Disclaimers: Nothing new here. Go see first chapter for disclaimers and all that.
Summary: The heroes now know who killed Dick Grayson from the video. Unfortunately, that voice from behind isn't going to guide them...it just might kill them instead.
Besides, after the last two chapters, I decided I'd give you all something nice and simple like a fight to calm us all down. Now, I said 'simple,' right? evil grin Just don't expect too much action from me – for good reason too. Its so hard for me to write that I usually don't touch it with an extended bargepole. Emotions and thoughts are much easier. :)
BTW: The sentences in bold&italics are sections that are taken from what was already occurred, be it the last chapter or from another character's viewpoint. It's just the same thing, occurring at the same time, but from someone else's POV. I just did that way to help me see what's what, okay? Please don't forget to review tho...especially after the last chapter.
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ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE
Rules of Engagement
Chapter 4
A Debt Paid In Blood
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It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Gore Vidal
Light is the absence of Dark.
Anon
A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies.
Oscar Wilde
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Eleven minutes past six at night.
Just over twenty-four hours since that fateful meeting on top of the G.C.P.D.'s building. Twenty-four hours of raging emotions and silent tears, of sorrowing cries and grieving sobs, of breaking hearts and streams of water flowing down numerous cheeks. A night of extremes, and no more right now than what it was in the secluded "basement" level of the manor of Gotham's elite bachelor.
For most of her life, being still, being silent, had come naturally to Cassandra Cain. Silence was so intrinsically entwined within her personality that she had only spoken for less than three years by her late-teens – and even then she was so spartan in words that she made the Bat look like a chatterbox. Her father had trained her well, and Batman's work with her had heightened her abilities to a degree bordering on meta-human.
Tonight, though, her training was failing her.
Normally, she would welcome the silence of the Batcave like one would an rediscovered a much-loved katana, embracing it tightly and never wanting to let go. She usually valued the moments when there was no need to worry about conversing, when she could hear her own thoughts, when there was no one to interrupt.
Not tonight.
It just seemed...wrong, somehow, that the Cave wasn't filled with laughter and joking, that the sound of the human voice was profoundly lacking, that the hush in the air seemed to merge with the darkness and become a living entity that sucked the life out of everything it enveloped. She found it all unnerving, unnatural and disquieting.
Tonight, she hated the quiet that was spread throughout the Cave.
She had tried dispelling at least of the malevolent silence by making noise whenever she could, but there was, after all, only so much one person could do without going mad. She had even tried running through a few routines that her father had once taught her, routines as familiar and comforting as her image in the mirror. She never made it past the first five moves or so before she had to stop, her skin crawling and the hair on the back of her neck rising. Her danger sense was always telling her that something in the darkness – or maybe it was the darkness itself? – was watching her malevolently...but of course when she looked around, there was no one there.
She was all alone...and she had never been so scared to be alone in the hushed dwelling.
Finally she abandoned the training mats and hurried back towards the Batmobile, telling herself that she had better at least look like she'd obeyed Batman's direction to stay put. She shivered in the sudden cold that overtook her and huddled in a ball by the front tyre of the souped-up hotrod, wishing Batman would return soon. Even the oppressive silence of the Bat was far more welcome than the malicious hush that seemed to have taken over the Cave. At least then she would feel some body heat, even if she would probably never hear his voice.
She hugged her knees closer and looked around uneasily, restless in the still Cave even as she kept a careful watch on the creeping blackness lest it get too close, wishing she knew how to turn on more than the lights for the training areas. She wished she didn't feel like she was being watched all the time, although she was feeling very alone and desperate for company. She wished Alfred would come down, because his gentle smiles and words always seemed to disperse Batman's darkness...and this quiet blackness was surely just a physical expression of the Bat's depression...wasn't it?
Not a moment too soon, she heard voices at the top of the stairs into the Cave. She stood swiftly when she heard them arguing, her unease increasing as she wondered what could have made this tightly-knit "family" so torn apart that they would disagree so. Her eyes widened as she listened to the discussion and unconsciously drifted closer to the stairs. 'What on earth happened while we were gone?'
"I don't care! I'm going, and that's final!" shouted Batman— no no, that's wrong, it was Bruce speaking – and he was as close to anger as he ever was without slipping into his Dark Knight persona. His footsteps on the Cave stairs were heavy and deliberately loud.
"But Master Bruce, I must insist you contact Oracle," Alfred remonstrated, his gentle accent softening his tone as his voice wafted down the stairs to her as he followed Bruce with effortless grace. "Take the time to know what you're heading into before you rush off into danger."
"Why should I talk to her?" Bruce fired back, his voice dropping closer and closer to a growl as Batman began to surface once more. "Oracle's obviously had more important things to do than talk to me." It seemed strange to Cassandra that Bruce's eyes seemed to radiate hurt and grief as he walked into the Cave, providing an unusual counter-point to his angry, sarcastic words. Stranger still was the fact that she could read him at all – even as the so-called "Playboy Billionaire" when his guard was lowered, Bruce was always hard nut to crack when it came to figuring out exactly what he was feeling.
"I would suggest you reconsider your hasty words, Master Bruce," Alfred replied stiffly, pointedly ignoring the sarcasm and responding only to the words themselves. "You of all people should recall your explicit instructions for us to not attempt to contact you for any reason while you were undercover." The kindly old man stopped by the Cray super-computer and added, "Do not blame the child for following her heart in this matter of grieving, just as you are already following yours."
The softly-spoken words seemed to hit Bruce in the back like a hot knife plunging between his ribs as he stopped dead in his tracks until the echoes died away. Then he continued on to the changing area, apparently with as much determination as before, but Cassandra thought that she had seen a small crack in his defences for a moment there before he had quickly covered it up again.
"You won't change my mind, Alfred. I'm going to Bludhaven, and that's final." Bruce's voice wafted from behind the changing screens, changing abruptly on the last three words to Batman's deep growl.
Cassandra, because she was watching Alfred carefully, caught a glimpse of the despair and grief that had flashed over his face at the vocal change. And then it was gone, replaced by his normal neutral expression...although this time it seemed more set-in-stone than it was usually, as if he feared the results of any crack – however small – in his demeanour.
Was it just her imagination, or did the Living Darkness within the Cave flee from the kindly old man as he stood there by the Batcomputer, only to gather around Gotham's Dark Knight like metal is attracted to a powerful magnet as he emerged in full costume?
There was silence again in the Cave at the stalemate as Batman stalked over to his Car. He passed right by her without acknowledging her presence. Slowly she drifted closer to Alfred as she turned her head back and forth, alternately staring at each of them in wonder at the small changes she could sense between them in their relationship. To her, they were being torn apart by a need to grieve even as they were drawn together by their own needs for comfort and companionship. Right now, she didn't know which need would prove the stronger – and she wasn't sure she really wanted to know the outcome.
"Do you even know where they are?" Alfred asked suddenly, pursuing a new line of reasoning.
Batman paused, his hand on the door of the Batmobile and his back to his most cherished friend and father. "I have the locators."
"But only for Robin," the kind man interrupted, his voice gentle as he reasoned quietly with his eldest – and most difficult – charge. "Perhaps you might also find the Flash using the JLA's systems, but what about the others? How can you find them without talking to Oracle?"
"Don't need them," he ground out, opening the door to the Batmobile but not getting in. Although impatient with a conversation he saw no point to, he was unwilling to end it for fear of alienating the only friend he had left to him. He didn't want to be that alone. Alone yes, but not deserted.
Alfred drew himself up to his full height, gathering his internal strength to say the painful words: "If you don't need them, Master Bruce, shall I also assume that you do not need me as well?"
He froze, his heart clenching inside his chest despite himself and his vaunted self-control. Slowly he turned to face the kindly old man. He pushed his cowl back slowly, allowing the two of them to finally see the haunted pain that filled his eyes and plumbed the depths of his soul. "Don't say that, Alfred," Bruce whispered in a voice twisted and torn. "You know I didn't mean that."
Alfred met his gaze steadily, allowing his own shields to drop for a few seconds and reveal his own pain of loss...and the pain of a feared loss. "Then humour an old man and check in with Oracle." A beat. "I don't want to lose you as well," Alfred added in a murmur, knowing the other would hear him regardless. The shared emotions passed quickly between the two as they spoke to each other without words, charging the atmosphere around them with released tension.
Bruce nodded heavily to show he'd understood at last. "I swear it."
Alfred nodded slightly, satisfied Bruce would do as he'd promised. "Very well then, Master Bruce. I shall have your robe waiting for you when you return."
A small half-smile appeared on his lips then disappeared just as quickly. "Thanks for the offer Alfred, but don't wait up for me. I don't know how long I'll be." With that, he pushed the cowl down and was Batman once more.
A quick glance at Alfred confirmed to Cassandra that it was now safe to present herself, for the butler once again had his shields back up. Careful to keep her face impassive, as if she hadn't heard what had just transpired, she stepped calmly into the small puddle of light spreading around the Cray and Alfred's comforting presence.
"And me?"
Batman looked up at her interruption, half-in half-out of the Batmobile. He gave no sign of surprise that she had chosen that moment to speak – if he ever felt any, that is. "Stay here. Keep Gotham safe."
Alfred stood beside her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, ignoring with his dignified manner the fact that her muscles tensed involuntarily before she managed to relax them again. "Don't you worry, Master Bruce. We shall keep every criminal on their toes tonight. You just go and keep the young Master's memory safe."
Cassandra thought she saw Batman nod once infinitesimally before the cockpit sealed shut and the Batmobile roared away into the night, but she couldn't be truly sure in the darkness of the largely unlit cave. Whatever the case, he had made no verbal acknowledgement – as he always did – but still she knew the Bat was grateful for their support.
She turned wide dark eyes on the one man she truly and completely trusted and asked simply (warily): "Memory?"
The kindly old man looked down at her, a soft, sad smile on his worn features as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. In that moment, he looked every one of his years. "Yes, my child. I'm afraid memory is now all we have left of young Master Richard."
With that simple statement of undeniable truth, her self-control failed her, a phenomenon that had only happened so rarely that the number of times did not exceed her number of fingers. It failed her, it failed her for the second time tonight.
There was something about a late season dusk that brought the Gothamites out of their shells and homes to experience the cool and comfortably brisk air of the often oppressive and dangerous city. It was a peaceful time, when one generally could walk the streets without too much fear when passing dark alleys, when the criminals were at home sleeping in preparation for the coming night of activities, when the ever-vigilant police allowed themselves to relax a little and converse with the passers-by, and when the shop owners were relaxed and actually happy to be in this city.
Batman, of course, hated it. He hated the extra traffic on the streets that forced him to use the narrow back streets, hated all the extra people that clogged the sidewalks and made the risk of innocents getting hurt during a crime that much higher, and he especially hated with a vengeance the light that filled the city, even if it was on the wane. It made negotiating the city that much more complicated, even with the advanced steering and technology he employed in the Batmobile.
It was hard – translated: almost-impossible-hard – to use his prodigious stealth abilities when everyone could see you anyway.
That was why he didn't call Oracle the moment he left the Batcave. It was hard enough getting the BM-6 Batmobile around the tight and sharp corners of the back streets of Gotham as it was, let alone while being distracted by some conversation he didn't want to have anyway.
Nevertheless, a promise of the Bat was his word, and Batman never broke a promise he had made – and especially not one made to Alfred – if he could possibly help it. Perhaps that was the reason why it had never seemed to take him quite so short a time- even accounting for the traffic – to get out of Gotham and onto the motorway to Bludhaven. It seemed to be only a few seconds to his mind between the time he left the Wayne Manor and the time when he felt it was now safe for him to call Oracle – in reality, it was something much closer to fifteen minutes.
His eyes never left the road in front of the racing car as he dialled Oracle's number into the communication system built into the Batmobile's dashboard. A black-gloved finger tapped on the steering wheel as he waited for the call to go through – more from anger than grief and impatience, he believed.
As always, Oracle knew who was calling before she even picked up. When she came on-line, her greeting was cool and lacking the cheer he usually found refreshing: "Batman, long time no see. I take it you're back in one piece from your mission."
He grunted an affirmative as he blasted past the domestic cars travelling at a relatively sedate pace down the freeway. In his wake he left a rushing stiff breeze in his wake that rocked even the heavily-loaded semi travelling in the slow rightmost lane.
On the other end of the line, Oracle had to roll her eyes. 'Typical uncommunicative Bat.' "So is there anything I should know about it or not?" she asked bluntly, in no mood for games.
He made no reply for a second, letting her stew on his lack of answer. Once he felt she had enough, he stated simply:
"Alfred told me."
Oracle held back a sigh and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples wearily. Just what she needed...not. Now she had to handle the Bat as well as everything else. "I know," she replied just as tersely. "Robin and I asked him to." Saying she'd pleaded with Alfred to do it would've been more truthful, but she didn't need to tell him that, did she?
"You should've called me."
Oracle breathed out deeply, trying gamely not to get mad with the Bat – and not doing that good, even though she knew he was probably feeling everything as bad as she was...if not worse. "I know we should've called you," she answered smoothly with as much calmness as she could muster – which is to say that her sarcasm was thick enough to need an oxy-welder to cut, "but it's not like you left me a number for emergencies. What was I supposed to do, light the signal to say I wanted you? You had Robin handling that, remember?"
Batman ignored the pointed sarcasm, dismissing it as irrelevant. What mattered was the evidence, the trail that would lead him to the killer. "What about the evidence?"
"We've got a little, not much. Considering that we've been operating during the day, it's a pretty good result," she bit out, making an almost superhuman effort to keep a lid on her rising ire and her shortening fuse. The only reason she didn't throw a tantrum was that she had too much expensive equipment in her Oracle room and she literally couldn't afford to destroy anything. But boy did she really want to throw something at the smug little—!
"I want details, not excuses," he growled into the comm, swinging the car around a slow-moving car and surging forward like a torrent of water bursting through a dam.
So Oracle gritted her teeth, squeezed hard on the bean ball she kept by her desk for occasions like this, and told him what he wanted to hear. She told him that the DNA results had been inconclusive, that the fingerprints matched Dick's 100, that the body in the morgue was probably Dick's judging by mutilation and its charred condition alone, that Tempest was investigating where the body came from with Donna's help, that Robin was taking the other two Titans with him to the Lair, and that the police had different views on the case but weren't much help otherwise. The only thing she didn't mention, in fact, was that she had allowed Robin to contact Joey Flaherty and ask for his help – instead telling him that they'd found out about the body in the morgue from the BPD's files...which was near enough to the truth anyway.
Batman remained silent after Oracle finished, thinking.
The fingerprints matched, but the DNA test was useless. Decomposition and the burning of the body would have eliminated useful physical evidence. Tempest was best suited to do whatever he was doing with the water in the harbour, coming from Atlantis and all. Moreover, there was no guarantee that the body would've been dumped anywhere near where Dick was actually...killed.
All they really could do was retrieve the body from the morgue for more detailed study, and check the body more closely against the hand. He told Oracle as much in short, terse sentences.
Oracle, however, now had no patience for what he was saying other than to note it in the back of her mind while she concentrated on other things.
"Never mind that," she said dismissively with a subtle undertone to her voice that Batman could not quite identify, "something more important has come up. I'm linking you onto Robin's transmission from the Lair. You'll be able to listen but you won't be able to send anything." Then there was the small beep and burst of static to tell him the transmission was being re-directed, but after that he heard very little.
Nothing but silence.
Why was Oracle so adamant that he should hear this silence? What was so important about it? He could listen to deeper silence in his car right now without any need for interference.
He opened his mouth to demand an answer to his questions, but some gut instinct made him hesitate.
Then, as his ears adjusted to the silence, he dimly heard the distinctive clinking of metal on metal as some kind of metallic objects were moved. He put the slightly strange quality to the noise – a quality he couldn't fully isolate – down to the fact that it was being recycled through at least three sets of speakers and probably twice that in the number of computer systems that compressed and tweaked the transmission for easier transfer. It was probably just static combined from all the lines being used to get it to his car.
And then he heard the pleading, coughing whisper that sent a cold chill spreading through his heart:
"Please...stop....no...no m-more...please....please.....n-n-no-"
Dick? How could that quavering, weakened voice belong to his bright, healthy, athletic son?
And then he realised why the transmission sounded slightly unusual. In the background he was actually hearing the sound of arcing electricity, not static as he had first thought. The chill began to spread through his soul as he made the connection between the weakness in Dick's voice and the electricity.
And in the very next moment, his darkest fears were confirmed.
And then he screamed...
"What are the access codes to the Oracle mainframe?"
His heart pounded in his chest in time to the cries echoing in his ears and he found himself blinking furiously to clear his blurred vision as his eyes watered. He didn't want to listen, he didn't want to hear his son's agony and feel the pain spreading throughout his own body in a sympathetic reaction. But something inside him held him fast, held him still, held him there, making him listen hard even as he so badly wanted to pull away.
...and he screamed...
"How do I get complete access to the JLA Watchtower?"
His grip on the steering wheel tightened slightly and his foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator, but still the road to Bludhaven stretched out before him without end. Still the screams continued, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
"What is Oracle's true identity?!"
...and he screamed...
Hating the helplessness swamping his thoughts, he pressed down harder on the accelerator pedal and ignored the honking cars as he whipped past them. If the determination of his thoughts could count for speed, he would already be in Bludhaven, but in reality all they did was torment him further on a road that never ended.
And then the screams suddenly stopped.
He welcomed the silence when it fell, welcoming the respite from Dick's cries of pain even though he feared just as much what the sudden stop might mean.
He could not bring himself to think too deeply about that.
"Give it up, Nightwing. Tell me what I want, and we'll leave you alone."
He let out a dark growl of his own at the deep, electronically modified voice that over-rode the heavy breathing of its captive. The dark, evil voice filled his ears and echoed within the car and within his soul – but try as he might, even accounting for the modifications to the voice, he still didn't recognise it.
He might not know exactly who he was up against, but he did know that there was a new criminal in Bludhaven, a dark and dangerous opponent who had already managed to capture and torture Nightwing...and kill him.
"Tell me the answers, Grayson, or I promise that the next person in this chair will be your precious 'Babs'...and this time I'll make sure you'll watch and feel everything we do to her."
The initial chill he had felt at the beginning of this transmission deepened and spread throughout his entire being. He felt the tenacious claws of shock try to anchor themselves in his soul, but he resisted him with the strength of his burning anger.
This wasn't some random act.
The questions they were asking were far too exact and precise and knowledgeable for that. Had they only kidnapped Officer Grayson, the questions should've been far more mundane. Had they captured Nightwing, they wouldn't have known to threaten Babs.
"Now, unless you want your precious girlfriend lying where you are now, tell me where Superman's kryptonite bullet is."
No, this wasn't random. This newcomer knew exactly what he was doing...and furthermore, he was doing it well. He had probably been following Dick for a couple of months before the actual abduction...which led him to wonder in some distant part of his mind who else already had their identity compromised. The rest of his mind was focused on the transmission, hating what was to come even as he dared not turn it off in case he missed some vital clue.
But the worst was still to come.
"Unda....Mannn'rrrrr.....Baat.....caaaavvvvvve..."
The Batmobile raced down the highway like a demon possessed, far in excess of the speed limit. It literally left in its dust the other cars on the Gotham-Haven highway that were full of workers returning home. It cut off almost every car it overtook and cared nothing for lane markings or braking distances. Its driver, however, didn't notice how bad his automatic driving skills had become. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white underneath his gloves as his anger raged.
The existence of Superman's bullet was common knowledge both inside and outside the superhero community, just as it was common knowledge that the bullet was in Batman's possession. 'He broke him.' Since Dick's captor had proved himself aware of Dick's 'night job', he found himself very suspicious that he – whoever he was – already knew exactly where the bullet was. 'He broke him on a useless question.' Surely Dick would've made the same connection he did. 'Broken on such a tiny thing.' So why didn't he resist it? 'Broken.' Why did he have to give in?
"Check him."
He gritted his teeth and forced the mounting frustration away. He would deal with that irrelevant baggage later, after these sadistic b–––––ds were put away where they belonged. Then he could beat all the practice dummies he ever cared to own into oblivion as much as he wanted.
In the meantime, he would have plenty of tension to take this current mission right into its completion.
"Gone."
The Batmobile literally leapt into the night as the accelerator pedal hit the floor of the car with a loud thunk. The starlite lenses in his cowl were millimetres wide, his eyes were so narrowed and tight with angry pain. The interior of the car was as silent as a crypt, but both Bruce and Batman were mentally raging against the Fates for the unfair hand they'd been dealt.
His son was gone...and he never even got the chance to say goodbye.
Dick was gone for good...
Damn it all.
Damn his torturers to hell.
Damn Robin for not reporting in.
Damn Oracle for not telling him.
Damn the car for not getting him to the Lair fast enough.
And the harshest of Damns on himself for not acting sooner.
"Revive him...again."
He had a bare moment of peace until he realised exactly what the three words meant. He allowed a hiss to escape his tightly clenched lips while he tried his best not to rip the steering wheel off the steering column – which is to say that it stayed on only because the hard polymer casing on the steering wheel was made of sterner stuff than he remembered.
"They broke him, killed him, then did it all over again." A sucked-in breath. "The Bastards."
The vicious whisper from Roy Harper spoke directly to Batman's heart and mind at once. For once, the World's Greatest Detective and the Whining Weapon Wielder were actually operating on the same page.
The people that had done this to their dear companion/friend/brother/son had sadistically drawn it out over and over again, wringing everything they could out of the mind of Dick Grayson from even beyond death, before they discarded whatever was left like yesterday's news.
"You know, I never did quite figure out the heritage of those twins.... But aren't you glad I found 'em first?"
He growled deep within his throat as he whipped the wheel around and put the car into a power-slide around a tight turn on the motorway, promptly ignoring the squeal of the car's brakes and the blaring, annoyed horns of those he had cut off by the slick manoeuvre.
He knew that voice.
It was the voice of the man on the tape, the man that tortured his son, the one that inflicted pain and suffering on his son until death was preferable to life, until all hope was gone and Dick's special soul was broken into tiny shards. This was the one who had systematically taken his son apart piece by painful piece...
And this 'someone' was going to pay, and pay dearly.
Preferably with his life, if Batman had anything to say about it.
It was thirty-six past six and night was quickly falling outside a little known warehouse tucked into a deserted corner of Bludhaven docks, but those inside did not notice nor care. Immobile they stood, glaring at each other from opposite sides of the wooden building.
On one side, there stood three of the world's superheroes: Arsenal of the weapons, The Flash of the lightning strike, and Robin of the dark and mysterious Bat-Clan. In various stages of defensive stances they stood, waiting and analysing, their eyes stormy with raging anger for the one across the room.
On the other side, there stood one man. One man stood in their road, crossing their paths in a calculated and dramatic manner that promised to be unforgettable...in more ways then one.
This one man stepped forward calmly, giving no sign of the disquiet any normal man would be feeling at face this three when they were angered. His strange suit shimmered and shifted in shades of purple, green, and gold as he moved forward, easily seen yet strangely concealing him in the shadows. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the being known as the 'Black Phoenix'," he said grandly, giving them a mocking bow. "And before we cut to the festivities, let me take this opportunity to say that Dick Grayson proved to be one of my favourite masterpieces...until the little runt died on me once too often."
Robin whipped his collapsible bo staff into its longest extension, barely managing to restrain himself to follow Batman's training on patience. He badly wanted to hit something, anything to make the internal ache dissipate, but a small part of his mind that was large enough to keep control knew that rushing in blindly was suicide. As much as it killed him inside, he had to stay patient and watch. He needed to find out what he'd be getting himself into before he committed himself.
Apparently, the Titans at the Lair had the same ideas on needing to hit something but didn't have his restraint. Wally's image blurred for a moment and then he reappeared in his Flash uniform – moving as fast as he did, it was a small stretch of his abilities to dash home, change into his unform, and dash back before the rest even realised he was gone. Similiar, within moments there appeared in Arsenal's deadly hands a crossbow – fully loaded, cocked, and aimed at the Phoenix's heart. As disadvantaged as he was by not being in his uniform and unable to do a quick change like The Flash, it didn't slow him down one bit – one of the advantages of having a semi-public identity. Besides, it wasn't like Roy Harper didn't have access to his own stash of concealible weaponry.
"I'll wipe that grin off ya face, ya little—"
Oracle's voice suddenly over-rode Arsenal's cry of rage not a moment too soon. "Robin?? Are you there? Come in."
'S––t, where did they come from?' All of a sudden, he was surrounded by what seemed to be twelve-foot high men that were just as wide, covered with muscles and tattoos...and gunning for his hide. Literally. "Yeah, I'm here," he replied distantly, his speech centers working on automatic as he burst into motion. "Uh, can we..." he ducked a wild bullet and swung blindly with his staff, "...talk later?" He grunted in pain when his staff connected to a muscled forearm with as little effect as hitting a mountain with a tiny pebble.
"A little busy?"
"Not so..." he twisted out of the path of another bullet and swung his staff again but with extra power behind it, "...you notice." This time he connected solidly with the gun and knocked it down to the floor and out of the fight. A quick side-flip-and-kick and the holder was down and out for the count. That just left him about sixteen more to go in extremely close quarters – but there could've easily been more, seeing as he was bouncing off the walls too quickly for a completely accurate count.
"I hear gunfire." Oracle's voice was filled with concern, and more than a little worry. "Are you clear?"
He flipped over Baddie No. 7 and let loose a handful of batarangs and stylized 'R' throwing stars at three opponents. "Not yet," he replied grimly, not staying around to see his 'R's connect before he had to duck and roll to the side to avoid a spray of bullets. One of the klutzes gathered round him had a Heckler Koch MP5. It worked much like the old-fashioned Uzi, but far more effectively and lethally. This one could kill from well over three hundred paces, and was cheap enough on the black-market that they were the weapon of choice for the more sophisticated criminal. The only advantage Robin saw in it was the spray of bullets was far more likely to hit one of the goons than it was him – as they had a few times already.
"Need backup?" he heard Oracle ask almost casually.
"Would be nice." He ducked underneath a wildly swinging fist and whipped his staff along just above the floor, whacking someone's feet together and dropping them to the floor. "I mean,..." a quick side kick rendered the guy unconscious and he was up and fighting again, "...twenty-seven gun-totin' yahoos against two nice guys is a bit much, don't'cha think?" he asked casually, trying not to sound as worried as he really was.
"Two? Who's with you?"
He twisted out of another spray of bullets and let loose yet another handful of throwing stars, risking a quick glance across the warehouse floor for his companion as his twist developed into a quick tumble under a goon. "There's Arsenal, but he's got his hands full with fifteen to my eight...and that ain't countin' those we've already downed."
"And Flash?"
"Fightin' shadows," he replied shortly as he bounced off one guy's chest – probably breaking a few of the other's ribs in the process, if that crack was any indication – to intent on using it like a springboard to propell himself over the head of a goon that had moments before been trying to put him in a headlock from behind to give anything more intelligent (or explanatory) than that.
Besides, there was really no other way to describe the fight currently in progress between the speedster and the mysterious new criminal in town.
A quick tapping of keys. "Hang tight, Robin. Donna and the Bat are already on their way. Tempest say's he's on the trail of something too hot to drop right now, but he'll be there as soon as he can."
This time Robin only grunted in reply as he kicked out with both legs while still in the air and connected with the jaws of two more goons. Now there was only three left, even though he'd only taken down ten of the original eighteen or so. The others had gone down from so-called "friendly fire." 'Three against one, eh? Piece'a cake.'
A few more kicks, flips, and slaps with his staff and they were all down for the count, leaving one panting Robin standing in their midst with barely a mark on him. "Serves 'em right for messin' with us, anyway," he muttered to himself, taking a quick moment to wipe the sweat of his forehead. He glanced around, looking for more targets, but didn't like what he saw instead.
Arsenal seemed to have attracted the largest opponents with the bigger guns and tighter trigger fingers. The usually brash Titan was twisting and rolling around too many bullets to count, often utilising small gaps that barely even existed to evade the deadly fire. In fact, he was being forced to spend so much time simply keeping himself alive that he had no time to fire off any weapons, which was probably why he still had thirteen of his original eighteen gathered around him.
Tightening his grip on his bo staff, Robin ran over to help his fellow hero. As he sprinted across the dealership floor, he allowed himself a quick moment to glance quickly over to where the Flash should've been taking care of the 'Black Phoenix'. His heart sank still further at what he found.
Wally, to put it nicely, was having his butt handed to him. Even with all his speed, the Scarlet Speedster seemed to having difficulty hitting this 'Black Phoenix', while the latter had no trouble at all connecting with the young meta. Even to Robin's inexperienced eyes, it seemed more like The Flash was shadow-boxing than fighting for his life – except that these shadows were hitting back with devastating power. The way the fight was going, Flash wouldn't be able to evade their full power for much longer. Sooner or later the combination attacks were going to start landing, from which it would be only a matter of time until Wally was down for good.
Heart in his throat, Robin forced himself to look away, knowing he couldn't do anything to help The Flash right now. He had an Arsenal to save from the flying bullets and their gun-toting owners first. Then, only then, the two of them might be able to save Wally and personally take revenge for the lost life of their closest friend and brother.
So it was that his attention returned to Roy's battle against the goons summoned by this Black Phoenix, and not a moment too soon. Even as he raced towards Arsenal, one of the bullets must've surely connected, for Roy suddenly stumbled and fell for a moment to his knees, his hand moving to his side unconsciously as a grimace of pain flew across his battered features.
Robin almost paused in his race across the dealership floor, fearing the worst for one terrible moment.
The moment passed, and Robin assured himself that it couldn't be all that serious, for Roy seemed to be instantly up on his feet and dishing out a little "payback" to the goon responsible.
The moment passed, and his instincts screamed to him that the sudden movement in the shadows behind Arsenal – opposite side of the room to where Wally and the Phoenix were dukin' it out – meant that even more goons were zeroing in on Roy and he.
"Oh man. We're doomed," he muttered to himself. "I so hate it when I'm right."
And then the fight was on in earnest.
In some ways, there was something to be said for open comm channels. Not that Oracle particularly enjoyed hearing the grunts, thunks and thwaps of flesh being hit by flesh – or boots, staffs, or escrima sticks, for that matter – but it did allow her to get 'down and dirty with the troops'...especially when they tended to forget that she was listening to their every word.
And it wasn't often that Robin tended to forget about leaving his comm open, having been trained by Batman to 'multi-task' his thoughts to a very high degree. Even so, everyone has their limits. Sometimes even she forgot that Robin was still technically a kid. And somehow, she kind of doubted that he knew she heard the quiet comment:
"Oh man. We're doomed. I so hate it when I'm right."
It wasn't exactly something either Tim or Robin would classify as being fit for her ears...or for Batman's ears. Then again, he didn't know Batman was listening in, did he?
On that thought, she opened up an auxiliary channel to the Batmobile. "Batman? What's your E.T.A.?"
"Five minutes," he growled, as unhappy about that prospect as she was. He knew better than most that Robin wasn't exactly pessimistic by nature. Seeing as the kid had already gone up against the likes of The Joker, Scarecrow, Ventriloquist, Two-Face, and all the other of Gotham's resident psychos, they both hated to think what would make him accept defeat before he even got a chance to really fight.
Oracle sighed softly, but still acknowledged his answer and disconnected. Then she opened up an auxiliary channel to Troia, the only other hero currently available and close enough to make a difference. "Troia, this is the Oracle. What's your E.T.A. to the Lair?"
"One minute at most," came the quick reply.
"Try and make it in under thirty seconds," Oracle replied grimly as she listened to the sounds coming from the main channel. "Otherwise you might not have anyone to rescue."
Oracle returned to Robin's transmission just in time to hear a sickening cry and the thud of a falling body. Her heart instantly leapt into her throat at the silence that followed.
Which hero had fallen? Arsenal? The Flash? Or Robin?
Onwards he raced, coming ever closer to the goal that still seemed so far (too far) away as he too listened to the silence over the Batmobile's speakers with mounting concern.
"Hero Down," Robin's suddenly broadcast, his voice shaking strangely. "I repeat, Flash is down and out. Arsensal's chargin' in, and I'm joining hi—"
Batman reached over and flicked a few switches on the dash without moving his eyes from the road, breaking into the transmission to speak to Robin for the first time since his arrival from his undercover mission. "Robin," he interrupted in his patented growl, "I want you to stay put. Let Arsenal go for now."
"Batman? But— Sir—" Robin paused and swallowed, readjusting his thoughts to his partner's presence. Reluctantly slowing his forward charge even as he protested the order, he tried again: "But sir, I think he's injured. He'll have no chance if I don't help him out."
"How bad is he hurt?" Oracle broke in.
"At best, a bullet graze or flesh wound along his side. Could be a lot worse, but I can't see in this rotten light. I— Awwww maaann, where did you guys come from? You multiply worse then rabbits." Robin interrupted himself suddenly, then finished in a rush: "Sorry guys, but I gotta go. More goons to fry."
Then there was only the sounds of grunts and the thwaps of bo staff hitting flesh for company.
The accelerator hit the floor once more and the Batmobile seemed almost to go airborne, its dark-lit body seeming like a streak of black lightning as it hurtled down the Bludhaven motorway. It travelled as if a nightmarish monster leaping forwards into the darkness of the falling night, freshly released from the wrought-iron gates of fiery hell and determined to devour and overcome anything and everything that stood in its way. The quasi-intelligent computer on-board thrust it through the night at speeds far past even Batman's ability to operate at, seeming to feed of the myriad of dark emotions and impulses in the psyche of its driver to propel its headlong rush even further. Any who found themselves glimpsing the beast that was the Batmobile or the thirty-foot long flame streaming out of its exhaust had reason indeed to feel fear and awe trembling up their spine.
Yes, Batman was indeed on his way.
thwap wham
How many times had he swung his staff at some opponent in the last couple of minutes?
bang thwap
If hard pressed to answer, Robin could honestly say that he didn't know. They all tended to run one into another after about two hundred swings, which was one hundred and ninety swings after he'd stopped counting.
He'd also stopped counting the downed men a long time ago, right about when he started needing to stand on their unconscious bodies because there was no clear floor-space left.
whack smack
He only hoped the backup Oracle had promised him would arrive soon. If it didn't, he'd either completely break his bo staff, or he'd miss a stroke through sheer exhaustion. It didn't matter which one, really, because either way he was going to end up getting himself killed in very short order if he didn't have help.
The problem was that either the goons were getting harder and harder muscles, or he just wasn't putting as much force behind each blow as he had been when this all started. Although the build-up of lactic acid in his arms and his legs were almost at intolerable levels, he was still a Bat Boy through and through....and he knew that Bat Boys never got tired.
Besides, he'd never live it down with the Bat....even if it certainly seemed to his eyes as if his opponents were getting bigger and stronger.
thwack grunt bam
His staff wasn't designed to take on so many giants all at once, anyway. For that matter, he wasn't designed to inflict as many punishments as he had to keep dishing out just to keep abreast of everyone. At this rate, he reckoned he only had enough left in his tank for about twenty more hits if he played his cards right.
If Troia arrived before he collapsed.
swish oooofff thhh-whiiip
Right now, his main focus – besides escaping from the tangle of squirming bodies that had strangely overtaken him – revolved around simply keeping his eyes open for the next few seconds...and the seconds after that...and the seconds after that.
wham 'Why me?' smash
It wasn't that he didn't have the desire to fight down till his last breath, being trained by the Bat and all, but sometimes the body couldn't fully go to the places where the mind lead it. Try as he might, not even he could convince his body to keep fighting for much longer.
Don't get him wrong. For a child of his age and upbringing, his endurance and stamina levels were well and truly up there with the best. Normally he could stay awake far longer than the forty hours he'd managed so far...but then again, normally he wasn't confronted with the death of his brother, the task of gathering evidence from a charred husk of a body, keeping the Titans together long enough to get something done, giving away parts of himself in the process that he couldn't afford to give, then watching a video of his own brother's breaking under torture and subsequent death, and fighting what must surely be an entire army of impossibly tall and big and agile opponents.
thwack swish slam 'owwww that huurrttss'
Was it really his fault that he felt as if he could sleep for an entire month if only he could keep those damned nightmares at bay?
'I wonder who' bam ' ticked off' smack 'this time to' wham 'get this?'
And then it happened.
slam 'Hey, where'd that' swish 'come fro—'
Although there had already been quite a few fists coming his way that he hadn't managed to deflect with his staff, he had always been able to twist far enough at the last moment so that he never felt the full force of the blows. However, he had no way of dodging the spring-loaded punch aimed directly at his ribs when he had already turned aside to his fullest extent in an attempt to avoid yet another spray of bullets and his staff was already committed to hitting the hand guilty of pressing that trigger.
His vision flashed white then black as the powerful blow landed on his lower ribs, winding him and narrowing his focus down to the darkness gathering in his vision and the terrible, biting pain that filled his chest from the blow. Before he could comprehend it, he was flying backwards through the air. He landed on the ground and skidded back a few meters, amazingly not impacting against the feet of those he had yet to take down before finally coming to rest against a wall or some other kind of tall obstruction on the floor of the warehouse.
His head impacted against the wall with a dull thunk just as he saw the remaining thugs from the small army that had beset him heading his way and heard Oracle start to say something in his ear. Then everything went dark and he knew nothing more.
He had exactly two minutes till he arrived in Bludhaven.
Three minutes had passed of listening to flesh hitting flesh, of the dull thunks of attacks being blocked by a hero's body, an amulet, or a bo staff. It had been three long minutes of grunts, crashes, thuds of falling bodies, cries of pain, and the sound of glass shattering.
Now that she was finished with Troia – the closing of the secondary channel between the two female heroes Batman confirmed with a quick glance at the display on his dash – Oracle decided now was the time to cut in on the action. "Robin, you need only hang in there for a few seconds more. Troia's almost there, and I-"
Oracle paused in mid-stream, suddenly realising that sickening thunk of something hard hitting something heavy meant that she would be waiting for a reply which would never come – not for while anyway.
"Robin? Are you okay?"
Silence was the firm reply. In the background they heard heavy footsteps echoing heavily on the wooden floorboards of the Lair – footsteps of more than one person forebodingly heading straight for the fallen Robin.
Then the footsteps stopped, and the sickening sounds of flesh hitting flesh began again....but this time there was no answering sounds of a hero in full self-defense mode.
His mouth tightened into a thin white line and his grip on the wheel was hard enough to create hairline stress-fractures in the hard polymer wheel. He whipped the car down the turn into the Bludhaven off-ramp, his mind only half on his driving.
"C'mon kid, answer me. Are you there? Robin? ROBIN?" Oracle demanded, by now almost frantic with worry in the parts of her that were still allowed to feel.
Still no reply. There weren't even grunts of pain from the boy from the beating they all could hear going on but could do nothing to stop. The youth was simply too deeply out of it to respond to Oracle's demands.
All of a sudden, though, Bruce had cause to be thankful that Dick had chosen to be friends with meta-humans that could fly. He had never been so relieved to hear the Amazonian War Cry as when Troia made her belated arrival. The first thing she did, judging from the sounds alone, was strike at the thugs beating up the defenseless bodies of the fallen heroes.
He glanced at the clock again as Oracle once more called anxiously for a response from his youthful (too young) partner.
Thirty-two seconds down, one minute and twenty-eight seconds to go.
"...you there? Robin? ROBIN?"
'......oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh.....'
The first coherent thought that came to him was that he couldn't be dead. If he was dead, he wouldn't hurt as bad as he did. His entire body was like one big open bruise, but the bruises seemed worse around his chest and his skull. Surely he would remember hurting this badly before he...before he...before....he........ what did he do again?
'....hhhuuurrrrrrttttttttssssssss....'
His second thought was to wonder why he always seemed to wake up with throbbing heads. Just once, just once, he would like to wake up in a situation like this without a dozen dancing demons in his skull hell-bent on bashing their way out using his brain as their clubs.
His head reflexively jerked as something blunt and very hard hit him at high velocity in the ribs. There was barely time to identify the object that was undoubtedly the cause of most of the pain in his body as a boot before he registered the involuntary move of his head and reacted – violently. He immediately winced and stilled his movements so he could try and cradle his poor head as each of the dancing demons promptly cloned themselves and became triplets. 'Oookaaay, don't do that again for a while...' He stilled his body and clenched his eyes shut tighter as the world around him did a few lazy somersaults while his stomach tried to outdo the world and pull off a quad inside his abdomen.
Judging it was safe to move once the severe dizziness and nausea passed, he weakly lifted his leaden arms and brought his hands up to his throbbing temples. His judgement however, just like everything else on this strange night, proved completely unfounded in reality when another foot hit him in the same spot as before. He uttered a choked, gasping intake of air at the fiery pain that ran all around his chest like a vice, squeezing his lungs out of any air they might have possessed originally as he belatedly curled into a tight ball to protect himself. Bright lights played before his dazed eyes as his befuddled brain tried to get a grip on both the fire in his chest and the demons in his head at the same time and only managed to be all to aware of the effects of both. In doing so, however, he managed to completely lose control of his stomach.
He had only a moment to be thankful that he hadn't eaten anything in over eighteen hours before his world was immersed in painful torture once more...this time, however, from a cause external to his aching body.
How could a woman scream a war-cry so loud without losing her lungs?
He winced again and placed a hand on his sore ear as the unnaturally loud voice echoed within his throbbing skull. 'Don't shout, don't shout. I'm here,' he thought fuzzily. 'I ain't going anywhere till the demons vacate the premises and give me my brain back.'
The ground rumbled beneath him as something hit the floor with a loud crash. He gripped the wooden floorboards and held on for dear life, his fuzzy thoughts at first tentatively identifying the shaking as another earthquake and therefore expecting the roof to come crashing down on him at any moment.
The anticipated torrent of debris and suffocating dust never arrived, for which he was eternally thankful. At least something in this topsy-turvy day was going right.
"C'mon, answer me kid! ROBIN?!"
Scratch that. Did Oracle really need to scream that last word?
He really should answer her, he fleetingly knew, at least just to let her know that he was alive if not completely well – and to stop her screams coming through the comm in his abused ears. He couldn't be dead and in this much he? He didn't think he was dead, anyway, and that surely counted for something somewhere. Now if only he could figure out how to get his voice to work when the demonic dancers were using his most of his cognitive functions to bash his brains out...
Finally, in a groaning voice that wavered more than it held steady, he managed to rasp out, "Hhhhhoooooooooo boooyyy.....whaatzz sha numba ovv daa trux aah hit?"
"Robin, thank goodness you're still with us," Oracle replied, relieved beyond description at finally getting a response, even if it was slurred almost to the point of being intelligible. "Can you tell me what happened?"
'In other words: "Get off your backside and take a look around, bird-brain."' He groaned again as he somehow managed to roll over without moving his head – 'Careful!' – and then tried to get his feet under him. He managed to get up on one elbow at one point, but then he realized his feet had lost interest in the endeavour somewhere along the way and his elbow's determination to hold his weight was faltering badly. Within seconds, his elbow convinced itself it was a lost cause as well and collapsed under him, sending his battered body tumbling back to the floor.
His jaw seemed to hit the ground first, knocking his teeth together with enough force to cut off his tongue if it had been anywhere nearby. At least the dancers only cloned themselves to become twins, this time. He also discovered he had rib-cage, which he supposed was always a plus, even if he found out because it felt as if his ribs were on fire. Again.
He tried once more to get up, somehow managing to be aware of what all of his limbs were doing this time even if he wasn't in complete control of them. This time around, he actually got to the kneeling stage. He paused there for a moment, pleased he had managed to get everything to co-operate enough to get him up this far but also waiting for the confusion in his head to die down again.
"Robin?" Oracle queried, impatient for her answer. "Are you there? What's going on?"
'Man, that woman's got no respect for the dead,' was his first coherent thought in response. 'Or the barely alive,' he amended a moment later, the pain telling him was definitely alive. For now he ignored her, more intent on leaving his vulnerable position on the floor than answering – he didn't have it within him to replicate this complicated process of standing again. He both hands on the floor and bodily pushed himself up while he tried to un-bend his stiff knees and simultaneously maintain enough of his balance not to fall over.
Finally, he was vertical, even if he wasn't exactly steady. He wavered back and forth on his feet as his brain tried to decide if it really wanted to be up where the air was thinner instead of on the nice, stable floor. He was very glad he was yet to actually open his eyes as the world slowly revolved around him. He had to place one hand on the nearby wall – the same wall he had knocked himself out on – before he felt anywhere near steady enough on his feet to answer: "Wha'...Hap'en?" he repeated slowly as he tried to force the world to stay still long enough to let him think. "Dunno' really," he muttered finally, convinced now that the world was too rebellious to listen to his pleas. "'Member d' fists, tho'"
"It's probably just a concussion, Robin," Oracle replied, forcing herself to focus on the greater picture. "Can you focus enough to tell me what's going on?"
'Just a concussion?' he thought sardonically. 'I'll concuss her in a moment.'
At least he was coherent enough not to say his thoughts aloud. Instead, he dared to crack open an eye and peek out at the brightness of the warehouse from where he stood in the shadows. He shut the eye again immediately. "Pr'tty bright...but t'ere were two Troi'z 'elpin' dree Royzz f'ght d' bad dude," he muttered, keeping his voice down for the sake of his throbbing head. He just knew he was going to have a goose-egg the size of Montana on the back of his head in the morning. This time he cracked open the other eye and was relieved to find that his photo-receptors had finally settled down – but not his optical nerves. "Hoooo boy, go'ta luv th' blury d'bble vishin..."
"What about the Phoenix's foot soldiers?"
"Can't zee 'em...Troia pr'bly took 'em all out anywayzz." He squinted, trying to clear his vision and evict the dancing demons in his skull through strength of will alone. "Wait..." he trailed off, unsure exactly what he was seeing.
"Robin? What is it?"
"I...uh..." The youth trailed off again, grumbling below the pickup level of the microphone something that sounded suspiciously like, "B'cum Rob'n an' see t'world, t'ey said. All I'm see'n' is stars an' bl'ck dots."
He closed his eyes and mentally tried to gather his thoughts on the task at hand. Surely there was some way he could get himself to think properly. After all, he'd had plenty of concussions as bad as this one – if not worse– before, and he'd functioned fine—
Suddenly he felt like giving himself a good strong kick in the rear – which he would've done if he didn't feel so bad – as he suddenly called to mind some of the training he'd received from the Bat prior to becoming Robin. He had been trained in quite a few of the mind-control techniques Bruce himself had been taught by a Tibetan monk during his travels around the world. One of the very first techniques he had learnt was one intended to completely block sensations of pain from certain parts of the body, allowing the user to perform physical feats that should really be impossible. None of the 'Bat-Clan' had completely mastered the technique, mainly because they used it to ease the pain more than trying to completely block the pain. Still, it was a more than an appropriate tool to throw at those annoying dancers infesting his skull.
Besides, pain was good. Pain meant he was alive. That was always good....wasn't it?
His thoughts whirled around him as he tried to concentrate, his awareness of the fight still going on around him against this strange 'Black Phoenix' prohibiting him from fully attaining the ocean of calm he needed to pull it off properly.
Time seemed to slow to a standstill, the seconds crawling by like hours on a stakeout as he tried desperately to enter a deep enough trance.
After what seemed to be an eternity, but was really only a few moments, he snapped back to reality and immediately heaved a small sigh of relief. The throbbing in his skull was still undeniably there, but he no longer had to be careful of how fast he moved and the photosensitivity was all but gone. He hadn't managed to pull it off as well as he normally did, but then he wasn't complaining.
Besides, there was no time to apply the technique again even if he so desired it. True to form of the way everything else had been going today, he had snapped back to reality just in time for the thudding sound of something heavy hitting the hard wooden floor of the converted warehouse to penetrate into his poor, abused brain.
"Roy jus' w'nt down like nuthin' I've seen," Robin spoke suddenly in a more normal tone, although his wavering voice made it clear he was still feeling slightly dazed from the powerful blow he'd woken from only moments ago in addition to what he'd just seen. "Tro'a's still goin' tho...I th'nk..."
A female's scream of pain cut him off, and was just as suddenly silenced. "Troia's down," Robin reported tiredly, closing his eyes to gather his waning strength even as he spoke.
Hearing footsteps suddenly, he snapped his eyes open just in time to see the Black Phoenix turning in his direction and advancing on him solidly. He licked his lips nervously, noticing for the first time that he was the only one left standing in the entire warehouse except for the Phoenix. "An' I'm gonna die now," he muttered to himself, by now not caring who was listening.
Robin instinctively backed up for every step that the Phoenix advanced but was stopped almost immediately when his back hit the wooden walls of the warehouse. He had no delusions of defeating this newcomer to the Bludhaven scene. The rate at which the Titans had gone down told him that he wouldn't last very long against this Black Phoenix – not with one or two of the demonic dancers still infesting his skull despite his best efforts.
Eyes locked on his foe, he sighed very softly and muttered to himself, "Right. One double order of concussion with a side-dish of knocked-out stuffing coming right up."
Straightening up and speaking slightly louder, Robin wearily summoned his best Bat-glare and injected enough (he hoped) Bat-confidence/defiance into his voice to growl: "Time for this little birdie to clip your wings, you sick little wannabe."
That done, he stared at the calmly approaching (madly sprinting) spectre with a semblance of calm as he automatically slipped into a defensive stance even though his heart wasn't in the fight. He only prayed that he wouldn't hurt much before the end came.
At least this time he remembered to turn the comm off before he started fighting...or trying to fight, anyway.
Inside the building formerly known as Nightwing's Lair, the battle raged between twin birds of flame and of morning. Outside, however, it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Not even the occupants of the warehouses adjoining Nightwing's Lair noticed anything amiss on this night other than the fact that the twilight after sunset had lasted only five minutes instead of the usual fifteen. It just seemed like your average Bludhaven kind of night...which is to say that no one went out without being armed and that they always expected trouble of the worst kind. Those expectations were quite abundantly fulfilled when he came to town.
Batman.
His car roared through the streets in total disregard of traffic laws and the ever-present cops not fulfilling their duty. Even one or two of the local citizens came close – but always with room (a few millimetres) to spare – to being clipped by the car as it muscled its way through the evening traffic. The only reason that there wasn't an entire stream of police cars racing after the Batmobile with their sirens flashing and horns blaring was that they simply didn't have any car that could keep with the frantic (suicidal) pace that was being set.
Batman was in Bludhaven.
It had been two minutes since the first prolonged silence from his young partner, and only one minute since the boy had cut off all communications when he was about to fight this "Black Phoenix"...alone and unaided. It had seemed an eternity since then.
The Bat was not happy.
And when the Bat was unhappy, it was a good time to be out of the country. His driving skills when he got in these kind of states were enough to be lethal if the criminals – and civilians – weren't careful, let alone the ruthless beatings he was capable of delivering.
This driving skill – and lack thereof – was amply demonstrated when the Batmobile came to a sudden stop outside the converted warehouse that housed the Lair formerly used by Nightwing, but now lay empty. He went from one hundred and fifty kph down to zero in one second and over five meters – all without any sound. It was one of the advantages of having complete access to Wayne Tech's R&D departments, no questions asked.
The final position in which the car came to rest was highly illegal, with the car blocking about eighty percent of the street's thoroughfare – had there been any traffic on the road to begin with. The area was deserted, and rightly so. No one in their right mind wanted to be near this particular warehouse block on this darkening night.
Heedless of the sense of danger in the air, Batman was out of the car in an instant, his cape billowing behind as his feet fairly flew over the curb and towards the ladder to the fire-escape on the adjacent building.
Standard Bat operating procedure – even in PsychoBat mode – was to take a moment to examine the situation from the relative safety of the roof of an adjoining warehouse before he revealed himself to the occupants of the targeted building. As he focused on the scene through the skylight one storey below his position using the magnification of his lenses, the anger escalated.
Robin was already on his knees and doubled over as a result of the latest blow he had sustained. One hand wrapped protectively around his ribcage indicated where the last blow had landed, while his other arm braced the boy's weight and kept him from collapsing. He was panting heavily, sweat pouring off his brow as he struggled to recover his breath, as he raised his head slowly as if it weighed ten times heavier than it really did.
The strangely suited man stood over the battered youth silently for a moment, staring at the boy in an odd kind of appraisal – of what, Batman didn't know. Furthermore, Batman wasn't going to allow himself time enough to know, especially not when such time would come at the expense of his partner. He gripped the jump-line he had prepared earlier and leapt silently from the rooftop, aiming for the lighted skylight below.
As it turned out, he leapt off the roof just in time to see Robin fall.
Robin squinted up at his opponent through swollen eyes, unaware of the belated salvation rushing towards him. All he saw was the faintly glowing eyes of his tormentor, his heart only aware of wanting to end this now. "Wan-na-be..." he ground out slowly, gasping out the syllables between pained breaths as he deliberately baited his foe. 'C'mon, big guy. Hit me just once more and put me out of my misery for good....'
High above, Batman had only just let go of the jump-line when the strangely suited man coldly punched the suffering boy in the jaw. The audible crack echoed throughout the night, the force of the blow jerking Robin's head back in what had to be the meanest case of whiplash in history. The powerful hit forced Robin's head back so far that his body had to go back with it or else risk a broken spine. His body slowly twisted as it fell back, allowing Batman to catch a quick glimpse of a face that was a mass of purplish-black bruises whose eyes were already swollen-shut behind the mask from the intense battering he had received from his opponent...Then the moment was past and Robin was still soundlessly falling backwards...falling...falling....
The skylight buckled and immediately disintegrated into splinters underneath the force of the blow Batman inflicted as he fell through, but he barely noticed except to ensure that his uniform did not get caught or torn on the sharp shards of glass.
The spent youth hit the floor on his back with a thud that echoed hollowly around the room and seemed unnaturally loud in Batman's ears. Robin didn't move again. His focus immediately shifted to the Phoenix, putting all his frustrated anger (guilt) into the blow he planned to make.
At that precise moment, the strangely suited man gave the body one final harsh kick to the head to be sure the boy was out, then paid the body no more mind. His eyes flicked up almost instinctively and barely widened at the sight of the angered Bat falling almost on top of him....
And then the strangest thing happened.
With his legs extended in front of him and locked in position, Batman had expected to connect solidly with the metallic suit of his opponent. However, just as he was about to make the connection with all his weight behind the blow...and the Phoenix disappeared. Actually, the Phoenix didn't disappear as much as he simply melted into the shadows.
Bruce had under half a second to unlock his legs and prepare his body for the brutal impact with the floor. He managed as he always did, smoothly turning the uncoordinated tumble into a roll to bleed off the excess momentum. He came to a stop in the shadows and was up on his feet in an instant, his cape swirling around him like a living thing as his gaze hunted for the newest Master Criminal to enter his life.
There was only himself, the shadows, and an eerily hollow room for company.
Then the electronically modified voice emerged from the shadows, its volume dialled down until it rumbled and echoed from every direction. "I've been waiting for this for a long time."
Batman whirled and let loose with a handful of batarangs and throwing stars at where he thought the voice came from, firing at everything and nothing all at once. He heard only the dull thunks as the deadly objects hit the wooden walls and burrowed their way in.
Unperturbed by the flying missiles, the low growl continued to emerge from a shadow Batman swore he'd just fired at, "After what you and your brat did to me, I'm going to enjoy every second."
To his credit, Batman made no visible reaction to the menace-filled voice tearing the air asunder. He stealthily moved to the side, silently moving around the lairs in the apparent safety of the shadows. Eyes darted from side to side under the cowl, raking the room apart with their gaze in an effort to unmask their foe – and uncovering neither hide nor hair of his slippery opponent.
From his vantage point, Black Phoenix smiled as he tasted the Batman's suppressed fear, licking his lips behind his mask in a form of animalistic anticipation. For the first time in his life, he had turned the tables on the fabled Bat. The darkness was no obstacle for his dark-adjusted eyes, even without starlite lenses. Batman might as well have been wearing a neon signed shouting out "I'm here!" as far as the Phoenix was concerned. Even more noiseless than the Bat – if that was possible – he matched the Dark Knight move for move around the abandoned dealership, hidden eyes twinkling in twisted amusement as he stalked the other man.
Silence fell once again upon the dealership...for all about ten seconds.
Apparently tiring of this game of bat-and-prey, the two opponents made their moves at almost the same time. Batman, long suspecting that his prey was in fact behind him, whirled and threw twin batarangs in one smooth, fluid motion as his cape flared out in the wind caused by his movement. Even as his arm flew out and let loose the deadly projectiles, Black Phoenix had leapt forward and had begun to close the distance between them. With a casual gesture more reminiscent of swatting a fly, Phoenix plucked the 'rangs right of the air and held onto them as he bore down on Batman.
Quicker than thought, Batman twisted out of the way of the dangerous criminal and brought his hands down in a quick chopping action, aiming for a few critical nerve points. His hands only rebounded off the strange garment-like armour the Phoenix wore, the after-shocks vibrating up his arms like a piece of jello reacting to an earthquake. This Bruce ignored, much like he would a gnat flying past his face, and turned his offensive into a defensive block to a wild kick thrown by his masked foe.
The flurry of blows continued as the two engaged in a breath-taking duel of deadly intent, control of its outcome switching back and forth as quickly as the fight's location alternated between the shadows and the light. Evenly matched in more ways than one, this was a battle pitching brute strength against thought, youth against experience, hatefulness against the fear-inspiring, and the dark-hearted against true evil. Both fought for many reasons, each of them so similar in motivation even as they were light-years apart.
Love.
Hate.
Grief.
Glory.
Justice.
Retribution.
Yes, there was a lot riding on this titanic battle, in more ways than one. Battles like this could govern a planet's entire future, and the instincts of both fighters told them that this encounter could be no different. In the end, there would only be one true victor. Debts needed to be paid, and they could only be paid in the loser's life.
The blood of those dearly-loved by both combatants – at the other's hands, no less – demanded it.
Smoke filled the air from the bomb's explosion, clogging the senses and filling his lungs with its irritants. The urge to cough was building within him, but he didn't care. He heard the crackling of flames feeding greedily on the rubble strewn all around and on top of him, and knew the fires were close. The little cavity he lay in already held very little oxygen, but a tiny part of him – the only part that still thought about such things – knew that it would be more than enough to feed the flames into what would feel like an inferno to him when they caught him. The concrete slab that had fallen on top of his already battered body groaned ominously at the stresses laid upon it by the debris above it...but he didn't care.
He didn't care that his lifeblood was slowly trickling out of him, that more of his bones were fracturing with every passing second as the concrete slab pressed upon him. The extra pain barely registered on his mental scale of just how bad it could get, as he had been through much more agonizing pain during his time with Nightwing. In fact, he could barely even bring himself to acknowledge the surprising fact that he was still (barely) alive after the bomb Nightwing had left for him. Not even the pain that stole his breath could penetrate the haze of apathy he sheltered under.
They couldn't hurt him if he didn't care.
If he didn't care how badly he hurt, how desperately he wished he was dead, then there was nothing the Bat and his brat could do to touch him anymore. They couldn't use the pain to get him to talk, to spill the secrets he literally guarded with his soul.
So they had done the next best thing.
So much of him had been stolen, broken, or simply shattered, that sometimes he had a half a mind to wonder why he was still left with the breath in his lungs. It was really the only thing Nightwing had left him with, and a part of him wished that it had been stolen from him too. He wouldn't even have objected that much if they'd managed to take his memories, but had left him with breath in his lungs. Perhaps then the knowledge of what had been done to him – by both the Bat-Clan and himself – could be buried and forgotten for all eternity.
But together, the ability to breathe and the memories parading before his mind's eye, they were almost too much bear.
For even if he did manage to survive the next few seconds, and all the seconds after that until someone came to rescue him, he would be forced to live with the reminders of what the Bats had accomplished, of the destruction that they'd wrought upon him in such a short time. From every day forth, day in and day out, he would have to live with the knowledge that they had succeeded in his aim: The Bat-Brat had destroyed him, and destroyed him well.
Not even he recognized the stranger on the other side of the mirror, the person he had managed to catch glimpses of when the Bats weren't watching him. The facial structure was the same all right, and the features were those he could vaguely remember...but everything else was wrong. He no longer knew the personality behind the eyes, eyes so sad and despairing....so distorted and twisted from what he had once known that he had hurriedly turned his face away from them every time he'd glimpsed them.
Lying there, barely hanging onto the slim thread of life left to him, his body broken and shattered beyond any hope of recovery, he looked back at his life up till now and was amazed that he was still trying so desperately to keep surviving despite all that had been done to him. He had made it so far, so long, so close to the end....and he wondered why he'd bothered, why he'd deluded himself into thinking he could hold his own against them.
At least he didn't have to look far to know the reasons why. His memories told him that much.
He had done it all to prove himself, to show to everyone (anyone, someone) that he was still the man he'd once been proud to be, to prove without doubt that his one moment of rage had not destroyed him as well as his lover. In so doing, he knew on some level that he'd been a very foolish man. What on earth had he been thinking? That suffering through the pain of the recent months made him more of a man? That he was capable of some kind of noble deed like keeping his mouth shut?
Who was he kidding?
He knew the truth now, for what good it did him with death so close. He could look back at what he had been, his mind able to see the events that had led up to this with a clarity he'd never before experienced – and probably never would again, all things considered. His memories continued their eternal advance, and for the first time he saw himself for the fraud he really was. Even before his capture by Nightwing, he'd known he was lying to himself, if only a subconscious level. Who was he to fly every night, to take to the sky on the wings of his mechanical eagle, to pretend he didn't notice the monster he had become from that moment on?
He'd been a fool to think no one had noticed the changes within him, that maybe if he'd kept himself busy he wouldn't have to notice either. Family, friends, colleagues and partners, they'd all seen the extra aggression in his actions, the merciless and relentless way he'd driven himself every day to keep from thinking...to prevent himself feeling the full impact of what he'd done.
He'd been too blind to see what he was doing at the time, too wrapped up in his own grief to acknowledge the mess he'd become. But now, seconds from death and looking back on years of exactly the wrong kind of living, he could no more forget the way he'd brushed off the concerns of friends and family, ignoring their well-founded doubts and continuously assuring them that he was 'okay' with the past. And all the time, even as the words left his lips, he'd known the truth.
He'd known the moment the rage had died away, the instant that he had realized exactly what he had done when he gave in to that dangerous and deadly emotion. It was then that he first knew the truth, when he first saw the shock and ... and repulsion in her eyes...those very same eyes he'd once longed to drown in, but now couldn't face.
The comprehension of exactly what had been done had come too late...far too late to save her (him).
And he'd promptly denied it, denied what it was doing to him as soundly as he knew that everyone saw it within him. Nothing he could do would ever remove the unforgettable knowledge. He had crossed the line, and done the one thing he'd sworn he'd never do:
'To love and to honour...And to Death do us part...'
The beautiful woman that he had loved with all his heart, the only one he had ever been truly close to, was dead by his hands. She had paid the price for his lack of control, paid it with the blood that was imbedded on his hands and in his heart. Blood had been the price of her freedom from the Bat, and she had paid it well.
Too well.
He'd never forget the look of eternal surprise in eyes once so soft and caring, of never-ending shock at what he had allowed himself to become in those final critical moments. He swore to himself he wouldn't (couldn't) forget. As grisly as the memory was, it was all that remained of her in him, all he had to keep his grip on whatever sanity was still left to him. He would willingly give everything he had – anything at all – just to spend one more moment with her, to bring her back and save them both.
He had a fleeting moment of regret, lying there in the collapsed building and feeling his body slowly shutting down. He wished that it didn't have to be this way, that his life wasn't draining out of him with every thud of his flailing heart. He regretted deeply the choices that lead him right to this spot, leaving him with a broken body only held together by his skin, buried alive under the rubble from an explosion he'd had no right to survive.
Yes, he had a lot of things to regret, many of them centred around the only girl of his heart. His soul ached to go back, to rewind the clock to that one pivotal moment and stop the finger that had slipped on the sweaty trigger and forced the gun to deliver its fatal cargo. But most of all, he wished he had never left her the night the living nightmare started, the night his life went to hell.
The only person that had ever really mattered was dead because of him. The blood on his hands could never be wiped away by a few moments (months) of mental and physical torture and endless suffering. The taint on his soul would always remain from the day he had turned his own world upside down by deliberately and methodically killing another. That single second in which he had given his all to bring his opponent down...only to find he had been fighting the wrong thing, the gun-barrels pointing at the wrong targets. Nothing he could ever do would redeem himself, either in his own eyes or the one whom he had once loved with everything he was...and still did.
Laying flat on his back in the rubble that all that was left of the building he'd been imprisoned in for so long, rubble that matched the desolation in his soul so perfectly, he had the sudden urge to laugh at it all. The irony of the situation appealed to him, in some twisted and perverted way.
Here he was, filled with regret and endless pain over what he had done to others...and now it had been done back to him. By doing what they had, the Bat-Clan had actually been doing him a favour. He had certainly paid the price for that fleeting moment of inattention and rage.
He had survived the unending months of torture that culminated in the unfathomable emptiness inside when he lost his hands. He had made it through the times he broke and apparently even the explosion they tried to kill him with. But surviving was not the same as living. Surviving was just existing from day to day and not planning for the future, except to know that what was to come would be exactly like the day he just survived.
He had somehow survived it all, yes, but he was no longer living. Surviving, after all, meant he just had to keep himself breathing. To keep on living, he needed to enjoy every breath he took...and right now he hated it with all his heart.
He no longer saw much point in life.
'Life,' after all, meant more to him than just breathing and being alive. It meant knowing that he wasn't viewed as inferior being, like some kind of punching bag that they tolerated as long it continued bleeding. Life was the little things he treasured, like being able to go outside if he so wanted, of being able to kiss his woman when she smiled coyly, of loving and being loved in return. It was being with the one he loved and just being able to enjoy quality moments together. It was knowing that he belonged and that his feelings mattered to someone, somewhere.
Life was Freedom; it was Hope.
Life was Love.
In that sense, at least, he had died on the very day the vigilantes first captured him. It was that day that he lost his freedom, that he lost the shining presence of his beloved. He had died the moment he saw the so-called hero standing before him in a blue-black suit after he had forced his way into what had seemed to be an abandoned building. The moment he saw exactly what the vigilante carried in his arms was the moment after which he slowly began to die, inch by painful inch.
But a part of him said that no matter what price he paid, it wouldn't be enough. It couldn't be.
He was already damned, already consigned to the worst of realities while still alive. For he was alive – for however long it lasted, at least – but he was already dead inside. He felt as if he was just waiting for Death to finally come and claim him from this earth, to give him the release he so desperately craved. It was the one thing he craved even more than the drugs, the one thing that would wipe away all his pain forever.
Any release would do, really. Even if it only made the unceasing ache go away for even a few hours, it would be worth everything he would have to go through to get those precious few seconds of freedom. It would be worth every cent, even if he had to sacrifice his very humanity to get it.
Not that there was much of him that was still human. Nightwing had seen to that. So if that little bit that was still human was his sacrifice to the burning need for release that filed his heart, then so be it. It wasn't like it was doing him much good right now anyway.
There was a blood-debt he needed to pay, a debt that could only be paid in spilled blood. Whether it was his or someone else's, it honestly didn't matter to him right now. Blood was the price of his freedom, of his release from his torment. Someone had to be made to pay, to know the pain that he had to live with every day of his life, to know how it felt to live without any hands, to know what was like to not get the release he craved more than anything else.
A ghost of a smile of bitter-satisfaction played upon his lips as he stared up at the stars so high above for what he somehow knew would be the final time. No matter how long it took him, or how much he had to give of himself to accomplish it, Justice would be served, and he would finally settle his debts with the grimmest of reapers.
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See? I can write action. It's just painful and seems to take forever. ;) Unfortunately, bad news is that university has started up again, so most of my juices are going into team reports and all that...once I can unpack the box in which my muse has apparently taken up residence. Ain't life grand?
Need I say that this is TBC? ;-)