A/N: Wow, can you believe we're almost done? Only one more chapter left! Reminder that the rest of the story contains a character death warning, but here's a spoiler to ease your minds: I'm a sucker for happy endings.
Chapter Twelve
She only got so far away from Circe, towards the sound of Superman and the minotaur that she dubbed Carl in her head, before the oddest sensation crept over her like cold fingers across the back of her neck. She shivered, unsure of what to make of it, but continued flying, ignoring the steadily increasing feeling. It was, she thought, similar yet different from the feeling of being far from Bruce; a slight ache, but a sharpness more akin to leaving a warm bed on a cold morning.
The bond, she realized, frowning, wondering whether Bruce had reached the labyrinth or not until a pained shout reached her ears. Superman, she thought, flying faster to one of her best friends, flying around a building to spot him in the minotaur's clutches, its hands wrapped around his throat. Her hand went to her lasso instinctively, closing around empty air. She whipped off her tiara instead, taking aim and flinging it with all her strength; it was a flash of gold in the darkness, a swish of air that made the minotaur- Carl- twitch, nostrils flaring as it lashed a fist out, battering the tiara away.
She watched it fling through a window with some satisfaction as Superman broke away from the beast, his lips curled in a rather uncharacteristic way that told her he was frustrated. Maybe because this was his city that the beast stomped through, that any moment a citizen could stumble upon it and he wouldn't be fast enough to save them.
There was a look of apprehension on his face; this was, she knew, more difficult than fighting a normal villain. This was something that thought like an animal, but looked like one of them. She even gave it a name, one that might have exist purely in her head but still existed nonetheless. Rabid animals were put down, she knew that much about Man's World, but this wasn't the same, was it?
Shaking off her dilemma, Diana floated down beside Superman. "It's fast, but we're fast too," he said, using his heat vision on the floor around its feet. Carl stepped back, his dark eyes staring in confusion at the crackling floor. "You come from above, I'll come from below, we'll try to get it trapped. Do you have your lasso?"
"Circe," she explained grimly.
"Right, guess we can't use that then. Change of plans, its skeletal structure isn't that much difference from a normal human's, I imagine if we hit it hard enough, we can knock it out," he said hopefully, blinking his vision back to normal. "Count to three then drop." Simultaneously, the two disappeared; Superman went down, drilling a hole into through asphalt like it was little more than butter while Diana flew up in the air, pushing herself faster, counting to five as she did so.
Three. She could hear Carl barely, the crunch of glass beneath his feet as he sniffed at the hole that Superman left behind.
Two. She couldn't hear him anymore, just the whistle of the wind in her ears.
Three. She stopped flying. There wasn't an easy way to describe the different sensations, to go from floating to feeling the crushing weight of gravity pressing on her, forcing her down towards Earth feet first. She had to fight the instinct to catch herself, but she didn't, not even as the skyscrapers zoomed past her eyes, not even as Carl came closer, head tilted down still.
At least she wouldn't be impaling herself on his horns on accident, she thought that would be a sorry way to die.
The combined attack from above and below stunned the minotaur enough that Superman managed to wrangle it to the floor, holding his arms backs and pressing a knee into his back to hold him down. "Diana," he said, grunting and pulling the minotaur's arms back farther, bringing a muffled growl from Carl.
She was already moving, her leg lifting down and slamming into the minotaur's skull. There was a sound like a moan, mixing with Diana's grunt at the sharp pain shooting up her ankle, before silence. Superman didn't move as Diana crouched, tapping the minotaur's head for a response, but getting nothing. "We did it," she said with a small smile on her face.
"Yeah, we did for now, but is it going to wake up soon?" Superman asked curiously, dropping the minotaurs arms and getting to his feet, brushing dirt off his knees.
"I don't think so, but better safe than sorry." She crouched beside the minotaur, holding its horns while Superman picked the rest of its limp body up. Carefully, they began to fly and although the distance between them and Circe was little more than a second fly normally, it was a little more difficult when they were carrying a body. Definitely an experience she didn't want to repeat. Finally, she spotted the alley that marked where Circe was left. "There!"
"I got him now, just go make sure Circe is there," he ordered, shifting to hold the majority of the minotaur in one arm and angling the horns from his neck with the other. Briefly, she questioned why he hadn't just done that to begin with, but shrugged it off, going ahead of him.
She dropped soundlessly into the dingy alley, immediately assaulted by every foul stench she had apparently overlooked before, but the smell was quickly forgotten as she began to look behind bins and beneath pieces of cardboard. Superman arrived, depositing the minotaur on the floor cautiously, as Diana came to the startling conclusion that Circe was gone.
Bruce had cursed when he first lowered himself into the cave, taking a second to gain his bearings and jam a small black object into a nearby wall by the entrance.
This wasn't anything like his own cave beneath Wayne Manor, which he could navigate blindfolded and legless with ease, but he couldn't really have expected it to be either. This… wasn't natural, he knew it as soon as his feet hit the rocked floor and he retracted his grapple. It was too… perfect to be anything else; so it was man made or, considering what they were dealing with, creature made. Or magic made. All three options were pretty terrible, in his opinion.
At least he didn't have to crouch, Bruce figured the main tunnel could fit a small army. The is either really big or there's a lot of them, he had realized as the cavern walls continued to grow bigger the deeper he went until he stopped between two different tunnels and decided to go right.
He cursed again when he hit another dead end. These caves were like labyrinths themselves and although he had the advantage of being able to tell which direction Luthor went, he didn't know when he went there. He backtracked again, following his own footprints and the faint impression where Luthor had stood for a second, no doubt thinking of his next move. Bruce wanted to catch him and soon preferably. With his luck, someone would close the doors and leave him locked in here forever.
While he walked, he debate whether that might have been a plan, but even he knew it was a stupid one. Bruce had no doubts that he was an important member of the league, there were just some things that he could do that the rest of his co-workers couldn't, but in this type of battle, he thought it would have been smarter to lock someone with Diana or Clark's level of strength in here. Luthor was also in here and he wasn't self-sacrificing enough to lock himself up. Then again, the rest of his team wouldn't give a damn about leaving an ally in here for decades.
The Joker wasn't magical and Circe was currently incapacitated though-
He stopped at the fork again. Left didn't work, which meant Luthor was to the right or down the middle path. His body heard it before his mind processed it, his feet already moving him into the shadows, the rest of him trying to figure out the sudden tension in the air. Then he heard it, a great rumbling growl that grew louder and louder until a hulking figure walked into the cave. How didn't I hear it before? But he knew how when it began to move again, the footsteps eerily silent for belonging to something so large. Without a doubt, this was the one.
Whereas the minotaur he had left Diana and Superman to was humanoid with only horns to suggest it wasn't normal, this thing was nearly entirely beast except for the very human legs beneath its upper body. He estimated that it was three times as tall as him.
Despite the lack of lights, it knew where it was going, its great nose sniffing down the tunnel Bruce had started in, the one that Bruce knew would lead to the exit. While his gut clenched at the idea of leaving Diana and Clark to handle it, he knew that he didn't have much of a choice. The sword would help them more than anything and finding Luthor would too, if only to get some answers that Circe hadn't given.
He waited until the only breathing he heard was his own and then waited for a few seconds after that before he began to move again, picking the pathway the right path. He hadn't spotted any blood on it so that meant it hadn't run into Luthor down there and the other way was a dead end, he figured this must have been the way. There was no other direction to go.
He reached for his comm-link, but dropped his hand when he spotted a glow from further down, growing larger as the seconds passed before it flickered and went out. Like a flashlight dying. Switching his own light off, he stepped out of the way and his eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the lack of light. Luthor must have hit a dead end as well. He didn't know that Batman was in here. Bruce had the advantage now.
This part was entirely muscle memory, waiting for Luthor to get past him just enough that he wouldn't have time to react and perhaps swing a robotic arm at him in that battlesuit of his. Closer, closer, Bruce could see the color of his suit now and then Luthor walked passed him; Bruce grabbed a batarang and threw it with a flick of his wrist. It slammed into the back of Luthor's neck, right where the protective covering over his face met the rest of his suit.
Luthor spluttered in surprise and fear, pulling the batarang out of his neck and staring at it with squinting, beady eyes and widened when he recognized it. "Batman," he voiced, lifting his head just in time to notice the wires tangling around his legs.
He fell forward on his face and Bruce pushed him over onto his back. "Luthor," he said simply. "You've gotten yourself mixed into something you shouldn't have, didn't you?"
Instead of launching into a tirade about meddling superheroes and their alien companions, Luthor lifted a hand, almost as though he was surrendering. Bruce's brow furrowed, still standing over him tensely, disbelieving of his motives. Luthor didn't surrender; it just wasn't in his blood to do anything like that. "I saved the world once, surely that gives me the ability to talk," he sneered, dropping his hand when Bruce didn't say anything. Ah, that was the Luthor he knew.
Bruce didn't step back, but he also didn't attack either and Luthor took that as a good enough sign. Sitting up and trying to wiggle backwards against the cavern wall, Luthor began, "I am not a man of magic. We have that much in common, Batman, but you're more tolerable than I and being brought back to life is something people would kill for, myself being one of them. But I won't be a slave to magic, I'd rather be dead than at someone else's whim."
"That's why you betrayed Circe," he summarized, eyes narrowed beneath his cowl.
"Yes. You'd do well to leave her for dead, it would help your problem as well," he said coldly, throwing him annoyed look at being interrupted. Bruce stared back and it was Luthor who turned his gaze away first. "I won't let that monster loose in Metropolis, in my city of all places! Maybe the man before would have allowed that, but… I was going to end it here, return and end Circe before you heroes even realized something was wrong, but I didn't consider - what a fool I am - that the clown would start the plan before we were ready."
Realizing that if he didn't stop him, Luthor would finally begin that rant Bruce had predicted earlier, he interrupted: "And then what?"
"Then what?" Luthor repeated dumbly, a flicker in his eyes that made Bruce uneasy. "And then I sleep."
"Somehow, I doubt that." He wasn't the type of man to just fall asleep, he would have other plans. A giant creature with superhuman strength was the type of distraction that Bruce expected Luthor to do and he wasn't ruling out the possibility that he was going to kill then continue on with his own plots.
Luthor smiled. There was no humor in it. "Somehow, I doubt you have a choice in what I do. You see, my suit is stronger than yours, Batman, if we fight, which of us will win?" When Bruce tensed, readying himself for an attack, Luthor shook his head, sighing loudly. "We are after the same goals: save Metropolis. I have no need for battling you, Batman, not unless you waste my time. Believe it or not, that's your decision, but I want to end that thing. It'll cost a fortune to clean up the mess its offspring made as is."
He got to his feet, his armor clinking together, free his legs from the wire with one great tug. It fell uselessly to the floor, Bruce following the progress briefly before looking back at the bald man. He was loathe to admit it, but Luthor was right about two things: they were on the same page of saving Metropolis. And they didn't have time to waste now that that thing had left.
"Sword," he ordered impatiently. Luthor hesitated, hand twitching on the sword as his hip before handing it over with a resigned sigh. The hilt was red, but cold and almost awkward to hold, like Athena wanted none but those she approved to touch it. He unsheathed it; the blade was thick and silver, lethal looking. It was the type of sword that he was sure could cut through flesh with little effort and he hoped it worked as well against a minotaur.
Bruce put it back in its protective case then wrapped wire around the hilt tightly, binding it to a loop on his belt. Easy to pull out, difficult to be stolen. "Now walk."
Luthor muttered, but followed the order after a moment of hesitation. The trip inside this cave had taken a few minutes, but the walk back was excruciating in comparison whenever he thought of Diana fighting it. Perhaps alone, perhaps with help, but definitely without him. Get used to it, buddy, he reminded himself strictly, sighing inwardly. He couldn't fight all her battles anymore than she could fight all of his. This was their duty and Bruce wouldn't let anything come before the mission. Not even her. The thought was painful, but true.
He stopped walking suddenly, frowning at the footprints on the floor in front of them. They were theirs, he recognized the heel of Luthor's step as the ones he had followed in the cave. They might have been from the two of them walking in this direction earlier, but something about it confused him. He crouched, examining them, and swore. No wonder they bothered him; the footsteps weren't going towards them, as they would if they were from earlier, they were going away from them. As in they had walked this way already.
"This place is magical in nature," Luthor said critically, noticing the same thing that Bruce did. "We can't expect it to be the same way out as it was in. It would be easy for them to escape if that was the case."
Bruce nodded shortly, pulling out a small, rectangular device from one of his pockets. "I figured something like this might happen." The screen lit up, illuminating his face; he tapped rapidly, zeroing in on the tracker he had stuck in the wall when he first arrived. The screen flashed green, telling him that it caught the signal. A weak signal, but a signal nonetheless. "This way." He lead them down back the way they came, turning right at an intersection.
"Magnificent creation, isn't it? You don't know when you've gone from the doorway to the labyrinth itself," Luthor commented after a few minutes. Bruce didn't look up from his tracker, but his brows arched beneath his cowl. Whatever Circe had done to bring Luthor back, it didn't seem like she had collected all the pieces; the arrogance was still there, but there was less of it. Maybe that was just a side effect of dying.
"Amazing," he said dryly, still looking at the screen. Luthor didn't speak again until they hit a deadend a few minutes later.
Luthor laughed as Bruce examined his screen. "Apparently, your little toys do nothing here... What are you doing now?" He asked as Bruce began to run his gloved hands over the wall.
"Quiet, we don't know where that thing is in here," he snapped shortly.
"I- Did you hear that?"
Bruce didn't say or even think I told you so, but it might have been implied with the heated look he sent the other man. He made a shushing motion, but the thudding of footsteps sounded far enough off that his fingers continued skimming over the wall until they brushed against something sharp, something made of metal. He pulled out pointed, bat-shaped object that looked similar to a batarang, but this was thicker and heavier to hold. It was also useless now; there was certainly no exit here.
"I suppose it's my turn to find our way out?" Luthor asked smoothly as Bruce tucked it away into a pouch, less than pleased that magic thwarted science again. Maybe he could work with Zatanna into making something that worked around magic, but that implied he'd be able to find his way out of here in time. Of course, letting Luthor lead the way was out of the question, but just what else could he-?
His knees began to tremble as a feeling washed over him. He didn't know what it was, just that he had the feeling of a sword sticking from his abdomen and then ripped out forcibly, knocking the breath from his lungs. His hand fell against the wall to support himself. He wouldn't have been surprised to find that Luthor had stolen the sword and stabbed him with it, but when he looked up, he found that Luthor was staring at him, confused and quite empty-handed.
This isn't my pain, he realized, and the thought acted like a buffer against the sensation. The pain wasn't gone, he could still feel it, but it was distant now, something that he could acknowledge from afar rather than something he could feel personally.
Diana. His fingers went to the hilt of his sword, his eyes taking on a steely determination. Science didn't work in here, but he'd just been reminded that magic did and though he didn't question why it worked now, why he hadn't felt it earlier, Bruce was suddenly glad for their bond.
He followed the fragments of thoughts without a word, hearing Luthor's annoyed protests and questions behind him. The thoughts grew stronger, but not overwhelming as he walked, seeming to know when to turn and when to keep walking straight without thinking about it, never once coming across another creature. His feet were moving off pure instinct. He had a frightening thought that it wouldn't work until the cave began to grow narrower and narrower until it ended abruptly in a dead end.
A dead end with light shining on it.
"How did you…?" Luthor murmured, both of them looking up at the moon far above their heads.
Bruce pulled out his grapple, shooting it at a broken yet sturdy piece of concrete at the exit. As he climbed the rest of the way out, two thoughts consumed him: one, fresh air hadn't smelled so sweet now that he was away from the musky smell of earth and two, he needed to find her. He didn't fool himself into thinking that it was everyone else that concerned him, even if he did spare them a fragment of thought as well, but he knew that Diana was his focus as he thought about her pain. The Minotaur must have found her. His hands curled into fists at his side, but loosened as he shot a grapple to a nearby roof.
In that moment, he found that Diana didn't overwhelm the mission so much as she became another piece of it, another reason to keep going and keep trying. He might have loved his family differently than he loved her, but they didn't interfere with the mission, why did he think that Diana would?
Focus, Bruce. You can have second thoughts later.
He spotted them as soon as he was on the building. It wasn't hard to find them given the level of destruction surrounding them, dust still lingering in the air from toppled buildings, mingling with smoke from burning cars. They were in the intersection and beneath the lone surviving signal light, Bruce could see a brown fur with bloodied horns towering over a figure in red and blue.
A figure that was shielding another from harm and couldn't dodge out of the way as the dragged his foot across the ground, the sidewalk cracking beneath its powerful heel, seeming to debate on what to do next. He didn't give it the chance to decide, throwing a smoke bomb at its feet. The Minotaur seemed to splutter, confused by what it was inhaling and stepping away from it, trying to shake the smoke off, not paying attention to its surroundings.
His fingers curled around the edge of the sword, but he hesitated, not moving. There wouldn't be another shot at this, would there? From here, he could jump down and pierce its neck with the sword before it even realized he was there, but Bruce didn't know if he could kill this. Was there a shred of humanity in it and, if so, wasn't there a chance of reaching that part of it? If it didn't, would this count as killing?
He hesitated too long. The smoke began to clear and he could clearly see Diana supporting Clark on her back, trying to limp away, to drop him off to safety, but if Bruce could see, the Minotaur definitely could. He saw the sudden tension in her shoulders as she deposited Clark on the ground against, turning to face the Minotaur, hands raised and lips moving.
A streak went past his face, barely missing him. He would have thought it was a poor attempt at killing him if it didn't strike the Minotaur clearly on the back. It tore its gaze from Diana, whose lips moved even faster, and zeroed in on him. Bruce looked over his shoulder, but there was no sign of anybody else, no sign of the person who shot it. He looked back down and froze. It was gone.
From his vantage point, he could see the annoyance painting Diana's features. She looked around until she spotted him on the roof and the annoyance fell away, replaced with a relief that nearly staggered him, until her emotions seemed to freeze, surprise and then panic flooding her, flooding him.
"Batman!" She shouted as he instinctively dived to the side. Too late, he thought as something tore through his side, cutting through armor and flesh as cleanly as scissors through paper. He didn't register the pain much, eerily similar to the way he felt Diana's wound only a few minutes ago. Clumsily, he ducked out of the way from another attack, a snort telling him the Minotaur was more amused than annoyed at the attempt to dodge it.
He pressed a hand against his wound to thwart the flow of blood with little use. Instead, it fell to the sword at his hip and he pulled it from the sheath, his side protesting the movement, the rest of him grateful that it wasn't a moment too late as a fist larger than his face came crashing down on him just as he held the sword up.
It cut clean through the Minotaur's hand, blood dripping down the sword, falling to the floor. His eyes flickered, only briefly, to notice that their blood was mixed together on the rooftop as the Minotaur began to howl, jerking its hand from the blade. The sword clattered uselessly to the rooftop; Bruce felt his vision getting blurry once more and it made the impressive size of the Minotaur even larger, even more frightening.
Diana, he thought, a frown making its way to his face as the Minotaur trembled with pain and rage. Bruce lifted his face, holding his side once more with one hand while the other fumbled around through the blood and broken rooftop to find the sword, grunting at the effort it took to roll away from another attack. He ended up on his back, coughing, blinking his eyes clear enough to see it standing over him, nearly identical to the way he had found it standing over Diana and Clark.
Three things happened simultaneously: the Minotaur lifted its fist to strike again, Bruce tried to force himself backwards, and a figure slammed itself into its abdomen. A figure with thick, dark hair and blue eyes that sparkled with a calmness that Bruce didn't understand nor could spare the energy to question. The Minotaur stumbled back from the force and the darkness overtook Bruce completely.
A/N: Newbie, how does it end in one more chapter if you didn't finish the action in this one? It does because I decided against doing an epilogue at this point (though if you guys want one after the next chapter is published then I will consider it). Why? I want this story done, I'm not as happy with it as I was when I first started writing it (happy is not the same as proud though, I'm still proud of it, but there's a lot I wished I had done differently)! As an early eighteen birthday gift to me, please vote on the poll if you haven't already! It'll make my job easier and you guys get to pick what story I'm writing next, so a win-win for all of us!
On another note, completely unrelated to this story, could anyone give me some information on Damian, Ra's, and Talia? Namely, their relationship with each other (not how they are related, but how they interact together) and what most of their motives have been. I need this for future reference and it would help a lot. Thank you!
