The Broken Glass Eulogy X
By N-chan
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein do not, for the most part, belong to me. They belong to DC comics, which is a subdivision (as I understand it) of AOL Time Warner. I'm merely exploiting them for that which they were created; i.e. entertainment value. I'm also in the process of putting them back more or less as I found them. Suing me for copyright infringement or whatever would be a right royal waste of effort.
Note: Many thanks to those who've commented on this story in its numerous parts over time. I appreciate your insights and feedback tremendously.
The shift of earth and building, of bars and beams and devastated walls was, in the grand scheme of things, miniscule. Even the threatening oblivion would barely inconvenience those Gothamites who felt the need to 'catch a game' (which typically meant watching the Gotham Knights get thoroughly trounced by whatever team a given rival city chose to field.) They would go, for the day or the weekend, to the much cleaner, safer, brighter Metropolis; the Gotham stadium had been so long in refurbishment that the idea of a home game had become a paper-dream, mired in that potent combination of bureaucratic red tape and construction company graft. It was a dead-end surreptitiously added to by a certain Demon's Head.
Nor, indeed, did the explosive shivers seem likely to injure the people still within the building; those Ubu who were awake and able to walk had long since initiated the evacuation of themselves and their unluckier, more injured clansmen; a maneuver that had become well-practiced in recent months. Now, they were nearly all gone.
Those not of the Ubu tribe, deeper inside the stadium, had a rather more pressing set of concerns.
Deathstroke's concern was, as indeed he often found to be the case, monetary. If his current employer got himself killed, the payoff for this particular job would be substantially reduced. And said employer did seem to be undertaking a moderate effort towards that outcome; he was going at it hell-for-leather with the Bat in a clash of saber and batarang so furious it sent sparks raining between them. In and of itself, this wasn't much of a worry as the Bat never killed. Still, potentially expensive – that is, deadly - accidents could happen. The situation would have to be remedied promptly.
Batman on the other hand, expertly juggled several concerns; on the one hand there was the Demon, who would have to be subdued, bound, and delivered to the Slab where he could be duly chastised. On the other, there was the matter of his protégé; true, Nightwing's battle with Deathstroke appeared to have finished, but his former partner was very carefully not wincing and equally as cautiously not holding his ribs while breathing in a manner that enabled the Bat's single spared glance to diagnose as 'broken ribs, at least three of them and probably on the right' with the ease of long familiarity. Then there was the issue of what the black-wrapped bundle the Demon had been so taken with that he'd been willing to carry it off himself rather than have his Ubu do the heavy lifting. //Although I'd have expected more of the Ubu to have put in an appearance by now. What on earth are they doing? Nightwing can't have wasted time clobbering so many that only the three Elite Guards remained to fire that rocket.// Far, far lower on the list of priorities was Robin's failure to call in his arrival in Metropolis. Batman wasn't too concerned; the boy was obsessively conscientious and had probably simply gone through Oracle rather than himself. He was, however, pleased that his junior partner was out of this mess. The presence of Deathstroke promised a substantial level of impersonal viciousness that, while Batman was certain Robin would never kill anyone now, might nonetheless call to the baser undercurrents the Doctor had instilled in his third squire. //And permanent maiming is also unacceptable.//
Nightwing knew better so, unsurprisingly, his concerns were an order of magnitude worse. Nightwing knew what that bundle contained. He had seen his little brother bleed out through a self-inflicted chest wound; a gurgling choking death that he'd not wish on anybody despite the peaceful expression Robin had worn at the end, after the failure of his aborted attempt at resuscitation.
He'd be lying if he claimed that using the Pit to restore his young friend had not occurred to him.
He'd have nightmares for the rest of his life if he ever admitted – even to himself - how quickly he'd dismissed the thought.
A dip in the Pit resulted in madness. A temporary fugue, it was true, but violent psychosis all the same. And while a return to sanity seemed to be complete, when it eventually occurred . . . //who knows just who – or what – the Pit will resurrect.//
Grimly, Nightwing realized he was about to find out.
His young brother-in-arms, hale and whole?
The shattered, slowly healing halfling that had characterized his successor over the past few weeks to months?
The assassin, Twenty. Complete, rebuilt, and with fully intact programming?
Were it the last, Nightwing knew, it would take a special brand of lunacy to save everyone else in the building. 'Vingt' was too deadly, too well-trained to be allowed to return to a 'sanity' that would see him bend his knee to Ra's as his Master.//Though how on earth I'll tell, when any version will strike out in delirium, I don't know.//
Unspoken, un-thought, but not unfelt, was the soul clenching dismay of what Nightwing's response would have to be to a ruthless assassin hell-bent on destruction, little brother or not. //If he's as good after resurrection as he was on that rooftop so long ago, one of us at the very least is toast.//
Then the point was rendered moot as an aftershock of the missile blast sent several tons of brick, steel, concrete and dirt ripping through the sagging, damaged support beams and thundering into the Pit in front of him, destroying it – and all inside it - utterly.
Above him, with Deathstroke's intercession, Ra's disengaged from his battle against the Bat with a particularly savage riposte, one that sent his foe slipping a precious two steps out and away from deadly combination of the Demon's fine Toledo steel and the Terminator's no less elegant knife. Glaring at the now two-on-one odds, Batman readied himself to continue the fight. Deathstroke however, had other ideas, and Ra's was amenable; quick as thought the pair leapt away in a configuration that would have enabled Batman to chase either of them . . . at the cost of leaving himself easy prey for the other.
Remarkably, instead of heading upwards and out, the Demon's Head darted down, towards the pit, obviously intent on reclaiming the bundle he'd been carrying when the fracas had commenced. Irritation in every line of his body, Deathstroke followed his employer's lead. //Something more important than a quick, clean getaway? When he knows he's dealing with me?// Batman's mouth tightened into a grim line. Whatever it was down there, he suspected the world was substantially better off if the Demon never got near it. Thought matched deed, and an instant later he too was off the rafters, scaling down the still-shaking and unstable debris with ease.
It took the Demon a full few seconds to assess the destruction of yet another of his Pits (an all too frequent occurrence of late), and the loss of his prize corpse. Having lived for an eternity already, and battled both the Bat and others similar to him a multitude of times, he knew that now would be a time where discretion would eminently outshine it's counterpart of valor, tooth-grindingly frustrating though the proposition was. The Pit could be recreated. The loss of the corpse and with it all potential research into the sole surviving example of the Doctor's work was a much more substantial blow. The assassin Twenty had, in his hale and whole entirety, represented total freedom from the League of Assassins for any activity Ra's chose to engage in. In death, his corpse held the promise of recreation.
A dunk in the Pit was out of the question; while it restored life, the Pit typically played merry havoc with hypnotic programming, and Ra's had little idea of how the Doctor's programming had worked – it was very possible the Pit would mangle certain aspects of it and while resurrecting the assassin as a sociopath who would kill without compunction wouldn't be a bad outcome, the controlled, slavishly loyal lethality of the Twenty series held vastly more appeal. Programming aside, the liberation of insanity had been known to render a number of his other 'pets' uncontrollable in the past, and Ra's had no intention of resurrecting an impeccably trained killing machine with a mad-on against the world when the only targets presenting themselves were himself, another assassin, and two Bats.
Even dead, though, the unit's secrets might have been plundered; a clone or recreation possible if the body was stored rapidly in the appropriate preservatives. Now that option too was gone.
He lacked the time to howl his rage. The roof was coming down. Slowly, a decaying slide now that the larger portion of the weight had already crashed into the pit below, but coming down nonetheless. And one of his most implacable foes was right behind him, determined to capture and contain him. //But the Bat doesn't realize it's his third squire down there, crushed under the rubble and detritus.//
The thought made him smile, a toothy grimace of fanged glee. //I've lost today, but you, Detective, have lost so much more. And your son, your second squire, shall have the 'joy' of telling you about it, for I will be gone.//
"Another day, Detective. Another day." The Demon's smirk was audible. Deathstroke, his enhanced mental processes having promptly calculated what his employer's statement meant, had already begun clearing an egress and now Ra's leapt across the rubble to join him. Batman looked ready to resume his pursuit, but was brought up short by the leering man's final retort.
"I suggest you go and rescue your children."
//Child . . . ren? Plural?// The sudden burst of terror suffused him, though it didn't stop him from whirling on his heels, beating a rapid track towards Nightwing, who was tearing rubble away from what left of the Pit with gloved hands, desperately digging. //Nightwing and . . . who else is down there?//
As Oracle's voice chimed through on his commlink, informing him that she'd send Batgirl to intercept the villainous getaway and asking if he'd heard from Robin yet as she hadn't, Batman felt a sinking feeling that he knew.
Nightwing's anguished cries for his little brother confirmed it.
//Oh, dear God! Robin!//
NOTE: Well, I had actually planned on finishing this particular installment of Twentyverse with this chapter, but it'll have to be next time as this is too good a rest-point to miss. Sorry guys. Please C+C anyway, ne?