Chapter 6 – The Two Knights
When Bruce glided onto the factory, he immediately knew something was wrong.
He picked up the broken chain by the hatch. "They've already come through here."
Talia came up beside him rubbing her arms together. "It's ridiculous how cold this city can get."
Bruce bowed his head. "Listen. Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" she snapped. "I'm heading in; I'm freezing my brown ass off."
Bruce extended his arm across her. "Wait. Listen."
This time she heard it: a burglar alarm.
"So your friends tripped it," said Talia. "Let's get in. We're no use just waiting here."
They headed inside. In the factory, the air was foggy and warm. A perfect remedy for the outside cold.
Talia was softening up.
"So," she began conversationally. "What will you do when you meet?"
"Who? Roland or Diana?"
"I suppose each one merits their own answer," said Talia, chuckling.
But the laughs stopped there—another alarm sounded throughout the factory. But this was one much more severe; and after the alarm, the sound of a big explosion rumbled the factory.
Talia grabbed a railing to steady herself.
"I think we know who that is," said Talia.
"They need our help," said Bruce. "Let's go."
But up ahead, like rats abandoning a ship, came a flurry of Grey bodies leaving the factory. The soldiers saw Bruce and Talia standing at the exit. The soldiers glanced at eachother, and came to the same agreement.
"Oh hell," muttered Talia.
"Been that kind of night," said Bruce.
The soldiers attacked in unison—Bruce and Talia both dove opposite ways as the horde of grey bodies clashed against them. It was everything Bruce could do to stand his ground; the soldiers were quick and strong—much more than any normal human should be allowed to move. He broke arms, tore ligaments, knocked the soldiers unconscious by slamming their foreheads against the railing. But the soldiers kept coming—at this rate, Bruce would be here all night.
Beside him, Talia had her sword out – she casually sliced off limbs and severed arteries while moving through the grey soldiers.
"Talia!" shouted Bruce. "No! Nothing lethal."
"Look!" she shouted at him.
The bodies that fell before Talia's sword did not remain defeated. Limbless bodies picked themselves up as if they were waking up from a nap. Bloody soldiers wrapped their mortal wounds with rags and continued to walk as if nothing had happened.
That caught Bruce by surprise. Talia wasn't lying when she said these people were no longer simple humans.
The factory shook again, just as a blue and green fire swelled up in the belly of the factory.
That was all the warning the soldiers needed—suddenly, they were no longer fighting Bruce and Talia, they were fighting to jump over them.
"Jump down!" shouted Talia. "We need to climb lower!"
"What about these men!?" said Bruce.
"Look!"
At the bottom of the factory Bruce saw dozens of soldiers struggling to make it through the smoke. Some had collapsed on the railings, and their cries of help went unnoticed by their brethren.
"Right!" shouted Bruce. He rolled over the side of the railing and glided down to the lower decks. All of the soldier's faces were black with soot; their grey uniforms charred and eaten by the flames. When they saw him, they all instinctively flinched. Some tried crawling away.
"Relax," he said quietly. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"L—Liar," coughed one of the soldiers. "You beat us up—two weeks ago."
"That wasn't me," said Bruce. He withdrew his grapnel cord from his belt and wrapped it around the men. They were all too exhausted to fight back.
"And the other one, the woman," said another soldier. He sounded delirious, as if he were drunk. "She got us, too. Last week."
"Where is she?" asked Bruce. He tied the cord together and pulled on it, testing the integrity of the knot. It would work.
"Shhhhe is here," slurred the soldier. The carbon monoxide was starting to poison the men's minds. "With Rrroland."
"Hang tight," said Bruce. He aimed his grapnel gun at the clean air of the factory ceiling.
"Something's off about you," said a soldier. He was stirring in place; he was moments from passing out. "Last time—you had a different voice."
"When we get to the top, run for the exit. It'll be on your right."
"Run for what—?"
Bruce shot the grapnel gun, and they all jerked upward as if they had been snapped up by a fisherman's line. They rose in the air and suddenly they could all breathe the clean air of the higher floors. Bruce released the grapnel gun's lever, and all of the soldiers fell to the floor. There they remained, on all fours, coughing the smoke out of their lungs.
"Go!" shouted Bruce. He kicked one of them in the leg. "Before I change my mind."
The soldiers coughed while they scampered. It wasn't an honorable retreat; like watching a group of teenagers running away from some juvenile delinquent act.
Only know did Bruce realize just how young this army was. Some of those kids could have been his own children.
"Good work," said Talia, stepping out of the smoke with a mask over her mouth. "But that wasn't what I was pointing at."
Bruce looked down again; a tall woman with black hair was stepping triumphantly out of a small room at the center of the factory.
Bruce's stomach dropped. It was her. Diana.
But something seemed different about her. Her posture was malignant; outrageously boisterous. Like she had just conquered the entire world.
Then Bruce realized what had happened. He took a long look at the control room; he could see the faintest of silhouettes lying on the floor.
"We can just leave him like that!" shouted another familiar voice.
It was Clark. Bruce had a double take; his friend had changed so much. He looked more elderly, some gray hairs in his head. And Clark was glaring at Diana. Something had gone down between the two of them, and it wasn't good.
"What's going on?" said Bruce to Talia. He tried to move closer.
"Shut up," she snapped. "I'm trying to listen."
Bruce glared at her, but he did what he was told.
As the argument pressed on between the two super friends, a small smile overcame Talia.
"Well, well," she said, impressed. "I didn't think your girlfriend had it in her."
Bruce didn't like the sound of that. "What did she do—?"
Suddenly, a steel catwalk with a dozen soldiers split into two; the soldiers clung to the grating while the two pieces swung like pendulums. Bruce jumped onto the railing, ready to dive down and save them.
"Wait," said Talia. She was looking at the control room. "Roland is in there. Alone."
"So?" said Bruce. "There are people in danger."
"They'll be fine," hissed Talia. "But now is our chance to get to Roland, Bruce. And he is in a weakened state. We can end this—tonight."
The excitement was practically oozing out of Talia's eyes. Bruce suddenly understood what excited Talia above of all things: winning.
And she saw the look in Bruce's eyes, too. Her smile faded.
"No," she said angrily. "We're not going to save him, Bruce. Absolutely not."
"Like I told your father thirty years ago, Talia," said Bruce evenly. His hands went into his left utility pocket. "I'm no executioner."
Talia sneered at him. "Fine. I'll do it myself."
"I thought you might say that."
In a flash, Bruce slammed a pair of handcuffs onto Talia's wrist. He slapped the other handcuff onto the railing.
"Dammit!" she snarled. "You stupid idiot. You're going to get me killed."
"You're the best escape artist on this planet," said Bruce, stepping onto the railing, "or so your father once told me. I'll give you two minutes before you break out of those cuffs, Talia. You'll be fine."
Suddenly, she flashed a grudging look of approval at him. "And my father once told me you would go to ridiculous lengths to keep your code. It's something he respected about you."
"And you?"
Talia began working on the cuffs. "You better do whatever it is you're going to do, Bruce. Time is ticking."
Bruce positioned himself for the control room, but as he was about to take flight, he heard desperate yelling.
"Please! Please don't kill me!"
Bruce saw Diana squatting at the end of the catwalk; she was trying to pull up one of the grey soldiers. But the boy was slipping from the heat. Diana was too distracted by the smoke to see what was happening.
Bruce dove into the fire; this was a leap of faith.
And a quarter of a second later, the boy slipped out of Diana's grasp.
Bruce wrapped his cape around him; he plummeted like a sweltering rocket upon re-entry. He saw Diana's bewildred face in his periphery, but there was no time to lose. Bruce caught the youth, and just as the flames from the fire extended their hot, greedy fingertips towards the pair, Bruce flung open his cape; it caught the hot air like a balloon, and the momentum carried them forward like a bullet. Suddenly, Bruce and the boy were blazing through the smoke and the inferno.
Bruce directed them towards the main console room, but they came in too quickly – Bruce lowered his shoulder to take most of the impact away from the youth as they crashed into glass, steel grating, and concrete.
It hurt—it really hurt.
Finally, Bruce came out of the collision at a roll. The terrified youth slowly opened his eyes—he couldn't believe he was safe.
"I'm alive," he said, patting his hands all over his body. "Oh my god, I—I'm alive!"
The youth turned around and saw his savior; the Batman, unconscious, laying on the floor.
"And you," he said, anger in his voice. "You and that Amazon beat my friend to an inch of his life."
The youth picked up a shard of glass from the collision.
Slowly, Bruce gained consciousness.
"Roland said you would come, and that you would be too great to bring down," said the youth, a maniacal, almost spell-bound madness coming over him. "Well you don't seem so great now."
Bruce held his hand up in self-defense. The youth's eyes had widened; his pupils turned a deep shade of black. Something horrible was happening to the boy—something evil.
The boy lunged forward with the glass in his hand. Bruce tried to move away, but he knew it was too late.
Bang!
A gunshot went off. The youth stumbled forward; his black eyes wide and confused.
The glass slipped out of the youth's hands.
Then the youth collapsed to the ground, dead.
Bruce coughed. Everything hurt horribly. He very slowly got to his feet.
A dozen feet away, a man in a grey cloak, with a silvery ponytail, and a blood-smeared face, lay on the ground. He was holding the pistol in his hand.
"B—Bruce," sputtered Roland. "Help me."
Bruce froze. For a moment, he wasn't quite sure if he had heard the man correctly.
"Yes, I know," said Roland, struggling to breathe. "Please, help me."
Bruce looked at the youth sprawled on the floor. His black eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
"You killed him," said Bruce coldly. "Why should I help you?"
"He was dead . . . anyway," panted Roland. "His eyes. The serum. He had gone too long without t—taking it."
"So that's what happens? If someone doesn't take it they become an animal?"
Roland spat out a mouthful of blood onto the grating. He tried moving, but moaned terribly.
"Di!" boomed Clark's terrified voice. "Let's go!"
The factory shook more terribly; as if it was going to erupt like a volcano. The blue and green flames sweltered higher than before, and the smoke was thickening into something tangible and solid.
They needed to evacuate the building. And Bruce knew he couldn't abandon this man to death. But even more, Roland knew Bruce's identity. What else did he know?
"Bruce," repeated Roland again. "The Manor. I h—have the answers, at your cave, under Wayne Manor."
"How do you know about—Ra's," said Bruce angrily. "Ra's told you everything."
Roland shook his head. "No, not Ra's."
"You've been to my home?" demanded Bruce. "You poisoned my son! Hurt the woman I once loved—why? Why the hell should I help you?!"
Roland found the strength raise his head off the ground. "Because it's not your home, Bruce."
Bruce took a long look at the man named Roland; bronze skin, scars, a cupid bow lip, and hazel eyes.
His father's eyes.
And as the factory crumbled around them, so did something inside Bruce.
"No," said Bruce, his eyes going wide. "That's impossible. It's impossible."
Roland's hazel eyes shone with conviction. The same conviction that shone in Emma's eyes; the same conviction that Bruce saw whenever he looked himself in the mirror.
"It's our home, Bruce. I've been waiting for you, brother. For twenty years."
Above the flames, Bruce saw Talia looking down at them. She had seen the whole thing. Bruce didn't need to ask; from the look on her face, she was caught dead surprised as well.
Roland extended a hand. "Please, Bruce. I can explain it all at the c—cave. I have DNA."
Bruce hesitated. This was all wrong, this was too much. It was a con-game, a set-up. He never had a brother. And yet, there was the eyes, and there was a resemblance.
"I could have killed her," gasped Roland. "I could have killed her family. But I didn't—why? Because of you."
Bruce looked at the youth laying dead beside him. Roland had saved Bruce's life.
Roland saw what Bruce was thinking. He nodded.
"I saved your life, brother . . . are you going to save mine?"
The factory collapsed. Talia screamed down at them; but she was somehow muted. As if Bruce had blocked out the world; sound and all. For a moment, as the ceiling fell down at them, everything slowed. Bruce studied the man before him. it was a lie, it had to be. A last-gasp effort for a dying man to live.
And yet, as the mortar fell all around them, the tiniest sliver, the thinnest of hope, crept into Bruce's ear.
What if it was true?
Then the world snapped back into focus.
"BRUCE!" screamed Talia's voice. "RUN!"
Bruce made his decision. He grabbed the bloodied hand before him. And the Dark Knight carried the Grey Paladin out of the fight.