JSA: If Looks Could Kill
By Bruce Wayne
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.
Chapter 8
The clouds parted briefly in the growing wind and shafts of moonlight illuminated the sea and sky. Batman could hear and then see a second plane.
Whatever was on the island, he thought as a third aircraft came into view, the planes were part of it.
"Wildcat, take Sandman and go around to the right, find a path that parallels this one and hang back a little to cover us if we bump into something."
Then his eyes searched out Hourman's black cowled face. "Keep an eye on Catwoman and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble."
"I shall remain at Catwoman's side," the Man of the Hour replied.
Batman nodded, not knowing if Hourman could see him. He started forward, feeling Catwoman close behind him. His brilliant tactical mind thought what he would do if he were Blaze Fields or False-Face and guarding this island. Where would he post sentries? He hoped he would make the right decisions, and reached out for the top of a rough pillar rock.
As if on cue, the clouds broke as Batman peered across the flat top of the rock. The brightness of a full moon bathed the landscape before him. He stared across the central part of the island. Towering columns of rock, silhouetted against the sky, dominated the terrain. They provided a natural fortification. High on a flat promontory, rose a flat-topped mountain of rock. Perched upon it was a collection of half-ruined walls and buildings. He knew that on the far side of the mesa was a course down to the sea. Another aircraft flew overhead. It was dropping in altitude, and in the brightness of the moonlight, he could see pontoons beneath the fuselage. A seaplane.
He turned to Catwoman. "Looks like either fresh personnel coming in or whoever's here going out," he said.
"It is well to remember," Hourman murmured, "that the fishing boat may have been seen from the air. Our arrival may be at least partially anticipated."
"Good thought, but I hope you're wrong," Batman nodded in the darkness. "We'll keep working our way toward the ruins, link up with Wildcat and Sandman and play it by ear. Keep as quiet as you can. Don't bunch together. If there's a sentry that needs putting away, I'll take care of it. The less notice they have that we're coming, the better off we'll be and the less distance we'll have to cover once the fighting starts. So, any questions? Everyone understand?"
Catwoman and Hourman did.
He shrugged, turned away and started ahead. The blanket of cloud folded back to cover the moon. Just the way Batman liked it.
***
Wildcat tucked down into the shadow of the rocks. Two men stood less than fifty yards away, their bodies and their weapons, submachine guns, profiled against the dull light diffused through the cloud cover. The moon had just disappeared. For the few moments it had been wholly visible, Wildcat had thought that reaching the two sentries would be impossible.
He signaled to Sandman, who was beside him. The masked vigilante gestured toward the two men, then silently withdrew his gas gun.
Wildcat looked at the weapon, then nodded.
Gesturing to Sandman, Wildcat started forward.
He let The Sandman move slightly ahead.
His palms sweated inside the gloves.
He moved ahead, in a low, fast crouch.
Sandman stopped, paused, then sprang forward, attacking from the shadows. He was on the guard on the right, his gas gun spewing its cloud of knockout gas.
The other man turned and raised his submachine gun.
Wildcat hurtled himself forward, his left fist hammering out across the subgunner's jaw. He heard the sound of teeth breaking. The guard fell back, and Wildcat hit him with a left backhand. The man, stumbling, started to turn on him. His body rocked as Wildcat's left fist connected, followed by a right to the middle of his face. Wildcat could feel the nose crush under his knuckles.
The subgunner's body crumpled to the dirt.
The Sandman approached the man laying unconscious and proceeded to spray knockout gas into his face to insure that the man would be out of commission for a long number of hours.
Wildcat looked to Sandman.
They then started to drag the two unconscious bodies away to hide them from sight.
The target was the ruined monastery at the center of the island. Towers of rock formed a natural wall on three sides of it.
Before attacking the sentries, Wildcat had seen lights in the monastery, one a dimly glowing yellow light.
Overhead, there was the sound of another aircraft.
"Oh, boy," Sandman groaned.
Wildcat dumped the body, then kept going with The Sandman.
***
Ahead of him, Batman could make out three sentries, armed with submachine guns. With Hourman, the Caped Crusader moved toward the three men through the darkness. Though ordered to stay back, Catwoman trailed closely behind anyway. Immediately beyond them was the nearest of the pillars of rock, and beyond that the ruined monastery.
Catwoman kept moving, timing herself with Batman and Hourman.
She stopped, waiting in the shadows. The three guards were talking in heavily accented English.
"That False-Face -- he is a strange one I think," said the tallest of the three.
Another voice added, "First he is a Greek religious man," the accent French, "and now that beard and the wig. I wonder if Blaze knows his face when she sleeps with him."
A third guard, this one short and stocky, spoke up in an accent that was hard to define and heavy, "You betcha she knows somethin' else, you betcha. She sleeps with False-Face every night. Whatever he got she knows it good."
"Ha," the tall one laughed.
The stocky guard spoke again, "The assignment you were given, where do you go from here?"
"We're not supposed to tell of this," the Frenchman answered. "But to Paris -- there is one of the canisters there, I think."
Batman started forward, flanked by Hourman and Catwoman.
Suddenly the Masked Manhunter stopped. One of the men who had been sitting on a rock started to stand, and standing would make him face the direction from which Batman and the others came.
It was now or never.
Gotham City's masked vigilante ran forward just as the one with the French accent, Batman's target of the three, turned around.
The Caped Crusader launched himself toward the man and, in one quick motion, looped his arm around the man's neck. There was the beginning of a cry as Batman twisted his own body hard left and turned the man's neck. He felt the weight, then suddenly the weight was slipping away.
Batman lowered the unconscious body to the ground.
He threw himself toward the second of the three sentries, who was locked in combat with Catwoman. Catwoman went down, her cat-o-nine-tails clattering to the rocks, and the sentry raised his submachine gun to fire.
The Masked Manhunter's body hurled into the sentry, and he hauled the man down. The heel of his left hand hammered out and up, into the man's face. The man dropped like a bag of cement, unconscious.
The third man, Hourman's target, was on the ground. He would be asleep for a long while.
Batman rushed to Catwoman's side. "Are you all right?" His voice was a low whisper in the darkness.
"Things have been better," she whispered back. "I'd rather be in bed, actually."
The Dark Knight from Gotham stared toward the monastery beyond the pillars of rock, then dropped into a crouch in the shadows, signaling the others to do the same.
"There could be more sentries anywhere among these rock pillars," he whispered. "Stupid for all of us to go on together."
Batman looked hard at Hourman. "Stay with Catwoman and run things here," he said. "Give me a five-minute start. In five minutes, I'll meet you at the entrance to the monastery."
"Catwoman," he continued, "take off at a right angle and intercept Wildcat and Sandman. Go with them and cover the back door of the monastery. The three of you can start to penetrate the monastery from that end. Tell Wildcat and Sandman to start the attack at eleven-fifteen, unless they need to sooner. Go."
After Catwoman left to fulfill her part of the operation, Batman started into the darkness between the nearest of the stone pillars.
***
Batman discovered just one sentry in the area between the pillars of rock and the base of the mesa that supported the monastery. The Caped Crusader removed him by knocking him unconscious.
Batman ran as silently as he could on the gravel and dirt surface, toward a bank of rough-hewn stone steps that edged their way up the perpendicular side of the mesa. Evidently they were carved by the orginal inhabitants of the monastery hundreds of years before.
His body hugged the wall of the mesa and he took the narrow, treacherous steps one at a time.
Suddenly, he froze. Footsteps shuffled on the steps ahead of him, and he sniffed the acrid smell of cigarette smoke.
His eyes flickered to his gloved right hand. Batman squeezed himself even further into the rock and waited.
The footsteps grew louder, the smell of cigarette smoke stronger. A tall, well-muscled man, a cigarette cupped in his right hand, was on top of him almost before he realized. Batman's right fist slammed into the man's jaw. But he felt his knuckles deflect as the man's head instinctively recoiled.
Batman's right knee smashed up for the groin, glanced off the metal of a submachine gun, and hammered the man in the crotch with almost full force.
As the man doubled forward, Batman's left crossed his jaw and he went down heavily.
Batman caught the body as it started to slip away, and dragged the unconscious man beside the wall. The masked crimefighter reached for a pair of Batcuffs in his utility belt and then proceeded to cuff the man's hands behind his back.
In the man's right front pocket was a handkerchief, Batman pulled it out, and stuffed it into the man's mouth. He ripped the victim's belt from his blue jeans and bound his ankles. He reached down to the shoes, pulled out one of the laces and used it to secure the gag.
He started up the stone steps again with all his senses alert for what may lay ahead.
***
False-Face looked at Blaze Fields, her face close to his chest, her breath hot on his skin. The warmth of the covers made him feel lazy, tired.
"I love you, F.F.," she whispered to him.
"Love me?" he replied. "Whatever would you love me for?"
"You are brave, strong -- you are kind to me in bed. It is something I feel, F.F."
"You are sweet to say those things to me," he told her. "But until this is all over, darling, we both know ..." He let the rest of his thoughts hang on the cool air around them.
He glanced at the wristwatch he wore. It was nearly eleven-fifteen. "All the planes will be landed soon, one more should be coming in. I need to get going now."
"But ..." she stammered.
"The pilots will need their briefings and they must adhere to their departure schedules," he said.
"Can't we once more, then -- quickly, please?"
With his fingertips, he began to stroke her. She moaned softly, whispering, "After this, and The Boomer's work in America, when can we ...?"
"The final step will come soon," he told her. "Perhaps then. But there will be much work for us both, Blaze."
He rolled over on her, and slipped between her thighs. She whispered, "Your face, I must see it, must know it!" And before he could stop her, her hands flashed upward and he felt the tearing of his flesh as she ripped at the beard glued to his face and tore away the wig, the tape ripping at his own hair.
"F.F.," she gasped.
He fell forward against her, his hands closing about her throat. With what he felt was actually sincerity, he whispered to her as he closed his hands, "I'm sorry darling -- good-bye, Blaze."
False-Face's thumbs pressed over her larynx, crushing it as she coughed the words, "I love you."
The false beard was ripped irreparably, and he stood naked in the cold darkness of the room, trying to think. The briefing of the pilots had to be made before the men and women assembled to board the seaplanes could overhear his instructions. His instructions were simple but vital. "In the event of detection, bail out and crash the plane into the sea." The sound of his own voice in the stillness shocked him.
He walked back to the bed, and sat down. What little moonlight came through the partially shuttered window reflected from Blaze's open eyes. He thumbed them closed.
To be continued ...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
JSA COMMENTS ...
The following review was submitted to: JSA: If Looks Could Kill Chapter: 7
From: Nightw2
"I FINALLY get to post a review for this story (I'm not going to go into the problems I've had with review posting on my computer). I wanted to wait until you were done, but I couldn't resist. I absolutely LOVE your use of Catwoman in this story and there is so much great action in this story. I'm very eager to see what's next. Keep up the great work."
From Bruce Wayne:
Thank you, as always, for your very kind words. During most of 2002, I had the honor of playing the part of Batman in the Gotham After Dark RPG. For the most part, the RPG made me write a "Batman-post" once a day. It also gave me the opportunity to write and interact with probably the ultimate Catwoman fan-fiction writer on the internet today -- Chris Dee. I know I picked up a lot of what Batman and Catwoman's personality is supposed to be from Chris. You can find all of her Cat-Tales work in the Batman section of FFN.
I hope to write a Batman adventure in the near future. It will be a modern story that will allow me to use all the year 2003 toys the Dark Knight has at his disposal. With this JSA story taking place in 1961, I purposely shy away from Batman and his technical toys and rely more on brainpower and fists.
My writing forte is action/adventure. In real life I'm probably best described as a technical writer. Tom Clancy, my favorite author, is a technical writer. I write action and don't deal with the feelings of my characters as much as other writers. Action, they say, is difficult to write. Luckily, I seem to be able to get it across on the computer screen and I hope most readers enjoy it.
Catwoman is going to play a large part in this particular JSA story. Originally, I had planned to have Batwoman take a bigger part, but as I write this, I just see Catwoman taking the job. Her character is too good and there are several directions I can go with her in this story. As they used to say on the 1966 Batman TV show cliffhangers -- "Stay tuned ... the worst (best) is yet to come!"
By Bruce Wayne
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters portrayed in this story are copyright by DC Comics, an AOL/Time/Warner company. They are used without permission for entertainment without profit by the author.
An Elseworld's story: Stories, situation or events involving familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.
Chapter 8
The clouds parted briefly in the growing wind and shafts of moonlight illuminated the sea and sky. Batman could hear and then see a second plane.
Whatever was on the island, he thought as a third aircraft came into view, the planes were part of it.
"Wildcat, take Sandman and go around to the right, find a path that parallels this one and hang back a little to cover us if we bump into something."
Then his eyes searched out Hourman's black cowled face. "Keep an eye on Catwoman and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble."
"I shall remain at Catwoman's side," the Man of the Hour replied.
Batman nodded, not knowing if Hourman could see him. He started forward, feeling Catwoman close behind him. His brilliant tactical mind thought what he would do if he were Blaze Fields or False-Face and guarding this island. Where would he post sentries? He hoped he would make the right decisions, and reached out for the top of a rough pillar rock.
As if on cue, the clouds broke as Batman peered across the flat top of the rock. The brightness of a full moon bathed the landscape before him. He stared across the central part of the island. Towering columns of rock, silhouetted against the sky, dominated the terrain. They provided a natural fortification. High on a flat promontory, rose a flat-topped mountain of rock. Perched upon it was a collection of half-ruined walls and buildings. He knew that on the far side of the mesa was a course down to the sea. Another aircraft flew overhead. It was dropping in altitude, and in the brightness of the moonlight, he could see pontoons beneath the fuselage. A seaplane.
He turned to Catwoman. "Looks like either fresh personnel coming in or whoever's here going out," he said.
"It is well to remember," Hourman murmured, "that the fishing boat may have been seen from the air. Our arrival may be at least partially anticipated."
"Good thought, but I hope you're wrong," Batman nodded in the darkness. "We'll keep working our way toward the ruins, link up with Wildcat and Sandman and play it by ear. Keep as quiet as you can. Don't bunch together. If there's a sentry that needs putting away, I'll take care of it. The less notice they have that we're coming, the better off we'll be and the less distance we'll have to cover once the fighting starts. So, any questions? Everyone understand?"
Catwoman and Hourman did.
He shrugged, turned away and started ahead. The blanket of cloud folded back to cover the moon. Just the way Batman liked it.
***
Wildcat tucked down into the shadow of the rocks. Two men stood less than fifty yards away, their bodies and their weapons, submachine guns, profiled against the dull light diffused through the cloud cover. The moon had just disappeared. For the few moments it had been wholly visible, Wildcat had thought that reaching the two sentries would be impossible.
He signaled to Sandman, who was beside him. The masked vigilante gestured toward the two men, then silently withdrew his gas gun.
Wildcat looked at the weapon, then nodded.
Gesturing to Sandman, Wildcat started forward.
He let The Sandman move slightly ahead.
His palms sweated inside the gloves.
He moved ahead, in a low, fast crouch.
Sandman stopped, paused, then sprang forward, attacking from the shadows. He was on the guard on the right, his gas gun spewing its cloud of knockout gas.
The other man turned and raised his submachine gun.
Wildcat hurtled himself forward, his left fist hammering out across the subgunner's jaw. He heard the sound of teeth breaking. The guard fell back, and Wildcat hit him with a left backhand. The man, stumbling, started to turn on him. His body rocked as Wildcat's left fist connected, followed by a right to the middle of his face. Wildcat could feel the nose crush under his knuckles.
The subgunner's body crumpled to the dirt.
The Sandman approached the man laying unconscious and proceeded to spray knockout gas into his face to insure that the man would be out of commission for a long number of hours.
Wildcat looked to Sandman.
They then started to drag the two unconscious bodies away to hide them from sight.
The target was the ruined monastery at the center of the island. Towers of rock formed a natural wall on three sides of it.
Before attacking the sentries, Wildcat had seen lights in the monastery, one a dimly glowing yellow light.
Overhead, there was the sound of another aircraft.
"Oh, boy," Sandman groaned.
Wildcat dumped the body, then kept going with The Sandman.
***
Ahead of him, Batman could make out three sentries, armed with submachine guns. With Hourman, the Caped Crusader moved toward the three men through the darkness. Though ordered to stay back, Catwoman trailed closely behind anyway. Immediately beyond them was the nearest of the pillars of rock, and beyond that the ruined monastery.
Catwoman kept moving, timing herself with Batman and Hourman.
She stopped, waiting in the shadows. The three guards were talking in heavily accented English.
"That False-Face -- he is a strange one I think," said the tallest of the three.
Another voice added, "First he is a Greek religious man," the accent French, "and now that beard and the wig. I wonder if Blaze knows his face when she sleeps with him."
A third guard, this one short and stocky, spoke up in an accent that was hard to define and heavy, "You betcha she knows somethin' else, you betcha. She sleeps with False-Face every night. Whatever he got she knows it good."
"Ha," the tall one laughed.
The stocky guard spoke again, "The assignment you were given, where do you go from here?"
"We're not supposed to tell of this," the Frenchman answered. "But to Paris -- there is one of the canisters there, I think."
Batman started forward, flanked by Hourman and Catwoman.
Suddenly the Masked Manhunter stopped. One of the men who had been sitting on a rock started to stand, and standing would make him face the direction from which Batman and the others came.
It was now or never.
Gotham City's masked vigilante ran forward just as the one with the French accent, Batman's target of the three, turned around.
The Caped Crusader launched himself toward the man and, in one quick motion, looped his arm around the man's neck. There was the beginning of a cry as Batman twisted his own body hard left and turned the man's neck. He felt the weight, then suddenly the weight was slipping away.
Batman lowered the unconscious body to the ground.
He threw himself toward the second of the three sentries, who was locked in combat with Catwoman. Catwoman went down, her cat-o-nine-tails clattering to the rocks, and the sentry raised his submachine gun to fire.
The Masked Manhunter's body hurled into the sentry, and he hauled the man down. The heel of his left hand hammered out and up, into the man's face. The man dropped like a bag of cement, unconscious.
The third man, Hourman's target, was on the ground. He would be asleep for a long while.
Batman rushed to Catwoman's side. "Are you all right?" His voice was a low whisper in the darkness.
"Things have been better," she whispered back. "I'd rather be in bed, actually."
The Dark Knight from Gotham stared toward the monastery beyond the pillars of rock, then dropped into a crouch in the shadows, signaling the others to do the same.
"There could be more sentries anywhere among these rock pillars," he whispered. "Stupid for all of us to go on together."
Batman looked hard at Hourman. "Stay with Catwoman and run things here," he said. "Give me a five-minute start. In five minutes, I'll meet you at the entrance to the monastery."
"Catwoman," he continued, "take off at a right angle and intercept Wildcat and Sandman. Go with them and cover the back door of the monastery. The three of you can start to penetrate the monastery from that end. Tell Wildcat and Sandman to start the attack at eleven-fifteen, unless they need to sooner. Go."
After Catwoman left to fulfill her part of the operation, Batman started into the darkness between the nearest of the stone pillars.
***
Batman discovered just one sentry in the area between the pillars of rock and the base of the mesa that supported the monastery. The Caped Crusader removed him by knocking him unconscious.
Batman ran as silently as he could on the gravel and dirt surface, toward a bank of rough-hewn stone steps that edged their way up the perpendicular side of the mesa. Evidently they were carved by the orginal inhabitants of the monastery hundreds of years before.
His body hugged the wall of the mesa and he took the narrow, treacherous steps one at a time.
Suddenly, he froze. Footsteps shuffled on the steps ahead of him, and he sniffed the acrid smell of cigarette smoke.
His eyes flickered to his gloved right hand. Batman squeezed himself even further into the rock and waited.
The footsteps grew louder, the smell of cigarette smoke stronger. A tall, well-muscled man, a cigarette cupped in his right hand, was on top of him almost before he realized. Batman's right fist slammed into the man's jaw. But he felt his knuckles deflect as the man's head instinctively recoiled.
Batman's right knee smashed up for the groin, glanced off the metal of a submachine gun, and hammered the man in the crotch with almost full force.
As the man doubled forward, Batman's left crossed his jaw and he went down heavily.
Batman caught the body as it started to slip away, and dragged the unconscious man beside the wall. The masked crimefighter reached for a pair of Batcuffs in his utility belt and then proceeded to cuff the man's hands behind his back.
In the man's right front pocket was a handkerchief, Batman pulled it out, and stuffed it into the man's mouth. He ripped the victim's belt from his blue jeans and bound his ankles. He reached down to the shoes, pulled out one of the laces and used it to secure the gag.
He started up the stone steps again with all his senses alert for what may lay ahead.
***
False-Face looked at Blaze Fields, her face close to his chest, her breath hot on his skin. The warmth of the covers made him feel lazy, tired.
"I love you, F.F.," she whispered to him.
"Love me?" he replied. "Whatever would you love me for?"
"You are brave, strong -- you are kind to me in bed. It is something I feel, F.F."
"You are sweet to say those things to me," he told her. "But until this is all over, darling, we both know ..." He let the rest of his thoughts hang on the cool air around them.
He glanced at the wristwatch he wore. It was nearly eleven-fifteen. "All the planes will be landed soon, one more should be coming in. I need to get going now."
"But ..." she stammered.
"The pilots will need their briefings and they must adhere to their departure schedules," he said.
"Can't we once more, then -- quickly, please?"
With his fingertips, he began to stroke her. She moaned softly, whispering, "After this, and The Boomer's work in America, when can we ...?"
"The final step will come soon," he told her. "Perhaps then. But there will be much work for us both, Blaze."
He rolled over on her, and slipped between her thighs. She whispered, "Your face, I must see it, must know it!" And before he could stop her, her hands flashed upward and he felt the tearing of his flesh as she ripped at the beard glued to his face and tore away the wig, the tape ripping at his own hair.
"F.F.," she gasped.
He fell forward against her, his hands closing about her throat. With what he felt was actually sincerity, he whispered to her as he closed his hands, "I'm sorry darling -- good-bye, Blaze."
False-Face's thumbs pressed over her larynx, crushing it as she coughed the words, "I love you."
The false beard was ripped irreparably, and he stood naked in the cold darkness of the room, trying to think. The briefing of the pilots had to be made before the men and women assembled to board the seaplanes could overhear his instructions. His instructions were simple but vital. "In the event of detection, bail out and crash the plane into the sea." The sound of his own voice in the stillness shocked him.
He walked back to the bed, and sat down. What little moonlight came through the partially shuttered window reflected from Blaze's open eyes. He thumbed them closed.
To be continued ...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
JSA COMMENTS ...
The following review was submitted to: JSA: If Looks Could Kill Chapter: 7
From: Nightw2
"I FINALLY get to post a review for this story (I'm not going to go into the problems I've had with review posting on my computer). I wanted to wait until you were done, but I couldn't resist. I absolutely LOVE your use of Catwoman in this story and there is so much great action in this story. I'm very eager to see what's next. Keep up the great work."
From Bruce Wayne:
Thank you, as always, for your very kind words. During most of 2002, I had the honor of playing the part of Batman in the Gotham After Dark RPG. For the most part, the RPG made me write a "Batman-post" once a day. It also gave me the opportunity to write and interact with probably the ultimate Catwoman fan-fiction writer on the internet today -- Chris Dee. I know I picked up a lot of what Batman and Catwoman's personality is supposed to be from Chris. You can find all of her Cat-Tales work in the Batman section of FFN.
I hope to write a Batman adventure in the near future. It will be a modern story that will allow me to use all the year 2003 toys the Dark Knight has at his disposal. With this JSA story taking place in 1961, I purposely shy away from Batman and his technical toys and rely more on brainpower and fists.
My writing forte is action/adventure. In real life I'm probably best described as a technical writer. Tom Clancy, my favorite author, is a technical writer. I write action and don't deal with the feelings of my characters as much as other writers. Action, they say, is difficult to write. Luckily, I seem to be able to get it across on the computer screen and I hope most readers enjoy it.
Catwoman is going to play a large part in this particular JSA story. Originally, I had planned to have Batwoman take a bigger part, but as I write this, I just see Catwoman taking the job. Her character is too good and there are several directions I can go with her in this story. As they used to say on the 1966 Batman TV show cliffhangers -- "Stay tuned ... the worst (best) is yet to come!"