Chapter 2
Gothcorp.
AN: Thank you for your support, I didn't expect the reception that I got from the first chapter. But i am grateful for it, keep it up. I'm currently doing some fanarts for this story. check out on my tumblr page. matuselaratedr.
"Look, Bruce. That People Company line is great PR, but when the wage slaves start acting like they own the place, it's time to pull the plug." Mark Hamill as Ferris Boyle in Heart Of Ice, Batman: The Animated Series.
"Again!" Talia said as Sara went down to the ground face first. She was under training of becoming a member of the League of Assassins a couple of months later. It didn't take long for Ra to find out about Sara, he demanded Nyssa to tell where she did found the outsider, She told her father about the ship wreckage and her name. She also told him that Sara was on the ship called Amazo that was hit with a missile, but other than that, Sara was very secretive of where she came from. He then warned Nyssa about her compassion being a weakness and this will be only time that she let her guard down. Being the loyal daughter that she is, she obliged to the warning.
Nyssa was observing her with fascination as Sara got back on her feet and continued on her training. She is like a canary, a black canary to be exact; dangerous and mystical but beautiful and enchanting.
"Stalker much?" Jericho said as he appeared by her side, interrupting her thoughts, "I thought you would be lectured by our dad."
"He warned me about compassion. That it is a sign of weakness." she told her brother,
He scoffed knowingly, "You got off easy." It meant that he didn't punish Nyssa, which wasn't a surprise. She was the golden child of the three. Always has. Then he noticed her watching Sara in combat training with Talia. He chuckled with a grin on his face, "You like her, don't you? Like watching her?"
"That is ridiculous, brother." She said, giving him a doubtful look "Why would I have a affection on a outsider? Beside, we aren't allowed to express our feelings. We're supposed to be merciless for our enemies"
"I'm not saying that as a bad thing." He held out his hands in defense, "I'm just pointing out a fact. I don't blame you, she's a very attractive woman."
"Brother, please." She pleaded with a stern tone as if she said this conversation is over, they will not discuss this matter any further. Jericho sighed in resignation feeling that he hit a nerve so he dropped the subject for now.
"Alright. Whatever you say." He replied as he left her side but stopped as he gave his sister a piece of advice "Whatever feelings you have for her, it's completely natural. The question is how you are going to do with those feelings. My advice is to go for it." he left hoping that Nyssa took it under consideration and much to his delight she did as time.
"You did well, Sara." Talia observed as they ended their training session, Sara was feeling sore through her entire body, she went through extreme trainings that tested her physically and mentally. she spotted a middle aged man with worn out clothes locked up in a bamboon cage.
"Who is he?" Sara equipped,
"He was a farmer. He tried to take his neighbor's land and became a murder." Talia answered following her glance towards the prisoner with no sympathy whatsoever, "Now he's a prisoner."
"What will happen to him?" she asked
"Justice. Crimes can't be tolerated. Criminals thrive on the indulgence of Society's understanding." Talia adressed, "Come, we shall head to the washrooms."
"Batman? Really? Batman?" Officer Lance questioned Moira skeptically back at the ballroom where some of the guest were questioned of what just took place and Moira of course was giving Officer Quentin her statement about a man who dressed like a bat, saved her daughter and of course this Mr. Freeze as the criminals called him. Batman and Mr. Freeze? Jesus, he really doesn't recognize this town anyone.
"Yep. That's that thug said. If wasn't for him, who knows what they would've done to Thea." She answered, "Is it so hard to believe, Officer Lance?" There had been some clashes between Lance and the Queen matriarch in past, mainly Lance put the blame for Sara's supposed death on Oliver Queen. Not to mention the accusation on her son Oliver as The Hood although he has been cleared. so there's some bad blood between them
He sighed, not wanting to start up a argument, if there's a guy named the hood running around these streets, why can't be a Batman.
"No, I guess not." He then left putting his notebook away.
"You alright, Speedy?" Oliver asked out of concern of for his sister, He was back in black suit once he called Felicity to do some research on Mr. Freeze and the connection to Ferris Boyle. he also wanted to learn more about someone named the Penguin.
"I will be, Ollie. She admitted, "Gotta admit though, looks like the Hood has got some competition."
"Yeah. Why in the world would anybody call himself Batman?" Oliver joked, "I mean, that's a bit dusky?" she chuckled at the lame joke from her big brother, "You can go home now if you want to." she nodded in agreement and she left just in time for his phone to ring. He went to check out the Caller ID and it was Felicity.
"Yeah." he answered putting his phone into his ear
"I got the load on Ice Man. His real name is Victor Fries. He was a scientist who specialized in cryo technology and get this; he was a Cryogenicist at Gothcorp whose employer was no other than Mr. Ferris Boyle."
"And the Penguin?"
"Oswald Cobblepot. A underground crime boss who's been in and out of Blackgate Prison in Gotham before transferring to Arkham Asylum, an institution for the Criminal Insane. Has several warrant arrests on his sheet for illegal gambling, racketeering, arms smuggling and murderer."
"Good work, I'm heading to Orchid Bay. One of the men who attacked the ball said they were supposed to meet an arms dealer. I'll tell you more once I've interrogated the dealer." He ended the call and went to the back exit to pick up his gear.
"You're almost to Orchid Bay. I hope Penguin's dealer can tell you more about what Freeze has done to Ferris." Barb said as they were in the Impala, driving through Starling City in high speed breaking every rule in traffic book. They smuggled Jericho's Car on a cargo plane when they've arrived in Starling City. why
"Targeting someone like Ferris Boyle? It's sickening." Batman sneered,
"No need to worry about that. We'll seal this case and wheel it to Blackgate on a gurney." Jericho stated as they arrived at their destination. They were now in Orchid Bay area, downtown of Starling City and where the City Hall was located. It's perfect ideal place for any illegal operations because there aren't many crimes committed here. They grappled on a ledge of a building once they stepped out and walked across the rooftop to see if the Penguin's dealer was there and Unfortunately he wasn't. However though they saw a police officer that was frozen in place, he must've spotted the Arms Dealer before he froze by the cryo gun. Jumping off the building they walked over to the officer.
"Finding penguin's dealer is the key to finding Freeze. I should scan this area to see where he went." Batman thought as he switched his cowl into detective mode and set up a scene. He scanned the officer first, showing that he was put into cryostasis by some unknown substance that are shutting his system down slowly. He scanned some evidence and a reenactment of what happened to the officer was being displayed. The officer chanced upon Penguin's men when he found them and wasn't equipped to deal with the cryogun. But the cryogun was leaking, though. He walked over to where the arm's dealer was and scanned the pool of cold fluid on the ground. if they hurry, they can follow the trail to that Arm's dealer.
"Oracle, we got a trail on the arm's dealer." He stated, nudging Talia and Jericho to get back into the Impala.
"Great. Anything else?"
"Yes. Penguin's men is using cryogenic weapons to encase innocent people in ice. We're going to need the thermal gloves in our XE Suits to break them free." Batman informed,
"I was hoping you would say that, Bruce. I'll get Alfred to load it into drop containers when I call him. I'll keep you posted." Oracle responded, the trail stopped at an alley in central Orchid Bay where they spotted the Arms Dealer talking to one of his men of how Cryo Gun works.
"It's like any other gun. Cept instead killing a guy, you're gonna freeze'em solid." The arms Dealer explained
"How does it work?"
"Like this." Jericho cut him off as he came out of the nowhere and knocked the guy out cold with an inverted DDT.
"Get the son of a bitch!" the arms Dealer commanded, Jericho blocked the front kick and went for a single leg takedown. He dislocated the leg in two before catching a fist . He twisted his wrist making him kneel in pain before kneeing his face. One of the men produced a hand gun and when he was about to pull the trigger, batarang swinging and knocked the gun off. He turned around to see a foot colliding to his face from Batman while Talia took care of the guy with the cryo gun. When they were taken care of, they interrogated the arms dealer. Jericho held the dealer up by the throat as Batman questioned him
"Where's Freeze?!" Batman demanded,
"You think I know?" The Dealer croaked,
"You plan on spend the new year in traction?" he threatened,
"Okay! Okay!" he conceded, "He made a deal with Penguin- Weapons in exchange for some stiff... Uh, Ferris Boyle. He's in Gothcorp last I saw."
"You're lying. Gothcorp doesn't make weapons!" Batman frowned, narrowing his eyes.
"What! No!" the dealer uttered, "Gothcorp! I swear! Look,I've got the entry codes."
"We'll take those." Jericho said as he knocked the dealer with his forearm. He downloaded the codes into his encryption app on his cellphone and sended them to Batman's cryptographic sequencer
"Gothcorp making weapons tech? It doesn't make sense. There's got to be more to this." Batman wondered,
"Yep." Jericho replied, calling the Impala remotely, a few minutes later the Impala arrived at the alley, they got into the car and drove off to GothCorp building. Jericho knew that Kissup Boyle was up to no good, but what was in Gothcorp? They got more questions than answers at the moment.
As they left the alley, Oliver Queen also known as The Hood was on the rooftop of a building having to watch the Son of Demon Jericho, Batman and Talia interrogating the Arms Dealer. For the second time tonight, the experienced vigilantes beat him to the punch but now he knows where Freeze and Penguin is taking Mr. Boyle. Gothcorp.
They arrived on the north of Gothcorp buliding and the first thing they saw, was three Penguin henchmen and two of them had Cryoguns when they stepped out of the Impala. Great, more of them armed with cryotech weapons. However when they were planning how to approach, two arrows hit the cryotanks, a third arrow hit the ground this time with a line ,the Hood came gilding on a line and dropkicked he two of them. He displayed his martial arts skills where he took out the men in matter of minutes. Impressive but a bit flawed.
"Well, you saved us the effort to get rid of the idiots." Jericho said as they stepped out of their hiding spots and walked over to the door where Batman used cryptographic sequencer to open the panel with the entry codes. He unlocked the door allowing them to get inside Gothcorp. They saw from a distance Freeze and Penguin going through the door to a Gothcorp section while his men beat up the guards to make sure that they wouldn't run into trouble up top of the lobby.
"If this goes sideaways, you come runnin'." Penguin said,
"Sure thing boss." One of his men obeyed, not wanting to be on his bad side, Penguin went to catch up with Freeze who has Boyle with him. The Hood fired two arrows, they hit the two men that were armed in the shoulders. Batman grappled on the ledge to the balcony and took out the third one.
After securing the guards that was taken hostage, they told the heroes that Freeze and Penguin was taking Boyle to Propellant Research Wing also informed that Penguin's men had been raiding the entire buliding. Jericho questioned them if they have security codes to the security door. They said that they don't have it but their security boss does and is being held up in the Organics Lab through the lobby. They headed to the organics lab and was entering the organic labs entry when they saw the entrance to the labs that was frozen soild and had a ice formation, they had to take a different route via the wall shaft. They crawled through the shaft to another room where more Penguin's men was at. Jericho broke through the shaft to take out the thug nearby. The Hood fired an arrow to the armed henchmen piercing through the cryotank. It exploded, the cold Liquid froze the henchmen.
After the disposal, they went through the door to the organic labs and were alerted when they saw three snipers on each corner along with armed men watching the ground. Batman turned on the detective vision under his cowl to see how many
"How many are there?" The Hood asked, putting his bow away.
"8. 9 included with the guard." Batman informed, "Some of them are wearing thermal imaging headset. Anyone wearing them will be able to spot us hiding in the darkness."
"Well, we better make sure that we don't get caught the, do we?" Jericho said, "Because I rather not spend the new years in ice." They spread out in different directions once they formulated a plan. Jericho went to take out the snipers at each corner, getting rid of the big threats while Batman took care of the ones wearing thermal headsets. Arrow put another men in reversed facelock, cutting off oxygen. It was the man who held the head of the security captive Once he felt the man slipping into unconsciousness, he let him go and escorted the head of security to safety. Talia took out the remaining henchmen and joined the others with the head of the security.
"T-Thank you." He stammered, expressing gratitude for their rescue.
"You have the codes so we can access to the Propellant Research Wing."
"Right, here." He handed them the access codes, "You're gonna save mister Boyle, right?"
"You're not safe inside. You need to get the hell out of here."
"No problem." The guard replied, they left the labs heading back to the lobby. When they were half way to the lobby, Barb came online with update about XE Suits.
Jericho tapped into the earpiece to intercept the call.
"Alfred just loaded XE Suits into the drop containers. It's on its way to Starling city." She stated
"Good, because we just encountered some heavy ice formations. it's slowing down process." Jericho reported
"His name is Alfred, not Miracle Worker, honey. Anyhow, I got just a call from my Dad. Nora Fries was reported missing from Gotham General."
"When was this reported?" Jericho asked, as they went to the door that was now frozen shut.
"Three days ago." She answered quickly: then she discovered something intriguing on the police report. "Huh. This is interesting."
"What?" Jericho asked,
"I've looked into the police report, this was filed on December 28. Does it ring a bell for you?"
"Yeah it does. It was the day that Wayne Foundation announced that Ferris Boyle was named the Humanitarian of the Year who was at the time employer of one Victor Fries." He revealed
"As in Mr Freeze?" she asked,
"If the shoe fits." He shrugged, "If this is about a disgruntled employee out for revenge, then there's more to it than stealing weapons." this was getting confusing by the minute. If he doesn't get answers now, his head would probably explode, "Hack into Gothcorp's data archives. There must be a reason why Fries hates Boyle this much. Jericho out."
He ended the call as The Hood fired an explosive arrow on the frozen door. it blew the door away, making a huge hole. They stepped through the hole and the first thing they did was to evade Ice Blasts from one of three armed henchmen.
"Oh great. More of them." Jericho muttered,
What you're doing here?" Jericho asked, he spotted Sara watching the sunrise outside of gates of League of Assassins Headquarters. She was soaking the sun enjoying
"Just enjoying the sunrise." She replied, turning her head to see him, Jericho looked at her with a eyebrow raised, as if there was an alternate motive.
"Really? Is that why you're here?" he questioned, Sara heard the skeptic tone in his voice.
"Well, I had to get away from Talia." She admitted, "Don't take it the wrong way, I'm grateful for what your family has done for me but it's nice to be alone every once in time."
"No argument from me.." he replied, "Well, I suppose I'll leave you alone then." He went back inside but Sara stopped him with a question.
"Does it get easy?" Sara asked
"What?" Jericho inquired
"With what you do?" she clarified the question,
"Not really quite honest. You win some; you lose some. You wonder to yourself sometimes what you've might done different. But at the end of day, you just have to accept it and learn from it, to make sure that doesn't happen again.."
"The casualties of war." She pointed out, Jericho nodded in confirmation.
"Alert. Unauthorized access at Propellant Research Wing detected." They heard the alarm in lobby following the surprise attack by Penguin's men that were subdued. That can only mean one thing; Freeze and The Penguin are there with Ferris. They went to the fueling Prep corridor which was the only way to the Propellant research Lab. The door was solid so they had to go through a trapdoor. As they went further into the wing, the temperature got colder making their suits frosty.
"Cold." Jericho declared letting out an icy breath as they shimmed across the ledge in a room. he pulled out a Batclaw to rip off the panel on the wall, granting the others to gain access to climb through the shaft into the next
"I've been digging into Gothcorp's data Archives to look into the Ferris-Freeze issue. Turns out that Ferris hired Fries for help in the advance cryoweapons program and in exchange, he agreed to devote Gothcorp's research to help him find a cure for Nora's Huntington's." Barbara replied,
"Then what?" Jericho promoted her to continue as he charged the mechanism with his shock gloves, they dropped to a large vent seeing a panel to a shaft. Batman ripped it away and they crawled out
"I've hacked into Boyle's personal notes and i found out that a few weeks later, he froze the fundings, due to a three million debt that he and the board couldn't just ignore it."
"Sounded more like he had a change of heart." He concluded, "Fries didn't like when Ferris backed out."
"So he decided to steal some of the Gothcorp equipment and do the Huntington's research himself."
"Exactly." he confirmed, it did answer some of the questions that was on his mind but there was a lot more that was yet to be addressed.
They eventually ended up on the catwalk of the lab; they saw what appeared to an disagreement between Penguin who was holding Ferris Boyle hostage while his henchmen was firing at Freeze keeping the once brilliant scientist at bay. This supposed arrangement had gone up in smoke apparently.
"Give me Boyle or I'll freeze this entire room!" Freeze demanded,
"I know you won't." Penguin replied, "Boyle got the codes you need an' I ain't giving 'im up less I get what's he givin' ya." Not waiting to see this play out, they ran over to the end of catwalk and jumped down, interrupting the heated argument.
"You again!" Penguin exclaimed aggravated as he fired bullets, the group of vigilantes avoided the bullets while fighting off henchmen. Seizing the opportunity, Freeze fired a ice blast from his cryo gun freezing the crime boss, his men and CEO of Gothcorp.
He then pulled out Boyle and stared at the man whose black heart caused him his life.
"Now you belong to me." He stated,
"We'll give you a chance to let him go." The Hood threatened.
"Threats are meaningless to a man who've lost everything." Freeze brushed off the threat and blasted from his cryoweapon at a reactor. It caused a chemical cocktail, creating a huge ice barricade between the vigilantes immobilizing Penguin along with some henchmen.
"God damnit!" Jericho cursed as Freeze took off with Boyle.
Ta Da! Chapter 2 is complete. I'm working on Chapter 3, Review once you're done with chapter 2.
Also i'm dropping previews of what's to come of this story. here's one from Chapter 3.
"Oi, Arrow Boy! " The Hood turned his head around to see what Penguin's up to. "Do you have a price, yeah? Name it. it's yours if you get me out a'this bloody ice brick."
"You're good where you are." He sneered, denying the potential bribe from this dwarf, he's rotten apple as they say.
"But. You can't leaving me here. I'll freeze to death." Penguin stammered horrified at the situation he was in.
"Not my problem." The Hood said,
"Oh, you're a cold hearted bastard, you know that?" Penguin spat glowering at the hooded vigilante.