ISSUE 11:
Ryan turned up the collar on his coat as he exited the Station for the last time. He was angry, furious; rage filled his body as he came to terms with what had just happened. In the space of an hour, he'd lost a lead on a criminal organisation, lost a suspect and criminal to the corrupt system that was Gotham Central Police Department and quit his job.
He turned his head to see Lil' Jon, the small criminal who he'd just arrested and lost to the Commissioner, getting into a long black limousine. He was with the Commissioner who was talking to him like they were best friends. The Commissioner opened the door and Lil' Jon went to get in when he saw the scowling Ryan.
He grinned and waved at him. "Bye Detective and thanks for $5,000!"
Lil' Jon got in and the Commissioner waved goodbye to him and then closed the door. The car slowly pulled away and Ryan good tell that Jon was watching out of the back window of the elongated car.
The Commissioner turned and walked back up the steps. As he passed Ryan he said, "Goodnight Detective Connolly."
"Goodnight, sir," Ryan growled, a strange fury in his voice as he said 'sir'.
That's when an idea flashed through his head. Ryan Connolly was going off the grid and Nightwing was coming back on. He'd just quit everything holding him down and now he could devote himself to his cause. And his first mission was to have a nice little chat with the man in the limousine that was coming out of the pay which was never coming to him.
Lil' Jon was so glad he hadn't given the Police the details of the organisation. If he had then he wouldn't be sitting in a long, comfortable, limousine guzzling champagne which was already prepaid for; well it was coming out of the Detective's wages.
He popped the cork on the second champagne bottle and leaned back into the comfortable leather sofa which ran along the edge of the decked out car. He wished someone was in here to share the ride with him but he just shrugged it off and kept on drinking.
He sat in the automobile, thinking about how the organisation had changed his life and how that now he could afford to buy a limousine on a whim. He was finally in control of his life and that wasn't going to change any time soon.
THUNK! Something hit the back of the car, Jon sat up immediately, almost dropping the long bottle which he was already necking down. He instantly stumbled to the inter-com button and pressed it down hard.
"What the fuck was that?" he screamed.
"I don't know sir," the driver said, slightly nervous.
"Well fucking find out!"
"Shh," said a voice coming from the shadows.
Suddenly the top window rolled back over and Jon felt something hard hit his chest. He looked down to see something black stuck to his chest and a red light was attached.
"That's a bomb and the button is in my gauntlet," the voice told him. "Answer my questions and I'll let you go."
"Who are you?"
"Turn off the inter-com and we'll talk."
Lil' Jon did as he was told, moving from the inter-com, he asked, "Are you the Bat?"
"No I'm not," the voice said. He then moved out of the dark and into the light. He had sandy brown hair which was dark with wet from the rain, he had a strange looking black face mask, a black suit with a blue image on his chest and on his wrists were long gauntlets which were navy. He wasn't terrifying like the Bat but he looked just as formidable. "But you're going to wish I was."
"What's this on my chest?"
"It's a bomb without power to blow and hole in your chest and leave me unharmed."
"What do you want?"
"I want information," the man growled at him. "You just escaped Police custody on bail, how did you do that so quickly?"
"How do you know that?"
"I'm a Detective, I have my resources."
"Detective?"
"I'm not with the Police. I work with the Bat and if I don't like what you say, I'll call him in."
"No please, don't do that!"
"Well answer my questions," the man dressed in black commanded. "How did you get out on bail in barely under an hour?"
"I'm connected," the man replied, clearly scared of the man or the prospect of meeting the Bat again. "I know people, who know people, who know other people. They got me out of the Police because they own the Police."
"No one owns the Police."
"That's what you think," Lil' Jon chuckled. "The people I know own everything and know everybody."
"And who are they?"
"The Lig-" Lil' Jon was cut off by a bullet through the head. His body flopped over dead and the champagne bottle hit the floor.
"Shit," Nightwing mumbled. "Did you get that Bruce?"
"Yes and we have recorded evidence that you didn't kill him," his mentor said through the communications device in Nightwing's mask. "The audio is also perfect after the device you put on his chest."
Nightwing opened the sky roof and hauled himself on top of the car. "I thought that was a nice touch, why would I blow him up, fear overruled his head."
"Good deduction, now get after that shooter, I'll be with as soon as I can."
Nightwing motioned and set his gauntlets to grapple hook mode. He fired off the compressed gas device and rocketed off the expensive car containing the dead corpse and flew through the air with rapid speed.
He soared through the sky and used his lenses to lock onto a lone man, carrying what looked like a wrist mounted gun, running along a rooftop.
Gotcha, he thought as he unhooked the grapple and extended his wings, using his momentum to fly through the air and soar towards the rooftop. He navigated himself above the running man and watched as he continued sprinting, not noticing Nightwing above him.
He nosedived to the ground and landed on top of the assassin. He flattened the man to the ground and jumped to his feet. "Who are you?" he barked.
The assassin was silent, he rolled over and held up his strange arm mounted device. He opened fire, bullets soared through the air and Nightwing instantly flattened himself to the ground, producing a batarang from his utility belt.
He tossed the weapon and slyly watched to see the leather straps, that secured the device onto his arm, were cut into multiple pieces. The weapon slipped off his forearm and clattered on the floor.
"Shit!" the man exclaimed, through his metallic head mask that covered his whole head. He jumped to his feet and turned to see a helicopter coming towards the building, his rescue.
Nightwing jumped up and watched as the man dressed in a black costume with a metallic head and a red lens covering one eye, turned and sprinted to the edge of the building. He was either going to jump or hitch a ride on the helicopter that was impossibly close.
No you don't, he thought as he sprinted after him. He saw that a rope ladder was coming out of the bottom, he was really against the clock. He kept running, trying to push himself but, he was too late.
The assassin jumped onto the ladder and the helicopter turned and moved off.
"Bruce!" Nightwing exclaimed down the communications device in the mask. "He's getting away on a helicopter."
"No he's not," Bruce replied.
That's when Nightwing heard turbines behind him. He turned to see the Batwing, finally getting its first flight out.
The Batwing was a large plane which was shaped like a bat, large, black and metallic. It was basically a bulkier version of a fighter jet.
The top of the jet popped open and Nightwing saw the Bat sitting in the pilot's seat. He grinned at the cowl covered vigilante and ran towards the flying machine. He jumped into the co-pilots seat and the top of the plan folded back over them to create a dark cockpit with neon controls and read out screens.
"This is freaking awesome," Nightwing grinned.
"Buckle up," the Bat growled. "We have to stop that helicopter."
Nightwing buckled himself in with multiple straps and the Bat pushed down a heavy glowing blue lever and the Batwing sped off across the sky, using thrusters and new vibration and magnetism technology to increase its speed.
The Bat had clearly mastered the controls of the plane, that was his nature, as he pilot the craft low and navigated past sky scrapers and apartment blocks. He decided to use the below the helicopter strategy, right now they had the element of surprise.
"So who the hell was that?" Nightwing asked, checking the read outs from the screens around him.
"That was an assassin Deadshot," the Bat told him. "He is connected to a criminal organisation that wants to stay secret so they hired Deadshot, an expert marksman who never misses, to keep it that way."
"Okay, so we'll just hand them over to Gordon with the video and audio evidence."
"Yes, though I have a feeling it could be passed through Detective Connolly."
"No it can't," Nightwing told him, adjusting a dial on the nearest neon control panel. "Detective Connolly's dead."
"You quit didn't you."
"Yes, after we lost Lil' Jon to the Commissioner, I realised that I couldn't keep going on with that amount of bull shit."
"Fair enough but we could've talked about this."
"No we couldn't have, I know now that I can't divide my time, I need to become Nightwing; we need to be one so that I can stop this corruption spreading."
"No you don't," the Bat said, using the cameras to check above him, the helicopter was still there. "I made that mistake and it's like a hole; it'll consume you until you are nothing more than a man in a suit. You need diversity and that's something I can't teach you."
"Well if being in that hole saves Gotham then I'll take the hole."
"I can see you're not going to see sense so I give up."
The Bat looked at another screen and gripped the pilot's controls and steered upwards, ready for a full blown assault on the helicopter. "Get ready," he said grimly.
"What the fuck is that?" Deadshot screamed, tearing off his metallic mask; revealing his pale skin and slicked back black hair.
"Looks like some sort of...bat," the helicopter co-pilot muttered. "It's him, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
"Arm the fricking guns then you retard!" the pilot shouted, trying to look behind him.
"Deadshot, we need you on a gun," the co-pilot said, getting out his seat and sliding one door to the side.
"My pleasure," Deadshot grinned to him, sliding the other door and pushing the large Gatling gun on a run way next to it into the open doorway which was rushing with air.
The co-pilot and the assassin strapped themselves to the gun and clicked the rounds into place. "Time to die you sonofabitch!" screamed the co-pilot opening fire on the rotating rapid fire weapon.
"They've got Gatling guns," Nightwing informed the Bat shaped vigilante.
"Yeah I saw," the Bat said grimly. "Arm the sound cannons."
"Are you sure?" Nightwing asked unsure. "Not the machine guns."
"No," the Bat snapped. "I put the guns in as a precaution but we are better than them, we don't have to use them and they do. That's the difference between us and them."
"And the fact we wear masks," Nightwing joked with a smile.
"What was that?"
"Nothing Bruce," Nightwing replied, charging up the sound cannons. "Open fire?"
"Hold your fire," the Bat said, trying to avoid the bullets but the plane was massive, and luckily the armour could take pretty all ammunition possible.
The Bat piloted the ship over the top of them and slowly aimed the ship downwards at them. "Fire!"
Nightwing set the sonic cannons on the helicopter which was trying to get out from under them. The sonic waves hit the rotors first and then ripped off the Gatling guns, nearly putting out the people who were firing them.
The helicopter slowly began to fall out of the sky. From inside the Batwing, Nightwing could hear them screaming as they fell to their deaths.
But the Bat was about preventing death, that was his code and he always had a plan. He flicked multiple switches across the glowing neon control panel and Nightwing watched as he deployed multiple magnetic coils which stuck to the broken flying machine and grabbed them from the force of gravity.
"Nice one Batsy," Nightwing smiled.
"Don't call me that," the Bat groaned. "Now let's get these guys to the Station and then get back to the Cave. We still need to talk."
"Sure," Nightwing replied, powering down the cannons and powering up the thrusters for a full sprint to the Station and back.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
So yeah, this was Issue 11 in the long saga. Now I did plan for more of a fight sequence in this but I decided to shorten it down and add another rogue to the gallery which is slowly forming in this new DC Universe. I hope you enjoyed it anyway and we have something coming up quite soon, something almost extraterrestrial, you'll get it when you read it.