Sorry for the long wait ever faithful readers, I present you with chapter 4 :D please read and review! Oh, and tell me if batman is too OOC he is hard to represent. :) and I would like to thank bam, riza, and cheshirekat13 for reviewing ;)
Chapter 4
I wince as old memories start to make appearances. I growl slightly as my more animal side starts to make more of an appearance as well as the poison flows through my body. I look to Mary ' I need to go shift' I tell her as I motion towards you know who with my tail. She follows my line of sight towards batman, and lets out a small growl as she hides deeper in her hooded cloak.
'I know, but i'll be right back' I tell her. She just nods,
'hurry' she tells me shakily. I nod and bound into the woods at the edge of the clearing by the tall mountain. I hear a quick 'Hey!' before I am covered entirely by the woods. I trust Mary will keep the human freaks out of the woods long enough for me to shift in peace. I sit down and concentrate, I feel my claws slid out into the loose earth before returning and becoming flatter. I feel the hair start to retract as well as my whiskers. I grunt as my bones snap and reform into those of a human. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did that first time. I roll my shoulders from my position of kneeling on the ground. I get up only to stagger back to the ground from the pain in my shoulder.
I growl at myself in pain and annoyance. I force myself to my feet to walk out of the surrounding forest. I have mastered the way to hide my pain. I walk back to stand behind Mary, she doesn't think anything at me which is relieving. I know if she tried to communicate over our link she would be thrust into my pain, as I am barely holding it inside my own head.
I push this away and start singing a song quietly in my head to take my mind off the pain. I look out from under my hood to see the batman, a man in green with a bow and arrows strapped to his back, a man in a red suit, a woman with blonde hair in a black leotard, an older male martian who looked suspiciously like the girl, and a guy in black armour not like the boy in blue, but like the kinds that the human bulletproof vests are like.
I watch as the team who brought us here walk to the side, forming a sort of half circle with mine and Mary's backs to the mountain. I watch them all, none of their body language suggests that they will attack, not yet at least.
My eyes travel back to the Batman, I remember him, does he remember me, I remember blood, betrayal, and a strange dark man.
IT was in the months after the extermination of the rest of our race, that Mary and I decided to try to go back to the temple. We knew of all of the recent uprisings in bialya, even though we stayed in our felinethrope forms most of the time, it doesn't mean that we were oblivious to the world around us. We mostly stayed in the shadows too fearful to stop the gangs and spiderlings who got progressively worse around us. We hid until we couldn't anymore, that was when we met the batman. Mary and myself were out hunting for scraps, anything to prevent taking from the humans. We found a large amount of meat and scraps in one place, and no it wasn't the dump. I knew it was a trap, but come on, it was the dry season, we were starving. I walked the shadows along the perimeter of the small dark courtyard we were in, trying to find a spot where the meat was closest to the shadows where I could pull it in without having to reveal myself. I realized then that this was done professionally, the meat was in just the right spot for us to be unable to pull it into the shadows, whoever did this wanted us in the light. I scented the air searching for any out of place scents. I smelt many different things, but the buildings we were among, gave off too strong a smell of garbage for us to smell anything else, and it didn't help, the more we tried to get past the smell of that the more it burned our noses. Mary was getting impatient, so was I but she decided to take matters into her own hands and put out a burst of speed towards the meat. I didn't see the wires until I was already on the move towards her, weather I was trying to stop her or my inner animal was so hungry it decided that it can't let the lioness get the meat first, is still unclear. She was jerked up into a thin wire netting, the wires so thin they could only be seen when they hit light. She bucked and jerked in the nets grasp, I could do nothing as the wires cut through her fur and into her flesh. I landed on the pile of meat, my back legs being stronger than hers. I looked into her panicked green gold eyes as I touched her mine with my own, I felt the pain of all the little wires cutting my flesh and the panic it caused her. I calmed her down with a common song sung though our mind link, it is in our old language. She stopped struggling as I looked around the pile of meat to see the nets placed the entire way through the courtyard with only spaces for a human to exit safely through. It was then that I scented the man in the black, standing on a rooftop watching us. I froze where I was and waited for him to take out his gun and shoot us as the poacher he must be. I looked closer to realize he was just watching us. I growled out a challenge at him. He stood and jumped down to the outer perimeter of the courtyard and merely stood there. I knew he was baiting me to step into one of the many traps laid. 'What does he think i'm stupid' I thought to myself. I growled and sat down on the pile of scraps. He narrowed his eyes just glaring at me. After a few minutes I started messing with my appearance to mess with his head. I started with the little things first like shifting the patterns of the stripes on my legs and paws, then moving to bigger things like creating pictures by clumping the stripes together to make a roaring tiger, a flying white bird on my chest, swirls over my eyes, ect. He never cracked or gave any indication that this was bothering him, although i've seen bigger than him fall at these simple tricks. A battle of wills is what this is. I am determined to win this. This goes on until he says something that breaks my concentration.
"your friend is going to die, if she stays in that net much longer." he states it like its no problem to him, like a stone cold deduction. I turn on my pile of scraps to see Mary, stuck on her back, in the accursed net. The only way she would be able to get out is if I could shift, but I can't not with that man here. I look towards him and decide that her life is more important than my secret identity. I turn my back to him and shift, I hear the roar of blood in my ears and the snap and crack of my bones as they grind and twist against each other grinding back into their places. I stand shakily on my legs and pull my cloak closer to my body. I reach up to the top of the net and start fiddling with the knot. I manage to get the knot undone as I hear the whoops and screams of a local gang that has some messed up interest in us. I turn towards the roofs of which they appear, then towards the man in black, he has faded into the shadows but we can still see him. I turn and put my back to Mary, who is currently passed out on the ground. So helpful. I watch as the first few jump down and attack, I take them out fairly easily, the next few waves are a blur because of my exhaustion and the fact that I am starving. I don't remember when they took out knives and guns because the next thing I knew bullets propelled themselves into my shoulders and back, while knives ripped up my front. I couldn't see Mary anymore as the onslaught brought me to my knees. The last thing I remember was the man in black kicking the gang members asses, then coming and standing before me as the world around him faded to a colour as black as his clothes. When I woke we were in an abandoned building, that much was obvious. I saw Mary beside me she was still out cold, of course. I couldn't scent the man in black nor any of the gang members. Then a scent started to approach entering from what I assume is the entrance to the building and making its way quickly up the stairs. I stood and crept over towards the door frame, I hid on the wall beside it. I was quite surprised when I heard a voice from just outside the door,
"I know you're right there, come out" the cold voice said calmly. I turned to see the man in black,
"Who are you" I snapped irritably, his eyes widened that was the only indication he gave that he was surprised.
"you speak english?" he said it more like a statement than a question. I nodded, and waited for him to answer my question
"I am batman." he said simply
"who?"