A Beware the Batman fanfic – Bring on the Badguys!
Written by WDCain Man
Disclaimer: Batman was created by Bob Kane and owned by DC Comics, which is owned by Warner-Brothers. No profit is being made from this fanfic.
Flamingo was a character I knew I had to do for this story. Visually, he's pretty interesting. He's an evil Zorro dressed in pink! Still, the guy doesn't have much of a character since in the comics he's just a lobotomized mob assassin. So like I did for Jane Doe, a completely different origin and power-set would have to be created for him to stand out amongst the other rogues of Beware the Batman. Enjoy.
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Bring on the Badguys!
Part Thirteen:
Flamingo
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Eduardo Flamingo rode his pink motorcycle full speed to the fortified manor. The dashing man of action had sharp features, pink hair that flowed in the wind along with his pink goatee, and dressed in a fancy pink leather jacket over his black bodysuit and boots. A pink domino mask covered his piecing eagle-like eyes. His stylish pink motorcycle was going full throttle, leaving him a pink blur on his way on the green jungle path.
Despite his swashbuckling looks, he was heavily armed as a paramilitary commando would be. Knives and ninja kunai were held along the high tops of his boots, a whip and a pair of pistols hung from his belt, and toping off his arsenal was a large automated rifle strapped to his back next to his trusted musketeer rapier. He would need these weapons for the assignment ahead. The mansion of Generalissimo Diego was in view.
The warlord of this tiny South American country had many enemies. To protect himself, he constructed his mansion to be a veritable fortress. Twenty feet high concrete walls with machine gun torrents at multiple posts, guard towers stationed by the finest snipers his militia produced, surface-to-air missile garrisons to detour air-strikes, and finally five dozen heavily armed soldiers sworn to die protecting him guarding the interior. The warlord even had a Hind D attack chopper nearby for escape if, by some chance, a military arrived to bring him to justice.
The Generalissimo didn't need to worry about that. The Flamingo was not going to bring him to justice. He was here to kill him. He was one man going to kill one who repelled armies. And the Flamingo would do it. He was the Ace of Killers after all.
The Flamingo activated his motorcycle's rocket fuel, propelling him faster and faster. The rush made him a pink bullet amongst the green foliage. He jerked the front wheel up and became skyward. The bike went higher and higher and at the apex of its ascension, cleared the fortress walls of Diego's compound.
It was an instant bloodbath. Yet it was not the Flamingo who was riddled with so many bullets that identifying him would be impossible, it was the Generalissimo's army. They had never fought an opponent like him and they never would so again.
The Flamingo's leg speed surpassed his motorcycle; the assassin was even faster than their guns. Coupled with super-human reflexes, no one could hope to touch him. A pinkish blur ran in circles around the fortress picking off every gunman in the center with his pistols who were killed with eagle eye precision and computer-like perfection.
Running faster than bullets from gun torrents, the Flamingo scaled the walls and ran at a 45 degree angle along the top. He rushed each guard post along his murderous path, cutting and slicing the mercenaries with his rapier blade like they were paper thin. His sword was sharp but the sheer strength behind its user could cleave titanium rods in half.
Back on the ground amongst the pile of corpses, the Flamingo pulled out his whip as the attack helicopter rose. The Ace of Killers dashed foreword, building speed like an Olympian before lashing out with the whip. It wrapped around the chopper tail and with its height and Flamingo's momentum, he swung up like a pendulum. By snapping his wrist, the recoil changed his angle and he landed inside the helicopter.
Who this pink killer saw in there with him made him smile. "Why Generalissimo Diego, how nice to finally meet you. Your neck and the tip of my sword have a rendezvous long overdue."
The warlord was piloting the helicopter. "Please don't! I'll pay you a fortune to spare me!"
"Lo siento, but I've been paid a fortune to kill you." Flamingo's blade pieced the general's heart. Death was instant.
The helicopter spun out of control but the pink-wearing warrior had nary a care. The Flamingo leapt out of the rapidly descending chopper like his graceful namesake harmlessly just before it crashed into the burning missile garrison. The Ace of Killers stood in the center of his massacre and took the result of his ultimate aptitude: None were left alive.
He pulled out his cellphone, also pink, and called the man who put out the ten million dollar hit. "The job's done, senor; and it did not take to long either, only five minutes. You can transfer the other half to my pay to my bank account."
A digitized voice was on the other end. "Actually Eduardo, I'll be paying you in person. Come meet me in my home away from home. Look up."
Flamingo looked at his cell phone curiously before shifting his gaze upward. His eagle-eyes and hyper sensitive hearing picked up a black military cargo plane coming in fast. It was a design unfamiliar to him. It was silent and a safe bet invisible to radar. The thrusters and flight engine were unlike any he had seen before. They looked… transformable. Gun torrents lined its sides with a strange hi-tech gun near the nose. He had never seen the latter kind of gun. It almost looked like a laser blaster one sees on star-ships in science fiction movies.
"No thank you. This is one bird that keeps its feet on the ground."
"I must insist. You have no other option. I will begin an aerial bombardment if you attempt to flee. Even your custom motorbike is not speedy enough to outrace this aerial attacker. So do come in and let us meet face to face. Fear not, Flamingo; if I wanted you dead I would just bomb the compound. You will be safe onboard while we discuss the future and your role in it."
Check and mate. Eduardo's mind raced through a hundred different scenarios in seconds. He can't retreat and he would not surrender. His only viable option was to feign compliance and try to hijack the plane.
Despite the generalissimo's airfield being too small to support a runway, the large craft still lowered its altitude and decreased speed. Flamingo stood still, not concerned the slightest if the carrier crashed. If his employer wanted him dead, there would be no need for the subterfuge to hide a plane crash. But as the carrier neared closer, the strange engines built into the wings shifted positions and lowered towards the earth. The change in force left the aircraft hovering in mid-air like a helicopter. Then it slowly descended onto the ground.
"Advance technology…" Flamingo murmured as he walked towards the freighter's now opened rear loading ramp. There was no one there to greet him or guards attempting to take him prisoner. Still what he saw inside gave him temporal pause. "Very advance technology."
The cargo hold held several large tube containers covered with frost hooked up to a host of medical technology and computers. The Ace of Killers hazard a guess and figured them to be cryogenic containers. Each looked large enough to hold a man prisoner. As he walked by them, he read off the names listed on the monitors for the individuals frozen inside the adjacent containers.
"Max Roboto… Loveless… Candyman… Weasel… Zebra-Man?" Eduardo paused, his brow winkled. He wiped away the frost and condensation covering the front of the cryogenic container to peer at this 'Zebra-Man'. When he saw what was inside, Flamingo felt his stomach turn into a knot. The name was horrifyingly fitting as the man was snow white with black jagged stripes running horizontal all over his face and body.
"Fascinating, isn't he?" spoke a man with the voice of a god. Flamingo turned and found him stepping out of the shadows.
He looked to be a god made man: Tall, imposing, a physique taken from a statue of a Greek God. Eduardo's client was draped in a scarlet red cape with the hood design embroiled with a cobra's head. His arms were adorned with blood red metal braces with gold lining that matched the metal boots he wore. A gold belt with a snake as the buckle with rubies as the serpent's eyes was over his ebon trousers. He was a dark god made flesh that walked in his twisted Garden of Monstrosities.
"The Zebra-Man could potentially be the most powerful being on the planet. Under the proper guidance, of course. But then, that goes for everyone." His piecing eyes could see all the way through to Flamingo's soul. "I am Kobra, Flamingo; lord of the growing movement you have heard about. You have heard of us, correct?"
Flamingo nodded cautiously. "Yes, I have. Your group has been giving the Americans so much trouble in the Middle East in the last few months. No matter what, they can't wipe you out."
Kobra walked forward gracefully like the praying tiger. "I am beyond them, as are all these supers frozen in cryo-status are beyond man," he smiled coolly "and as are you. Yes, Eduardo; you are a meta-human too."
Flamingo nodded while studying him quickly and carefully. "Indeed I am, Senor Kobra. I am just like you. Don't bother denying it. I can tell by the way you walk, the way you talk. You're not human."
"Excellent eye, Eduardo. I am superior, as are you. However I notice some discrepancies, leaving me curious over your exact power set. Sometimes you are as powerful and clever as I am but sometimes you are just another skilled hitman. Why is this?"
Flamingo's mind ran through nearly a hundred different scenarios in seconds just as he knew Kobra's was. He could feel the aircraft lifting up and since Kobra knew of him, traps had to have been prepared incase of resistance. The truth was his only recourse to survive.
"I am a product of the League of Assassin's super soldier program. They wanted a man superior in all areas. Unfortunately, the procedures done to me had limits. I could become ten times the man I was, ten times stronger, faster, wiser and smarter, ten times in all regards but only for one hour every twenty four."
Kobra barely nodded, having anticipated a similar answer before their meeting. "Ra's al Ghul would never have let you go free. You realized this when you first activated your powers. Your advance thought processes made you realize that you be further experimented by Dr. Ravencroft so you hid the fact you were a super-human and that her experiment failed. You were sent away without the good doctor the wiser."
"You surmised everything perfectly. You indeed have a superior intellect, Kobra. Bethany Ravencroft left for the United States to continue her experiments for the next generation of super soldiers."
"Her results nearly killed her. But that is a story for another time." There was no reason to discuss an imbalance meta-human such as Magpie. "Now let us discuss why I brought you here so we could meet exchange words. I did not go to such lengths to kidnap you, Flamingo. I did all this to recruit you."
"You… want to enlist me?" Of all the possible scenarios that Flamingo thought of, that was not one of them. "Why? What's the end goal?"
"Why you ask? To lead my army as I conquer the world." The King of Kobra gestured to his frozen meta-humans. "My calculations have shown that conventional warfare for global domination would result in nigh total human losses. The genepool would be too small for the human race to last more than a several generations. But a war with meta-humans would dramatically reduce the causalities to just four billion, much more acceptable."
The Flamingo didn't reject instantly, instead eyeing him analytically, his superior intellect processing thoughts much better than a normal mind ever could. "And what will the world become under your guidance?"
The two talked non-stop for over fifty minutes. Their genetically enhanced minds were able to process thoughts deeper, richer, more inhuman ideologies for the human race. Kobra dissertation revealed the planet's condition after the age of chaos and how it would be rebuilt from the ashes. It would be glorious; a wonder all would walk freely in until the end of time. True, many would need to be buried but there was not a heaven on earth not built with the dead as mortar.
Finally their discussions ended. During the time they talked the aircraft was already in the middle of the Pacific Ocean due to its super advance engines. There was no turning back for Flamingo but Kobra knew that. The Ace of Killers offered his new liege a smile and held up his rapier as an offering.
"Let my blade be a symbol of my oath as I pledge my allegiance unto you, oh King of Kobra, as I serve your ideas to forge a grander world."
"I accept." Kobra touched the sword, gracing it with his blessing. "You are very elegant, Eduardo."
"The product of my enhanced mind, my King. My hour is almost up and my thought processes are about to take a big step back. I'll still be quite intelligent and deadly, I assure you. Ra's al Ghul would never have selected me for his super soldier program if I weren't. I was even able to hold my own against his top lieutenant, Lady Shiva herself, before the experiments."
"Then you will serve me well when you are merely human and meta-human." Kobra touched a button on a nearby monitor. Two images appeared. The first was of a large gorilla smoking a cigar and doing lab work while dressed as a court jester. The second man looked to be a leftover from Halloween. He had a pitch black body and his bones worn on the outside like they were embedded on his strange costume-like skin. His skull-face laugh and crackle, the jawbone moving in perfect rhythm with the sounds. "Their code-names are Prof. Gorilla, though he prefers Jackanapes, and Lord Death Man. These are two meta-humans created by and held in a Japanese military facility and your first task is to acquire them for my forces. I do not care what the cost."
Flamingo's smile had become a rictus of repulsion as his mind regressed to its core cruel state as his hour ended. Gone was the wise man who talked to Kobra over the fate of morals and agreed with a new decision on the path of the world. All that he was now was the gruesome murderer who earned the twisted title of Ace of Killers.
"Senor, the killing will be my pleasure."
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End Part Thirteen…
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I hope you all liked this chapter. Flamingo was a difficult character to come up with a concept for since at his core he's basically a pink Deathstroke. Seriously, both are expert fighters and weapon users, both have white hair, both had brain experiments to get abilities, and both are as tenacious as a rottweiler. Since Deathstroke was the big villain of the finale for BtB, I had to think of someway to make Flamingo dangerous in a different way from Slade Wilson.
My inspiration, ironically, came from Deathstroke. Specifically his role in the film Son of Batman where he takes over as the leader of the League of Assassins. This plot bunny made me wonder who he would pick as his second-in-command since Lady Shiva wasn't an option and my first response was Flamingo. Plus with me establishing Jason Burr starting the Kobra Cult to fill the void following the collapse of the League of Assassins made me have Flamingo become Kobra's no. 2 man.
Checking out the comic history of the Kobra Cult, I learned that they used a lot of super villains as henchmen. This inspired me how to have Jason up the ante and be more dangerous than Ra's. Instead of using ninjas, he would use meta-humans against the Bat! OH YEAH!
Now I just had to think up what Flamingo's super powers would be. I would have to be careful or else it would clash with his distinctive look. Fortunately, I was reading by the new Earth 2 comic and I was wondering when Hourman would show up and then I knew what Flamingo's power set would be. Marvel's re-release of Miracleman is also a comic I'm following and one thing I like is the idea of Mike Moran struggling with his mind being more advance in his Miracle Man form and I thought that would give the Flamingo a bit of nuance. For one hour a day, the man is a marvel who can hold philosophical conversations that would blow Nietzsche's mind but the other 23 hours, the guy is an utter sadist and degenerate killing machine.
The next chapter stars the first new baddie Batman fought in the new52: The Dollmaker. Initially I refused to do a take on the guy because I saw him as just another dime-a-dozen one-note psychos but I was inspired by a Halloween episode from a Simpsons Treehouse of Terror sketch. Anyone who can guess which sketch I'm using for the Dollmaker wins an official No-Prize! I'll even give you a hint! The episode that inspired me can be found in the teens! Good luck!
Until next time! Read and review!