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 Thirteen – Batman – Time of the Wolf
The medical orderlies waited patiently by Alfred Pennyworth's bed. They maintained a respectful silence as they did always in these little moments. When a life had run its last.
This was Bruce Wayne's servant and they thought, but did not say, how heartless it was that he was not there at the end.
But Bruce Wayne was a fop and a playboy. A wastrel and a squanderer. Why would he want his rose-tinted life tainted by death?
The priest finished his small service, sending Alfred's soul skywards and his cold body was put onto the gurney and sent on its lonely way to the mortuary.
Robin did not think, just acted as he heard the growling coming from deep in the van. He leapt off his precarious perch sending a high tensile d-cel line around a fire escape as he fell.
His feet crashed against the door of the van sending the Joker beast flying back inside with a howl. He turned around and could see the shaking sights of a police swat team.
"Get your men out of here," he growled to the police captain leading the team. He turned back to the van that was shaking as the werewolf struggled to escape. The metal of the door warped and bent as it struggled to contain the fury of the beast within. "Now."
For a moment the Captain thought he was dealing with the Batman himself, such was the authority in his words.
"We'll fall back and maintain a perimeter, evacuate this block." The Captain held a hand up to his ear. "We've got reports of more of these beasts again! They are emerging all through Gotham this time!"
Batman was as still as a statue as he examined the building that Luthor had Slade captive in. There were several guards outside the building and his specially adapted binoculars could detect the heat signatures of at least a dozen inside the building, including the heavily armoured Team Luthor men.
They looked confident.
Rightly so.
He knew then what he had to do but the tactic bothered him. It was high risk and chances of survival were low. He mulled over a half a dozen other strategies and tactics but none would stand even a slight chance.
His communicator buzzed lightly in his ear.
"B, this is R."
"Yes?"
"The Joker has escaped and has turned into a werewolf."
He cursed silently to himself. He needed to finish the werewolf threat now; if he could it might stop all the werewolves over the city. "Stay out of its way, make sure no civilians or police are hurt, and Robin?"
"Yes."
"Be careful."
"It's me?" There was a click indicating the conversation was at an end.
The Batman began to prepare for the assault. He sat down cross-legged, eyes closed, settling himself into the illusion of elsewhere. Fear, stress and tiredness melted away as he got into the mindset to do what was necessary. He rose silently and made his way like a ghost towards the guards.
They never knew what hit them.
The soul of the technician struggled briefly as the beast that was in Slade fought for control of him. The unequal struggle lasted for mere seconds as he took control.
He could see his new face reflected in the monitor screen and lots of calculations and code were in front of him. Now all meaningless to him. He cast his mind around him and could immediately felt a presence as driven as himself.
Luthor.
His mind was like jagged steel, all corners, edges and dark areas.
A mind like Slade had been when he had taken him over 7,000 years ago. Now he was free of him. Slade had called him the wolf god when he had fought him in the spirit planes thousands of years ago.
But he was not.
He was older than mere wolves. His spirit had floated aimlessly over the planet for millions of years. He had seen and possessed creatures as diverse as single cell amoeba to giant Tyrannosaurus Rex.
He was immortal.
Unliving, unkillable. He would still be here when the human race was naught but dry bones in the dust. The spirit world and this one was as one to him.
He had allowed Slade to think he had beaten him, but all these years he had been driving him, leading him to murder. He had never had the power to possess more than one creature until this Luthor had changed something in all the werewolves. He would cover the world in blood, bone and his creatures.
Slade was nothing, a worthless carcass now. All this time he had allowed him to think he had control of him.
He was wrong.
Slade stopped him from achieving godhood. He squinted slightly and could see the souls of the men around him.
The men around him had souls sullied and dirtied just by working for Luthor. Luthor.
He grinned to himself, his soul was all scales and teeth and claws.
A powerful man.
A man not easily led, though.
Still, with the right encouragement he could give him the power he needed.
The power he had craved for hundreds of thousands of years.
"We're losing the energy field, what are you doing, Buxton?"
One of the technicians was talking to him. His power was growing as people bitten the previous night changed into werewolves, taking more and more of them with them. He was starting to get beyond the need to control and possess mere mortals.
It would be so easy to reach into his mind and pinch the artery that fed his brain shut.
A bright light emerged from the doorway.
A man with the form of a demon and the soul of an angel approached. He changed his vision to the mortal plane again and smiled as he saw the Batman approach.
Now that is a man worth possessing. He grinned again, this time his teeth sharpened and he could feel claws struggling to escape his fingers. He stopped this with an irritable thought. This shell of the body he was in now was weak and feeble. It would not last long. The soul of the technician had been sent to the netherworld with barely a whimper. Without the body's original soul it would not last long.
As far as anyone knew, the real danger was trapped in the astral containment field. It would take him a few more hours before he had god-like power. He could feel the pychic energy of the other werewolves joining him.
Two heavily armed guards slid noiselessly to the ground as the Batman stalked into the room. He moved with a grace common to all exceptional martial artists. His blackened helmet hid all sight of his human form from them.
Luthor was the first to see him.
"Batman, stay your ground!"
The helmeted man stared noiselessly at Slade, who was stuck in the containment field. Curiously, the immortal was looking older than he once had. His once fine blonde hair was going grey, even as he watched. A fine spider's web of lines formed by his eyes.
"I need to talk to him."
A dozen guards, some of them the heavily armoured members of Team Luthor, pointed their guns at him.
"Drop your utility belt first."
"What if I say no?"
There was a rattling sound of a dozen guns slotting their bullets into place.
"Last warning!"
There was a clattering sound as his utility belt dropped to the floor.
Luthor grinned. "Chain him."
With a clanking sound one of the Team Luthor men stomped next to the Batman and attached some huge metal handcuffs that looked like they would be better off holding a bear.
"My advice to you – and your followers – would be to leave," the Batman said quietly, not taking his eyes off the figure in the energy field. "Now."
"You're in no position to barter, Batman."
"I am tiring of your company. Understand me, Luthor? I do not wish to hurt you or your men, but unless you leave now I will. And I will only hurt you. The creature you have ensnared here will kill you."
"Your arrogance is overwhelming," said Luthor, "You are chained. I have your weapons and a dozen guards and you threaten me? Have you lost your wits?"
Stay out of its way. The words echoed through Robin's mind as he scrabbled up the side of the alleyway.
Easier said than done.
Beneath him the huge Joker werewolf, with a definite hint of hyena in there, was leaping up the side of the alleyway towards him.
The bricks were old and slippery with moss and lichen. Handholds were few and far between. All in all, even for a boy of his skill it was quite a tricky climb. He had climbed the outside of the town hall last winter when the whole west side had been a sheet of ice from where the water pipe had burst outside. And Two-face's gang had been shooting at him as well. However, now he had a huge beast beneath leaping up at him.
The Joker's teeth clashed together like a steel trap. He stole a glance beneath him and rather wished he hadn't. The Joker's eyes glittered red and his jaws were open like the beast was grinning. A smile full of gleaming sharp fangs.
The beast seemed to shake and a rumbling emerged from him as the unearthly laughing howl of the hyena erupted from him and echoed round the alleyway.
The beast leapt again, this time his teeth nearly caught his cloak.
Relax.
Calm down. While he was doing this he could see the police hastily evacuating the block around him. All he had to do was keep laughing boy happy.
And not fall off this wall.
His questing right foot found a worn section of mortar into which his toes planted. His left hand found the windowsill he had been searching for and he pulled himself up three feet and balanced on a space that would look crowded with two pigeons on it.
Crack. Crick. Crack.
He looked beneath and he could see the Joker clambering up the wall, his claws making holes in the brick works where there was none before.
Unbidden, his hand reached to his belt to get a line.
No. He had to keep the Joker occupied, not escape and leave him to the police. The moonlight gave the whole tableau an eerie yellow tinge. He grimaced as he saw the flash of a camera from the police cordon.
Some idiot was taking a picture of it. The Joker beast squinted at this and peered down the alleyway towards the people.
Towards the victims.
No, must keep the beast occupied.
"Hey, hairy!"
The beast, still staring at the cordon and the flashing camera, started lowering himself back into the alleyway.
"Yeah you, big nose! I'm talking to you! Oi, big nose! The one with the big nose! Hairy! Big nose! Bone breath!" His loud voice had an almost sing song annoying quality to it.
The Joker beast ignored him. He had reached the bottom of the alleyway and, his red eyes glistening, started to prowl towards the cordon. The unwitting photographer was dragged off by an irate police officer.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," muttered Robin as he forced the window of the office he was next to. He quickly surveyed the small room. There was a desk covered in paper, an old Laserjet 4 printer and a computer that looked like it would be hard pressed to run Microsoft notepad let alone anything useful. The desk had several old coffee stains on it.
Would it be heavy enough? Only one way to find out. He lashed a line to it and, squaring his shoulders leaned it precariously out the window. He fed the line through a fire escape above the window and leapt out towards the Joker beast and landed not five feet from the beast, barely making a splash in the puddle he landed in.
"You know, your looks have improved, Jokey." He waved his hand in front of his nose. "Not sure about the smell though." The beast, momentarily distracted, leapt at him.
