.

Two more men appear before me and they smiled with crooked, yellow teeth. They punched their hands and flexed their muscles in an imposing way as they tried to intimidate me. The crowd cheered in excitement as the approached. Finally, they made a move at me. One of the two new muscle freaks charged in, his fist raised to strike me. I easily broke the grip of the man who held me and activated my boosters to send me over his head. This action surprises the charging bull of a man and his blow which is intended for me lands on his friend's face. The blow drew and "ohhh," from the crowd as the man went flying into the wall across the room. He's effectively disabled from this fight. But I must be careful, it's obvious that these guys are metahuman. A few blows from them and I'd have been completely out. I cut my boosters and landed on the ground crouched before the remaining two. I attacked the man who hadn't charged with a furious assault of blow. My blows are far from precise but they get the job done and threw him off balance. I used the split second he was off balance to draw my grapple gun and take the length of it and wrap the cord of it around his ankle and shoot it up into the air and retract it as it found purchase on a rafter above. He flew up into the air with a scream and the crowd went wild enjoying this spectacle.

I am caught off guard by the man who charged me earlier having underestimated his ability to recover from his blunder. His blow was so powerful that it sent me through the wall on the other side of the room. As the brick crumbled away and falls onto me I try to regain my senses and get up, but I'm not fast enough. The bull of a man is charging me with his superhuman strength and he goes through the remainder of the wall with me and continues his charge through what feels like 3 separate walls. My armor went crazy as it warned me about problems it was now facing. Two- thirds of the way through the charge my armor is forced to reboot. As he finished his charge I went flying and I landed in the street hard with a crunch as I destroy the pavement beneath me. The System's analysis is already running over my lens as the system restarts; it's telling me in no uncertain terms that I am screwed. Basic functions such as movement and the strengthening program are still active, but anything more complex is long gone. I get up slowly and see the hulk of a man climbing through the hole I left smirking.
"I told them that the Bat was nothing special," he says eyes glinting with rage and his confidence.
I check the status of my booster, they're still down and with my ability to fly gone I know my only choice is to stand my ground. I get up off of the ground slowly and get into a brawler stance light on my feet and loose so I can avoid his heavy blows. I nurse my right shoulder which took the brunt of the landing. He charged me again as soon as he is through the hole. I spun out of the way to get behind him. I punch as hard as I can into his side. My blow sinks in and I can tell he winces, but besides that there's not much damage done to him. He comes around with a back hand so fast I can barely avoid it. He continued to swing wildly trying to hit me. The blows are so wild that they hit the ground and destroyed the road. Finally a blow connected it's weaker due to his fatigue but still strong enough to knock me down, and That's when he was sent flying by some unknown force.

Gotham: Above Combat Zone

I was watching for a bit and was unimpressed. He was far too slow ineffective, but he threw a nice left hook; I'll give him that much at least. His blows don't do much and I figure that the fight will last at least another boring hour so the way they're going. So to speed things up I decided to intervene. I dive in from my position in the air at the two fighting and I pulled up at the last second bringing my first with me and I light up the giant of a man with an uppercut that sends him at least 15 feet in the air. I turned to gloat about how easily the foe fell to me compared to him. He's not therehowever. I scream in anger and frustration at his escape from me until I see him out of the corner of my eye. He's retreated back a bit into the shadows holding his side and watching me. I can tell he was weary of me to say the least. I turn to him a smirk on my face. There was an awkward pause between us which I broke.
"What's with the costume change?"
He doesn't reply to my verbal jab. He gets up from his resting position against the wall. I guess he didn't view me as a threat at and walks to the hole in the building that the man had made. He appeared to be looking for something or someone, however the fact that he ignores me infuriates me a bit, is it because I'm a woman, or my age.
"Yeah so Mr. Batman I kind of need your help," I say bashfully trying to appeal to the man part of him pushing my chest out. It doesn't even get me a glance from him. He crouches down and picks up something and looks at it. He continues looking at it for another minute or so before putting it down. He glances at me as if to see if I'm still there.

"Yeah I'm still here you dick," I say pissed.

He nods a bit and acknowledged the fact that he hears me. My anger boils over and I approach him with my hands clenched. I'm ready to beat him into a bloody pulp if that's what I have to do to get answers. I reach out for Batman to pick him up and give a taste of what would happen if he didn't start talking. He quickly sidesteps my grab and jumps back.

"Tell me what you know about the disappearances of the hero's especially Wonder Woman or else I'll break your legs," I say readying my shield and drawing my sword.

He got into the same stance as when he faced the goliath of a man. I snorted at this annoyed. He's not a real warrior. The way he holds himself telegraphs what he's going to do long before he even thinks about it. I could tell that he was going to go in with his left hand and then try and grapple me. I move before he can even strike my fist connecting with his jaw. He goes flying through the air and into a building nearby with a crunch. I charged in after him through the rubble and dust and follow it up with rapid punches to the stomach that drive him up through the building and finally up into the air. I was just fast enough to get ahead of him in the air and spike him back down on the roof.

I slowly descended above him and looked down on him, "In Thymescrai they speak of you as a man of great skill and physical prowess, yet all that I've seen today contradicts that. Now tell me what you know about the disappearances of the hero's you coward. I see him slowly getting to his feet, every movement for him is agony. My blows must have broken at least 5 bones and severe to deadly internal bleeding. I won't lie though the armor he's wearing did give me bloody knuckles.

He's holding his side in pain and I smirked. I lunged at him trying to intimidate him in my childish fun. He doesn't flinch.

"I can tell you one thing," he says.

His voice is heavy with static as he spoke through his mask. He was obviously using electronics to enhance his voice and intimidate his foes. A smart tactic against those who were cowards however this would not work on me.

"You will leave this city or I'll make you," he said.

I snorted at his words, then I started to giggle before I entered full blown laughing fit.

"You think you can defeat me?" I said through hysterics.

"No, I know I can," he said.

Then as I was about to reply he attacked. His fist ran across my face in a hard right cross. He followed it up with a left straight and a roundhouse kick to my jaw. His blows stung and I cursed at my arrogance. His blows are strong enough to disorientate me and leaving me vulnerable for a moment. He gets me in choke hold on the ground in such a position that I can't use brute strength to get out of it. I smirked, this reminded me of my training with my sisters. We'd been taught first and foremost how to get out of such things. I twisted my arm loosening his grasp and pulled it free. My elbow finds his chest and hit it with a satisfying thud. It knocked him off of me and on to the ground. I turned and went to jump on him when I'm blindsided by something. The projectiles hit me hard and fast, they knock me over to the side. I roll away avoiding the projectiles as they continued their relentless attack on me. I throw my shield at the origin of the shots and am greeted with the satisfying sound of metal on metal as it connected with my intended target. I get to my feet and look for Batman, but he's long gone. I silently curse and go to pick up my shield. I look at what it'd destroyed and laugh. It was a drone, a god damn drone. I examined the remnants hoping to find some clues but I can't make heads or tails of the tech. I needed someone who specializes in this kind of stuff. I collected the wreckage and flew away. I knew looking for Batman is pointless at this point. He's had too much time to get away and hide.

I flew off deciding that it's about time I went to find somewhere to sleep. I'll look into the drone tomorrow. Then when I figure out where he is I will get him by the throat and make him speak or he'll regret it.