Batman and the associated characters are owned by DC. With grateful thanks for cmar for beta reading this chapter and thanks for all the reviews so far! All reviews welcome!

Chapter Six - Batman – Time of the Wolf

Floyd Lawton, AKA Deadshot, squinted as he left his prison for the past few years. He had been mulling over his past life trying to work out how he ended up in Death Row when suddenly he found he wasn't. To be honest it didn't take him too long to work out since his résumé read like the top five of America's most wanted. He had been given a job! Head-hunted, as it were.

The man next to him glared at him. Well, saying the word "man" conjures up an image of a person with fully functioning arms and legs and even, if you have a good imagination, a nose. This was a person who it seems like the creator had got bored and melded a junk yard and a human together. His original name was Hank Henshaw and he had all of Superman's powers, and a few of his own, but none of those icky morals that stop him from destroying Metropolis when he gets out of bed on the wrong side. Now he just called himself the Cyborg. He could control and alter machinery and had Superman's powers. He could normally move his mind from one machine to another but that power had been tempered. He was still hugely powerful though…

Deadshot's costume had wrist mounted armour piercing magnums and his helmet had a telescopic sight. There was a full moon over Metropolis and the thriving city was a mass of lights and gleaming modern buildings. It was earning itself the nickname of the city that never sleeps, while Gotham had been nicknamed the city with the eternal hang over, sick and always in a bad mood.

"So we've got 24 hours to kill Batman," he said to the Cyborg.

The man nodded curtly.

"Plenty of time to get some food then!"

"I am not hungry…"

"Maybe you aren't, metal teeth, but I could just murder a cheeseburger. Have you got any green?"

"What?"

"Folding. Dough. Jack. Money."

"No."

"No matter." He flicked his wrist and a gleaming magnum appeared in it. "I find this is accepted everywhere, and I don't even have to sign for it."

There was a coughing sound behind them. They turned around to see the woman that had sprung them from the joint. "You've got under twenty-four hours to kill Batman or we will kill you."

"Plenty of time to…"

"Get going."

"Can't I just…"

"Now!"

"Okay, okay." He looked over at the Cyborg. "Say, Superboy, you couldn't fly me to Gotham could you?" He looked at him quizzically. "How do you look after those metal joints? WD40?"

The Cyborg turned to the woman. "Does he need his tongue for this job?"

"Hello, this is a team! What's your specialist power anyway? Ability to rust? Can transform into a shopping trolley? Say, if you can't cut it as a super villain you could always get a job down at Walmart."

The Cyborg grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up several feet in the air. His voice squeaked. "I can see we'll get along famously!" There was a swishing sound as he flew towards Gotham with the hapless Deadshot with him.


Lex Luthor's building dominated the skyline in Metropolis, which was just the way he liked it. It had round the clock guards and these guards were not your run of the mill "Jo punchclock" types. The ones who didn't look at the CCTV screens because they were too busy looking at the clock. These were serious men, with serious body armour and armed with serious guns.

To be fair, they had to be. Gotham might be filled with scarred pyschos with a penchant for robbing the fancy dress store, but Metropolis was filled with aliens and Meta humans with a penchant for knocking down buildings they didn't like the look of. In Metropolis if you wanted your building to be the same shape it was when you left, you employed some decent guards… These were decent guards; they were the best of the best. Most of them had served in American Special Forces and cut their baby teeth, as it were, in some of the most hostile war zones on Earth and off it, and this was why what was happening was very peculiar...

The nerve centre of Luthor Towers was a mass of computers and electronic paraphernalia, and they monitored everything going on around the building. The type of room that was chock full of screens and keyboards and techy looking types looking at screens with something like befuddlement. The type of face they only normally used when their 5th level Wizard in Dungeon Master 4 computer game, the one they had spent months building up experience on and could fight a dragon in single handed, had just been bested by a frog. In this case the screens were showing four less guards than there should be.

"Scan level Four."

"Scanning, David." There was a beeping sound and the computer screen showed a diagram of the fourth level. "Scanning complete, Dave. There is a broken window on Level Four, room 434, quadrant 9."

The man pushed his glasses up his nose and scratched at a spot. "Why was this not detected before?"

"The sensors were deactivated before entry was gained, David."

"Computer, how many people were in the building ten minutes ago?"

"Eight-five, David."

"How about now?"

"Eighty-seven, David."

"Explain the discrepancy," he said icily.

"There is no need to take that tone with me, David."

Why had they given the computer "lifelike personality traits? "Who are the new people and where are the guards who should have reported in?"

"Not until you apologise for that tone, David."

"I am sorry, Edna," said Dave, "now can you please continue."

"It's not like I don't have feelings, you know."

"I know."

"I can't just get up and leave like you can."

"I know, I know, please carry on."

"I try my best, I'm just not appreciated."

"Yes, yes."

"Just a word of encouragement occasionally, that's all I ask for."

"I know, I know, you're a beautiful machine and I love you."

"You're making me go all tearful."

"Good, good, now where are those guards?"

"I can't concentrate, you've made me go all gooey, Dave."

"Oh Buddha!" said Dave, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

"They're on level five, two of them. They conform to the specifications of Nightwing and Batgirl. Just a minute…"

"What?"

"They are removing my sensors!"

"Get a squadron of guards up there now!"

"Okay Dave, I'm summoning them now…"


The flames licked towards the alleyway the Batman was in, enveloping the Dark Knight in flames. His suit had a Nomex fireproof layer and a hastily applied re-breather saved him from the worst of it, and he stalked out of the flames like an evil spirit from Hades, his cape smouldering.

"Kill him! Kill him!" shouted Luthor.

A Team Luthor man pressed a button on his arm and the flamethrower was replaced by a self-loading machine gun.

There was a roaring sound from the road and the Batmobile leapt down the road towards the Team Luthor men and knocked them around like skittles before performing a hand-brake turn and screeching to a halt besides its master like a faithful puppy.

Lex Luthor leapt to one side to avoid the car, he rolled to his feet with a silver magnum in one hand but the Batman had gone…

He looked over at Gotham and could see the glowing spotlight of the Bat signal. In the distance he could hear a wolf howl and even he shivered in fear. They were out…


The beast was around seven foot high, covered in brown hair. The first person in Gotham who saw it thought it was a bear, and it was certainly the right size for that. The head was huge and hunched on a massive neck with elongated jaws like a wolf from a nightmare. Blood already stained its teeth and the throat of the first person in Gotham who saw it…

It howled in triumph of its victory. The howl was being echoed around Gotham, the chasms of buildings made the sound reverberate around the city. More and more joined in…


Slade was deep in the building with the Joker and Harley when he heard the howls. He concentrated and could see what his brethren could see but there was something wrong…

Normally he could feel their anguish. For the past three or four weeks he had felt the pain of the werewolves here. Their joy at being fed, the peace at night when they were asleep and the pain as the men here had tortured them to try and entice him out. But now… Nothing.

He let his spirit soar and he could see werewolves about him. One was being shot by guards in an attempt to herd it out of the building but although the wolf was howling in agony he felt nothing.

He had always assumed that intimate connection he had with them was to stop him creating more werewolves and ruling the world like a God. Somehow that had changed. For thousands of years he had been cursed with the power of the Gods but the inability to use it without causing himself severe pain. Now that had changed, someone had altered these werewolves and with it his link to them.

With a small mental nudge he sent a couple of werewolves over to the guards in the building. There was a screaming sound and then nothing. He grinned to himself and fell back into his body. Harley was staring at him; the Joker was using the time to start knitting a purple scarf with a red Joker motif.

"Harley, can you put a finger there, can you, I need to purl a stitch," said the Joker. The Joker's eyebrows went up slightly. "No, not there! On the yarn. On second thought, keep it there. You all right, Fido? We seemed to lose you for a bit."

He grinned, his incisors gleaming white. "Better than ever."


Two armoured silver beings pounded down the corridor towards them. A voice boomed out and one of them pointed a huge black gun at them. "Don't move people, we've got you in the cross hairs."

Nightwing ghosted down the corridor when his radio buzzed slightly in his ear. A familiar voice growled at him. "N this is B, where are you?"

"We're in Luthor tower B. Just a few guards so far, nothing to worry about. What's happening there?"

"Luthor is here and so are about a dozen werewolves. I need to know what the hell Luthor is doing here."

In front of him four heavily armed guards appeared. There was a clicking sound as they took the safeties off.

"You're coming with us, boy." The man looked around him. "Where's your girlfriend?"

There was the sound of a two men hitting the ground. The guard whipped around to see a slight figure of a girl dressed all in black, seemingly at one with the darkness. In the momentary confusion Nightwing kicked the gun out of the guard's hand and stunned him with a blow to the neck. The other guard was already knocked out by the time he was about to punch him.

Nightwing shrugged. She was good, almost too good. Sometimes he wondered if she was a Meta human of some sort.

She cocked her head and looked at him. "Where now?"

"Up. To the top floor. As soon as…" Nightwing glared at the corridor that was full of twitching, groaning guards. "This is too easy; Luthor wouldn't just hire a few goons to mind the shop."

"What shop? This is not a shop?"

"Luthor's place."

They both heard the noise at the same time and they seemed to melt into the shadows.

A deep metallic voice came echoing through the corridors and a pair of red eyes lit up in the dark. "I see you!"


Batman was back in the seat of his car. This was turning into a busy night… He could not allow any more time to get into Luthor's research facility. Besides which it seemed fairly academic now. Judging by the howls, the wolves were out in Gotham. If they were killing Gotham's citizens he wanted to stop them. He just didn't want to think about how… He glanced over at Robin. He didn't want him involved with these creatures. They were killers.

"Go home. I'll deal with it from here."

"And let you have all the fun?"

"This is no game. Go home. Now."

"No way."

"I won't tell you again."

He pressed a button on the dashboard and the roof slid back whilst the car was speeding down the street. He raised an arm and a high tensile line shot out, wrapped round a fire escape and lifted Batman high into the streets. He had programmed his car to drop Robin off at his home as quickly as possible. He twisted in midair and fired another line to send him swinging through the streets.

There was one down there. He was thirty feet above it so he let go of the line and dropped the distance onto the creature's back. Not very subtle but these creatures didn't do subtle.

He crashed his boots into the animal's back and rolled off the creature into an alleyway. The werewolf howled in pain but didn't seem much slowed, and it leapt at him. Batman cartwheeled back, sending an exploding batarang into the creature's mouth as he did so. This did nothing but enrage the beast.

He sent a line around the animal to try and trip it up. It roared at him, tried to take a step towards him and tripped up on the line. Batman kicked it in the jaw sending the creature to sleep. He needed to get back to the cave and load up his belt with silver. He would need to take out the leader. Slade.

The streets were filling with screaming people, including several with bite wounds…

The animals seemed to be herding the crowds of people down the street. Almost like it was planned.

Several more werewolves were prowling around the crowd. A policeman who started shooting at them was leapt upon and ripped to pieces. Screams started up from the crowd and people started panicking and running down the streets.

Batman stalked down the streets towards them. A werewolf leapt at him with blood curdling roar and its teeth clashed together like thunder but there was nothing there… He had spun onto its back, attached a line to its legs and another to a lamppost, activated the motor, and left it hanging in midair. It was spitting and roaring in rage.

A woman with a pram was leapt upon by a werewolf. Batman leapt at her knocking her out of the way, getting in the way of those ferocious teeth and somehow ending up under the creature.

God it was strong.

He tried kicking it in the stomach but its claws were trying to rip through his armour. A sharp pain went in his shoulder, numbing his arm, but he locked away the pain and ignored it for when he had the luxury of time. Which he might not have much of unless he got it together. The woman he had rescued was running away with her baby.

Sensible.

Not like him. Its fetid breath was making him retch and its yellow eyes were boring into his. Its teeth were crashing together just an inch from his nose covering him in slobber.

Sort it out! This is no game! He elbowed it in the throat and tried to throw the creature over him using his legs but it was too damned heavy, and he was too damned weak. What the hell was wrong with him?

CS gas. He had a canister in his belt, if he could just get a hand towards it. It was too heavy though and those teeth were too close!

Stop complaining!

Do it!

He held his breath, pressed a button on his belt, and was enveloped in a cloud of CS gas. Enough to give this puppy a headache. While the beast was coughing and spluttering he rolled out from under it and sent a line skyward. Just after he left the ground two werewolves made a leap for him and ended up sprawled in a heap.

He clambered awkwardly onto the cornice of a building, nearly slipping on the moss there; his shoulder was giving him pain. He grimaced and looked down. He had been bitten, blood was pouring out over his armour…


Fifteen years ago…

Bruce and his friends had just freed Slade, and he rapidly changed form to a huge wolf and leapt down the corridor towards them, each paw splashing the puddles on the ground. Bruce, his reactions always fast, threw himself against the wall. The others were not so quick and got bowled over as the wolf ran past.

"Ow," said Lou, rubbing his shoulder. His voice went up a few octaves. "Let's release this strange man! My name's Bruce! I talk like this!"

"Well, it didn't seem right to leave him…"

"Where's he gone?"

"In that room," said Bruce, pointing down the corridor.

"Good," said Lou. "We're going that way." He pointed in the other direction.

"That's back the way we came. We can't get out that way…"

"While that way is past the bad tempered wolf man… Mmm! Let me think?"

"We've just rescued him! He won't hurt us…"

"Famous last words…" muttered Lou. "Like 'you're out of bullets' or 'You haven't the guts to shoot me'."

"Come on guys," said Bruce. "We just walk past very quietly."

"You walk past quietly," said Lou. "We'll walk past when he's busy eating you."

Bruce shook his head. No faith at all, some people. "We'll be fine. He seemed friendly enough…"

"You said that about Mr Wilson, our Chemistry teacher…"

"Right!"

"Right before he gave us a detention."

"That was a different case entirely. I didn't know sulphur was so smelly… Anyway, less talk, more walk."

They crept as silently as possible down the corridor. The door was in front of them. They could hear clinking sounds and heavy breathing. Bruce glanced in the door. He had changed back to a man and was busy releasing several more prisoners. A roaring sound started as they started changing. "I think we should run…" A howling sound erupted around them. "Now!"