CHAPTER ONE
Gotham City sparkled with the lights of a hundred buildings. Many of them apartment buildings barely above five stories tall. The residential district with its many homes was often the most oft traveled closer to the main street. Barbara Gordon relaxed in her apartment as she picked up a box of bird seed and fed her bird.
"Okay, Charlie," She talked to him. "Here's the expensive stuff again. Don't get used to it now; I won't buy it all the time." The green and yellow parakeet whistled as it attacked its food dish and sharpened its beak on a piece of cuttlebone. Barbara sighed a bit as she turned to the patio and looked out to the buildings across the street. The top of her father's police headquarters could barely be made out in the darkness of the night just as was the City Museum. Barbara made a second look as she saw a beam of a flashlight in one of the top windows. The security guard wasn't very careful she thought as several more lights replaced the first one. Barbara stepped back from her balcony and hurried concerningly to her bedroom. She opened her closet door and pushed the false back to the secret room behind it.
Laughter filled the museum halls as no one responded to the sound. The body of a security guard was stuffed into a sarcophagus with a blunt head trauma as a wiry figure in a green, question-marked costume danced before the masterpieces of famous artists. Picasso, Rembrandt, Monet, they were all boring to the booty that the cunning king of puzzlers wanted.
"Did you kill the alarm?" The Riddler asked Crossword, one of his minor stooges.
"Yeah." he answered. "Cleanly."
"Good." The Riddler danced toward the glass case in the middle of the gallery and gazed upon the exquisite porcelain vase over-decorated with gems and rubies in it. "A king's ransom of jewels on an other wise piece of junk."
"Well," Batgirl landed on an overhead beam from the roof. "It takes one to know one!"
"A Bat!" Riddler froze where he was. "Trash her!"
Batgirl somersaulted with acrobatic skill toward the motley crew. She hurled one of her karate kicks to Jumbles and then danced a bit with Crossword before using his momentum to throw him into a suit of armor near the Arthurian Exhibit.
CRASH! The armor tumbled a part with a loud thunder in the hall as she felt Puzzles and Puns grab her and lift her off her feet. She was already reacting to break free as they threw her into the wall hard like some unwanted toy.
OOOOOF! She felt the wind knocked out of her as the Riddler cut a wide opening in the glass on the case and reached in to take his prize. Above him on the wall, the shadow of Batgirl lifted high in the air made him laugh as she was thrown through the air.
KRACK! Her back went through the top of another glass case holding ancient British relics and coins. The daring damsel landed in the rain of broken glass and old iron coins as she suddenly caught her second wind. She leapt to her feet and grabbed Puns to throw him over her shoulder. The muscle-bound cretin felt her hand and then air as he sailed ten feet across
the hall.
"Would you idiots wrap it up?" The Riddler yelled for his men. "We have to cash this for the syndicate meeting!" He dropped his jaw as Puzzles slid across the floor as if shot out of a cannon. He smacked into a dinosaur exhibit as the fossilized bones crashed down over him. The Riddler pulled his mask off in disbelief as Crossword flew backward as some gooney bird thrown by the Hulk. Bouncing off a tapestry, it crashed down on him like a net.
"Working out?" The Riddler looked to Batgirl adjusting her cape. He laughed maniacally and dropped his riddle in an envelope into the empty case he was leaving behind for the Batman as Batgirl watched the shadow of another bat enter the museum. The prince of puzzles turned with a flourish to escape and bumped into something in the shadows.
SMACK! He dropped to the floor unconscious as the Batman caught the vase inches from striking the floor. From the far room, the police hurried to crowd inside.
"Faith and begorra!" Police Chief Seamus O'Hara viewed the mess as he gestured to his men to cuff the villains and find the missing guard. Batman handed over the vase to him and took the Riddler's envelope.
"Good job, caped crusaders!" He continued. "You were right on the ball with the Riddler." He looked around. "Where's Robin?"
"Robin had a social entanglement." Batman answered. "But Batgirl proved to be able to handle her own."
"Yeah," She mugged embarrassingly a bit. "I don't know how, but I sure caught my wind when I needed it."
"Good thing too." Batman postured a bit as he reached down to the Riddler. "Now, what about this syndicate meeting I've been hearing about on the streets!"
"Don't ask me." The Riddler's eyes rolled as he tried to focus. "Selling the vase was supposed to get me the money to... buy the location... Don't know that much… I was going to be sent the info as soon as I announced in the private messages in the newspaper I had the money…"
Batgirl scowled under her cowl as she stepped back. Sighting the Batman's rope from the skylight, she used it herself to climb up unseen and out of sight to the roof and down the fire escape to her obscured cycle. She roared past the police wagon and police cars out front with the Bat-mobile as she roared off in the form of her own anonymous angel. She circled the block to throw off anyone watching then headed up an alley to the opening brick wall. The building's AC unit clicked on to cover the sound of the abandoned elevator she used to her apartment. She hit the steel door open to her secret room as she stepped and pulled off her cowl. It got pretty hot with the red wig she wore.
"Good work-out tonight." She mugged a bit as she wondered where her sudden surge of strength came from. She then paused and noticed a coin pendant and wire stuck in her earpiece. A few pieces of broken glass came with it as she pulled it loose.
"It must have got caught from the display." She mumbled to herself as she turned it to the light. There was an engraving of a raven on one side and worn symbols on the other. She tried to make out the words.
"Ocht tiereven mies... niereven...?" She mustered them. "Sounds like Gaelic." She sat in her costume as she noticed something else. The closer to her head she held it, the sharper her eyes and vision became. The closer to her heart she had, the stronger she felt. She placed it aside to peel off her costume and started to leave it on her table as her aches and pains overcame her with a vengeance. She stopped unable to move and reached back to grab the pendant. With it in her hands, she felt better again and then even more as she dropped it over her head. With a grand impact wearing the talisman, she gasped lightly and looked at her reflection wearing her costume in the mirror. She felt unstoppable!
CHAPTER TWO
The citizens of Gotham City got to flock around and gawk inside the Batmobile parked outside the Police Station. Tourists had their pictures taken beside it and then next to Batgirl's cycle as the three keepers of the peace consulted with Commissioner Gordon on the top floor of the Gotham City Police Station. As one officer stood on guard at all times over the vehicles, the dynamic trio discussed last night's affair with the Riddler.
"Another reference to a syndicate meeting!" Batman pounded his fist into his hand. "The Penguin last month and now the Riddler. Just what is going on!"
Robin paced a bit as Batgirl tapped the talisman she was wearing under her costume. The boy wonder briefly stopped and whirled around.
"What about the Riddler's clue?" He asked. "The one he left last night."
"What sort of cow no longer gives milk?" Commissioner Gordon read the cartoonish letter. "A Guernsey?"
"A cheeseburger." Batman answered with a wry grin. "No doubt a reference to the Duchess of Burger arriving next month from Germany to display her array of fine cheeses. No, that would have been his next hit if we had not caught him last night. I'm afraid our felonious felon does not yet know where or for what purpose the meeting was to be about."
"What do you suggest, Batman?" Batgirl looked over.
"Commissioner," The Caped Crusader looked over. "What larcenous fiends are being released this month?"
"Oh," Gordon snapped back as his mind slightly wandered He looked over a recent file from the prison through his glasses. "Uhhhhh, only one, the Joker."
"Perfect." Batman reached to his belt. "Send this micro-receiver to Warden Thomas. Instruct him to have it sewn into the lining of the Joker's costume when it's returned to him..."
"That way when he's released we can listen and follow him every where he goes." Robin finished for his mentor.
"Good plan." Batgirl mugged a bit as she inconspicuously tapped the talisman under her costume again.
CHAPTER THREE
Batman and Robin had been parked in the alley behind Timely Pharmaceuticals for four hours since the Joker had been exonerated from prison. They had listened to the psychopathic clown's conversation with his parole officer and some boasting on how he was going to get "the bat" for some time, but now their digital map showed he was back to his old lair at the abandoned toy factory near the river front area. He hadn't had any visitors, but they could hear him mulling and filling his time setting the place up for a nefarious scheme alone in the place.
"Holy Boredom." Robin mumbled as they sat listening to the boring meanderings of the clown prince of crime singing to himself and mumbling lyrics to songs he didn't know. "Why are we just sitting here? Let's go grab him!"
"He hasn't committed a crime yet other than trespassing on the property and we don't know that for sure." Batman sat brooding. "We know he owns a few parcels of property under the pseudonym of J. Whiteface and this could just as easy be one of them. No, we wait till someone approaches him."
Robin smelled exhaust as Batgirl's cycle came in behind them with its low exhaust system. She pulled to a stop and joined them on their reconnaissance.
"Any thing yet, dynamic duo?" She asked.
"Nothing, yet." Batman answered as he heard mumblings going on from the hidden bug in the Joker's jacket. It was either in another room or he was sitting on it because the voices going on were muffled and incoherent.
"This might be it." He triggered the self-starting switch of the Batmobile and hit the gas pedal. Their finely tuned crime-fighting vehicle roared to life with its own personality as it roared from the alley with Batgirl and her cycle in close pursuit. Down through the main street of town, some pedestrians heard the sound coming and turned round just to catch it disappearing around the corner. Gotham's for-most champions for peace were on the ball as they wound through the business district toward the waterfront and parked out of sight. The sound of hooks and cables hit metal roofs as the terrific trio ascended to an open top floor window and entered the bankrupt toy factory.
"Too easy so far," Robin observed as the smell of dust and old air filled his senses. "Is he still here?"
"Definitely." Batman scanned the structure over as he slowly surveyed the abandoned equipment and forgotten stuffed toys laying in woodbins. "I'm sure that we've got the wily bird just where we..."
His foot hit a trapdoor that sent him and his two young partners down through a chute that sent them sliding through darkness and then into light as they crashed hard into a sealed room where the chute slammed and locked shut behind them. Batgirl crashed into Robin as the Batman jumped to his feet. The Joker's twisted laughter filled their ears from a speaker hung for their benefit.
"Well, if it isn't my old playmates!" The Joker squealed with glee at having his foes trapped at his mercy. "Didn't you ever think I'd check my clothing thoroughly when I received it." He cackled again. "In fact, I've been expecting you!"
Batman was scouring the metal walls as vents opened up as hot steam began pouring in. Usually used to steam-clean the stuffed toys, it was going to bake them alive unless they broke out.
"Holy lobsters!" Robin was sweating already. "We'll be cooked alive!"
"Not if I can stop it." Batman pulled out his mini-blowtorch and lit it as he found a seam in the wall to burn through, but the walls were already misting up from the dampness in the air and their small flame was burning up their oxygen. Batgirl stepped back as they tried burning through the wall and tried to remember where the chute was. Tracing her fingers along the wall, she hit a fresh piece of plate different from the rest of the room. She leaned in close to get a closer look then began pounding on it.
"Boss," Chuckles, one of the Joker's henchmen heard the pounding. "They're trying to bust out."
"Give it time." The clowned prince grinned as he watched the steel chamber they had welded shut ring loudly. "Eventually, the sound will drift away as they are baked alive."
"I don't know." Mirth had been a small time hood who once encountered other heroes. "It sounds like they got the Hulk in there."
There was a loud crash and the sound of steel crashing to the concrete floor as steam filled the room. Batgirl called to Batman and Robin as the three of them jumped out into the open.
"Courtesy of a small explosive I carry with me." Batgirl lied as she stared the Joker down.
"Now you're the ones to get steamed!" Robin called and pounded his fist to his other hand just before he rushed to tackle Chuckles. Batman charged at the Joker as Batgirl backed from Mirth, Comic and Laughter. The three of them looked as if they were about to rip her apart as they swung what weapons they had.
CRASH! Robin had cracked a chair over Chuckles' head as he turned to help Batgirl. They had her pinned to the floor as if they were raping her, but then he did a double take as they all flew back at once. She grabbed Mirth and tossed him twenty feet into a bin across the room.
SNAP! Batman and the Joker were in their usual fisticuffs back and forth as the mad clown rushed around a pillar holding up the next floor with Batman in pursuit. Between the two of them, the Joker's minion named Laughter slid across the room after Batgirl knocked him off Robin.
CRACK! Batman was momentarily distracted as the Joker hit him with a wooden club from a pile of loose lumber. He reeled from the blow and caught the club from making another hit as he whacked the Joker with a karate chop and then flipped him over his shoulder.
BAM! Batgirl and Robin made quick work out of the Comic. The burly muscleman wasn't sure who hit harder as he fell to the floor. The two of them ganged up as they lifted him up and disposed of him into the same bin with Mirth.
"Some habits never die." Batman turned to his persistent foe. "You could have gone straight, but no. You have to keep repeating the same mistake, and relearning the same lesson."
"Bah!" The Joker coughed with his vivid green hair disheveled. "If there's one thing the Goblin told me, it is always have a contingency plan." He hit the floor with a smoke bomb to conceal his escape then scrambled for the exit. Leaving the coughing crime-fighters behind him, he rushed for the clean air of the alley and sighted Batgirl's cycle. A slight joyful laugh, he giggled at the opportune fortune he had to steal it then jumped on it and started it up. His eyes then looked up to a figure in white up the alley blocking his way. Dressed as some bleached white mob figure in a long belted overcoat and huge white fedora, he had a skull-mask on as he lifted a large shotgun. There was a loud gunshot as the Joker flew backward off the cycle.
"Justice is served!" Someone yelled as Batman and this wards rushed from the abandoned factory. There was no one in sight as they panned their surroundings from the rusted dumpsters, the empty windows and then the Joker lying prostrate behind Batgirl's motorcycle.
CHAPTER FOUR
Back in the Commissioner's office, Batman and his young wards listened for the news on the Joker's recovery. O'Hara was at the hospital to supervise the security as the costumed crime fighters listened intently out of respect to their demented nemesis.
"Thank you, doctor," Gordon hung up the phone. "Well, it's not all bad. The flak jacket the Joker wears under his costume slowed the bullet so it didn't do much damage, but the bleeding he suffered internally will have to be closely guarded for a while."
"Holy near misses." Robin brushed past Batgirl as Batman paced in front of the desk.
"Well, now," The caped crusader started with pronounced assurance. "We can be reasonably sure what the syndicate meeting is about. We seem to have some murderous criminal-killer loose on our fair streets of Gotham and any of my old foes not already in jail will be in danger. Now, if only we could get any inkling where the meeting will be."
"To protect them?" Batgirl leaned back on her father's guest and hoped he never got a good enough look at her to recognize her.
"Yes," Batman pounded the desk. "They cannot possibly be protected unless they know exactly what they're up against."
"Here's what I received from Manhattan." Gordon pulled out his glasses to look at the faxes he had been delivered. "The police there are calling the figure with that battle cry you heard the Scourge; it's either one man or a group of them working together. So far, twenty-six deaths of costume criminals have occurred in the last month with the deaths of the Ma Parker and her family the closest to get to Gotham so far. Someone incinerated their hideout with them in two weeks ago. Batman, a representative of the Avengers is on his way to brief you."
"Good," Batman stared out from behind his cowl. "We'll need all the help we can get."
"Right!" Robin pounded his fist into his hand overzealously as he turned to follow his mentor then hesitated to stop Batgirl.
"One question, Batgirl," He halted his step briefly and tried to stare into her big blue eyes over than the yellow bat stretched wide by her chest. "When we were in that steam chamber, how you get us out? I didn't hear an explosion."
"Robin," The dynamic damsel mugged a bit as she rubbed a certain talisman a scant length above her breasts under her costume. "That's just one of those secrets we female crime fighters have."
CHAPTER FIVE
Her name was Nora Clavicle and for her brief tenure as mayor of Gotham City she had nearly run the city into the ground by trying to blow it up. She had done her time already and after a few months of scheming and hiding in the city's criminal underground she was now rousting what allies she could against a new threat. The Batman was bad enough, but the Scourge was going one step too far.
"What are you calling yourself now that the original Catwoman is back?" She turned to the figure next to her. No one knew her real name, but she was briefly the Catwoman while Selina Kyle the original was erroneously reportedly counted as dead.
"The Black Cat." The tiny African American villain hissed.
"Another one?" Louie the Lilac turned from talking to the Bookworm. "Don't go in to Manhattan. A certain platinum blonde there might rip you apart."
"Darling," Minerva cooed as Marsha, the Queen of Diamonds stood by. "You just tell the people who you are and they will step aside."
"Yes," Marsha added. "Just long as you say it with feeling and regal bearing."
A gun shot into the ceiling got everyone's attentions as the Bookworm turned skittish and rattled the noise and reverb from his ear. Immersed in his role as the villain with the cowboy-motif, Shame scowled to the motley crew around him. None of them were worth his salt or time. Colonel Gumm was a fat has-been and the Sandman wearing the long fur coat was a pansy gentleman from the other continent. False-Face had potential, but the Archer was nothing without the arrows. Those stupid arrows – the Archer wanted to be a modern Robin hood, but those stupid arrows just reminded Shame of Injuns.
"I dun't want to be here longer than I have to." Shame returned his gun to his holster. "That Scourge fellow blew away my family and gang. I want his hide nailed to my wall!" He stuck a knife in the counter where the Archer was drinking his beer.
The bartender Nora had hired eyed the knife uneasily, pulled it out and wiped the counter where it had been trying to erase the hole cut into the bar.
"Of course, of course," Nora stood by a podium on a platform a mere seven inches off the hard warehouse floor flanked by Marsha, The Queen of Diamonds, and Minerva, The Sinister Socialite. Dr. Cassandra and her husband stopped being romantic long enough to listen. The Minstrel and Chandell stopped their music to listen as the Clock King raised his brandy to her.
"First off," Nora started as her voice echoed through the room. "A bit of prayer for the Black Widow who died in prison last month. She was eighty-seven. Another word, the Penguin and the Riddler have been incarcerated by the Bat and won't make it."
The crowd groaned in contempt at the news. The Archer turned for another beer from the bartender as Shame pounded the wall disgustedly with his fist.
"The Joker is in the hospital with a bullet in him, but he is expected to pull through." Nora continued. "But the main problem is this Scourge. We should be able to do what we do and get away with it without fear of getting shot. What do we do?"
"How do we know it ain't the Bat in disguise?" Kabala stood up next to his wife, Dr. Cassandra. "I mean, couldn't it be?"
"We find out!" The Sandman stood up. "We put a homing device in the Batmobile, follow to that infernal Bat-cave and blow it up!"
"That won't work." The Bookworm answered with a discreet British accent to his voice. "The devices in that infernal thing detect homing devices as well as bombs."
"We get the Bat at close range!" Shame rousted the fever of the room as Nora tried to stave the mood. Pounding on her podium with her mallet, she looked across as things nearly turned to an argument. Her bartender across the room held his hand up.
"Mrs. Clavicle," He mumbled. "We need another keg."
"Go get it, darling," She beamed to her assistant. "I'm very busy."
The bartender shrugged to the still thirsty Archer and pulled off his apron. Tossing it aside, he scratched his head of thick black hair and turned through a partially closed door to a dusty storeroom. Beyond another barely used back door, he headed out to the parked van outside the building. Positioned below the incline of the old loading dock out of sight from the street, he slipped into the cab, sat in the driver's seat and closed the door behind him. He pulled out a small plunger from the floor of the van.
One twist and the basement of the warehouse exploded into a burst of light, smoke and flying debris. The vibrations from the blast blew litter around the van. There were no screams; just one loud explosion and a ringing in the air that gradually subsided.
"Justice is served." He murmured silently to himself, pulled out a cigarette and lit it up from a small propane lighter. His eyes glimpsed Nora's mallet dropping from out of the sky and pounding the hood of the van for one last time as he started up the van and pulled away.
CHAPTER SIX
Barbara had heard about the explosion on her radio. After a run to her apartment to return to her Batgirl persona, she was also on site just behind the police and caped crusaders. She viewed the ambulances and five wagons from various funeral homes as her heart stopped. Someone commented it was the highest body count in Gotham since the 1940s or Prohibition. She forced herself closer as the Batman hovered over the stretcher carrying Dr. Cassandra.
"Where were you, Batman?" She was crying hysterically. "I had just reached down to get the earring I had dropped when the blast went off. My husband was killed immediately. Trapped... with all those bodies..." She wept hysterically as the dark knight detective choked back his words. Robin had never seen dead bodies himself. Some of the remains carried out were
incomplete or from still missing corpses. The shreds of costumes on the detached body parts were the only method of identifying the remains. The police bomb squad nervously shifted through the deserted structure looking for remains as firemen put out several smaller flames still burning in the weakened structure.
"Horrible." Gordon covered his mouth to keep from being sick. "Batman, we have to get this madman. We can't allow this sort if vigilante to go unpunished. This isn't just a multiple murder; it was cold-hearted slaughter."
"Commissioner," Batman choked on emotions he didn't know he had. "I will catch this man if it takes me the rest of my years on this planet!"
"Caped crusader," O'Hara slipped past Robin struck silent by the slaughter. It seemed as if both of them had been changed by the reality of the deaths. "We found the remains of a blasting cap. Can this help?"
Batman took the charred piece of metal and held it up to the sun as he examined it. His eyes rolled to the Batmobile as he slipped into the driver's seat and placed the part in a spectral examiner installed in the dashboard. The on-board computer linked to the main computers in the Bat cave and then back again as it scanned and identified the part.
"There are five gun shops in the city that sell that cap." The Batman remarked. "One of them also supplies the bomb residue found on it and it's been closed for ten months. It's time to pay them a visit."
Robin jumped into his seat as Batman slammed his door. After listening and catching sight of the address on the Bat-mobile screens, Batgirl ran to her cycle and was right behind them as they charged out of the alley.
The dynamic duo was in no talking mood as they sped to the address. They had momentarily been humbled and even disheartened by the blood bath created in the heart of their city. Despite the deaths of their foes, they had a respect for their enemies if not for their deeds. Their spirits needed to be avenged.
Braddock's Bullets and Ammo was in the other side of town not far from the waterfront and the low rent district. Children playing in the street ran to the sidewalks as they heard the three heroes charge by. They waved to their role models and wondered why they didn't wave back this time as they sped by and screeched to a stop at the end of the alley. The old gun shop was boarded up, but the second floor window was all they needed. A rope, a hook and some human determination, the three heroes entered the top apartment of the shop. It was still ladies first and Batgirl dropped inside an upstairs apartment over the gun shop and scanned the room ahead of her male partners.
"Someone's still here." Batgirl noticed clothes that had been laid out. Her eyes panned from the bedroom they were in and out the door to a dining set beyond. Robin paused by a microwave dinner on the counter.
"Batman," He paused his hand over it. "It's hot as if it's just been removed."
"Exactly." The caped crusader answered. "He heard us coming." He turned to the staircase down to the shop then stopped and looked up to the second floor railing. A spectral gunman in a long white coat and skull mask stared down to him holding a customized Thompson Machine Gun.
"What are you doing here, Batman?" The voice called from behind the mask. "Extending a visit to the Bat cave!"
"Foster Braddock!" Batman roared unable to catch his disgust. "As a fully deputized official of the Gotham City police, I order to you to give yourself up!"
"Heroes don't kill heroes."
"You're no hero!" Robin screamed as Batgirl looked up past him. "You're a coward and a murderer!"
Braddock fired at the staircase to slow them down. He looked back at them from behind his mask. His breath was racing.
"You won't take me!" He yelled back. "My family was killed just as yours were. I was eight years old when a drive by shooting from a bunch of stoned out teens killed my whole family! I'm on your side!"
"Then do it within the law!" Batman reasoned with him.
"Criminals don't deserve rights!" Braddock fired at the floor in front of them then jumped through a vent beside him. Batman charged ahead and listened as his new foe escaped to the basement.
"He's going to the hospital!" Batman heard a motorcycle in the basement roar to life and charge out the back alley beneath them.
"He'll finish off the Joker and Cassandra if we don't stop him!" Batgirl charged down the steps as she lead the way this time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Drivers as well as pedestrians thought the legendary Ghost Rider had come to Gotham as they heard the unearthly roar of a motorcycle and then looked up to their rear view mirrors to see the brief spectral image shooting through the red light. His flapping white coat waved in the jet stream of air rushing past him as the brow of his cap flipped back to reveal his skull mask. Pedestrians gasped at the unholy image darting between cars and through lights and a few God-fearing souls clutched their chests as the unholy presence zipped through time on its demented mission. Others wondered where the caped crusaders were just as Batgirl rushed between cars and through narrow spaces on her cycle on her own determined mission. Her movements expertly copied the Scourge's own mad trafficking as the Batmobile rushed behind.
"Batman!" Robin saw the crowded main street first as he braced for a would-be collision. His mentor barely blinked as hit flipped a button and hit the turbo jets. Their vehicle shot skyward on the boosted propulsion over the lines of cars and nearly came down on the far traffic lights as Robin gasped. The denizens of Gotham City were just as surprised as bags under the super car inflated and softened its landing.
"Holy jet plane!" Robin nearly flew skyward under the crashing down to earth. "How long you been saving that one!"
"Long enough." Batman mumbled as they kept an eye on Batgirl in the lead. Her cape was flapping wildly in the turbulence breezes rushing over her. It was almost ready to fly off as the Scourge hit the curb at the hospital and raced through the parking lot. Batgirl followed in his exhaust doing everything he did as the Bat-mobile seemed to charge ahead to the drive. A brief look in his rear view mirror, the Scourge pulled out his grappling gun and shot his line. Batgirl watched as the wire he shot pulled him off his cycle and up to the hospital roof. She looked ahead and ditched her bike next to the Scourge's deserted cycle. She was not losing him that soon. Barely out of breath, she rushed for the nearest exit.
From the roof, the Scourge sailed down the staircase for the Joker's floor. Throwing open the doors scared a few patients into heart attacks thinking he was the Grim Reaper. A brief glance from his reading, the Joker's police guard dropped his magazine and jerked on his pistol. Something hit the floor near him spraying smoke.
"Everyone get clear!" The officer prepared to fire. He stood ready to fire as the hall vanished around him in thick smoke. A second later a rap to the back of the head silenced him.
Peering through infrared goggles, the Scourge saw everything in shades of red and green. Slipping into the room, he read the madman of mirth's body heat and raised his weapon. The Joker seemed to jump up and pummel him.
"It ends now!" It was Batman's voice in the room!
WHAP! The dark-knight hit him with a punch. The Scourge flew backward with his gun firing wildly. He ducked the next blow and knocked the Batman to the floor.
BAM! The Scourge felt his legs knocked out from under him as a second presence tried to grab him. Realizing it was Robin, he pulled a double cross and grabbed the young man's hair and put the sub-machine gun to his head.
"You're right." The madman coughed under his mask. "But not for me!" He saw Batgirl's shapely glow coming after him through his goggles as she jumped to strike him. Ducking that, she hit Robin instead.
"Crap!" Batgirl cursed as the Scourge pulled his goggles down in the dissipating smoke of the hospital corridor. With both Batgirl and Batman behind him, he had to make his get away. Even without getting the Joker or Dr. Cassandra, he wanted to be around to get them later. He tossed a nurse and her patient out of the elevator and hit the doors to close. A condescending grin and wave to the terrific trio, he vanished behind the closing elevator doors.
"The stairs!" Batman turned.
"No!" Batgirl didn't care who saw anymore as she gripped the elevator doors. "He's not getting away!" Pushing them apart with the energy of the talisman on her was incredibly easy for her. She was starting to envy Supergirl for her prowess. Robin did a double take at her feat of strength as she surprised him once again and widened the opening and dived down through the opening for the three stories without hesitation.
"Okay, Scourge..." She landed with a loud crash in the shaft and reached for the top hatch. She barely had it open as she heard a separate loud pop and then watched the Scourge hit the elevator floor in a burst of smoke, flash of light and a sickening red splash. His chest exploded from a bullet and his body fell limp to the floor of the elevator as she froze in shock!
Dropping down from the roof into the elevator, Batgirl landed with her legs straddling the Scourge's body under her and then knelt in the putrid crimson spray of wet blood and disintegrated tissue. He never had a chance. Barbera looked at the neat hole in the elevator doors even to his chest just before the slid open to the open hospital lobby. There was no one in sight but a few nurses, a patient in a wheelchair and a custodian mopping a floor who turned to face her. Someone else had somehow shot the Scourge through the doors with an exploding bullet, but how and how did he vanish? The lump in her throat grew bigger as she tried to handle the impossible.
"Justice Is Served!" screamed out in the parking lot.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Batman and Robin were back in Gordon's office rather stoically awaiting the news on the Scourge's demise as the hospital sent word that he was dead. The doctors had done the best he could, but it was a matter of too much too late. Gordon just dropped the phone and sadly shook his head.
"Poor demented fellow." Batman remarked at the news.
"I'm afraid so." Gordon added as the phone rang. Robin was uncharacteristically speechless for once. The whole experience had darkened him a bit more as he changed from the sidekick and more into a matured crime fighter. The sight of all the deaths had sobered him up very quickly.
"Yes, Bonnie, send him in." Gordon stood up with a triumph. He and the dynamic duo looked toward the doors as the familiar figure of Captain America entered the office. The champion and sentinel of liberty strolled forward in his red, white and blue costume as he shook Gordon's hand and then the Batman's.
"Good to meet you Gordon." The old wartime hero wore his shield on his back as he looked to the Batman with two piercing blue eyes behind a cowl of chain mail. "This is an honor, Batman. I've heard nothing but good things about you."
"And I of you." Batman grinned as Robin became little star struck.
"Is it true there's some sort of confederation of these Scourges?" The Boy Wonder asked. "How bad is this going to get?"
"I just came from Ohio." Captain America folded his arms. "Eighteen slaughtered alone in hiding in Medina County. We're going to put an end to this bloodshed. We don't need so-called heroes like this making up their own laws." Cap looked around. "Where's Batgirl? I was really hoping on meeting her."
"She said she had other business to attend to." Batman admitted.
Across town, Professor Anthony DeVasquez was resettling the Celtic exhibit at the Gotham City Museum. The new glass case was shatterproof and steel reinforced to replace the one destroyed between Batgirl and the Riddler. Only one thing was missing he realized as he turned and ran into Batgirl.
"Batgirl," He had been startled by her after hours appearance. "What an honor! How can I help you?"
"Room for one more?" She held up the missing talisman. A bit morose, her blue eyes were a bit emotional under her mask.
"Yes, of course." DeVasquez grinned to see the valuable peace returned. "This is the most interesting piece of the set. Legend has it that Arthur's most valiant knights shared it to protect them from harm. According to legend, it was enchanted by Merlin himself, but, historically, and going by carbon-dating, it doesn't actually date back that far."
"I think it does." Batgirl mumbled a bit grievefully. "It would take a knight to be worthy of that sort of enchantment." She made a bold turn out as she headed out to the main gallery. Feeling a bit undeserving of such an advantage, she fired the grappling gun she had taken from the Scourge's bag of tricks for the skylight and was lifted off her feet by its recoil taking her to the ceiling. Her new motorcycle was in the alley with a lot of other new equipment on it. Also taken from the Scourge, it had been painted over and remodeled into becoming her new updated cycle.
"Must keep it down to earth. I'm just not worthy enough for that sort of enchantment…" She mumbled to herself as she started it up and sped off into the night.
END