I've wanted to do a DC crossover for a while. Part of the reason I haven't is that the continuity of the DC universe is even worse than the Marvel one, to the point that I don't think that DC themselves know how it works. I mean, just for Batman, we have the TV series, the movies, the rebooted movies, the other rebooted movies, the animated movies, the other animated movies, the animated TV series, the comics, the different comics, the other different comics, the other other different comics... It's a complete mess.
On the other hand, that means that I can basically pick and choose, taking bits I want from different places and putting them together into my own version, secure in the knowledge that this is almost certainly what DC do as well
So that's what I did.
This is a sort of experiment, to see what it would come out as. I may extend it at some point. I may also try something completely different...
Donny groaned and rolled over, weakly retching a little, before he managed to get to hands and knees. Blood dripped from his face, some of it coming from his nose, some from a cut over his right eye, and a little from one ear. Everything he was looking at was at least doubled, there were halos around the lights above him, and he could hear a faint whistling sound every time he moved.
'Another concussion,' he though blurrily. 'Having a lot of those recently.'
"Donny?" a voice rasped, sounding pained. He barely recognized it for a moment.
"Mikey? You still alive?" He tried to stand up, but collapsed again, almost ending up on his face. Looking around he could see several comatose bodies lying untidily around the alley between the ranks of shipping containers, steaming slightly in the light rain that was falling. One of them moved, a hand rising then falling back onto the pitted wet concrete with a splat.
"Think so. Not sure I want to be." His old friend's voice was weak, but held a note of black humor. "Could do with a drink. Think my left leg's busted, can't move it."
Trying again, Donny managed to stagger erect, bracing himself against the container next to him. Several of the other forms were beginning to move a little, but he ignored them for the moment and made his way to Mikey, using the container for support. He swayed a lot as he shuffled along, rain water washing blood from his face into his sweater, but he finally made it.
Dropping to his knees next to his friend, the act nearly making him black out again, he looked at the other man. Mikey's left leg was definitely broken, since it sure wasn't meant to bend that way. Donny winced a little at the sight. He was pretty sure that if he cut the leg of the jeans off, which was the only way they were coming off, he'd see bone sticking through the skin. Glancing to the right he saw that one of the containers had a pretty impressive dent in it where his friend had hit it.
"You're fucked up, man," Mikey said with a weak chuckle, looking up at his friend's face. "Broke your nose again."
"Don't remind me," Donny replied, his voice nasal due to the shape of his nose. "Got a busted rib too, I think. And concussion."
"Is he gone?"
The question made Donny look around, then up at the tops of the containers, stacked five high. Beyond them he could see a couple of the shipyard cranes swaying a little in the wind, back lit by the city beyond. The poles with the sparse lights on were casting cones of orange light into the rain, and down at the end of the alleyway formed by the two walls of containers were the lights of the first warehouse, currently mostly off since it was after working hours. There were only a few security lights on to show the sides of the run down building.
He couldn't see any sign of the one that had laid out a dozen men, though. Thankfully.
"Can't see the fucker," he reported. A glint next to him made him blink, not sure he was actually seeing a real thing for a second or two, since his eyes were definitely not playing ball right now. Wiping them, feeling congealed blood under his hand, he blinked again, then shuffled a foot to the right and picked up the thing that he'd seen.
Donny looked at it, then around the area again. A couple of the men were now sitting up, or attending to their fallen comrades. Several were groaning loudly in pain, one was weeping softly, a sound that made him wince. It told of immense pain.
He spotted a few more traces of their assailant now his vision was clearing a little. He was still having trouble seeing straight, but it wasn't as bad as it had been the last time, thankfully.
"I hate that bastard," Mikey said in a low voice. "Never listens. Just keeps hitting people and asking stupid questions. We don't have answers for him, do we? Not this time. But try to explain that, get a busted leg."
"Or nose," Donny agreed. He counted the people he could see, coming up two short. "Can't find Jeff or Nick."
Mikey raised his head a little, then turned it. "I saw them go that way," he said, indicating towards the warehouse. "Heard a scream. After you were out. He got them." His friend was speaking in shorter sentences, now, sounding exhausted. Donny was getting worried, watching the blood spread on his leg through his jeans, the entire leg below the knee now black with the stuff under the sodium lights.
"We need to get out of this place," Donny sighed, turning the object in his fingers over and over. "It's going to kill us."
"Too many idiots in spandex," Mikey agreed weakly, almost smiling. "Honest man can't make a buck."
"Well, sort of honest," Donny replied with a quirk of his lips. Mikey produced a horizontal shrug, his face showing pain.
"Close enough," he grunted. "Donny? Gonna pass out again."
Moments later his eyes closed.
"Mikey?" Dropping the small object with a clink, Donny prodded his friend. "Mikey? Oh, fuck." He tried to think what to do, medical training being something that had largely bypassed him. He could patch up a cut, and knew how to fix his nose, although he wasn't looking forward to it, but blood loss from a severely broken leg was beyond him. None of the other guys were any better, and looking at them, most of them were bashed up enough not to be able to help much anyway. One was lying ominously still, as it was.
Turning his face up to the rain, he clenched his fists. This was the third time in nine months that lunatic had come through and kicked the shit out of everyone while he was looking for information on someone he was after. No one ever said anything about the trail of bodies he left behind, but when he finally got his high profile bad guy, the papers were full of it. Either side, for or against his sort, all they really concentrated on was the money side, or the spectacular stuff, the things that affected the wealthy of the city. Some poor fucker in the dockyard who lost his home because he was off work for six months because he'd been thrown through a wall, he wasn't important enough for anyone to care.
Not the crime bosses, they could find more mooks easily enough, and not the so called good guys, because the dock worker was a petty criminal who sometimes supplemented his low income with a couple of minor thefts to make ends meet. To stop his family from starving.
And the guy himself had the nerve to go around all high and mighty because he didn't kill. He didn't seem to care that the damage he caused was sometimes worse. Donny had personally known at least two people who'd offed themselves because of that guy, since they were unable to work any more and lost the will to keep going. Not like there were a lot of jobs around for unskilled labor that couldn't labor.
Putting a hand on his friend's shoulder, he squeezed. "Sorry, Mikey," he whispered. "I can't do anything."
"I can, if you'll let me," an unfamiliar voice said from the darkness between two stacks of containers. He turned sharply, then swayed as his dizziness got worse. The other conscious men did the same, several of them reaching for knives or pistols, although many of those weapons were scattered around the ground where their initial assailant had left them. "Sorry, didn't mean to make you jump," the voice added. It was female and sounded concerned, with an odd accent Donny didn't recognize.
"Who are you?" he growled, wiping more blood out of his eyes and straining to see into the blackness. The middle of the night in the rain wasn't the best environment to let him see, though, and he could only make out a rough silhouette, which seemed to be that of someone tall and thin.
"Someone who wants to help," she replied. "Try not to freak out, OK? I'll come out. I'm honestly not your enemy, so don't overreact."
Now worried, since that sounded ominous, especially in this city, he tensed. She took a couple of steps forward, the light from the nearest pole casting a glow over her. Donny's eyes widened at the sight and he leaned back, almost at the point of rising to his feet and backing away, aside from the problem that he physically couldn't at the moment.
"Mary, mother of god," one of the others said, in a whisper. Donny didn't take his eyes off the new arrival but could picture the man crossing himself.
"My name is Saurial," the humanoid lizard watching him said in a low voice. She looked at Mikey, then cast her eyes around the area, before returning her attention to him. "I'm just in the area on business and I smelled blood. What happened?"
"He happened." Donny spat to the side, wiping his bloody mouth on the back of his hand. "Again. Wanting info. We told him we didn't know, but that never stops the bastard."
"I see," she said, her alien face moving in a way that he thought was a frown. "Some sort of bad guy?"
Donny snorted with sudden laughter, feeling light-headed. This entire situation had gone from bad to surreal very suddenly. "He wouldn't think so. Probably try to beat you up if you said that. Thinks he's a good guy, so do half the city. The half he doesn't keep fucking up."
"Ah." She nodded slowly, walking closer. He looked at the claws on her scaled toes, then the tail that was twitching around slowly behind her, under the hem of the long trench-coat she had on. "One of those. OK. I'll have to look into that. Forget it for now, let's get you boys fixed up, all right?"
"You really can help?" he asked, hope warring with suspicion in his voice. "Why?" In his experience people didn't do things for you without wanting something in return. He had no idea what a lizard-woman would want.
She shrugged slightly. "It's sort of what I do," she smiled. He managed to suppress a shiver at the sight of the sharp teeth. "I keep running into weird shit when I travel, and I like to help if possible. Sometimes it isn't, of course. But healing people is easy enough." Putting a hand into her pocket, she pulled out a small device which she flicked open, then spoke into, the language one Donny had never in his weirdest dreams encountered. It was utterly inhuman and made him nervous, but she didn't seem to notice or care.
Moments later he could hear a faint response in the same language, which she nodded to, before closing the device and slipping it back into her pocket. "Just calling my cousin, she's the real healer. Your friend here will need her help. I can deal with the simpler problems."
Moving to right next to him, she knelt down. "Hold still a second," she said gently, reaching out and taking hold of his head. The feeling of the strong, slender fingers, covered in fine scales, on his skin was odd but not unpleasant. She moved his head around, feeling the back of it. He sucked in a breath at the sudden intense pain.
"Minor fracture there," she noted, releasing him. "Nothing too serious, though. Lie down."
He stared at her, then very slowly did as requested, feeling disorientated. How had he ended up being tended to by what might well be an alien?
Whatever. At least she was trying to help, not hitting him. That was an improvement over the most recent events in his life. He lay on the soaking concrete next to Mikey, feeling cold water run down his back. His clothes were absolutely saturated, both with water and blood, so it wasn't like it was going to make them any more ruined.
"OK, this is going to feel strange," the lizard-woman said as she produced a small flat metallic container from somewhere on her person and opened it. "Just bear with me." Removing a small whitish object from the container, she closed it with one hand and made it go away, then held the object to his forehead. Pressing with one finger, he heard a faint squeak. Moments later that spot went entirely numb.
The numbness spread to the injured parts of his body, which meant that a lot of him was abruptly without sensation. He heard a crunch and could literally see his nose move back into the position it was meant to be in, although he couldn't feel anything at all. His eyes widened, but he kept his mouth shut, not wanting to upset her.
Ten seconds or so passed then sensation came back in a rush. His head swam for a moment before his vision snapped back into normal operation.
"Holy fuck," Donny whispered, reaching up and gingerly prodding his nose, which felt entirely fine. He raised his hand further and felt his brow, finding there was no cut there. Sitting up, ready to feel dizzy, he was startled to discover he actually felt completely fine, even the dull ache in his foot where he'd been slightly run over by a forklift the day before now gone.
"Feel better?" she asked, smiling.
"Fuck, do I," he muttered. "How the hell…?"
"An invention of my cousin's," she replied, holding up the container, before putting it away again. "They'll fix most things."
"What about Mikey?" he asked suddenly, looking at his friend, who seemed very pale.
"He's still alive, and Ianthe will be here in a second," Saurial said. "He'll be fine." She seemed sure of herself. Standing up, she moved away, heading towards the others, a couple of whom started to back away. Donny climbed to his feet and went with her.
"Let her help, guys, I don't think she's an enemy," he advised. They stopped, although everyone was looking very nervous. Saurial began examining them, pausing and turning a little later to look along the row of containers towards the warehouse.
"There she is," she said, waving to the approaching figure. Donny, as well as everyone else who was awake, looked to see a much larger form jogging towards them. It was also reptilian, he noted uneasily, and looked wildly more dangerous, what with the armor and all. There were also two unconscious people in its arms, being carried remarkably carefully. When this new arrival stopped a few yards away directly in the pool of light cast by an overhead bulb he could see these were the two missing men.
"Found these guys dangling by their ankles from a wire back there," the huge reptile, which was way over seven feet tall and built like a tank, said in a voice that sounded annoyed. "I put them out for the moment, they were in a lot of pain. Dislocated hip on one of them, shattered knee on the other, along with a lot of contusions. Someone gave them a real working over."
"Fixed them yet?" Saurial asked, as the bigger lizard, presumably her cousin, put both men down with care.
"Yep, although I didn't want to turn them back on until you were here to explain," she replied with a grin. "I make the humans nervous for some reason."
Donny looked at the teeth and didn't volunteer why this might be the case.
Snickering, Saurial nodded. "OK. That one there is in a bad way, and so is this one over here. Serious blood loss from a broken leg..." She pointed at Mikey, "and I'm pretty sure a torn liver in this other guy." This was accompanied by a wave at the comatose worker, who was a very odd color. "I didn't want to risk anything until you had a look."
"All right." The big lizard delicately stepped over Mikey and went to the second man, bending down and touching him for a second. "Yep, he's bleeding internally. Stick a fixer on him, it'll recover the blood as biomass."
"Got it." Saurial pulled out her container again and proceeded to do much the same to the unfortunate man as she had done to Donny, while the other reptilian creature went back to Mikey, squatting down next to him. She put one hand on him again, Donny watching as weird little tendrils came out of that hand and dived through his skin.
He felt a little ill watching, but didn't look away.
"Wow, someone really doesn't like this guy," she muttered, a compartment in the violet armor she was wearing popping open. Reaching inside, she pulled out a handful of what looked to Donny's incredulous eyes like ordinary onions. "Lost over a liter of blood, half a dozen internal injuries… Two broken vertebrae as well. Did someone throw him into a brick wall or something?"
"Something like that, I think," Saurial commented from where she was monitoring the progress of the other man, who Donny could see was looking a lot better. She waved at the dented container, which her cousin looked at, then shook her head.
"Fuckwits. These guys aren't Brutes, just normal humans. You could kill someone hitting them that hard."
Donny wondered about the capitalization he could literally hear on the word 'Brute,' as if it had some significance that he was missing.
"I know," Saurial sighed, moving on to the next person and putting one of the little 'fixers' on his forehead, then watching for a few seconds before nodding in satisfaction. "This is way over the top. Looks like the guy has done it before, from what that one says." She indicated Donny with her tail, which made Ianthe look at him for a second. "It's one thing if they're coming at you like the E88, guns blazing, but it looks like they were jumped by the guy and tried to defend themselves. These injuries are just a beating, not a valid response to a threat."
"Who was it?" her cousin asked. "One of the local Capes?"
"Think so," Saurial said, concentrating on her work for a few seconds. "You can guess which one. Look over there." She pointed.
The second reptile bent down and retrieved the object Donny had originally found, inspecting it. "Ah. Him."
"Man's got a problem," Saurial said.
"Looks like it. Like Stalker, sort of, but worse." The big one dropped the thing again, then smiled down at her patient. "He's fine now."
Donny noticed that the onions had somehow disappeared and wondered what they had been in aid of. Mikey groaned, then rolled his head to the side, his eyes opening. A moment later he yelped in shock and tried to jerk himself to the side. "Calm down, I'm not threatening you," the lizard said calmly. "My name is Ianthe, I'm a healer. You're fine, now, but you'll feel a little dizzy for a few minutes. You'll also want to eat a good meal soon, and drink a couple of pints of water." She straightened up and stepped back, letting Mikey stand as well.
He did so, looking mightily puzzled and quite scared, although he calmed down when he noticed Donny, who was now leaning on one of the containers simply watching, having given up trying to work out what was going on. "Who the hell are they? Or what?" Mikey whispered hoarsely to his friend.
Donny shrugged. "I have no idea. But they're fixing us up, not breaking bones, so that's a plus."
They watched as over the next five minutes or so, both reptilian creatures moved about and fixed all the injuries. By the end, a dozen dock workers were clustered in groups staring at the lizards in shock, looking very confused but healthy and undamaged. Saurial, when the job was done, went around and collected all the traces of the man who had done this, looking at the pile of hardware for a few seconds before somehow making it disappear into her coat, which didn't show any signs of the stuff.
"So, tell us what happened, please," she requested, looking around. Everyone exchanged glances then fixed their eyes on Donny, apparently electing him spokesman by unanimous silent vote. He swallowed, sighed, and began talking.
"That was weird," Mikey said quietly, as he and his friend watched the two reptilian creatures disappear around the end of the row of containers.
"You're telling me," Donny responded, shaking his head. "Even around here. Fucking city."
"What did she call them? Capes?"
"Yeah. Good name, actually." Donny snorted. "Considering how many of them wear the things." He stretched, then felt his nose for about the tenth time in as many minutes, in a wondering sort of manner. Mikey understood the feeling, it was one he was experiencing as well. By the looks of it, so were the others.
"I need a drink," he finally said.
Mikey nodded fervently. He also felt that alcohol would play a part in his near future. They exchanged glances, then turned around and started walking back to the warehouse and clocking out. From there, it was a short trip to their favorite tavern just outside the dock area.
After a second, he grinned. "Bet we can get some drinks for free with this story," he said, feeling suddenly quite pleased. Physically he felt in better shape than he had in years, and he'd survived something that could easily have killed him. The surreality of the experience was bizarre but on the whole things had gone a lot better than they could have done.
"Good point," Donny chuckled. Several of the other workers joined them as they walked. "Wonder if those two will have a word with the crazy man?"
"They seemed pissed about it," he nodded. "Be funny if Saurial finds him and kicks his ass."
Both of them laughed at the thought.
"That would piss him off something terrible," Donny snickered. "Who would win?"
"I have five on Saurial," Mikey grinned.
In an oddly good mood, they kept walking, discussing what might happen if the lizard-like female went up against any of the multitude of costumed weirdos that infested the city.
Gotham was a very dangerous place, he reflected. Even when the so-called good guys weren't kicking the shit out of you.
"Mr Fox, your three o'clock appointment is here."
Lucius tapped the blinking icon on his desk console, then spoke to the air. "Thank you, Marty. Show them in, please."
"Of course, sir," the man said. A few seconds later, the door opened, his assistant waving two women in. Lucius was inwardly amused by the way the man seemed completely unaware that neither one of them looked entirely normal, merely smiling politely at them.
"Get us some coffee, will you, Marty?" he asked. The PA nodded then withdrew. Standing up from his desk, Lucius walked around it to greet his visitors, holding out his hand. Both of them shook it, smiling.
"Hello, ladies. It's been a while. I still can't figure out how you manage that trick." He motioned to the door, causing them to look amused.
"Magic, Lucius," the taller of the two said as she took her coat off and draped it over a chair, then sat down. "I've told you that before."
"I know. But I'm an engineer, I have trouble with magic."
"I could show you the math if you want."
He shook his head, grinning briefly. "You offered the first time we met. I was seeing weird things for two days after that. Your math is… unusual."
She snickered. "You're not the first one to say that," she replied with a smirk. "How have you been?"
"Really pretty good, actually," he noted, then looked around as Marty tapped on the door, before pushing it open. Entering with a tray which contained all the relevant materials for several cups of coffee, along with some cookies, he put it down on the side table, smiled at the two women, then left again. Lucius leaned over his desk and tapped the relevant icon that locked the door and told his people he was in conference. That way they wouldn't be disturbed unless it was an emergency. "And you two?"
"Not bad at all," the other woman said, investigating the tray for a moment. She poured three cups of coffee, handing him one, then her friend, before taking the last and sitting down as well. He followed suit, all of them in the comfortable chairs at the side of the office. "Things at home are going well, we're completing work on the new ship right now. Should be ready for a test in a couple of weeks."
"I'd love to see it," he commented.
"I'll send you a recording," she promised.
"Thanks, Vectura." Lucius sipped his coffee, observing both visitors. Inwardly he mused that the presence in his office of a part-cat woman and a humanoid reptile was less strange now that it had been the first time a few years ago. That time it had been a distinct shock. These days it was a pleasant diversion from normal business.
"Production of the new design of reactor is going well," he remarked, putting his cup down. "It's a good thing I talked to you about that project, the issue with the previous version could have been very unpleasant if anything had gone wrong."
"Glad to help," Saurial smiled. "It was a good attempt, with only a couple of problems. We've seen something similar before which is why we noticed the flaw."
"Thank you, in any case," he said. "We all missed it entirely."
"No problem."
Vectura produced a briefcase, which she opened, removing a couple of folders from it. Looking through them, she nodded then handed them over. "These are the final specs for the updated Tumbler armor, and the aircraft you wanted. Full design notes, detailed parts lists, everything you should require. We've built a prototype and tested it, the thing works to specification. Your tech base shouldn't have any trouble with it."
He accepted the folders and leafed through the contents, inspecting the printed schematics with great interest. "Impressive. Again. Thank you." On the last page of the each folder was a pocket that contained a couple of USB sticks.
"They're encrypted with your public key, as per usual," Vectura added.
Saurial held out a clipboard on which were a stack of forms, while smiling a little. "The normal paperwork."
Putting the folders down he took it from her, pulling a pen from his pocket. She made the one she'd produced in her other hand go away. "Still have that?"
"One of my most treasured possessions," he told her with a small grin, signing in the indicated places. When he finished, she took it back and separated out the copies, handing him the ones he required for his own records.
"Always a pleasure doing business with you, Lucius," she said as she put everything away.
"I feel the same," he assured her, picking up his coffee again and helping himself to a cookie. "Are you in town for long this time?"
"We might be," Saurial said as she also took a cookie. "Something came up last night. Ianthe is following up on it."
"Can I ask what the problem is?"
Saurial studied him for a moment, then ate the last piece of the cookie in her hand and reached into her pocket. Pulling out a small piece of razor-sharp metal in a very distinctive shape she put it on the glass tabletop between them. He looked at it.
"Oh."
"He's getting carried away," she remarked, sipping her coffee. "We had to heal over a dozen people he 'interrogated' down at the docks. Two of them could have died from their injuries. Sure, they're small-time crooks in some cases, but that doesn't mean he needs to beat them half to death just to ask some questions."
She smiled with teeth showing. "Normally I just have to ask politely, I find."
Lucius grinned briefly. "I wonder why that works so well?" Vectura snorted with humor as Saurial shrugged.
"I'm not sure."
"I've heard that you've had your fair share of interactions with criminals," he commented.
Saurial shot her companion a look, which was returned with a small smile. "Hmm. Well, yes, that's true. Our home city is, or was, even worse than this place. But I've always at least tried to be as minimal-violence as I can be. Humans are fragile, and breaking them too much gets the authorities looking at you with an annoyed expression. Especially if they don't actually present much of a threat. But your guy..." She nodded at the modified shuriken on the table. "...He's really hurting people, quite a lot of them. But at the same time the real villains, the ones who have killed hundred of people, they just get locked up for a while until they escape. You know that as well as I do."
He sighed. "I do, as it happens."
"We had similar problems at home," Vectura put in. "Revolving doors on the prisons for the really dangerous villains. It doesn't end well."
"I can imagine. But for various reasons some people are difficult to deal with." He finished the coffee, then poured some more into his cup. "As much as one or two of them deserve a bullet in the back of the head. Not that I said it."
"Of course not." Saurial regarded him for a moment, then refilled her own cup. "I may have to do something about at least one of them soon myself if no one else gets around to it. But in the meantime, your friend needs to control himself. If he gets too carried away, the public will lose all trust in him, and he's in trouble. I've seen it before. People in our position need to think about what the ordinary guy in the street thinks, no matter how powerful we are. It matters. Unless you're willing to take over completely, which is way too much work anyway."
"I'll mention it to him," Lucius assured her. "Thanks for letting me know about it."
"No problem." She smiled, then changed the subject, the three of them soon laughing about a very strange story involving a hammer and a god.
When they left, an hour or so later, he sat down behind his desk, thinking for a while. Finally, gently running a finger over the edge of the sharpened stylized metal bat in his hand, he dialed a number only about three other people in the world had access to, waiting as various encryption systems bounced it around the place.
When it was answered, he said, "We need to talk, Bruce."