The Search For Johnny Cage
Ch5: Batman
Johnny Cage's Los Angeles Home 4:30 AM, two days after his abduction Batman is investigating the empty house. He walks into Johnny's home office and examines the desk to see a framed picture of him and a young Cassie, the script for the Ninja Mime revival, and a football signed former NFL quarterback turned Savior of the Universe; Flash Gordon. While Batman continues to sift through the room to see if he could get any valuable insight as to who took Cage and fought the hero community to a standstill Oracle radios in to check on her mentor.
Oracle: You find anything?
Batman: Negative, whoever attacked the Hall doesn't seem have been in the house. I checked the surrounding houses as well, they're all occupied.
Oracle: What exactly are you looking for? I doubt the people who took Johnny would bring him back to his house.
Batman: Whoever took Cage attacked him, his agent, and a GJ Joe operative if you read that supplemental report I sent you. They showed a clear interest in Cage and were trying to draw him out.
Back in the Clock Tower, Oracle pulls up a TMZ article of Johnny Cage, his agent Franklin Clinton, GI Joe Operative and California native Craig McPherson AKA Rock N Roll, and Franklin's long time associates Lamar Davis and Michael De Santa. Barbara begins to run facial recognition on all of them. Information on all of them begins to flood her screen but immediately starts going through Craig's file.
Oracle: Craig McPherson. Codename: Rock N Roll. Lived in California his entire life, was the roady for Jem & the Holograms, GI Joe machine gunner and demolitions expert, AND sensitive information about him was released as apart of the mass GI Joe hack, but how does this tie into Johnny?
Batman: It wasn't just GI Joe that got hacked. SHIELD, ARGUS, BPRD, IMF, CIA, and others were apart of a mass hack.
Oracle starts pulling up information regarding the hack and sees the names of multiple facilities and multiple names of government agents begin to pop up. She sees the profile of Jack Bauer, the address of a Helicarrier repair yard, and multiple other points and people of interest. Oracle begins to notice a trend and sorts them all by address and place of residence.
Oracle: All these different agents and locations they're all somewhere in SoCal! So whoever did this was compiling a list of potential targets to get Johnny's attention-
Batman: And the Joe was the best bet of getting his attention. Some of the best hackers we know have been had a hard time cracking the code.
Oracle: Well lucky for you we have a development on that front. Some of the best hackers on this world, a few other worlds, and myself have been working on this. We think we know who took Cage, a terrorist organization called Shin-Tan. They're lead by a Ming Orloff, real interesting codename "The Yellow Shadow"... Gonna have to have Cisco think of something different.
The Dark Knight doesn't pay attention to any of this however, instead a woman standing on the rooftop of the house next-door. This woman is wearing a black suit jacket, black slacks, a white button up, a red tie, and a rabbit mask made of paper. This is Celia Penderghast, she mockingly waves at Batman and without hesitation he jumps through the window breaking it. The chase has now begun, Celia begins to run away with gleeful expression that can be seen even through her mask. As the two of them jump off of Beverly Hills rooftops Batman shoots his grapnel at her in the hopes of pulling her in but instead she turns pieces of paper and is seemingly swept away by a light breeze. Batman stands cautious waiting for someone to strike, Celia reforms behind Batman thinking she's got the upper hand but that's when Batman roundhouses her causing the conduit to fall into the street below. She quickly turns into paper and reforms just as quickly so she doesn't hurt herself and Batman glides down and meets her in the street. The Dark Knight and the masked conduit have stand off.
Celia: Pretty spry for an old man!
Batman: Where is he Celia?!
Celia: You know me?
Batman: I read your file, you're the only prisoner from Curdun Cay Station unaccounted for. I know what Augustine did to you, and I know you're an orphan. Tell me what you know about Cage and I'll let you go.
Hearing all of this enrages Celia, memories of being indoctrinated by Augustine come rushing forward which only makes her angrier by the second. She balls her hand into a fist and begins to form shurikens to throw. She then asks the vigilante "What makes you think I know where he is?"
Batman: Why else would you be here if you weren't an accomplice?
Celia: Oh I never said I wasn't an accomplice!
She then throws the paper shuriken which Batman narrowly dodges, the Dark Knight turns only for Celia to no longer be there but instead just clippings of paper and origami doves where she stood. Batman scans the the paper with his visor but isn't getting abnormal readings, so he turns back to Johnny's house and continues his investigation of Cage's home. Barbra then radios back in now that Bruce is able to get back to the investigation at hand.
Oracle: That sounded fun.
Batman: An unneeded distraction was what that was. I'm assuming you-
Oracle: Hacked local security cameras and watched the whole thing? I sure did. There haven't been many sightings of her since Delsin Rowe shut down the DUP, as far as I'm aware she had no ties with the Shin-Tan until tonight.
Batman: But a burning hatred for the government and the masked heroes who didn't publicly take a stand against the tyranny of the DUP.
Oracle: We were all an thin ice after the SRA got repealed.
Batman: Doesn't matter, not to her anyway. No doubt this Ming character recruited her with the promise of being at the top.
Oracle: So why send her to his home if they already have Johnny as their prisoner?
Batman continues to sift through papers on the desk and a notebook titled "Caged Fighters", Batman opens the book to find it covered in Cage's hand writing within. He opens it to see note, newspaper clippings, and blurry pictures of several different well known superheroes that included not only Batman but Flash Gordon, Iron Man, and Invincible. He flips a few more pages and Batman starts noticing across various spies and soldiers many of whom are familiar to him such as Jack Ryan, Ethan Hunt, and then finally he comes across the page of Cassie Cage. This page has a picture of Johnny and his daughter wearing a prom dress and another picture of the two of them fighting robots in some sort of training simulation and that's when Batman comes to a dark realization.
Batman: They're want his daughter too. That's why Celia came here. She wanted to bring her back to Ming.
Oracle: Why not just take her at the Hall?
Batman: Their plans must've changed.
Oracle: You don't think-
Batman: It's a possibility we need to consider but I doubt it. He's one of the biggest stars on the planet and he's more often than not on the front line's defending Earth. He's too valuable to kill, Ming knows that.
The Dark Knight takes the notebook with him and jumps out from the broken window and throws a cryo-gell pod to cover up the window. He radios Oracle, "Send an anonymous message to Damage Control LA to Cage's residence. Have them send the invoice to Hall and I'll take it from there". Batman then calls the Batwing to pick him up an fly off into the rising sun.
A few days later in the Clocktower, Bruce Wayne straight from his own day job exits the elevator into Oracle's command center. Barbara Gordon is hard at work with four different computer screens open and several holographic projections in front of her desk. On the computers is Daily Bugle article about Johnny Cage being kidnapped at the Memorial Event at the Hall of Justice, Celia Penderghast's mugshot as a young girl taken by the DUP, security footage of the fight between Batman and Celia, and a list titled "Possible Locations of Johnny Cage" with all the locations listed crossed out. Barbra turns around happy to see her mentor.
Barbra: Good to see you! How was your trip LA? You must've had some fun while you were out there.
Bruce: Do you have any leads?
Barbara: On Location? Negative but I've been running some of those names in that notebook… "Caged Fighters", god what a horrendous name for a team but take a look at this.
Oracle presses a button on her key board and a map of the world pop up with red dots on the American cities of Hartford, CT, Gotham City, NJ New York City, NY, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, Great Plains, ND, and finally one in Dublin, Ireland.
Bruce: I thought you said you didn't have leads in on his location.
Barbara: I don't, these are the locations are of those on that list. Johnny wanted to put a team together and I think we should put this team together to find him.
Bruce: Why would I put a team together?
Barbara: We'll from where I'm sitting, Shin-Tan fought off most of the hero community to stand still when they attacked the Hall, we might need a specialized task force if we're even going to get a lead on where a Johnny might be.
Bruce goes up to the holographic screen and presses on the red dot over Gotham City and it expands into a map of Gotham with three more dots. Oracle presses the enter button on her keyboard and holographic projections of Batman, Sara Lance an ex White Canary Assassin, and Chell Johnson survivor of Aperture Science.
Oracle: I read your report when Johnny came into town. A former assassin and a survivor from Aperture, not too shabby. The Aperture girl is a little new I don't have anything on her, except some classified documents about what really happened there.
Batman: They made an impression on Johnny, I'll reach out but what about these other dots on the East Coast?
Oracle uses her mouse to click on the other dots, the holograms change into projections of Flash Gordon and Luke Cage.
Oracle: He's really keeping it in house, he's known Flash just as long as he's known you and we know the reason why he picked Luke.
Oracle clicks on the map and more holograms appear
Oracle: The dot in Great Plains is supposed to be Turok not sure how much you know about him, the San Francisco mummies I've been gathering reports on since they first were spotted, GI Joe "Rock N Roll" loves out in LA when he's not on deployment, Prince Valiant I believe lives with Mandrake if I'm not mistaken, Kim Wu was one of the martial artists that was apart of the effort of repelling Gargos, and then finally this guy takes up half of the "Ghost Rider" sightings in the UK… my paranormal contacts say he's called "Skulduggery Pleasant".
Holograms of the following heroes all stand together in front of Batman and he closely examines all of them.
Batman: I know about Wu and the GI Joe, can't say I'm familiar too familiar with most of this group.
Oracle: And here I thought you knew everything! Computer! Pull up Network files "Son of Stone", "Bay Area Mummies", and "Skeletal Sorcerer".
The computer begins to project holographic data on the assortment of heroes. For the mummies an assortment of video clips and newspaper clippings, while in the case of Turok paintings on walls of him fighting an assortment of dinosaurs and other monsters, and for Skulduggery pictures of him trying his best to blend in and pictures from magic newspaper outlets.
Oracle: The Mummies and Turok really only interact with our crowd when there's a world wide alien invasion or some big threat rears it's face as seen here:
Clips of the group of mummies and Turok fighting off various aliens including Skrull, Parademons, and more.
Oracle: The magic community in the UK is very tight lipped but my sources indicate that Skulduggery and his associates have saved the world just as many times as any of us. This guy
Batman: So how did Johnny learn about them?
Oracle: I'm assuming that connections to a Thunder God who once every generation had the task of recruiting warriors to an inter dimensional MMA tournament, you might learn a thing or two about the world you're sworn to protect.
The Dark Knight closely examines all the holograms and nods to himself realizing that the majority of this group is comprised of individuals that Shin-Tan are unlikely to be aware of, realizing this to be a strategic advantage he turns to his former protege with a look of approval.
Bruce: I'll go meet with Chell and Canary tonight. I'll start looking for them if you start looking for them but if I'm going to do this I need you looking for Johnny.
Barbara: I've been monitoring a handful of different criminal communication networks and have came up with nothing. The only "lead" right now is a board game shop in San Francisco.
The former Batgirl pulls up security footage of "Gary's Games & Glory" in San Francisco and the two watch the footage unimpressed. Bruce turns to Barbara saying "Don't rule it out just yet, this could be useful intel. I'll be in San Francisco anyway based off this list anyway". Barbara nods and the two of them immediately get to work.
Later that night on the rooftop of the Iceberg Lounge, Chell Johnson a survivor from the "Aperture Labs incident" and Sara Lance former member of the White Canary Order are fighting the Penguin and his goons. One of Penguin's henchmen runs at the former assassin but Chell shoots a portal under his feet and then shoots another portal down into the street below causing the henchman to fall into the street and then crash back down. Penguin begins to shoot at Chell with the machine gun in his umbrella, but due to the leg braces provided by Aperture she's able to jump and dodge the bullets with ease. This infuriates the crime boss that he doesn't even notice that Batman has now glided behind him and is standing over him.
Penguin: Sit still! Do you have any idea who you're messing with?!
Batman then sweeps the ground out from under him and then slams back onto the rooftop, Cobblepot lays on the ground writhing in pain. Chell nods at Batman and the two of them turn to see Sara beating down on the last Penguin thug and perhaps enjoying it a little too much. Batman then grabs her by the shoulder forcing her to turn around.
Batman: I need you both to help me rescue a friend.
Canary and Chell both look at each other and then look at Batman, with stern looks in their eyes but looks of approval. They will help Batman in his efforts to rescue his friend Johnny Cage. Twelve Hours Later in New Haven, CT, Flash Gordon stands over the desk of Dr. Hans Zarkov, the scientist wants to show Flash a strange energy reading he picked up but not the energy reading that would lead Flash to his missing friend Johnny.
Dr. Zarkov: I am telling you Flash something more powerful then a nuclear explosion just went off in this planet! Look!
The doctor shows long distance footage of the Planet Ryut in Space Sector 666 and a strange white energy going off that can be seen from these satellites. Zarkov has a gleeful but horrified expression on his face, an expression only mad scientists seem to have. Flash looks at his colleague's face and how captivated he is by this but Flash is frustrated by this being one of the main figures in this manhunt for Johnny and getting called all this way for something completely unrelated.
Flash Gordon: When I said "Be on the lookout for strange energy readings" I meant on Earth! Not on dead planets Zarkov!
Dr. Zarkov: So what are you saying? Are you not the savior of the universe? This is IMPORTANT!
Flash Gordon: I'm sure it is but let the Lanterns, Guardians, Nova, or even that Lombax I've heard so much about can deal with it. My priority right now is finding my friend.
A voice from behind them says "I have a lead on Johnny Cage's location", Gordon and Zarkov turn around to see Batman standing beside him is Chell Johnson and The White Canary. Gordon and Zarkov both turn to each other unsure if they should be concerned that they just snuck in here no problem or if they should welcome them as they're all the same side. Flash takes the initiative and steps up to speak with the Dark Knight and his two associates who he's unfamiliar with.
Flash: Batman, I wasn't expecting you... What can I help you with?
Batman: Where is Valiant?
Flash Gordon: He's on Mongo right now-
Batman: I'm going to need yours and his help finding Johnny. I'll explain on the way, but we'll be making stops along the way to get the others.
Flash then looks confused and asks the Dark Knight "What others?", Batman then hands Flash Gordon the piece of paper Johnny wrote out his list of ideal teammates. Flash Gordon begins to read it over and sees names he recognizes such as himself, Prince Valiant, Batman, Kim Wu, Luke Cage, and the GI Joe Rock N Roll. Flash continues to read the list and starts reading names he's unfamiliar such Skulduggery, Turok, and "Armon the Mummy in San Francisco". He looks up at Batman baffled that this loner would be assembling this team.
Batman: I've heard the most accessible way to Mongo is a gateway at Mandrake's home Xanadu, can you take us there once we get everyone.
Flash Gordon: Umm.. yeah sure why not. Excuse me doc, I'll be back!
Dr. Zarkov: What?! You can't just leave! We need to know what's going on with Ryut?!
Flash Gordon takes off his in space ship while Batman follows behind in the Batwing due to their being more room Chell and Canary go with Flash. They soar through the skies and despite having the faster vehicle Flash follows behind the Batwing as Batman is taking the initiative in recruiting this team. Flash then starts a video call with the vigilante in order to understand what's going on.
Flash Gordon: Alright so what's the first stop in this little tour we're going on?
Batman: New York to recruit Luke, once we have him I'll bring the Batwing back to Gotham and then we'll be making our next stop.
Flash Gordon: What makes you think that he'll just drop everything he's doing to help us? Tony is really the only Avenger that Johnny is friends with.
Batman: Luke is an honorable man. He'll come around. I suggest getting acquainted with your two passengers while I work on locating the other Cage, set a course for New York.
The video calls ends and Flash turns on his auto pilot. He turns his chair around to look at his two new allies; a former assassin and an agile problem solver with portal gun. The two advanced aircrafts steer into the clouds and are off to located the hero formally known as Power Man and the original Hero for Hire... Luke Cage!