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 money is being made with this story. No profit is being made from this fanfic.
Trying something different here with doing a team chapter. Hopefully it'll turn out well. Thank God for the video game Carn-Evil. I hope one day it gets a home release on some console without having to resort to emulation. Enjoy!
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Bring on the Badguys!
Part Nineteen:
The Circus of Strange
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It's strikingly obvious how insidious a circus is once you take a closer look at it. Officer Amy Rohrbach of the Bludhaven PD realized this as she hid in the shadows while demented clowns with knives and chains hunted her. Calling for help was out of the question since her phone was crushed by a stampeding two-headed elephant she barely avoided. Fighting was useless after the walrus man rushed her and knocked away her firearm. That just left Amy with sneaking out of this carnival of criminals.
It all started last night. A series of crimes both curious and impossible had been plaguing the entire country over the summer. A powerful drug baron in Coast City was found frozen in solid ice along with every bodyguard in his mansion. All the weapons from a munitions factory in Star City were stolen after every worker mysteriously died of electrocution. A mob of masked assassins suddenly appeared atop a hotel penthouse in Metropolis to kill police informants only to vanish by the time security arrived. Warehouses owned by the Keystone City mob erupted in massive flames before a giant fireball was seen flying away from the inferno.
Perhaps most peculiarly was an hour prior when over a half a ton of contraband from the Bludhaven Police evidence locker vanished without a trace. And by without a trace, that is literal. Amy herself was in the storage room when she saw what happened. The large crate containing the narcotics quickly faded away like it was draped in a cloak of invisibility. She would have been brought up on charges except it turned out that security cameras caught the vanishing act.
The young officer was working on her report and looking through the national criminal database for unexplained criminal phenomenon when she learned of the previous examples. There was no rhyme, reason, or explanation for any of them. She was ready to give up then she saw the teenage son of one of one of her coworkers. She didn't care what he was there for. What interested her was his t-shirt.
He had picked it up at the Circus of Strange earlier the evening as a memento of his fun. The front logo was a ghoulish spectacle of exotic oddities and the unimaginable. Typical slogans. What wasn't typical were the dates and cities on the back signaling the circus' tour across America. They matched perfectly with all the unsolved crimes plaguing the nation.
It was too much of a coincidence so Officer Amy Rohrbach decided to go to the circus. It was one of those extreme circuses that tried to make it look like the whole thing was an acid trap. A circus strong man named Amygdala would crush cinderblocks between his hands and eat the gravel. The fortune teller had some sort of deformity where he was blind but somehow had ten eyeballs on his fingertips. An emancipated twig of a man in a bizarre half rubber gimp suit titled the Electrocutioner who would fry himself with lightning from Tesla coils then laugh manically afterwards.
Even the animal act was out of this world. There was a rhino-size red beetle called Firebug that could snort fire as it scuttled about while a yeti named the Snowman would beat its chest and howl like the savage beast and make ice with its breath. It even displayed the intelligence by chipping human shapes out of the ice. Crude but they were recognizable. But then she took a closer look at one of the ice sculptors and saw a faded and chipped skeleton in one. If it was any other circus, Amy would naturally assume that it was deliberate to scare little kids but she can't think that way this time.
She went backstage to the performers' trailers, passing by odd sights like the bearded woman Khusti bouncing back cannon balls fired into her obese belly and an attractive pair of acrobatic twins named Double Dare that parkour their way to the big top. She paid the latter little thought until she passed by a trailer to see another set of the twins walking into the shadows and emerge with twice the number.
It was strange enough that she would have pursued them but then Officer Rohrbach saw the Spook. He was dressed like a Halloween horror house worker: Green tattered robes that kept his face in darkness, chains that rattled in the wind but somehow stayed silent even as he floated inches off the ground so smoothly that she wasn't sure it was an optical illusion.
The Spook… hovered towards the Ringmaster's tent who was away whipping up the crowds for his freak show of a circus under the big top. The Spook paid no heed to his absence and reached inside his ghoulish cloak and pulled out the very same crate of drugs she saw vanish from police lockup.
"Gotcha." She pulled out her phone to take a picture but that's when her arm was kicked by another Double Dare twin.
"Can't let you do that, honey. Performers need to keep their secrets."
One right cross put the acrobat on her kiester. Both of them.
"What the-?" Amy stood slackjaw seeing the Double Dare girl double with two where there once were one.
"You're in for it now!" Both yelled in unison.
Amy booked right then while freaks and carnies pursued.
Now she was scuttering silently in the shadows since derange circus clowns blocked her escape. Calling for help could work but it would definitely give away her position and odds were that apathetic citizens would just ignore her. She would have to do it on her own.
Safety in numbers would make it harder for them to explain killing her in a crowd. She had to risk it.
"My dear, has anyone ever told you that you have a face for show business? My circus would love to have you for its closing act."
Someone hit Rohrbach back in the head and everything went dark.
The law officer slowly stirred to the cheers of crowds. Her eyes opened and she found herself wearing the Double Dare yellow spandex along with a red wig. She tried to run but found she was chained to a stake with the crowds none the wiser that she was really a prisoner.
And in front of her was the boss of the big top of the criminal carnival hyping up the audience as the charismatic circus ringleader. His voice was proud and eloquent more like a leader than a showman. Dressed in forest green cargo pants and yellow men's dress jacket with a blood red tie, the man definitely left an impression with his striking features.
In that he had none. His head was absent of all features that could distinguish him, leaving the man a blank.
Dr. No-Face, ringleader of the Circus of the Strange.
The giant burning beetle Firebug, the abdominal yeti Snowman, and the deadly dynamo Electrocutioner all faced her with their powers sizzling.
"And our final performance in this wondrous city of Bludhaven: THE MURDER OF A MAIDEN!"
The crowds cheered as she screamed then died in fire, ice, and lightning. The crowds never realized what happened as the Spook descended from on high and pulled another Double Dare twin from his macabre robes. She pirouetted joyfully among Amy's ashes.
Dr. No-Face and his Circus of Strange successfully committed yet another crime on their felonious trek across America. What riches awaited them in their next stop: Gotham City? And how many bodies will it take to get them?
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End Part Nineteen…
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This is how I think BtB (or the next Bat-toon) should have introduced Prof. Pyg by being the twisted ringleader to a twisted circus troupe of super-criminals. I almost had Pyg be the ringleader but since he was already in the show I felt that was a bad decision. It was quite a chore coming up with a new headmaster for a super-freakshow circus. It was going to be Dr. Dedalus and I would have his shadow cape actually give him spider-legs but then I saw a youtube video on Dr. No-Face and he was freaky enough to work well.
This chapter was a bit tricky since it's a villain team instead of a single baddie and I've had a long list of scoundrels waiting to use. I've had design ideas for Electrocutioner, Spook, Snowman, and Firebug but not stories for them but re-reading the Batman & Robin run by Morrison made me notice how strange that it turned out Prof. Pyg was the breakout character despite him originally conceived as the leader of the Circus of Strange. Pyg's been solo since then but his old gang has been MIA.
Inspiration struck so I rounded up all those minor villains I couldn't think up stories for and made them into super-villain CarnEvil with the characters' strangeness cranked up to 11.
I'm pretty proud of how well this turned out. This could actually serve as the plot for a Nightwing movie with his circus background and experience with super-villains as the Boy Wonder offering a good foundation and conflict. Who knows, maybe a professional writer will read it and be inspired.
Some of these chapters I wish I did differently. The Eraser chapter should have just been Egghead. I honestly could just copy & replace the names and make him bald and it would work so much better. Also I should have ditched all the Chief O'Hara stuff for the Wrath chapter. I should have just had him skyping with his wife and make her a DA out to nail crooked cops. That would have worked so much better.
There's not too many of these stories left: Killer Moth, Zodiac Master, and GASP White Rabbit. I know I said I'd never use her but I thought of a good hook that would totally redeem that stupid character. Who would you like to see in the next chapter?
Let me know because after that, I'm thinking about doing a Renew Your Vows fanfic where Batman does marry Catwoman and what their lives would have been like. My pitch is right before Bane broke Batman's back in Knightfall, Selena decided to rob Wayne Manor and just happens to interrupt the fight and help save the day, even help nurse Bruce back to help. It's definitely a lot sweeter than my idea for Lego Batman 2 which deals with Bruce getting empty nest syndrome when Dick, Barbara, and Alfred so he kidnaps this homeless kid named Jason Todd and forces him to be Robin and the poor kid keeps trying to escape him.
It's going to be one of THOSE kind of stories.
So until next time, read and review!