A half-hour later, the Batmobile pulled up to the old warehouse. Batman & Batgirl got out and surveyed the area.
"So, what's the plan?" Batgirl asked.
"We play it by ear" Batman replied, in his usual stoic fashion.
"That's your big plan?" Batgirl asked, "why don't we just run in there with a baseball bat? At least then we'd have maybe, half a chance."
Batman ignored her and approached the warehouse. Blasting his grappling hook towards the roof, he allowed himself to be pulled skyward. Once he was on the roof, he peered inside through some gaping holes. He could see Vicky & Yin, still tied and lying against some old crates. He counted about 7 villains, two of whom where female. If he took out some of the weaker ones first, then it would be slightly easier to concentrate on the tougher ones. And he still had the element of surprise…
"Freeze villains!" came a female voice he knew oh too well.
"She didn't." Batman said, looking down.
Sure enough, there was Batgirl, her small batarang at the ready.
"She did" he said, "so much for the element of surprise."
"You're Batgirl?" Control Freak asked "more like anorexic girl. Your limbs are so skinny the Herring could probably break them."
"Yeah…hey!" Herring said, suddenly realizing what he meant.
"So if you're here…where's Batman?' Control Freak asked "and Robin, for that matter?"
"Who's Robin?" Batgirl asked.
Control Freak didn't have time to answer, because Batman descended from the ceiling, knocking him down.
"Attack!" Control Freak yelled.
Both Motor Ed and the Herring tried to attack Batman. Ed swung with a wrench, but the Dark Knight avoided it.
"I'm gonna take you down Bats, seriously!"
On the next swing, Batman caught the wrench, whipped it out of Ed's hands and took him down with a punch to the face.
"Eat bullets!" Herring shouted, firing his machine gun eyes.
Batman flipped to avoid the bullets, then tossed a pellet at the Herring.
"Oh crud" was all the fishy fiend could manage before the pellet exploded, cascading him in smoke. With Herring distracted, Batman punched him out.
Meanwhile Batgirl was squaring off against Jack. "And what exactly are you supposed to do?" she asked.
Jack grinned wickedly "Jack Bots, attack!" he ordered.
Suddenly, a swarm of Jack Bots appeared from nowhere and headed straight for the tiny crimefighter.
"Oh…you use robots" Batgirl replied, before she prepared to engage the mechanical minions.
Thanks to her gymnastics skills, Batgirl was able to leap atop the lead robot. When one of the others tried to saw her, he cut through his partner instead, destroying them both.
"I guess you work with stupid robots," Batgirl added.
Jack fumed and gestured to his remaining mechanical minions.
"Get her!"
The Jack Bots zoomed towards Batgirl, but this time she was ready. Her Batarang destroyed one, and she was able to flip unto another, then turned it to use its' chest based machine gun on the others. That done, she regained her Batarang and promptly destroyed the final one.
She turned to Jack, "anymore little surprises?" she asked.
Jack, of course, ran away screaming like a little girl, with her in hot pursuit. Suddenly, Batgirl was hit by something and blown back.
"Ugh…what happened?" she asked, trying to regain her senses and locate what hit her.
All she had to do was look up; there was Ember, a smirk on her face and her guitar in her hands.
"Who are you?" the still dazed Batgirl asked.
"Your worst nightmare" Ember replied.
In another part of the warehouse, Batman faced off against the newly recovered Control Freak, quickly knocking him out with a punch to the gut. He had no idea that Slipstream and Temblor were watching everything from the sidelines.
"You up for giving bat boy a taste of a natural disaster?" Slipstream asked.
"Try and stop me" Temblor said, twisting the dials on his gauntlets.
"Hey bat, heads up!" Slipstream shouted.
Batman turned around long enough to find himself trapped in a powerful blast of wind. It was hard for him to get his footing, and proved to be even harder when Temblor created a mini-quake. With the ground shaking, Batman was carried by Slipstream's tornado and smashed into the near wall.
"Time to finish the bat" Temblor said, walking over towards the sprawled Batman, as Slipstream kept up the wind pressure.
From their location against an old crate, Yin and Vale watched all the goings on. Yin knew the Batman needed help and would have loved to help him, were she not tied up. But unknown to her captors, she had been working on loosening the ropes on Vicky's hands. If she could free the reporter's hands, she might be able to help her get free of the handcuffs.
Its' a long shot, but I've got to try Yin thought, as she felt the last knot loosen.
Uh-oh, looks like Bats and his skinny sidekick are in big trouble. Will they survive? Find out in part two of this conclusion!