A few weeks had passed since Batman had arrived in Brockton Bay. He had finished forging his identity, and had taken a temporary job as a lawyer, as he was fully qualified. Back in his world he graduated from Yale with a degree in law and he had taken the bar exam here in Brockton Bay and had passed with ease. His job as a lawyer was just a temporary step to earn money to keep him alive and get him the money he needed to get the tools and resources to build some basic technology and equipment to show to investors so he could build Wayne Enterprises from the ground up. He planned to buy out all of the investors and take the company private later on, if he stayed in this world for that long, but for now they were a necessary step on the way to establishing his business.
For now, he had no way of making new gear or replacing the equipment he used. So he had to be extremely sparing with what he had. Much to his frustration.
Batman was currently out on patrol. He had already dealt with several petty thugs and was currently listening to the police and PRT radios as he ran across the rooftops, grappled higher, and used his memory cloth cape to glide over gaps too large for him to jump.
"Cape activity reported on North 23rd Avenue. Marquis is in a brawl with Purity and Kaiser."
Batman immediately changed directions and started heading for North 23 Avenue. By pure chance he had somehow managed to avoid getting in a fight with the super powered villains of Brockton, though not for lack of trying. He had just never been close enough to get there in time before someone else responded and took care of it before he could arrive. An unfortunate consequence of not having access to his batmobile or batcycle in such a large city. This time, however, he was close enough to get there in time. In fact, he would probably be the first one on the scene.
Arriving, he was proven correct as he looked down from a roof and saw Marquis locked in a fight with Kaiser and Purity.
Taking out an electric batarang, Batman threw it at Kaiser. The batarang stabbed through a gap in Kaiser's armor before delivering an electric shock to him strong enough to knock him out.
As the batarang was still flying through the air, Batman jumped off the roof and kicked Purity in the back midair, sending the glowing woman crashing to the ground where she landed on top of a car.
"Hm… And who might you be?" Marquis asked,
"I'm Batman." Batman stated as he threw some smoke pellets he had been saving at Marquis.
Bone spikes shot up out of the ground in a large area around where Batman had been standing but none of them managed to hit him as he used his grappling hook on a street light to launch himself into the air above Marquis.
Landing behind the cape who was still disoriented by the smoke and confused by the fact his spikes hadn't hit anything, Batman kicked him in the back. Unfortunately the villain managed to catch himself as he was stumbling forwards and launched a spike from his spine towards Batman who barely managed to avoid being impaled on it.
"Batman, huh? So I'm assuming you're that new cape I've been hearing about?" Marquis said, turning around and trying to stab Batman with a finger rapier only for Batman to slap the bone rapier away a few times before using the spikes on his gauntlets to trap and break it before punching Marquis in the face hard enough to crack the bone armor covering his face.
Batman was suddenly knocked off his feet by a slab of bone erupting from Marquis' feet and knocking his legs out from under him. Marquis tried to stab him while he was on the ground but Batman rolled out of the way. Only for a shard of bone from the bone rapier he had just broken to morph into an upward facing spike and stab him in the back. Fortunately his batsuit was stab resistant, but the spike did penetrate somewhat and caused him to bleed.
Using his grapple gun, Batman zipped up onto a streetlight, and ripped the bone spike out of his back. So Marquis could still control bones that had been broken off of his body. Noted. He had done some research into the villains of Brockton beforehand but the information he could find online was just broad strokes. It didn't have details like that.
"Not much of a talker, huh? Fine." Marquis said, looking up at him.
Batman had to jump and use the grappling hook again as he noticed Purity had recovered and was aiming to blast him with her light beams. As he was zipping away, he looked back and saw the streetlight he had been standing on be obliterated by the blast. That would have killed him, had it managed to hit him. He knew it was a longshot but he threw a batarang at purity, only for her to dodge it and shoot several more lower powered beams at him which he knew he wouldn't be able to avoid.
He had known she could do this before entering the fight but he hadn't had the tools or resources to prepare any counter measures. Thus the reason he tried to knock her out along with Kaiser. He should have made sure she was unconscious before dealing with Marquis. A rookie mistake he was going to pay for.
Suddenly someone appeared between him and the beams and a wall of light appeared in front of whoever it was, blocking the beams. Batman landed on the roof and looked to see who saved him. It was Lady Photon. A member of the Brockton Bay Brigade.
"You okay?" She asked.
"I'm fine. You deal with Purity, I'll get Marquis." Batman said about to throw his last remaining smoke pellets at Marquis, only to see the villain had grown giant bat-like wings and was flying away.
Using his grappling hook launcher, Batman shot the grappling hook at Marquis and managed to get it to wrap around his leg. Batman tried to brace himself against the lip of the roof and started retracting the grappling hook in an attempt to pull the Villain towards him. Marquis reacted with surprise at first and tried to resist being pulled towards Batman, very nearly pulling Batman off the roof in the process, which would have just ended with the caped crusader being pulled up to Marquis instead. However Marquis apparently realized this as much as Batman did and morphed the bone armor covering one of his hands into what looked like a sword and chopped the grappling hook off of him before continuing to fly away.
Batman watched the hook of the grappling hook fall to the ground and scowled. He then looked and saw Lady Photon shooting at Purity as the villain flew away carrying Kaiser. After a few moments the hero stopped and turned towards Batman.
"You aren't going to chase them?" Batman said, frowning at Lady Photon.
"Not worth it. With her powers, if I tried, civilians would get caught in the crossfire and the collateral damage could be huge. Besides which, that's not a fight I could win. Her blaster power is a lot stronger than mine even if my powers are more versatile. She only ran because she didn't want to deal with two heroes at once while Kaiser was unconscious on the ground and at risk of being caught in the crossfire. Otherwise she could have killed us both. What about Marquis?" Lady Photon asked.
"Gone… I tried to grab him with my grapple gun, but he cut the cable and flew away." Batman growled.
"Dang. Well, at least we stopped the fight from escalating further even if they both got away. So who are you? It's not everyday we get a new heroic tinker here in Brockton." Lady Photon asked, landing on the roof.
"I'm Batman. You're Lady Photon of the Brockton Bay Brigade." Batman stated.
"That's me. My husband is at home right now or I'd introduce you to him. Only reason I'm here right now is because I was on a walk when I got a message from the PRT about the fight. I was planning on stalling until backup could get here, but I see you did that for me. Speaking of, I should call this in and let them know it's been handled. Give me a sec, please."
Batman remained silent, mentally debating if he should just leave or not, as Lady Photon took a flip phone out of a pocket on her costume and called the PRT. On the one hand, there were likely other crimes being committed that he could stop if he left and staying here to talk would just waste his time. On the other hand…
He looked back down at the hook laying in the middle of the street. His primary means of transportation around the city since he didn't have access to any of his vehicles. Without it, he would have to rely on running and acrobatics to get around, which would be significantly slower. So he ultimately decided to just wait, since he was effectively hamstrung for the night anyway. Besides, he might be able to use this as an opportunity to gather more information about the villains of the city and perhaps several of the heroes as well.
Lady Photon gave her report to the PRT before hanging up and looking back at Batman. "So, you're a vigilante right? You plan on joining up with an independant group or maybe the PRT? Or are you going to stay a vigilante? I'm not judging you, of course, I'm just curious."
"I'm going to remain a vigilante. I might start my own organization in the future, depending on how things go, but I have no intention of joining any groups that already exist… Marquis can control bones broken off from him. That wasn't in anything I read about him online." Batman said.
"Oh, yeah… The info on the internet isn't always up to date, unfortunately. If you want I can tell you what I know about most of the major villains here in Brockton. That way you have a better idea of what you're getting into before trying to confront them again." Lady Photon offered.
"That would be appreciated." Batman told her.
The two of them discussed the various villains around Brockton for a while. Lady Photon tried to be friendly and make a bit of small talk as they discussed the villains. Batman remained stoic and professional but tried to throw her a bit of a bone by playing along so as to not burn any bridges just yet. He used the small talk as a means of gathering some minor pieces of information about Lady Photon and the other members of the Brockton Bay Brigade. However, he did try to keep the conversation on the topic of villains as much as possible without coming off as too rude. As distant and cold as he was, he was not completely devoid of social skills, far from it in fact. He was actually quite good at it when he wanted to be. He was a businessman after all, and social skills were often required in business and social gatherings.
"Well, Batman, it was nice meeting you but it's late so I should go. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." Lady Photon said. "Oh, but before I go. I remember you said Marquis cut your grappling hook. Are you gonna need help getting down?"
"Thank you for the offer, but no." Batman said before walking to the edge of the roof and jumping down. Activating his memory cloth cape, he glided safely to the ground before walking over and grabbing the hook of his grappling gun off the street. He then disappeared down an alley and started making his way back to the abandoned warehouse he was using for a temporary shelter. Of course he made sure he wasn't being followed as he did. Once he got back he spent the rest of the time he would normally spend on patrolling fixing his grappling gun before going to sleep for the rest of the night.