I feel weak

Like I can barely stand

But there's a psychic little kid that needs saving

I can't rest now

BATMAN BEYOND REVISITED

EPISODE:

RESCUE

"Are you sure you want to do this, Jake?" Dick asked over the coms in my mask. "In your condition, you may not be up for a fight."

"Yeah, I'm sure."

The batjet set to hover over the blimp, slowly gliding along with it, I jumped out, spreading out my arms to let the wings in the suit spread out. The new jets on my boots shot out flames and I could feel myself propelling forward, taking a nose-dive.

It's night and the cold air was making me shiver, even with the suit's default temperature being in the upper 80s in farenheight. Snow was falling all around Gotham, painting it a color of pure white. It also made the top of the blimp feel slippery enough that, even though it's a good few hundred feet around, perhaps even a thousand, I should've been more concerned about falling off as I got in through a hatch on the side of it.

It was much warmer on the inside.

I pressed a button on my wrist and saw my hand go invisible with the rest of my body. New and improved stealth. It should stop anyone from hearing anything I say, so I can still talk on the comms, but it won't silence my footsteps. Crouching down and making my way slowly to the wall, I peered around the corner.

The hallway was mostly empty, aside from a guard in front of a door at the end of the hall. Figuring this was as good a place to start as any, I slowly made my way over there, stopping whenever I think I heard him make some sort of noise and managed to slip past him by tossing a smoke capsule down where I came from. Not a lot of smoke would come from it and the capsule is too small to be seen, so he wouldn't think there was an intruder or anything too damaged.

I went through the door, closing it silently, before falling to my feet. I felt very lightheaded and nearly threw up in my mask. I could tell it was the serum doing this to me. I needed to work fast or else this will wind up biting me in the rear end.

I made my way through and continued to search for the girl and this Dinosaur person, though I didn't seem to be getting any closer to finding them. Even using the new HUD in my mask wasn't helping at all. No one was giving off any heat signatures and barely any noise was being picked up. Very strange, since you'd think that someone making animatronic dinosaurs to curbstomb Gotham would have the place lava hot and not very quiet.

I stumbled through room after room, desparately looking when I heard static in my earpiece. Lifting my hand, I pressed the button.

"Jake, it's Inque. I managed to pin point the location of the girl. They did a good job trying to disguise the temperature signatures, but I managed to get a general idea that she's near the bottom levels of the blimp."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Just keep an eye out on your vitals. They keep spiking and then nearly flatlining."

"I'm fine."

"Are you?"

Sighing, I let go of the button and began working my down, distracting, and sometimes knocking out, guards along the way. They all seemed to be regular Wayne-Powers guards, but their armor looked different. It was in the pattern of scales.

I knew immediately something was wrong. I began to run before I was tackled to the ground by at least four other guards and was knocked out before I could get a good look at them. When I woke up, I was in front of the little girl that I talked to when I was knocked out. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. I promised to save her and now here I am, bound to the floor by chains too heavy for me to break, right in front of her. The hero captured.

Behind her, was a very muscular man. He looked deathly pale and his eyes were wide and dark, like he was very mad. And not in the angry way. He didn't say anything at all as he walked around me. His footsteps were eerily quiet. I heard him coughing as he finally spoke up after a few minutes of dead silence.

"So, you're the new Batman I've been hearing so much about? Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed." He stared at me for about ten seconds before walking out of the room. "Not nearly as interesting as I thought you'd be. I can't even be bothered to kill you. I'd have removed your mask, but then that'd make you even more uninteresting, since you're clearly human with no special powers. Just lie there for a while. I'll be back shortly so you can go back to Gotham... after I've turned it to rubble."

His footsteps got quieter the further he walked away and soon there was no sound at all. I looked up to get a closer look at the girl. Her arms were chained to a machine behind her. The machine had a purple orb at the top and along the chains looked like purple sparks, flowing out of the girl and into the strange device. She was clearly in pain, but the disappointment seemed to leave her face.

"You need to get out of here, now." She spoke weakly in a soft whisper, her voice sounding very distorted. "Even if you destroy the machine, he has what he needs already. You need to focus on Dino-freak."

"I would, but I can't exactly move." I exhasperated.

She shut her eyes and I could see her straining to focus as the energy stopped going through her chains and towards me as my own broke. I stood up and quickly ran over to her, but she shook her head, telling me to go. I had to remember to ask why she couldn't have saved herself earlier. I ran off in the direction that Dino went, after going invisible. I heard another beeping in my ears and I pressed the button.

"Jake. Stop. Your heart won't be able to handle the strain if you fight." I heard Inque speak.

"Then what do you suggest I do?"

"Play it smart. The suit is detecting this man is stronger than physically capable, but his brain is deteriorating. I'm looking at files here and it looks like he's a fan of an old foe of Bruce's. Killer Croc. Except he's not making himself into a dinosaur."

"He's trying to make his animatronics into living dinosaurs using the girl's powers. So how do I play this, then? Try to free her first? Or destroy his animatronics?"

"That's up to you."

I sighed and took my finger off the button as I creeped into the next room silently and what I saw horrified me. A thirty foot tall animatronic dinosaur. A T-Rex to be exact. Except its fangs and claws looked a lot sharper than they should be and the arms were far too long.

I decided that, to take this thing out, I had to get inside of it and destroy all I could, so I crept over and looked over it for a way inside. I saw an open panel large enough to fit myself in on the back of the tail and slid myself inside, crawling through many wires and metal bars when I felt a vibration around me. Movement. The thing had come to life and I had to try my hardest to duck around various cogs and keep myself from getting tangled.

"How funny, Batman. It wasn't going to be that easy."

Dammit.

The damn thing had an anti-infiltration feature.

I swang from pipe to pipe, climbing my way up to the head, which had to be where the more vital features were. I was luckily right and, avoiding constant danger, I managed to destroy everything in this madman's toy's brain... Which only made him laugh as I crawled out.

"Of course, after all, you wouldn't think it was that easy, would you, Batman? Finding the real threat?"

Shock overcame my body as I realized...

I pressed my finger to my ear.

"INQUE! BARBARA! GRAYSON!"

"Jake, it's a decoy! The real animatronic is down here! And it's much worse than the one that your feed showed us!"

"Show me!"

I could hear Barbara typing quickly on the keyboard as images flashed on my screen.

I couldn't believe what I saw.