AN: Sorry guys for not updating often. Life and a lack of motivation to write has been plaguing me lately, but I'll be trying to spew something out every so often now. Can't give a definite timeframe or how many updates but want to keep this as entertaining as possible. Enjoy folks! - The Fallen Sun
The man slammed his fist into the desk in front of him as he gave a growl of frustration. The wood splintered and the papers on the deck fluttered around shaking hand slid up and ran over his partly exposed face. The lower half was covered and the upper half had an intricate set of goggles on. Ever since being booted from the mob, he had tried to carve his own way into the Gotham pie, and though his slice was meager it was well controlled, monitored and protected. The hit on Wayne Electronics and Security was to gather information, anything at all, that could be used in keeping what he had his. The men in front of him took a wary step back when he nearly carved the desk in two with a single blow, except for one. He made a mental note to have him stay back when he got his information from the rest. His hair was a pale brown and despite the ghastly looking scarring around his chin and jaw he seemed to hold himself well enough.
"Some broad with a pistol," he began, peering at them all, "a wounded yank' and the god damned Batman swooped in all on you lot at the same time? This was supposed to be a smash and grab not disaster!"
"The broad and the yank' first, sir." The man in front said in a rather methodical tone. "Batman came in after and swept up the rest. We couldn't get the information in a hard copy but I recorded what we could get on my glasses."
That took him by surprise, no easy feat. "On your… pardon?"
The stalwart man before him removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of dark grey eyes that looked haunted in their own right. "Put them on, tap the button by the right lens here and it the playback should explain everything."
In most cases he'd put them on himself, but his goggles made things difficult sometimes. With some minor manipulation over the whirring optics he slid them onto his nose and reached up. This could all be a trick, but he had several failsafe protocols installed in case his health was edited at all. His personal favorite being a pair of machine guns that would pop up on either side of his desk and simply chew through whatever genetic signature wasn't his. With a shrug he tapped the supposed play button and the playback popped up on the lenses.
Most of the images were blurred since the wearer was moving too fast but he waited patiently, arms folded over his chest. He could hear his men shifting nervously as he watched through their sweep of the RD room. A screen caught his eye though and he tapped the play button again to pause the playback. The goggles tried to narrow on the image, cleaning it up the best they could given the poorer quality presented to them.
"…Hoplite?"
"Sir?" the dark eyed man asked.
He tugged the glasses off and peered at the image in the glasses. "When you were in the room, what can you recall from the Hoplite screen you saw?"
The gray eyed man tilted his head. "Some sort of defensive protocol WayneTech seemed to be trying to make. An exoskeleton armor, seemed pretty complicated."
"That could be very useful for holding what we have, or pushing forward," he mused, running a hand through his hair a moment, "If I wanted a crew to hit where this could be held, how many could you get me?"
A shrug was given back to him and the gray eyed man looked bored almost. "Myself and these three, plus likely another five or six. We'll need another ride."
"Done and done. The image shows a few staff on the job. Think you could grease enough palms to find them?"
"Well enough," he seemed to be mulling over a thought, "Why me though, sir? Certain any other schmuck can do this."
"Ah, they could but," he leaned over, dropping his tone to a low, harsh whisper, "not many have danced with the Joker, got shot, and walked away from it all when Batman got involved then too, no?"
The gray eyes widened in fear and a hand rose to stop his potential outburst. "I won't say a word Mr. Frost but when you return from getting things set up I do need to hear this wonderful tale of yours in full detail. I require it for my own… accounting."
Jonny Frost nodded even as a hand rose to rub at his ruined jaw. He looked a great deal paler then he first saw him. Good, he thought, let him squirm a bit.
"Anything else while we're getting things in order Mr. Zeiss?"
"If the Batman interferes again with our little operation call me personally and I'll deal with him. Don't worry."
A brow rose in question, but none was uttered. The three silent men and Mr. Frost all left leaving Philo Zeiss alone. He rubbed his fingers along the bridge of his nose even as he tugged down the mask that covered his face to reveal his partly shaking lip while he fought down that malicious smirk. Every mention of Batman got his blood pumping. Ever since he ran into him whilst being a bodyguard himself he became fixated on defeating the big black Bat. It was only a matter of when. He didn't want to reveal his enhancements too early, lest he developed a counter for it. He had his specialized teams on stand by if something broke down, but they didn't touch his mind in their surgeries to make him the superior man. He recorded all the sightings of Batman, analyzed how he fought but he noticed a discrepancy lately. A few times Batman fought completely different compared to his usual theatrics. Sometimes he acted more grounded and focused. He chalked it up to him perhaps having one bad day himself but rummaging through his mind he kept coming back to one conclusion; there were two Batmen, not a single Batman. Or at least there was a surrogate for the original. The Batman on the rest of the recording, and what his moles sent him from the security footage was the original. It was a matter of finding the imposter. If he got his hands on him, well, all men cracked eventually.
Jonny Frost never wanted this damn gig to begin with, but in the end he wanted cash, needed it to pay the bills, pay the few cops that tried to keep him off the radar. More and more money was required. When he heard of this young upstart named Philo Zeiss making a move Jonny saw an opportunity. He could never fix his chin and jaw, and the damage caused his voice to be this low tone that could never raise or lower in pitch again. It made him sound flat, but he coped. Not many liked him for his voice anyway. He always had a hand in several different pots and Mr. Zeiss used that on more then one occasion. The fact he trusted him with enough money to disappear made him a touch nervous, making him think of a maniacal laugh and that sadistic grin on the pale pallor that ruined him in the first face. He fought down the shudder by coughing off handedly whilst he and the three other approached their driver in the garage. It was rather scarce, but it had a couple of luxury cars for company use. The cough caused the man in front of him to snap his gaze up mid flip of a page on some sort of magazine. His expression was hidden beneath a pair of dark shades and a driver's hat that rested lopsided on his head even as that just as lopsided smirk crawled along his lip.
"Ah, Jonny, where we going tonight with your friends?"
"Recruiting Lou. Mr. Zeiss wants another crew to hit up somewhere tonight, location to be determined. Some crap called 'Hoplite' is on his brain to push into new turf. Could be big."
"Really?" Lou had that damnable smirk on his lip again. "If he wanted Hoplites he could have gone to Greece. I hear there are plenty buried there."
He heard two of the men behind him groan and he did his best not to swat Lou upside the head. He wanted his driver sensible not fading in and out. "Get in the car and stop being a smart ass Lou. Mr. Zeiss wants a driver, not a comedian."
"Yeah well, we all know what happened when you tried to drive someone last time…" he heard the mutter behind him.
He took note on how Lou's eyes widened even behind the glasses when he whirled on the ass who spoke up. The case crashed along his jaw with a wet smack. He fell to the ground with a groan. The case was dropped and the man got to his feet, only to be met with a hard jab across the cheek. He felt flesh give beneath his knuckles. His other hand snapped down, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and with little effort at all he picked him up off the ground and threw him over his shoulder back first onto the ground. The man groaned and writhed on the ground. Jonny knelt down and pulled his backup pistol from inside of his coat. He jammed the muzzle into his mouth whilst his gray eyes narrowed on him.
"How do you know about that?" he snarled.
"W-We… all sort of knew the moment you joined up, Jonny. You're kind of distinctive with the whole," another goon, Marcus he recalled, tapped his jaw, "wound and all."
He fixed Marcus with a glare as he peered down at the shaking man beneath him doing his best not to squirm with a gun in his mouth. "Who else figured it out?"
"Just us for now, hoss." Lou cut in. "Trust me when I say we don't want a visit from the Clown Prince himself."
"No one else, you hear me?" he muttered to them all. "I don't want anything getting out of this damn garage."
The man on the ground nodded enthusiastically to the idea. Jonny only narrowed his eyes on him. "Not you though."
He stood up and squeezed the trigger twice. Once in the head and once in the chest. The three others jumped back and Lou pulled out his own pistol on reflex. Jonny made a note of that. Lou was good people, terrible comedian, but good people.
"Put that away Lou. Loose lips sink ships and all that."
"R-Right…"
Jonny looked over his shoulder at Marcus and his cousin Micah. "Marcus, get in the car. Micah help Lou with the body in the trunk. We're dumping it bayside on the way out."
He opened the passenger side door and clambered inside. He leaned his head back against the headrest and let a breath he didn't know he was holding slip out. A cigarette popped into his vision to his left.
"…Bit unnecessary killing Trent like that man, but he was an ass anyway. Kept eyeing the help up when we were doing business."
He took the offered light and welcomed the bit of nicotine that could effect him now to calm his nerves. "I'm aware. Coupled with everything else, well, rather a double tap from me then a night from Mr. Zeiss."
He saw Marcus shudder in the backseat as he took a drag of his own. "Fair boss."
Micah and Lou got inside as well. The former with bloody hands and the latter with far away look in his eye. He returned to himself though, rubbing at his stubble a moment.
"Well, that was fun," Lou quipped with a half-hearted grin, "where we going Jonny?"
"The Grin and Bare It. Only place I know we can find lowlifes cheap enough for this sort of smash and grab." Jonny replied with a roll of his shoulders to get comfortable. "I'll worry about the greased palms."
"If we don't get interest?" Micah asked, his voice a touch shaky. He had to give the boy credit for keeping it together so far.
"We offer a bit more, and if still no bites…. Well a bit of money used for personal use on company time isn't a horrid thing."
That got a mixture of laughs, both awkward and genuine from the other three in the car with him. Jonny simply looked out the window, holding the good half of his jaw up. "Drive Lou."