A/N: So, it's been awhile for me, it's the 16th of January for me when I'm writing this chapter. It hopefully is longer then the last chapter. I feel like the last one was a little on the short side but that's ok. Can't write monster chapters for everything.
P.S. if you have played the game, Bruce actually calls the thugs mercs (mercenaries) but that doesn't make sense to me. How does he know that they're mercs for sure? So I just called them thugs instead.
P.P.S an acromion is a shoulder bone
Thx!
AMM
I land on the roof of the warehouse beneath Pioneer Bridge, glancing around at the dirty and desolate landscape. "Alfred, I'm at the warehouse. No sign of Catwoman's contact. It's quiet."
"The sound of an ambush," Alfred suggests. "Stay on guard." I silently jump down and land in front of the doorway to the warehouse. The doors are partially open, as if someone didn't shut them all the way. But I have to forcefully pull them apart to gain entrance inside. What I find is completely unexpected. Dead cops lay everywhere, sprawled across machinery and crumpled on the ground.
"This wasn't a handoff-it was a massacre." I say before walking further into the large room.
"How many?" Alfred asks.
I sigh. "I'd have to count the pieces."
"Oh, good lord," Alfred gasps quietly. "Who could've done such a thing?"
"That's what I'm gonna find out." I assure him before switching on my voice modulator and calling Gordon.
"Gordon, eastside docks, warehouse 133." I hang up before I hear a single word out of the lieutenant and then proceed to turn my voice modulator back off. I approach a large scorch mark on the floor, kneeling down to get a closer look. I tap a few keys on my control panel before my glove glows blue. I place my hand right above the scorch marks, moving it from side to side so I can get a good analysis.
"It's a volatile chemical. Potential psychoactive nerve agent. Vile stuff." I stand up and look around.
"Be very, very careful with that. Who knows what effects it may have." Alfred advises.
"Have the computer catalogue the compound for further analysis."
"As you wish," Alfred replies as I approach a foul smelling lump. But as I draw closer and the stench intensifies, I realize that the lump I'm staring out is someone's large intestine with what looks like a lung and a heart mixed into the pile. These are bloody remnants of an obliterated human body. What if these remains and those scorch marks are connected?
"There's nothing left to bury," I murmur. "Whatever exploded….did so with enough force to obliterate the person standing next to it. But the chemicals themselves were inert, non-explosive."
"Well, it appears to have made a pretty big boom." I glance around the room again, at all the dead cops.
"I'll see what I can piece back together," I tell him before heading over to a dead man. He isn't in a cop uniform. "I've seen these outfits before. Same guys that broke into City Hall." What are they doing here? Was this apart of the reason for their break in? Is it all somehow connected? Or are they just a group of mercenaries?
I walk away before going over to a shipping container door that looked like it'd been tore through. "The canister exploded, sending shrapnel right through the container door."
"For once, I'm glad you arrived after the heist." Alfred says. "Your armor wouldn't have protected you against that." I grab a hold of one of the doors and pull it towards me before ripping it off its hinges. I enter the container, noticing a piece of shrapnel or maybe a bent piece of the container itself protruding out from the wall with a bullet hole going right through it, the piece of shrapnel singed around the hole.
"Looks like a bullet started all of this."
"A normal bullet couldn't have caused that explosion." Alfred states.
"Doesn't appear normal-the point of entry's melted." I take another glance around the container, but see nothing else. It's empty besides the protruding shrapnel. I exit and walk to the already open container right beside the previous one and see pallets all over the floor.
"Hmm, canisters were stored here. Canisters of what?" I cross my arms over my chest and try to think of what could've been here before I look over at the dead cop to my left. The poor man is lying on a knocked over forklift, blood splatter all around him and blood dripping into a pool beneath him. It's still fresh. I leave the open container and go to the cop. "The force grows thinner everyday," I mutter as I eye the simple gunshot to his chest that would've instantly killed him. Seeing no evidence on him, I move on.
I walk towards another cop lying on the ground. From a distance, he looks like he has soot all over his face, maybe from a fire, but as I get closer, I realize he didn't get the aftermath of a fire. He got the fire himself. "This man's been badly burned, but….the damage seems to originate from inside his skull. What did this?"
I notice a bullets entry in to the right of his right eye. I pull a bullet locator from my belt and put the tip to the hole in his head before pushing it in. I block out the sounds it makes as it enters through the damaged bone and tissue before I begin moving the device back and forth, finally finding the bullet when the locator begins beeping at me. I wait a second and allow the locator to lock onto the bullet before yanking it out, once again ignoring the sounds and the blood that comes spraying out with the device.
I pull the bullet off the end before stashing the device back in my belt. I hold it up and scan it. "Sensors say it's an incendiary round. Phosphorous residue. This could have superheated the contents of the canister." I tuck the bullet away in my belt as well.
"Causing the aforementioned boom."
I glance down at the cop's hands. "Blood, broken nails, bits of human flesh." He tried to fight. Then I see another dead thug to my left. I stand and approach him. I make a sound of disgust as I see the mans face and neck.
"That bad?" Alfred asks, having heard my noise.
"His face is slashed, throat torn open, missing an eye."
"So, not natural causes then,"
I notice one of the packs on his protective armor is open and a small piece of paper sits inside. I reach forward and pull it out, seeing the fancy writing on the business card.
Skyline Club
I glance back over at the burnt cop and his hands then look back at the shredded thug. The cop must've fought this thug with his bare hands. It's why his hands were soiled with blood and bits of torn flesh. He tore apart the thugs face and ripped his throat open. "The cop shredded this thug to pieces. Bare handed."
"God," Alfred gasps again. "What would cause someone to do that?" How was this man able to do it at all?
"The nerve agent." I remember. "Could make them psychotic." I notice another cop lying dead against a pile of boxes, a white rose lying on his chest.
"White rose," I lean down and pick it up. "Falcone's calling card." And this is why I've never liked white roses. It's just someone's way of bragging that he was there. That he killed cops and maybe even his own people. White, innocence; a rose, romantic. Not to me. White, deceiving,; a rose, covered in prickly, painful thorns.
"He's been busy as of late," Alfred comments.
"Send the drones hunting. I want to know his every move." I place the white rose back on the cops chest, the only man here who seems to have been rather untouched.
"Good thinking, sir," Alfred replies.
I look over to the shrapnel-hit shipping container then back over at the cop. The line of the bullet that melted through that piece of obstructing container matches up perfectly with that cop. If that bullet burns through metal, no wonder it incinerated this cops head. It was a military-grade bullet designed to superheat upon impact. This poor mans mind was literally on fire.
"Find a connection?" Alfred asks.
"The bullet that killed the cop is the same type that blew up the canister." I tell him as I go to the shipping container and hold up the bullet. Perfect size.
"I'm sure they didn't find that at a local gun store.
"It's military." I tell him before noticing the un-scorched area in the middle of the scorched floor. "Something was here when the explosion occurred." This area is devoid of explosion scorch marks, indicating that something was here when the blast occurred while there's the rest of the floor completely singed. "Someone drove off after the explosion." It all makes sense now.
"Have you put it together?" Alfred asks.
"Yes," I activate my detective vision before typing a few keys on the control on my arm before turning to look at the whole room. "Falcone leaving his rose here-this is a message. Dead cops, stolen chemicals….he's making a big move." Holographic images appear of cops standing by the door and thugs standing by the shelves and boxes on the other side of the room and then a canister.
"One of his snipers hit a canister with an incendiary bullet, causing it to superheat and explode." The holographic canister explodes and a fake smoke emits, covering two of the thugs. "This may have been a distraction, or a way of destroying evidence. Cops moved in to stop the theft," the cops move forward. "Falcone's men gunned them down," The thugs guns light up to signify shooting. Cops get shot and thugs get shot.
"Then, things turned grim. Possibly due to the psychoactive nerve agent….a cop ripped up a thugs face with his bare hands." One of the holographic cops is shown attacking a thug before getting shot and staggering to the side, then falling down into his current position where both holograms fade. "And was put down. Same sniper, same type of bullet. Looks like Falcone's men got what they wanted and escaped." I watch as a holographic truck pulls away then everything shuts off.
"Have you located the shooter?" Alfred asks.
"No, but based on two impact trajectories-the canister and the dead cop….the shooter could only have a clear shot from there," I look up at an overhang. "There," I look at another overhang on the opposite wall. "Or there," I look over behind one of the barrels in the corner. "And would have contaminated himself with a phosphorous residue. Program the skimmers to pick up that residue." I request.
"Right away, sir," Alfred replies.
I grapple to the overhand opposite of the doors before pulling out a drone to detect the chemical residue from the canisters. I move it back and forth before noticing the blue tints on the walls and floors when the drone flashes over them.
"Phosphorous spike, clear vantage point, we have a winner." I pick up the drone and snap it back into its compact form before tucking it away. I notice a cigarette on the railing. "Huh, killing time?" I turn back towards he handprint on the wall. "This is the right spot, so where did he go?"
I walk farther down the runway before noticing that the trace stops. "The trace stops here,"
"Then he should be nearby." I look over a railing before seeing a pair of legs sticking out from behind crates down below.
"Found him," I say before reactivating my voice modulator and turning off my detective vision. I hop over the railing and land in a crouch before knocking a barrel aside. The sniper looks up, pulling a gun from his side and aiming at me. He shoots but misses.
"My turn," I growl before picking him up and slamming him into the wall, my grip tight around his neck, to the point I can crush his larynx if I squeezed any harder. "Don't make me add your corpse to this graveyard. Falcone! Why did he do this?!" I demand, slamming him against the wall again.
"I ain't tellin' you nothin'!" He shouts defiantly. He chuckles before shouting, "You can't make me talk!"
I slam him against the wall once more, harder then the previous times and he takes a deep breath when I pull back slightly before coughing.
"I ain't tellin' you jack!" I throw him to the floor; face down before tying his hands behind his back. "You tryin' to scare a confession outta me? I won't break,"
"Your bones will," I growl. Then I secure his feet before shooting my grappling hook at the ceiling so he can dangle in front of me. I pick a pipe up off the floor as I turn back towards the thug.
"It's true what they said about you!" He accuses. "You're a friggin' animal!" I intimidatingly hit my hand with the pipe.
"Give me a reason to stop," I tell him. I approach him as the fear begins to shine brightly in his eyes. "You know, you can bleed to death without ever spilling a drop," I inform him, freaking him out even more. "All on the inside. Tell me the plan," I get in his face. "Or I start swinging," I growl out.
"I ain't scared of you man," he tries but I swing right by his head and knock a barrel away, him shouting out in fear.
"Tell me!"
"That….Catwoman….was supposed to hand over a drive, bad the container number we needed, but she flaked. So we had to find it ourselves. Container by container. Someone must've heard up, called the cops….we were told no witnesses."
"Why risk open war with the GCPD?" I demand.
"Some kind of chemicals. Falcone wanted 'em."
"What are the chemicals for?!"
"We were paid to steal them, not ask questions." I squint my eyes at him before spinning him away and cutting his arms free, grabbing one of them and holding his hand between my bicep and my side so I can apply pressure. He screams out as I break a part of his upper arm.
"I start here," I threaten. "I keep breaking until you answer."
"The chemicals….are some kind of explosive. A weapon! I dunno! Falcone said he'd use 'em soon!"
"Used where?" I demand, applying more pressure to break acromion. He screams out again. "That's all I know! I swear! I swear!" I move my hand down closer to his elbow. "I told you everything I know! You're an animal! I was just here for a pickup! I swear!" I grab his shoulder forcefully and break the ends of his humerus, radius, and ulna, shattering his elbow completely. He screams out, reaching over with his other hand to hold his arm.
"You'll never hold a gun steady again." I grit through my teeth. Then I hear voices over at the door. I look through the stacks of boxes and the shelves and see Gordon walking in with another cop. I aim my grappling gun towards the ceiling and disappear before Gordon and the other cop see me.
"I was wrong," the cop says. "We are gonna need that ambulance too. The hell is going on tonight, Lieutenant?"
"Batman," Gordon murmurs before he glances up at me on the walkway. He moves to shine his light and gun but I'm gone by the time the light can shine on me. I can tell by the way he glances at the thug now unconsciously hanging upside down that he notices and will remember how violent I can get.
A/N: This one was decent sized and I feel like the first time we really got to see Bruce's detective skills in this story. I always love playing, reading, watching, viewing anything that involves Bats and his amazing detective skills. Just the way that he can piece everything together so quickly. It blows me away every time.
Thx!
AMM
