Chapter 23: A Rumble in Wayne Manor
Cassandra heard heavy boots thunking on the floor of the library's first level.
"What the…"
That's when the door on the second level burst open. Black clad soldiers-the Arkham Knight's men-started piling through. Cassandra's immediate count was six.
Her immediate response was to jump on the long oak table next to her. Now with altitude for momentum, she ran across the table, leapt with her foot out, and dropped the guy at the front of the party of six. The other five staggered back from the impact.
As she kipped up, she heard a groan of exertion from the rows.
"NNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
And the third row in started tipping over. It collided with the second row with a colossal THUD… causing the first row to begin to tip over on top of four of the five standing henchmen.
Cassandra had to dive out of the way of the falling oak shelf and the thick, heavy books on tax law as it fell to the ground, subsuming the four goons in a boredom avalanche.
From where the third row once stood, Stephanie Brown sauntered, arms folded, lips smiling, a thin sheen of sweat developing on her forehead.
The henchman who fell in Cassandra's initial assault groggily got back to his feet. Cassandra rewarded his perseverance with a one-punch KO.
Stephanie opened her arms. "Feed me!"
Cassandra looked at the sole remaining henchman, who had observed the last few seconds in sheer dumbfoundedness. She grabbed him by the shoulder, and shoved him toward Steph.
Stephanie greeted this fellow with a kick to the instep. He dropped to his right knee, and she paintbrushed his face with a palm-strike and elbow to the head in one blindingly quick stroke. It sounded like a lightning strike. It decimated him, and his neck whipped to his left before he keeled forward. Stephanie had to sidestep him to avoid his fall.
As Cassandra looked at Stephanie, the sound of clanging metal came from the direction of the steel railing.
The guys on the first floor were coming up by two separate grappling hooks.
Both Cassandra and Stephanie went to the railing and saw two Squires coming up each line.
Then they looked at each other and smiled, each knowing what the other was thinking.
Cassandra and Stephanie both straddled the rail, and grabbed the lines. If the Squires were coming up, they were going down.
One of the Squires knew what was about to happen. "NO! GUYS, FALL BACK!"
Too late.
Cassandra and Stephanie wrapped their legs around the grapple lines, and went into freefall.
All six of them landed painfully on the hard wood floor of the first level.
Bruce heard the boots in the hallway outside the gallery. Instinctively, he tensed up. Judging by the grip she had around his waist, so had Selina.
"Mind the art," he said.
"It's just stuff, Sailor."
"Alfred picked it out."
"Ugh. Fine."
Eight black-clad Squires burst into the gallery to wage bloody war against two fifty-something members of the one percent who hadn't been in a fight against non-holographic opponents in years.
Bruce waited until Selina got up before he stood, grabbed the black fiberglass bench upon which the two had been sitting, and brought it up in a golf-swing motion against the two Squires up front. It connected with their jaws, and they were out cold instantly.
Selina Wayne, old lady that she was, jumped. She rebounded off the white wall, with her knees at neck level of the nearest Squire. In mid-air, she wrapped her thighs around the poor bastard's neck and head-scissored the top of his skull into the black and white marble floor. Bruce heard the fellow cut a loud fart as he passed out from shock and trauma, and lost control of his body.
She swept the the legs out from under another one as the other three advanced toward Bruce.
He readied himself.
Bruce managed to block blows from the two on the sides with his forearms, but an elbow to the breadbasket from the one in the middle caused him to skid back.
The one in the middle decided to press the advantage.
He didn't get far.
A right from Bruce caught the guy under the chin as he was winding up for one of his own. It knocked his head back, and would have sent him toppling into a podium holding up a priceless sculpture of… something, Bruce didn't know what, had he not reached out and grabbed him by the bulletproof vest.
He spun the dazed Squire around and used him as a human shield against the remaining two.
The one on the right moved in, trying to angle a compromised right around his compatriot's head. But Bruce punched the man he was holding in the back of the skull so hard that he jerked forward, his forehead colliding with his friend's face at an ungodly speed. Bruce saw blood shoot from beneath the face slit of the poor guy's balaclava, and douse his eyelids as he collapsed.
With one left, Bruce brought his hands up again. He blocked a left from the remaining Squire and went for a right with the same arm that was a little too slow. The Squire made him pay for it with a right that grazed Bruce's cheekbone.
Just then, Selina popped up behind the Squire, grabbed him by his left shoulder, and spun him around.
She used her right foot to land quick, light kicks at both of his insteps, spreading his legs. And with one violent motion, she rebounded her foot right into the side of his left knee. Bruce could hear the ugly crunch of dislocation, and saw the Squire's whole left leg cave inward like an inverted checkmark.
The Squire shrieked, and Selina wrapped her arm around the guy's neck in an inverted headlock. She brought both legs up and let gravity and pain send the fellow's face downward to eat marble.
Selina sprung back to her feet, grabbed the collar of Bruce's white dress shirt, and kissed him full on the mouth.
Once she was done, Bruce noticed sizeable holes in his photographic memory.
"I missed this," she said, beaming.
So had he, come to think of it.
Harper didn't think Barbara had it in her.
But Barbara had.
She grabbed the neck of the music room cello as though it was fucking Excaliber, brought it up over her head, and brought it down on the Squire that was moving in on her.
Twenty-five pounds of weight and God knows how many pounds of Barbara's own pressure per square inch rent the cello into sawdust, and the head of the Squire upon whom she vented her fury got sent to the thin green carpet below.
That meant there were three left.
But this music room was tiny. This had to end quickly, or the end product was going to look like it came from a meat grinder.
Harper slid across the left grand piano as though it were a cop car in the intro to one of your crappier early nineties network police dramas. She sent her right foot into the pelvis of the one on the left, knocking him into the wall. She engaged the middle one left standing by driving an elbow into his ribs.
Which meant the gentleman on the right had to deal with the instrument-swinging fury of one Barbara Gordon.
The middle one rocked Harper in the face, and she felt her back wrap around the edge of the piano. Pain exploded, and she dropped to her knees. The one on the left had come back, and raised his foot to stomp on her neck.
Which wasn't the best idea for the gentlemen to have, as she sent a hard right into his crotch.
Harper thought she would be more proud of this as the day went on. Right now, she just felt bad for the guy.
She sent another elbow into the middle one to create space. Space created, she popped back up, opened the lid of the piano, slid the head of the Squire still clutching his balls into the innards of the piano, and slammed the lid.
The result was a loud BONNNNNG-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G! that drowned out everything else. And the Squire slid to the floor in need of medical attention.
Harper squared up for the one in the middle's re-advance, and and brought right and left crosses upon his masked face before he had time to get one shot off. She drove a shoe into his knee, which unmanned him. She folded her hands and drove an upward double-ax-handle into the off-button that was his chin. His head jacked back before he practically melted into the carpet.
She looked over and saw that the last Squire was holding her own against Barbara. He blocked some shots with upraised forearms, before she ate a lunge-kick in the stomach that knocked her against the wall. She bounced back with momentum, only to get a punch that landed flush to her right cheekbone for her trouble. Barbara staggered, reached out for the wall, but she did not go down.
Harper reached over to grab him by the shoulder, but he seemed to expect that. He spun around and she ate an elbow in the left side of her face. She staggered back and hit the wall. She bounced back like Barbara did, only to see that the last Squire had a knife.
It was raised.
And Harper wasn't going to be fast enough to dodge it, and she had doubts about her strength to block it.
She angled to her side, hoping she'd catch the blade in the thigh, when…
BOOM!
...the last Squire flew a good five feet, and didn't move once he hit the floor.
Her ears were ringing.
She and Barbara turned to the doorway.
There was Cullen.
And he was holding a shotgun.
He pumped it, and said "'Sup?"
"You shot him," Harper said, barely able to hear her own voice.
"Yeah," Cullen said. "I did."
"You shot him!" Barbara yelled.
"Oh, quit pissing yourself, Gordon. It's loaded with sonic flechettes. He's gonna be out for a while, but otherwise he's gonna be fine. I'm not actually gonna tote a live firearm around Wayne Manor. That'd be like flying an RC plane around a Buddy Holly memorial."
"Where did you even get that fucking thing?" Harper asked.
Cullen smiled, and looked down at his baby. "Alfred left it to me in his will… I named him Chad."
Barbara blinked. Harper saw her eyes roll a little. "You… named it…"
Harper saw Barbara absent-mindedly pick at the small cut that had opened up on her cheekbone.
She wavered on the spot. "I, um… I don't…"
And Harper felt her heart stop as she saw Barbara Gordon collapse.
Six Squires bulldozed through the billiard room door, and set their sights on Tim Drake.
What these six fellows did not know was that Violet Paige had been standing just off the side of the doorway as they barged in.
And they may have only been dimly aware of the fact that Violet was strong enough to take the lower right billiard table in this billiard room… and throw it at them.
Which is exactly what Violet did. She grabbed the southern end along the bottom, and heaved it along the floor toward the advancing Squires. Pool balls spilled from the shallow leather pockets, and the legs of the billiard table made a deafening SKREEEEEEEEE! as it skidded across the floor.
Tim noticed that the one at the head of the pack seemed to see it coming.
"L-"
That was as far as he got.
It wasn't a strike. If Violet wanted to chuck a second pool table at them, she might have picked up the spare.
The table collided with five of the Squires, sideswiping them and slamming them against the wall so hard that they left imprints in the plaster.
The last Squire looked at his five unconscious cohorts stuck between a wall and a massive oak gaming apparatus, before he lazily looked at Violet.
"Fuuuuuuuuuck," he said.
At which Violet leaned back against the wall next to the door, and said "You can have the last one. I don't want to be greedy."
The last Squire turned to Tim.
And Tim reached into the pocket of his jacket. He removed a steel cylinder about two inches long.
He hit the catch mechanism on the side, and…
FWIKT!
..that cylinder extended to a five foot bo staff.
"Come on," Tim said to the last Squire. "Don't be shy."
The last Squire stepped to.
Tim twirled his staff above his head in a flourish, and readied for a slash that the final Squire dodged. But this gave Tim room for an elbow.
The last Squire popped him in the face before he could pull it off.
He still trained regularly, but he hadn't been in a fight in a while.
Violet yelled out "Booooooo! You suck!"
Tim felt a small trickle of blood fall down his cheek, before he readied himself and began his second advance.
He began with a broad mid-thrust that the Squire ducked. This is what Tim had been banking on. He raised his foot and brought it down on the side of the Squire's face. It knocked him on his back, and Tim could see his legs tense as he tried to get up.
In the spirit of the room in which he fought, Tim lined up a behind-the-back trick shot that resulted in the business end of his staff jabbing the last Squire in the hollow of his throat.
Any urge that the man had toward getting back to his feet was immediately halted by the coughing and sputtering fit that ensued. He clutched his throat and tried to breathe.
Tim leapt, and brought the staff down in a savage overhand stroke on the bridge of the Squire's nose. He was out cold.
"I give you an eight," Violet said. "No… Wait… Seven-point-five."
Tim was about to tell her Gee Thanks, when the world got blurry.
This was not the first time that he'd been dropped with a sedative. In fact, Tim thought this might have been one that one of the members of the Victim Syndicate dosed him with back in the day.
He did the math quickly. The cut on his cheek plus the general wooziness equaled a sedative that acted through the bloodstream.
It worked quick, too.
Because before he could open his mouth to tell Violet this, some prankster turned out the lights on planet Earth, and the floor of the billiard room punched him in the face.
And he heard Violet's echoing voice coming from above him as though he were at the bottom of a deep well.
"Tim? TIM?"
Stephanie Brown came to the conclusion that whenever she was around Cassandra Wayne, both of their respective IQs dropped to sub-shoe size numbers. It was like that when they were eighteen, and it was like that now.
She came to this conclusion as she and Cassandra picked themselves up from on top of the four Squires that they had knocked from their grapple lines, facilitating a fifteen foot plummet.
The things she did with this girl. It was like back in the day, when she signed up for every-other-day ass-kickings from Cass during training sessions. To be fair to herself, Stephanie reckoned that that was the only thing for a teenage superhero deeply in love from the back of a closet to do. How the hell else was she going to get the girl of her dreams to step on her, and not have it be weird?
She rolled over atop one of the groaning Squires, and looked at Cass. She was gingerly touching a small cut she got on the back of her neck, but otherwise she was fine.
Cassandra and Stephanie got to their feet. The closest of Cassandra's two Squires got to his as well.
She unloaded a flurry of shots into the guy's body armor that made him crumple, before she reared back and cracked her own forehead against his. He did a sack-of-potatoes impression to an audience of the motherfucking floor, before Cassandra stood over him, pointed at him… and looked directly at Stephanie.
The body language said everything.
Top that.
Stephanie picked up the nearest of her two Squires. He tried to throw a shot as he rose, but Stephanie ducked it. She rocked his covered face with a left uppercut, before she grabbed his left arm, and delivered a short-arm shiver to his clavicle that knocked him off his feet. He banged the back of his head on a nearby oak reading table.
She looked at Cassandra… and pointed down.
Cassandra smiled.
She picked up her second Squire. The poor bastard tried to deliver a roundhouse kick that was going to haunt him for the rest of his life, for Cassandra caught it with one arm, and used her free hand to wind up and punch his thigh.
Stephanie heard his femur snap.
The second Squire howled, and tried to fall to the floor, but Cassandra would not let him. She hugged him tightly around the waist with both arms, and arched back, heaving him over her head in a belly-to-belly suplex.
His lower back bounced off of the edge of the oak table, before he landed funny on the left side of his face.
Cassandra got to her feet, looked at Stephanie… and pointed down.
Stephanie nodded.
She picked up her second Squire by the collar. She reared back her right hand, clenched her fist, and paused.
Then she unleashed a series of hard and blinding finger jabs all over his upper torso. They had to be hard to compensate for the body armor, but she managed.
She knew she had managed because the Squire locked up, rigid, unable to move or even blink.
Stephanie just put her hand to the side of her head and gently pressed him to the floor. She looked at Cassandra, and smiled.
Cassandra laughed. "You learned the One Hour Photo!"
Stephanie, smiling, pressed her forearm to her waist and bowed low.
As she came back up, she heard Cassandra yell "LOOK OUT!"
Her first Squire had apparently come to, and punched her in the back of the head.
She started forward, stumbling. She foolishly gave in to the urge to turn around in midair, but that just meant her landing was going to be ungainly.
Cassandra caught her.
She held her that way for a moment. As though she had just dipped Stephanie during a dance.
Steph looked up at her, her black hair hanging down, her brown eyes two inviting, warm wells, the ghost of the smile from the fight still on her face.
A few minutes before, Stephanie had told her all of the reasons why she and Cassandra should be grown-ups about their current station in life. Compromise. One night of torrid passion as a gateway to a lifetime of platonic best friendship.
But now, Stephanie's reasons seemed… way over there somewhere. Like a remote control left on a living room table, an object that Stephanie was too lazy and too comfortable to retrieve.
And Cassandra… seemed to be staring at her the same way.
Stephanie was briefly contemplating the aesthetic virtues of Cassandra Wayne's lips when one of the Squires punched Cassandra in the face. The master martial artist had taken her eye off the ball, and paid for it. And because she had been holding Stephanie, they both fell.
As Stephanie was dragged up by the Squire, she noticed that Cassandra was gently pawing at a small cut on her cheek.
Stephanie ate a punch to the face. She drove her bicep into his chin, and then an elbow into the mush before he went down again.
She ran her finger along a small scratch that the Squire had given her on the left side of her nose, before she turned to look at Cassandra, who was on her feet again.
Stephanie took a step toward her… but the room got all swimmy.
Even in her impaired state, she could see Cassandra's eyes roll back in her head.
Sedatives. Great.
Cassandra fell to the floor first.
Stephanie fell on top of her.
"Kneel before Chad, you incel fucks!"
BOOM!
Cullen blasted at least one goon into unconsciousness.
Barbara Gordon couldn't open her eyes, so she couldn't tell precisely how many.
Though Barbara Gordon was using just sheer will to fight off the sedatives that she'd been dosed with, she could not move a single muscle.
Harper Row was propping her up, dragging her along the side of the second floor hallway of the East Wing. Barbara Gordon was sixteen years removed from needing a wheelchair to get around. She didn't like other people's help with her mobility then, and she sure as shit did not appreciate it now.
"Where are we going?" Harper asked.
Which was something Barbara wanted to know, but could not ask.
"The garage," Cullen said. "We're getting in a car and getting out of here."
"Why can't we go to the Batcave?"
"Because that's where they came from," Cullen said.
Silence before Barbara heard Harper say "Jesus."
Barbara had to wonder how the Arkham Knight's men could have gotten in from Batcave South. Her mind immediately went to one possibility. It was the only one that made sense… and it was the worst thing she could think of.
She could hear heavy footsteps coming from around a corner.
A lot of them.
"Welp," Cullen said, "looks like I'm up again."
Barbara heard the rack of the shotgun…
...and the click of an empty firearm.
"Ugh," Cullen said. "I knew I forgot something."
Barbara felt herself fall to the floor. Harper had let go of her.
She heard the Rows try to fight them off.
And she heard them loudly and painfully fail.
Then, and only then, did she fall into the darkness waiting for her.
Bruce Wayne was used to sedatives. He'd tried most of the conventional ones on himself during his training to become Batman.
But Selina was not used to sedatives in the slightest, and so she was out cold on the floor. Through his hazy vision, Bruce could see a small puddle of drool collecting on the marble floor near her mouth.
His head hurt from the post-sedative blows that the Squires had rained down upon him but they eventually stopped. Even clinging to his consciousness by the fingernails, he was worried that they'd start defacing the art in their frustration, but they just sat down, caught their breath and collected themselves.
A fuzzy headache and cotton-mouth. Bruce reckoned that the sedative they used had to have been an Ecktebben plant extract, delivered through some kind of lacing apparatus on their gloves. Fast acting, but not particularly long-lasting. It must have been cut with some cheap chemicals. It explained how he couldn't power through it. It also explained the soreness in his joints.
It just screamed "black market."
Apparently Ra's didn't bring his chemists with him.
A couple of minutes rolled by, until Bruce heard commotion in the hallway. Stomping feet. Loud punches. Screaming. And they kept getting closer.
Three Squires flew past the doorway of the art gallery. And visible in the hall was Violet Paige.
Of course. She has super strength. They're going to need a lot more sedatives to put her down.
Her white tank top and blue jeans were covered in blood. Bruce did not assume that all of it was hers.
One of the Squire's she has just thrown had gotten up and decided to press the issue. He laid into her with a right hook, and Violet didn't even give him the satisfaction of rolling with it. She just tanked it, and glared at him.
Violet picked the Squire up by his right wrist and lifted him off the ground. Bruce noticed she strained as she did it. The sedatives may not have dropped her yet, but they did weaken her.
A second passed before Bruce could hear screaming and cracking. All Violet had to do was squeeze a little, and she destroyed the Squire's wrist.
She dropped him, and the Squire cradled his hand. As he was doing so, Violet unloaded a right to the side of his head. He twisted, plopped, and entered dreamland sitting cross-legged.
Violet looked up and further into the hallway at something or someone that was beyond the humble aspect ratio of the art gallery doorway.
"You," Violet said. "I got a bone to pick with you, skank."
She took a deep breath.
She brought back her right fist.
And a hand clad in blue armor reached in and grabbed her by the throat before she could do anything with it.
The Arkham Knight lifted Violet Paige up into the air by her throat with her left hand. Were her face not a crimson mask, Bruce would have guessed that Violet was turning red. Her hands clutched at the Arkham Knight's arm with utter futility.
But as the seconds went on, those fingers finally slipped, and Violet Paige just hung there, limp.
It wasn't enough to kill her. It was just enough to put her down.
The Arkham Knight let go of Violet, and all six feet of her landed on the hallway carpet in a bloody heap.
From there, the Arkham Knight strode into the art gallery, looking at her Squires and perusing the work on the walls and on the podiums as though she owned it all.
Until finally she stood above the motionless Bruce.
"You're still awake," The Arkham Knight said. "Just barely.
She took a Glock out of the holster on her right hip, pointed it at the wall, and fired without looking.
BANG! BANG!
The Arkham Knight had fired at the floor-to-ceiling portrait of Thomas and Martha Wayne that Bruce and Selina had been staring at before the invasion.
One bullet apiece hit the painted likenesses of Bruce's mother and father right between their eyes.
"Look at that," the Arkham Knight said. "It happened again."
Bruce Wayne felt rage boil within him as the world went away.
"Hey… Mister Wayne… Wake up!"
His eyes fluttered open.
A teenage girl with a short mess of red hair on her head was kneeling next to him.
"Hi," she said. "Um… I'm Carrie Kelley. The new Robin. I've spent so much time in your house, but we haven't actually met. Can you move?"
Bruce's joints creaked as he got into a sitting position on the marble floor.
Jason had taken Carrie and Aaliyah to the movies. They hadn't been here for this.
Selina and Violet were sitting against the far wall. Aaliyah had brought them each glasses of water. And Jason was bringing in a very pained-looking Cullen Row.
Carrie fidgeted next to Bruce. "Jason told me that you'd like me because I have no idea who someone called 'The Joker' is."
This tiny shred of information cut through the fog in Bruce's head like a meat cleaver through wet brie.
"You don't know who The Joker is?"
Carrie shook her head. "I have a feeling it's one of those things I'm better off not knowing about."
The Squires were all gone. They'd torn up the study during their entrance and their exit.
Bruce walked past the damaged grandfather clock that hid the elevator into the Batcave.
Cassandra and Tim joined him, and all three went below ground.
He wondered if he should ask the two of them if they were okay.
He decided against it.
The Batcave was surprisingly unmolested, save for the large walls over on the left that stretched from the cave's concrete base to the hanging stalactites above.
Those walls were filled with lockers, and those lockers were filled with evidence. Said lockers had been spilled all about the concrete floor.
Each article of evidence had tracking gel. So Bruce's first stop had to be the Batcomputer to see what, if anything, was missing.
As he walked to the keyboard, Bruce tried to figure out how this had happened. There was a water entrance that led to the Gotham River for the Batboat, a path that led to the holographic doors that let the Batwing in and out, and the holographic entrance for the Batmobile a half a mile away.
Each needed clearance codes in order to access. They were under infinite layers of encryption that both Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon had designed in tandem. They were unhackable.
The only way the Arkham Knight could have gotten in was if she had the codes already.
And that… was something he'd need to think about when he had all of his faculties.
But it makes sense that the Arkham Knight didn't kill any of us, Bruce thought. If someone sold us out, and they worked anonymously, then she couldn't risk killing her only source of inside information.
He brought up the evidence database on the Batcomputer, and ran a scan.
"Is there anything missing?" Tim asked.
"Still scanning," Bruce said.
All articles of evidence were present and accounted for within the perimeter of the Batcave…
...except for two.
And once Bruce saw which two they were, his heart sank.
"What is it?" Cassandra asked from behind him.
"Two lots are missing," Bruce said. "Lot Two-Twenty-One, and Lot One-Zero-Three-Five. A Superman Signal Watch… and the canister of Kryptonite gas."
He turned around.
Cassandra's mouth was hanging open. She was apparently unable to speak.
Tim would have to speak for her.
"Conner," Tim said. "The Arkham Knight is going after Conner…"