ISSUE 20:
The Bat stood in the centre of the road and Black Masks' army stopped. Black Mask, a gangster and criminal, stood at the front of the group with a grin on his face. Nightwing folded up his wings and landed next to his mentor in front of the gigantic army.
"It's the legendary Bat," grinned Black Mask. "The one we were warned about."
"Turn around and leave," the Bat growled at them.
"Or what?" Black Mask retorted
As a reply, Nightwing produced his batons and electrified them while the Bat extended his forearm blades and adopted a short karate fighting stance.
"Get 'em lads!" Black Mask ordered, stepping back.
The army flowed out onto them and the two were perfectly ready to take them out; one by one.
Superman heard the sound of a sonic boom on his right, he spun round to be punched in the chest by a rock hard fist and knocked into the building nearby. He crashed through the glass window and tipped over multiple desks.
He rose to his feet and looked out to see his opponent hovering in the sky ahead, his eyes glowing bright scarlet.
Superman rose off the ground and flew out of the building and hovered in front of the boy, who wore a black full body skin tight suit and his Superman's family crest of an 's' inside a triangle on his chest.
"You don't have to do this," Superman reasoned.
"Yes I do," the boy smirked. "My dad told me to."
Superboy kicked off the air and smacked into Superman's chest, knocking him through the building and out the other side. The two soared through the air and ploughed through a second building.
Superman grunted, grabbed the boy by the shoulders and tossed him like a discuss. Superboy soared and smacked into one building after another after another before stopping himself by kicking against the air.
"I know you can hear me," Superman told Superboy from a distance. "So just listen to me, I don't want to hurt you but I will if I have to."
Superboy screamed as he flew straight at Kal-El with his fist outstretched. Superman dodged the attack, grabbed the clone of him by the elbow and used it to tossed him towards the ground.
"We are family," Superman said as Superboy hurtled to the tarmac below. "We can be together, me and you and we can leave all this behind us. You're my only family I have, please don't make me hurt you."
Superboy rose from the smoking crater enraged. "Why won't you just fight me!"
Superboy flew into the air, dust building up behind him. Superman sighed, clenched his hand into a fist and flew down towards his clone; completely distraught that he would have to hurt the closest thing he had to a relative on this planet.
The Bat grappled one man and flung him into the three other men behind him. Nightwing struck one man after the other, electrifying them all. He created a staff and spun it around, knocking over one man with one swing.
The ground shook and Nightwing tried to not look round. He knew that Kal-El was fighting his clone developed by this still unknown organisation. As he clobbered another with his bo staff, he reflected on the fact that his clone could in fact kill the impossible alien; and this army could kill him and Bruce.
He kept powering on, trying not to think about his possible pending doom. But at least if he died, he could die in Metropolis; one of the nicest cities in the world, even if it was being torn to pieces by two aliens and a massive mob of men who just seem to keep on coming.
Black Mask had grown tired of watching his men be beaten at the hands of the costumed freaks. He produced a long katana which he had strapped to the back of his grey suit. He swung it about and approached the Bat who flipped over another one of his men and stamped on his stomach.
He brought down the sword, which the Bat blocked with his armour plated forearms and brought it down to the ground. The Bat struck Black Mask in the face which made the criminal stumble back, dropping the blade. He grinned, hoping that the men would focus on the strange Nightwing and he could then take down the Bat.
Black Mask produced his two silver revolvers. He spun them around on his fingers and then fired shots at the Bat. A bullet struck his armour plating but bounced off, the Bat then began to move faster. He side stepped another bullet, dodged a third and uppercutted Black Mask.
Nightwing spun his bo staff, he was slowly beginning to feel tired after constantly fighting one goon after another. How did Black Mask find so many?
Superman and Superboy's fists collided and the shockwaves shook the glass from the buildings around them. The two of them shot off, Superboy back to the ground and Superman into the sky.
Before he reached the upper stratosphere, Superman stopped himself and flew back towards the ground. His eyes darted around and switched to X-Ray, in search of Superboy, he then saw him; lifting a car above his head and getting ready to throw it.
The car whizzed through the air and Superman flew down to meet it. He gripped it by the front, getting knocked back slightly, and slowly flew towards the ground. His red boots touched the ground with the grace of ballet dancer and Kal-El placed the car back onto the ground carefully.
Superboy moved round the building, grunting with effort. He was clearly tired now after fight Kal-El, clearly Superman was more trained and had absorbed more sun light meaning he had longer durability.
Superman took this as an advantage and ran at super speed towards Superboy; raising his fist. He punched Superboy straight in the chest, sending him flying straight through a Metropolis shop window and into the back wall of the small boutique; this made Superman pray that the shop had insurance.
As he watched as Superboy rose to his feet inside the shop, he began to reflect on his powers. With the Bat he could try his hardest in combat and not destroy whole buildings but with his strength he could destroy whole shopping complexes by accident. He needed to be more careful but right now he needed to take out this brainwashed copy of himself; if he didn't stop him he could destroy the whole planet.
He noticed that Superboy was hissing, he was running out of juice; if he kept taking hits like that then he would be dead soon.
"You're going to hurt yourself," Superman told the boy who was slowly approaching him. "Please stop this and help me rebuild the destroyed city around us."
"I'm never going to stop," Superboy told him, edging his way closer and closer up to Kal-El. "I am the clone of you and of Lex Luthor, from you I have Kryptonian powers and from him I have my intellect and natural air of chaos."
Superboy grabbed Superman by the suit and hoisted him into the air. "I must live and you must die, only I can be the Superman."
Superman immediately pushed himself into the air and then drove himself down to the ground; taking his clone with him. The clone wasn't going to stop but could he bring himself to kill it.
The Bat dodged an empty pistol jab from Black Mask and followed it by kicking the gangster in the stomach with his metal boot. He brought his fists down like a hammer onto the man's back, knocking him to the ground.
Nightwing began to slowly see an end to the long mass of men, though he began to feel more and more tired with every stroke. When he signed up to this hero gig he never believed it could be this tiring...or scary.
The Bat took a moment from fighting Black Mask, who was now flat on the floor, and began to battle the army of thugs who were going straight for his partner.
The Bat and Nightwing fought together with precision and coordination; they had trained together for situations like this but never expected to use them. The Bat moved around slugging thugs in the upper body while Nightwing swung his electrified bo staff at their legs.
The Bat jumped into the air and kicked another goon in the head as Nightwing smacked one thug, kicked a second in the groin and elbowed a third in the nose; crunching the bone and cartilage with his metal plated joint.
Black Mask got to his feet, clearly slightly shaky after the battering from the master combatant. He looked around to see that his men were being cut down like weeds, there were barely twenty left. While the Bat was distracted, he plucked up his katana and swung it out. He grunted and ran straight for the Bat who seemed to have a six sense.
The Bat roundhouse kicked Black Mask in the stomach and followed it up with a bone crunching punch to the nose. Black Mask staggered back as he once again resumed a fight with the creature of the night.
Nightwing began to feel the strain as he swung his staff again. One of the goons managed to land a punch in Nightwing's protected stomach. He felt the strike slightly, though the man's fist ached, so he returned the favour by punching the man back in the stomach; he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
I'm too tired for this, he thought to himself with a groan. He reached into his utility belt and produced multiple batarangs. He back flipped from the men who were still surrounding him and took an aim.
He flicked out his wrist and threw the sharp blades at the men. The Metallic weapons stuck into six of the men's bodies, not in fatal areas; the pain of the deep inflictions made them limp away or fall down to the ground.
There were five left. He had taken down a whole army, surely he could sort out these guys.
The Kryptonian and Half Human Half Alien Clone hit the ground, shaking the whole city. They created a whole new smoking crater in the street, Kal-El rolled off Superboy and took a deep breath before getting to his feet.
Superboy groaned, rolled over and coughed up a glob of congealing blood onto the smoky ground. He sat up and glared at his part father.
"Please don't make me hurt you anymore," Superman pleaded. Superboy rose to his feet, grunting and ran straight at him with a clenched fist.
Superman waited until he was close enough and then kicked him to the ground.
"I'm trying to give you a chance here," Superman told him.
"I-I can't," he mumbled, his eyes changing from bright red to normal; he had clear blue eyes.
"Yes you can," Superman said sympathetically, crouching down to his level.
"No, they've made sure I can't," Superboy told him. "You-You-You have to kill me."
"I-I can't," Superman told him, looking at the now crying teenager.
"Please before I get up and do something stupid," he told Kal-El. "I need you to kill me!"
Superman stared at his partial clone. Could he do it? Could he take a life of another? Particularly one that was so close to him? Could Kal-El the last son of Krypton kill his 'sort of' son? The closest thing he had to family...
"Please," the boy sobbed.
Superman began to cry as he reached out and placed his hand either side of the boy's head. With his depleted sun energy, if Superman snapped his neck; the boy would die. Tears welled up and poured down his face.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he snivelled as he spun Superboy's around on its joint and then back to its right place.
Superboy died in an instant and Superman collected up the dead corpse and hugged it tight, tears pouring from his alien tear ducts as he wept into the deceased body of the only family he had left on the planet.
He then screamed terrifyingly loudly. "NO!"
Nightwing stared at his last five opponents. He flashed them a toothy grin before separating his staff and sliding the batons into their compartments within his dark navy gauntlets. He adopted a short fighting stance and motioned with his hand for the men to come at him.
The Bat held up his armoured forearms, blocking all the right and left hooks Black Mask kept swinging his way as his revolvers were out of bullets and his katana lay on the floor.
"NO!" came a loud scream which practically filled the whole destroyed city.
Everyone spun around to hear the loud scream of Kal-El.
Oh fuck, Nightwing thought as he walked towards his final opponents. He's killed him, he deduced. This isn't going to be good.
He battered another opponent and turned to see the red missile that was Superman, flying down the street straight towards Black Mask. As the Bat swung a punch, Superman pushed him away and flew off into the sky, making the Bat slug the air.
Nightwing high kicked and elbowed the final goon, his breath jagged. He then looked up to see Superman floating in the air holding Black Mask by his pristine suit shirt.
"Where is he?" he screamed in the man's face.
"Who?" Black Mask asked, scared out of his mind by the Kryptonian; he looked down at the ground and then stared straight at Superman in an attempt to block out the fact that they were at least 60ft off the ground.
"Luthor!" Superman snarled. "Where is your leader Lex Luthor?"
"He's on his jet," Black Mask whimpered. "Leaving to some Island. Now could you please put me down?"
"My pleasure," he snapped. He dropped Black Mask and disappeared like a blur. The Bat and Nightwing ran out and got ready to catch the falling gangster.
"Where's he going?" Nightwing asked as they caught Black Mask and dropped him onto his face.
"He's going after Luthor," the Bat told him, producing a pair of Bat shaped handcuffs from his utility belt. "Luthor created the clone of him, part Kryptonian and part Human, and brainwashed him so that he couldn't stop wanting to kill Superman as long as he had a sustainable amount of the sun's light energy stored in him. The only option was to kill him before he absorbed enough from the moon and wreaked even more havoc."
"So he's gone to get Luthor," Nightwing sighed as the Bat fastened Black Mask's hands behind his back.
"And we can't stop him," the Bat told him. "We're just going to have to hope that he doesn't do anything too stupid."
They stepped back to see the dazed Black Mask laying on the ground in terror.
"Get down!" the Bat shouted, diving to the side. Nightwing dived and spun around in mid-air to see a massive RPG Missile flying towards them. The explosive hit the ground and tore up the tarmac underneath it.
"What the fuck!" shouted Nightwing, clambering to his feet. The Bat stood up, his cape enveloping his body, and zoomed the lenses in his cowl up to the top of one of the buildings.
"The Joker!" he growled.
A cackling laugh tore through the city and Nightwing realised that this was the Bat's counterpart which he had spoken of and for once he was absolutely terrified.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Okay so that was Issue 20 and some parts may seem controversial, particularly the death of Superboy; but he may come back...Anyway I split it again as it was getting a bit long so I thought I could have second part after Superman goes off for Luthor and the Dynamic Duo go off to fight Mr J (you can guess who it is) I think you'll like what's coming up so stay tuned for the Next Issue in the gigantic battle and please leave a review because I have none yet guys (angry face)