Chapter Seven: Concert, Chaos, and a Close Call
(AN: Batman is not mine)
It was time. He had watched the guards all day, acting normally, until Marks' shift came up. It was almost midnight when the man came to his cell door and slid the package of venom through the slot under the door.
Bane picked it up and carefully pried the box open. A terrible sneer came onto his face as he carefully lifted the capsules from their snug hollows in the grey foam that had encased them.
He slipped one capsule into the slot in his wrist guard and closed the small compartment with a soft 'click', and then he pushed the button that would send the venom pulsing through his veins like fire.
RJ and Tim had front row seats, the best in the house. They were accompanied by Barbara and Dick, but neither of them minded very much.
As they had entered the concert hall, RJ had 'stumbled' and placed her hand against the frame of the door, setting up her plan B. She did it so quickly and smoothly, that no one thought anything of it as she regained her balance with the help of Tim and continued her way to their seats with him.
Settling into her seat beside Tim, she smiled at him as the lights dimmed. The concert was called: White Lightning, so RJ was not surprised that, instead of fire, the effects were with electricity. It looked like Cassidy wasn't completely over her fear of fire.
The concert started with an explosion of electrical energy, flashing blue, red, green and other bright colors. Cassidy appeared in the center of it all, on a platform that rose above it all.
RJ had to say, the effects were spectacular, and Cassidy was a good singer. All in all, she was having a wonderful time, until the last song, when someone decided to crash the party. But, surprisingly, it wasn't Firefly.
It was Livewire. It appeared that the electrically charged villainess had come all the way from Metropolis just to mess with Cassidy's concert.
She made her entrance with a literal bang, blowing up one of the large glass orbs that housed dancing streaks of miniature lightning and showering the whole front row with shards of glass.
There were screams of surprise and fear as people tried to shield themselves from the flying glass. RJ and Tim both used their jackets as highly effective shields, coming out unharmed, though RJ did have some fragments of glass in her hair.
When the glass stopped flying and people looked up at the stage, they saw Livewire standing in the remains of the orb, the remnants of the glass still curving up, it's razor-sharp edges and points glinting in the stage lighting and the sparks that Livewire was giving off, making her look like she was standing on a pedestal in a lightning orb, like the one she had just destroyed. It actually looked pretty cool, if only she wasn't a dangerous criminal.
"Hey, babies," she called in her obnoxious voice, "How's about we make some sparks fly!" The hair on the back of RJ's neck stood on end, a nasty feeling forming in the pit of her stomach as Livewire lifted her hands and began to glow with electrical energy.
RJ and Tim looked at each other and said, at the same time, "Duck and cover!" Barb, Dick and quite a few other people followed their lead as they dove under their seats. And not a fraction of a second to soon, because they had just managed to get under their chairs when every light in the entire concert area exploded.
People were screaming and scrabbling for the exits as Livewire laughed with glee at their fear and pain. Many people fell and got cut on the glass that now littered the entire floor.
RJ, Tim, Dick and Barb came out from under their seats and headed for the doors nearest to them. As they made their way through the panicked crowd, RJ got herself separated from the others and headed for the ladies room.
Once inside, RJ changed into her Blue-Jay costume and ran back out into the theater just in time to see Robin get blasted off the stage area and into the seats near her.
"Not having much luck?" Blue-Jay asked, helping him up. Robin shook his head, causing glass shards to fall out of his hair and onto the floor, "None, she's pure electricity! Nothing we have with us can stop her!" he looked at her, "Any ideas?" Blue-Jay smirked in reply, saying, "If we don't have anything with us, we'll have to improvise." She looked past Robin and he turned, to see the emergency fire hose mounted on the wall. A smirk identical to Blue-Jays was on his face a second later.
Nightwing and Batgirl were having a very hard time against Livewire. Batgirl had fought her before, but the things that could stop her were not within her reach, and Livewire knew better than to let them get away from her. She forced them to stay within her range, and made them constantly dodge her attacks, wearing them down, they soon wouldn't be able to dodge her attacks.
Nightwing had just done a back flip in order to avoid getting fried, when he landed on several large shards of broken glass. While the glass was unable to cut through his shoe, it caused him to slip and fall. Normally, he would have easily caught himself, but Livewire had sent another bolt of lightning his way and the only way to avoid it was to let himself fall. Unfortunately, he didn't realize just how close he was to a row of seating until his head made contact with the metal armrest of a chair.
The force of the blow left Nightwing stunned, blood flowing quickly from a wound on the side of his head, and leaving him vulnerable to Livewire's attacks. "Ha, ha, got'cha now!" she yelled, triumphantly, gathering an orb of electrical energy in the hand that was not shooting lightning at Batgirl.
Livewire raised her hand and threw the orb at Nightwing. If she had thrown it a second earlier, she would have undoubtedly killed him, but at the exact moment she threw it, Batman arrived.
He only just managed to snatch Nightwing out of danger and pulled him behind a row of seats farther from her as the chairs where Nightwing had just been exploded when the orb hit them.
"Well, well, well!" Livewire said, "What have we here? Ooh, it looks like daddy's come to save his brats." She sneered at Batman, "Well, I guess that means that now I get to kill all of you in one go! HA!"
Livewire sent a bolt of lightning at Batman, who dodged it and pulled out a batarang. He threw it at her but he shouldn't have bothered, the projectile never reached her, the energy coming off of her shielding her from it.
Batman grimaced as he dodged the lightning, thinking hard, 'She has been going at this for too long, she should have run out of energy by now!' And then he realized: Livewire was still standing in the remains of the lightning orb, which was still on, and it was charging her as she used energy. They had to get her off the orb, or they wouldn't get anywhere.
As he dodged the next blast, Batman's mind worked furiously to come up with a way of getting her off her energy source. But he was distracted by a voice coming from the main entrance, a young woman calling, "TIM! Where are you?" Looking around, he felt shock course through him and his eyes went wide. Because, the girl standing in the doorway was RJ Falcon and, as he watched, Blue-Jay rushed over to her and pushed her back out the doors.
As Robin was distracted by getting the fire-hose down, Blue-Jay quickly took a small controller out of her belt. It had a screen and actually looked rather like a blackberry. Scrolling quickly through the options, she selected one and activated her 'back up plan'.
The object that she had placed on the door frame before the concert sparked to life and projected a three-d image of RJ Falcon into the doorway. It was a hologram, and while it was not as refined as Blue-Jay hoped to make it, it would do for this instance, as no one would have time to look at details, such as the fact that the fake RJ's hair was more white than platinum blond. Blue-Jay hoped any small differences like that would be passed off as effects of the lighting. The hologram, combined with the recorder Blue-Jay had made, allowed her to make the fake RJ look around frantically and yell, "TIM! Where are you!"
Blue-Jay had to suppress a slight smile as she ran to 'RJ' and pretended to push her back outside. The look of shock on Batman's face was something that she would never forget.
After snatching the imager and the recorder from the doorframe, Blue-jay hurried back to Robin, tucking the objects into her belt as she did so.
She reached Robin just as Livewire raised her hands, both charged with electrical energy, and prepared to strike the frozen Batman. Robin aimed the hose and Blue-Jay used her whole weight to turn the wheel all the way around.
Water shot across the auditorium with such force, that Robin had to struggle to keep a hold on the hose until Blue-Jay was able to come and take hold of it with him.
The stream of water hit Livewire with brutal force and she screamed as she was blasted off of the remains of the lightning orb and into the wall behind her. Her body convulsed in the water, sending bolts of lightning out in random directions as she was 'electrocuted' by her own energy. After a few moments, Blue-Jay let go of the hose and turned off the water.
Livewire slid to the floor, out cold.
The two small teens abandoned the fire hose and headed down towards the other three. Batgirl was breathing hard, her hands on her knees, but she was uninjured. Blue-Jay ignored Batman for the time being and hurried over to Nightwing.
The Arial Avenger groaned and tried to sit up as she reached him. She helped the still slightly dazed young man into one of the undamaged seats and pulled out her flashlight.
The wound wasn't deep, but it was a heavy bleeder and needed stitches, now. Blue-Jay handed Robin her flashlight as he, Batman and Batgirl came over, and took several things from her belt.
After the incident with the hyenas, Blue-Jay had had Pierre begin to teach her the basics in emergency medical treatment, such as stitches. Nightwing winced as she cleaned the wound with the same type of disinfectant that Batman had used on her shoulder, but she knew that this was going to hurt a lot more before it was over.
She looked at him apologetically as she threaded the needle. "Sorry, but this is going to hurt." She said. Nightwing grimaced and said, "Just do it and get it over with." She nodded and leaned in.
Nightwing clenched his teeth as she worked and she felt the corner of her mouth quirk up slightly at his refusal to cry-out in front of them.
She was careful, and did it quickly and efficiently. Nightwing winced every time the needle pierced his skin but forced himself to remain still, so as to let her get it done without distraction.
Finally, she used a small knife to cut the thread and cleaned the side of his face gently before wrapping the wound with gauze.
Once she had finished patching him up, she sat back and pulled her gloves back on, having removed them to make it easier to stitch him up.
Nightwing sat up a little straighter, "Thanks." He said, softly, Blue-Jay smiled slightly at him, "Don't mention it. Just because you're not fond of me doesn't mean I won't do my best to watch your back." He looked at her as she balanced on the armrest of the chair and back-flipped over the other three.
When she landed, Robin turned to face her and asked, "What happened to RJ, I heard her call me?" "I told her to go home, that you would stop by to check on her. So it looks like you have somewhere to be." Robin's eyes went wide and he bolted for a side door.
Batman, Nightwing and Batgirl watched him go, before turning back to Blue-Jay, only to find that she was gone.
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