216. A Hard Act to Follow part 1
"She...sacrificed herself. And I went on to live instead," Robin says as we stand atop the Suspension Bridge of the Bay. Looking West.
I'm looking at the black and white snapshot that he's sharing with me. A faded, static-plagued freeze-frame of a bus terminal. A lonely young girl stands in the middle of the wandering, Gotham crowds.
"I...I relive that moment. In different ways...dreaming...flashbacks...passing thoughts. And yet they're all the same. The creaking catwalks. The rusted metal. The putrid mud. That damn red sky and that lighthouse...all of Gotham City, for that matter...It...it wasn't enough at first to drive me away. I was...s-sad for the next few days, of course. But I got over it. It's what superheroes do. They get over things. But as the months waned on...and I started seeing things from a new perspective...Batgirl's independence, Nightwing's incessant hatred of Batman's crime-fighting politics...and the jaded opinions of a cynical Gotham City population...I started to see things differently about Gotham City. There were no absolutes. Not even in crime fighting. So...many of my mental shields fell away so that I could...re-analyze things. And I remembered her. I remembered how small and frightened she looked. I remembered how lovely and full of life she was the moment she started remembering things...even if the return of her memories meant her undoing. I remembered the few times she said my name aloud. It sounded so sweet...so full of trust. L-Like she had known me all of her life even though it was just one evening of breath, life, and couldn't stand to be under that red sky anymore. Just like Nightwing...a bird like me has to find a new cage. A new aviary, if you will."
I gaze at the picture frame.
I gaze West.
I gaze beyond.
Robin points at the picture frame. "But I took that with me. And nobody knows about it, Noir. Not Raven. Not Cyborg. Not even Starfire. I...I've only told you, Noir. I've told you because...because you're very tolerant and mature. And I think you're the only other member of our team who understands what it means to feel conflicted over what we're doing here. Is it that we're trying to be heroes in a new battlefield? Or perhaps—Noir—you and I are also running away from something? Something painful? Something that has made us colder and darker than the children we once used to be?"
T-T-T-T-T-T-
November 28, 2005
Gotham City.
South side.
11:34 pm
T-T-T-T-T-T-
It was cold.
Damn cold.
My flexed my metal fingers and realized that my prosthetic wasn't acting up again.
And that almost surprised me….as if I expected my arm to explode upon so much as walking into the city limits of this place…
I was perched atop a rusted watertower on the roof of an eight-story, brick building. The faded letters of 'Gotham City' crackled and groaned into grime behind me. A frosty November wind blew down with fumes of some pollution somewhere….everywhere….inside and outside everything.
Gotham City was like the cold, steaming backside of some age-old sleeping dragon. Everything was like onyx scales hammered into one another from age and silent suffering. Wrought iron metal fences, windowsills, building spires, and retro ornaments abounded. For every skyscraper ledge, there was a gargoyle or 'angel' with gothic wings stretching upwards like a statue from a World's Fair that had missed the rapture of saints. Structures, spires, and cornerstones alike all fell into some half-neglected puzzle that spelled out a City that could have reached towards heaven but decided against it at the last second…perhaps because of some old, old secret that only the buildings themselves knew. For where Metropolis fished in the breath of tomorrow, Gotham City was a giant mausoleum to yesterday and everything was beautifully, horrifically, and gothically old…old….old…
There was something very inhuman about the buildings. The ones that stretched tall and the ones that laid humbly low to the ground as well. They were like pious monks who rejected the world for some puritanical belief in the unstoppable power of death and gloom. The sky was the only thing to fight the dark gray and black brooding buildings, and the best that the horizon could muster was an endless, ever-pervasive urine-yellow at day and blood-red at night. The celestial field had been reduced to the bare biological horrors of life kicking against the stone. Crime and city routine were both the same; as hard as rock. Rock carved by big names standing on the shoulders of little people. And the lofty, arc-like bridges connecting one branch of stone to another in unreasonably high places were like desperate pleas for sanity. Sometimes chaos isn't explosive, but rather a cold and silent eternity. A snake wrapped around everyone's hearts and just waiting for sleep to nearly finish us off before it slowly and unemotionally squeezes.
The November freeze tried and tried desperately to rain frost down onto the gray cityscape, but for the life of it not a single flurry of snow could be forged. The City continued its ever-pervasive dark stretch before my equally dark eyes. And with the sky bleeding down onto the barbed skyscraper sparks and the rust and grime everywhere merging into one I came to one single, inevitable epiphany.
How in God's name could a child grow up in this City and stay sane?
I inhaled frosty air. My black bangs and bandanna ends whipped in the breeze. I narrowed my black optics and lingered on the skyscrapers and heights of downtown just north of me before turning and looking south once more.
'Gothe Nightclub……,' Clark Kent had said. 'Batman related to me that he believes there is a stockpile of hidden weapons and tools for Triangular being hidden beneath the Gothe Nightclub building itself….under the watchful guard of a Gothamite sect of Triangular being headed by none other than Harvey Dent, Two-Face himself.'
I took a deep breath.
Flesh and metal fingers clenched….
'A major hive for criminal powermongers and crime scum. Ironically, also the favorite weekend spot for William B. Fox…son to Lucius Fox, co-CEO of Wayne Corp.'
I gazed and gazed….
And in the middle of the slumlike warehouses and abandoned factories of the land towards Gotham River, a quartet of searchlights billowed gaily through the air. Piercing the deep red glow of night.
I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and concentrated murk through my limbs for the inevitable 'jog'.
Well…Ana……
It seems I'm always having to crash in on a party of some sort or another these days……
A part of me….a little heroic part smiled.
I momentarily forgot the bastard with a sword making things tough for the population of Metropolis.
And I blur over the rooftops southward…
T-T-T-T-T-T-
Years ago, I had thought that Robin died. It was before I joined the school of the Spectrum. And the Robin who had become legendary was the one who later became Nightwing. There was a space in time when Robin went missing. Batman no longer fought crime and brought in the Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face to Justice with the Boy Wonder at his side. Many people had all sorts of speculations. That Robin had gone on to better things. That the real person Robin was had outgrown his mask. Or that he had horrifically died during one of the Dark Knight's missions.
I was so inclined to believe the latter. And looking back, it's hard to imagine how or why I was so pessimistic. Things hadn't gone for worse in my life. I wasn't even a cynical teenager yet. What excuse did I have to think such dark and depressing thoughts?
I respected the first Robin. When I read up on him in my dad's newspaper or when I saw snapshots of him on the news, I thought that he was an equal for Batman. He was tall, well-built, agile, and courageous. He had a sort of dashing approach to crime fighting the likes of which acrobats surely envied. Tight-rope walkers. Stuntmen and daredevils. To him—much of America gathered—fighting crime was an inspiring game. A game…..
When he became Nightwing, I was almost disappointed. Of course, I was much older than. I had trained in the Spectrum. I had learned to become darker….and to respect it. When the former Robin turned out to be alive, I had a hard time believing he had simply grown up to become the future ass-kicker of Bludhaven. I never saw life as allowing people to dramatically change. Of course, I wasn't one to deny 'change' itself. The Spectrum had altered me greatly. But many of the things I held dear to myself after my schooling appear identical to myself prior to it. But in secret, unconscious ways. Freud may be a misogynist jerk, but he can dunk over a lot of self-centered arguments.
Nightwing was always dark. Even when he was Robin. The only thing that kept 'Robin' from being dark before the Bludhaven era was some sort of resistance. Some self-denial of what he was and could have been. And from the way I learned to envision it, it's a very sick and twisted thing to put on a mask when fighting crime. And I don't mean eyemasks or cowls….but rather personalities that serve only to blind ourselves to who we really are and our potentials. Even the most unmasked heroes….Superman, Black Canary, Aquaman……they call only serve stupidity if they 'mask' their true nature from themselves. And for Nightwing, I sensed that the man took a long time to embrace that which was truly within him and harness it expertly in the black and electric-blue package that now strikes fear so succinctly into the hearts of Blockbuster's henchmen.
I was far too distracted at the time of the second Robin's rise to the seat to make a pop-culture estimate of his potential. Later I was told that his personality in the first year of serving alongside Batman was typical. A clown. A showoff. A jokester and dancing heckler of all things criminal much like the moniker-bearer before him. Overnight, my life flickered into a grayer horizon. And the soonest I could open my black eyes and look at the world once again…the new Robin had changed too. And he also disappeared. But somehow, I didn't want this legend to die.
And when I finally met him in the City, I understood why. He was barely fifteen years when he grew up. Much like me. And much like me, he was on the run from something….but chasing ten million as many things all the same. And I learned that even the greatest heroes are cowards in that their heroism outshines their cowardice infinitely. And I didn't need a mask to myself, as he didn't. There was nothing we were denying about ourselves. There was only a million things that we were tackling at once. And the point of existence was not to speculate or mourn but to fly, leap, and lead. And we did just that…to the best of our abilities.
When Robin died, I was greatly saddened. Overwrought. And paralyzed.
But I couldn't stay in the City with that sadness. No, not like the other Titans. The Boy Wonder and I were both on the run from things. And when Robin passed away, that only meant I had to run some more. And whatever he was once running from, I too was beginning to run from. It was as if some flickering red torch had been passed to me. A breezing breath. My arm shook and twitched and gnawed at me from the inside out. The gift I gave for the Titans ate its way up my shoulder and shock my nerves. For the life of me, I couldn't stay still. I had to run across country. I had to turn stone to bread…or in this case, Terra. And I had to…I had to…I had to find answers in Gotham City, no matter how many Supermen I attacked or Batmen I interrogated.
Because after that last night with Red Aviary and Metallo….I started to get a terrible feeling of déjà vu.
I had speculated a Robin's death before. And it had turned out quite naturally to be nothing but a case of growing pains.
Forging cold into freezing.
T-T-T-T-T-T-
Even from across the street on a rooftop, I could hear the heavy bass of the building's inside reverie pounding…pounding….pounding.
The Gothe Nightclub was a queer, trifold blend of the new, the old, and the older. The stylistically retro cab cars and limousines of Gotham City filed in line along the street before the dance club. Prim and well-dressed chauffeurs stepped out to patiently open the door for rich patrons to step out. And when the patrons stepped out, they hardly looked like the aethetically suited businessmen and/or bank workers of Gotham City, nor did they look like the formally dressed ladies of the City that always resembled a 1940s snapshot to me. Those waltzing into the four story red-mortar building were dressed…..gothically. Medieval gothically. Roaring-loud flashes of red, silver, and 'glittering' black. Frills and seams and trailing coats. Harlequin tails and bells and cuffs. Many had their skin painted pale…or was it paint? I saw plenty a pair of black eyeshadow…on the faces that weren't masked as if they were pulled straight out Mardi Gras or a Three Musketeers movie. Some dark and oblong types looked fairly much like vampires, and for all I knew (or cared) perhaps they were….
They were young, pale, existential things. The men looked like women and the women looked like corpses. And they reeled and giggled and laughed their way into the lavish, flashing establishment with young breaths, young cackles, young legs.
Young.
Some artistic take on the Great Plague of Europe had merged with the gothic Modern of Gotham City. Two old things came together, and the fulcrum was populated by young, drunkenly-reeling-and-raving parasites beneath a relentless, neo-techno beat. And I saw in a kaleidoscopic blinking of my eyes some inverse reflection of the ash-frozen bodies huddled in the center of Pompeii in Vegas. And I felt just as equally ashamed of humanity from the breath of it all.
Full Circle……
I watched as young, questionably rich Goths wandered into the club and slightly older, drunker waifs hobbled out. Tall, iron-strong bouncers lined the front, brass gates. Torches were lit on either side of the entrance…perhaps in pathetic homage to the hellish purpose of that place. The entire building had 'scum' written all over it—John Wayne style expletive aside. I may have made quite a dirty name for myself in Metropolis, but there was still enough of a crime-fighter left in me to know that those driving up to and being let inside the building weren't made rich just by doing data entry or office work. These people were inevitably the children of Gotham City's elaborate, criss-crossing underworld. The simple-minded, simply-blinded heirs to criminal funds. The spenders and gluttons of blood money. Everything that Batman had fought long and hard to beat back with an ugly stick. The national news had done its worse in incriminating Batman for his dark, vigilante ways. But not until I actually stood there across the Gothe Nightclub did I understand just how much a savior Batman and his troupe were. This City bled and wreaked of evil. It made my City—even on a Dagger day—appear whiter than the snow that refused to fall on the Gotham streets around me that night. You would have to grow up in an urban hellhole like this to truly reach the understanding and psyche that Batman inevitably possessed to its finest degree.
I remembered my escapades in Bludhaven. I remembered barely surviving the gang rapists and the gunmen and the random murder squads in the god-forsaken streets. But at least that deplorable City had an excuse to be the apocalyptic nightmare that it was. Gotham, on the other hand, was a thriving entity. Families lived and grew there. Women and children. People who grew, laughed, cried, and died. It was as much a home as Metropolis or Central City or New York or any other major center in the nation. But to think that beneath the stitched lines of the gothic, wrought-iron flesh there was a palpitating madness of crime…and that on top of the mafia, the gangsters, the warlords murdering each other just for a few diamonds or so their kids could fornicate in lavish nightclubs, despots such as the Joker and Two-Face and other madmen made everything else a Hell for the region. I had this overwhelming feeling that Gotham City was a suicidal venus fly trap trying to eat itself into oblivion, and Batman stood solely in the jaws trying to rip the stalk apart before the inevitable feeding. It was no wonder that Robin left this place.
Somewhat ironic that he would only live to die somewhere else.
"…………"
I reached a hand down to my combat fatigues.
I felt a pocket.
The sharp, jagged birdarang rested there.
"………..," I exhaled.
Keep it together……
I squinted in the direction of the searchlights and flickering torches of the building's front courtyard. I eyed the windowless facings of the structure. The single brass doorway being covered by bouncers. The cars lining up…and those in bastardized medieval-celebratory garb lingering outside.
What's the celestial likelihood that Batman will be covering this place tonight?
I ran a hand through my thick black bangs.
I tensed my jaw.
Or William B. Fox for that matter………?
I watched the multitude of bodies flooding into the establishment. I shuddered.
I can't cloak my way in. That place is most likely crawling with people on the inside. People and hormones……heh.
I'm liable to bump into someone. But if it didn't matter if they saw me……
I gazed right.
"…….."
I gazed left.
"………," I leaned forward from my rooftop. My black eyes narrowed under my shades.
There were three costumed bodies huddled around a burning trashcan. Talking and laughing drunkenly about something.
"…….." Chiiiiing! I slowly whipped out Myrkblade and blurred off….
T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Ha ha ha ha!"
"Heheheheheh!
"That's exactly what I'm talking about! HIC! I mean, what's all this about—HIC—a limit? I was barely touching any of the-HIC!-glasses! I bet it's because I'm an old fart! They can let any of them jailbait drink all the good stuff they want cuz they gots more money, I tells ya! HICC!" He was a middle-aged man. Tall. Dressed in an 'Executioner' getup. Complete with a fake plastic axe with fake painted blood. He wore leather leggings and a leather vest over a black-as-night tunic. And a hood rested over his head. Black, pliable leather. A thin slit let his eyes gaze through to the flickering flame in the oil drum as he warmed his hands and slurred further with a vaporous voice: "I used to be a long-running business companion to Rupert Thorne! Rupert Thorne! HIC! Now thossssse were the days of partying, my friends!"
"Heheheheheh…."
"Yeah….."
"Amen to that!"
"You didn't have to worry about not 'fitting in' with some god damn young crowd. You were well respected. You got your own name inscribed in the lights of the underworld—figuratively speaking—and that all mattered at some time! Some time…before a mangy Bat flew in and decided to make things really annoying. Egads….please tell me one of you guys has a Scotch."
"Nope."
"Sorry, man."
"Ehhhh…HIC….you all suck…."
"Hahahahaha."
"Say….can we take a look at your wallet?"
FWOOOSH!
I leapt down into the alleyway.
A few shady bystanders gasped and hobbled back. Blinking drunkenly.
"…..," I stood still, gripping Myrkblade's handle. I turned and faced the one with the dark cowl and axe.
"Whoah…HIC…," he narrowed his hooded eyes. "Why do yous look f-familiars? HIC!"
"…….," I marched over to him. I stood up straight. I looked at where his head reached its top point compared to mine.
"Say….I-I seen yous in the paper!" the middle-aged moron said. "You're dat kid….dat Titan kid making things miseriseriserab-b-b-ble for the Justice League and them folks at the HIC! Daily Planet…."
I fingered a sleeve of his shirt. His vest. I turned and compared my profile to him. My eyes thinned.
"What's a HIC badass punk like you doing here in Gotham…."
THWACK! I slapped Myrkblade across his forehead.
"OWWWW!" he bent over.
THUD! I slammed my metal fist into his gut.
He wheezed, fell onto his knees, shook once or twice….and collapsed on the ground.
Th-Thrump!
Ch-Chiing! I sheathed Myrkblade, knelt down, and began to peel the costume off the man's body.
"…………..," I paused. "……….." I glanced to my left.
In the glow of the flames, the others in the alleyway stared blankly at me. "Oh….um…."
"D-Do ya think you could give us his wallet once you're done stripping him?"
My eyes narrowed. I smiled sarcastically….then….
SWOOSH-CLANG! I kicked the metal barrel towards them. Ashes and fiery embers splashed across the alleyway as they ran, shouting.
I groaned mutely to myself.
Frickin' rats……
And I proceeded to try on my new….'wardrobe'.
T-T-T-T-T-T-
Two girls identically dressed as pale-pale witches hooked their arms together as they giggled their way into the establishment.
The bouncers held the door open for a brief time, and then closed them.
"…….."
They gazed over.
I walked into view, using the fake executioner axe's long handle as a walking stick. I made a point of walking quickly into the brass door frame of the building's entrance flanked by torchlight.
It didn't surprise me in the least that the heavy-set ushers refused to open the said door of brass.
"Hold on there, chief…," one pointed.
The other walked over. Palming his fist. "Didn't we just throw you out and tell you not to come back till a week from now?"
"……….."
The first bouncer smirked. "You're out of your league, gramps. The Gothe Nightclub doesn't cater to impotent fogies…"
TH-THWUD!
The bouncer's eyes went familiarly cross-eyed as he let out a familiarly painful squeak and slumped to his knees with his thighs crossed in a familiarly painful fashion.
THWAP!
"……..," I glared.
Speak for yourself……speak for all of us……
"Hey!" the bouncer pulled out a brass knuckle and slid it onto his right hand. "Not cool!" he frowned.
"…..," I turned towards him.
He came at me. "Rrrraugh!"
I stepped back. With my hood fluttering from my movement, I twirled the axe, encased the plastic prop in murk, and covered the handle with just enough black energy to….
Th-Th-Th-Th-Thwish!
The prop spun like a bo-staff, slapped the man across the face two times, and then twirled to a stop with the plastic axe 'head' heavily slamming atop the man's wrist.
THAP!
"OWCH!" he comically exclaimed and dropped the brass knuckles to the floor.
Cl-Clang!
I twirled the axe prop back down and leaned on it.
He gritted his teeth at me. "Why you…." He stopped, blinking.
I held my metal hand up to his face. Middle finger viciously exposed. For a second or two, he regarded the queer prosthetic digits cross-eyed. And it was just long enough for me to pulse a wave of smoke energy up my titanium limb and exploding out in flash through the fake fingertip.
FWOOOSHFLASH!
He flew back and slammed against the curve door inlet of the building front. THWAP! "Nnnngh…."
I lowered my arms, shrugged my shrouding executioner outfit back straight over my shoulders, and marched firmly through the brass doors and into the beating bass.
Pfft……Bouncers……
T-T-T-T-T-T-
Gothic, industrial techno.
Blinding lights.
Flashing laser streams and the sense that the whole air of the interior mad house was pulsing…pulsing…pulsing.
Even with the combined shroud of my shades and hood, I could barely even squint my eyes at the indoor spectacle.
The Gothe Nightclub was filled to the brim with rave dancers, drinks and drinkers, waiters and bouncers. People writhing. People groping. People laughing, twirling, and falling. I wondered for a second just how soon the sky was going to fall and why I wasn't privy to it until waltzing in there. And then it occurred to me that the criminal underworld was doing this all the time. Copulating with the moment. Dancing for the sake of dancing, even if the dance shoes were fashioned out of the metaphorical skin of countless of victimized citizens.
Humanity has its rectum as much as its lips.
The interior of the Nightclub stood in tiers. Rings of balconies three spaces high running for at least fifty feet. The platforms gained more and more dancing space the lower everything went. And when things finally reached the bottom floor…it resembled an enlarged, Elizabethan theatre. And in place of where Hamlet would be romancing a skull or Juliet stabbing herself, there was a DJ station where all the throbbing, pulsing mixes came from in wired, industrial electronica.
A piece of me suddenly and inexplicably wished the Messenger was there.
On to another subject, I look positively ridiculous.
I stood awkwardly in the corner, holding onto my axe and shifting nervously with my leather executioner's getup and black hood hanging over my cranium. I must have looked like the angel of death….strolling into the place to deal it a final retribution. But I wasn't about to wreck everything. Not just yet. I had to know what…or who I was looking for.
People writhed past me.
Dancing.
Laughing.
Some nearly fighting…until bouncers strolled over and meatily accosted them.
A girl once bumped into me, took a few lingering sections to peel her body off my leathered chest, and fluttered her bloodshot eyelids in an attempt to pur: "Excuuuuuse me…hehehehe…" And she twirled and ran off. She was dressed as a medieval clown. I shrugged it off.
I decided to make my way down to the first level. So, forward I crept. Past vapor-spread laser lights. Raving bodies with arms tossed to the ceiling. Jingling bells from harlequin masks, painted skin, and the occasional side-swipe of a razor sharp, red painted fingernail.
I gritted my teeth amidst my 'swim' through the criminal brine. I wasn't quite the agoraphobic person, but something about my long days of sprinting across the country and fighting angels of Death inside blood-stained hallways hadn't prepared me for this much…..contact. I almost wished for the cold taste of Red Aviary over these random body parts grinding into me. There was so much pale skin flashing from beneath frilled sleeves that I began to wonder if people were getting nude or not.
What was there for these yahoos to hesitate about?
This hive was as good as dead…morally speaking.
And though I'm not an expert on morals….something tells me that after leaving that place, I would be.
By the time I got to the second level, I started to smell things. Nasty, human things. Underneath the glitter of the Gothe Nightclub lights and the pounding bass. I looked down at my shuffling boots and wished I hadn't. There were pools of vomit in random places on the floor. Along with other questionable juices. Some of them red. Some of them….other colors.
No wonder Clark Kent was so hesitant to tell me about this place.
Screw Batman, he was trying to protect me.
Heh……some hero I am……
I drifted past a bar where workers were busily, busily mixing drinks and sliding them towards eager, gothic patrons. A few rich brats in sexily-altered Baroque dress stood on stools chatting…flirting. A group of 'vampiric' young men sat at a booth, reading something over a candle. They were all red-eyed. God, I hope those are contacts……
I came to a stop on the corner of the second floor and shuddered. In the distance, I spotted thin, cylindrical cages within which dancing girls in the bare essentials of medieval under-apparel had somehow fitted themselves in. And they served their claustrophobic purpose of raving eye-candy. A few obese 'court jesters' huddled around the nearest of two cylinders. They cackled, cooed, and took long swigs of the bottle while the dancing girl euphorically giggled herself into caged madness.
I ran a hand over my cowl and sighed into the blackness.
I wonder how Smallville's doing right now……
Pounding noise.
Sonic mayhem.
Bass. Vibrations.
Lights.
Kara……Terra……how are they working out?
I removed my hand and gazed into the nearest wall where only the shadows of the pit of sin catered to me.
I hope Cyborg's taking good care of the Titans. He can get all the help he can get. Especially since……Especially since……
I sighed. I hugged myself some. It wasn't the type of posture an 'executioner' might take. But I didn't care. I didn't imagine anyone looking at me anyways.
Cyborg's 'number one' is not coming back.
How could I?
What could the Titans do……with someone as dirty and low as me now?
I attacked Superman……in the cape or not.
There's no coming back from that.
I don't care how good a track record I may have.
There are just……some 'unbreakable' laws of this particular universe.
I sighed.
I gazed up towards the ceiling.
I bet the Messenger would agree with me on that one……
Somewhere to my right, two Nightclub workers met. Nearly bumping into each other.
"Chuck! Thank god! Hold on a sec….I need you to deliver a message for me!"
An envelope was thrust into the fidgeting hands of the other person.
"Wh-Wh-What's this, Vick?"
"That's Mr. Trent to you! Now deliver this to Booth Number Seven on the bottom floor. It's urgent. One of our…business' partners needs to spread the word."
"Booth Number Seven? Ain't that Fox's…."
"Shhhh!"
"……..?" I craned my neck and looked at the two.
"Just deliver the message, shut up, and then you can clock out. More or less in that order."
"Uhm….."
"Do it, Chuck. Or I'm employing you on broken-bottle-duty tonight!"
"Eep! Y-Yes sir, Mr. Trent! R-Right away! Message delivered!"
"Well then…get your ass going!" the manager hoarsely uttered. "And don't let me see you flirting with that god damn 'dead witch' chick on the second floor party table! She's Roland Dagget's niece, ya know!"
"She told me she was the fourth resurrected princess daughter of Sangre Phillipia the Fourth."
"Someone's gonna have to resurrect YOU if you don't get moving!"
"Y-Yes sir!" and the subordinate ran off—trembling—with the envelope in tow.
The manager shook his head. "Frickin' Vampiress-humper, I swear to god. He'll get his throat bitten out in due time……," he gazed over at me. He blinked. He frowned. "Hey! Ashtarth! If you want a table, you gotta pay with more than heads, pal!"
"…….," looked behind me.
I was leaning at an empty table. And just a few rave-bodies away, a party of brooding 'chamber mistresses' stood tapping their lacy heels besides a waiter waiting to seat them.
"…….," I smiled sarcastically. A smile that the manager couldn't see from under my hood. I made my way towards the stairs leading down….
"That's more like it…," 'Mr. Trent' uttered and marched off.
I turned and gave him a raspberry he couldn't see either. I cleared my throat and quickened my pace….distantly trailing the messenger heading downstairs with the envelope.
Downstairs to booth number 'seven'.
Fox……
T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Hahahahaha!" a young, thin-haired African American sat in the plush center of a booth. A medieval mistress clung to either side of him, cooing and giggling as he smiled and spoke to a group of lushly dressed 'gothicks' around him. Unlike the rest, he wore a simple business suit. Casual business. It seemed like there was a silent privilege at work, allowing him to get away with a lack of costumed formality inside the Nightclub. "And…like…the whole mother effing stock share crashed! And my dad's like: 'JUNIORRRR'. And I said: 'Before you yell at me, think about this. How could I predict that Joker would blow up the entire building in central Downtown just because the C.E.O. called the clown a fish-lipped guppy-sucker?' Hahahaha! And do you know what my old man said to me?"
"What's that, Billy?"
"Tell us, Billlly."
"Oh…he went on this tirade about how one day I would have to take over the business from him and I'd have to gear myself towards working with Bruce Wayne in cramped, stuffy offices. And I said: 'Pops, that's not the life I want to live! I want to live in the moment! Make friends in high places!' He winked and drifted his hands down to a thigh of both girls flanking him. "And maybe lower places to…you dig? Hahahaha!"
"Hehehehehe!"
"You're such a pushover, Billllly!"
"Hahahaha! Ain't it the truth though? Egads! I love coming here! No pun intended…."
"Hehehehe!"
"Say, girls, have you ever met a good old friend of mine? Jacob Anderson was his name…."
"Noooooo."
"Can't say that we have…."
"Ah. What a blast he's been to hang out with! You'd find him rather charming….a go-getter at any party! Only….er….his head seems to have spontaneously blown apart a couple of days ago at gunpoint."
"Oh no! Hehehehe!"
"Hahahahaha…ewwwww gross!"
"Hey…what comes around goes around. Again….no pun intended. Hahahahaha!"
The nightclub worker approached the table. The party of ten looked up the booth amidst the sound and the fury.
"What do we have here?"
"Don't disturb Mr. Fox's stay for too long…," a heavy-set thug in residual medieval wear uttered…slipping a hand into his vest and glaring. "What do you want?"
"Hey…take it easy, rook!" Fox winked. He leaned forward and placed his hands together, smiling at the messenger. "How can we help you?"
The subordinate bit his lip. He produced the white envelope. "Special letter for Mr. William B. Fox."
"Yeah? Who from? Roxxie? That young rrrrrascal?"
"I don't know sir. Mr. Trent gave it to me."
"Ahhh….Mr. Trent…," Fox leaned back, beaming. "Well…I sure as Hell can trust him. Isn't that right, folks?"
"Hehehe….you said it Billlly!"
"Yup! Sure thing!"
"Slide it here, pal….," Fox gestured.
The messenger nodded. He placed the envelope onto the table. But just as he started to slide it across the top….
CL-CLAMP!
A smoke-laden axe head stabbed the envelope into the table.
Two of the girls shrieked. The men jumped.
Fox blinked. "Hrmm?" He looked up and smiled. "Ah….fresh! And who might this be?"
"……..," I glared. I reached a hand up and slipped my cowl off. I shook my black hair back—once exposed—and glared through shades that reflected Fox's blinking face.
"Mmmhmmm….okay…..I'm still bored. Who're you supposed to be?"
One of the heavy-set party members gasped. "Mr. Fox! This kid…."
"Like….Oh my gawd!" one of the girls gasped, her frilled hands to her face. "It is him!"
"Yeah….I'm missing something…," Fox leaned forward and motioned. "Care to educate me, pal?"
CHIIIIIING!
Myrkblade stretched out and stopped just at Fox's adam's apple.
People around us gasped.
The heavy-set ones stood up with pistols at my head. "Freeze it, punk!"
F-Fwoosh!
Myrkblade billowed threateningly against Fox's nape.
"W-Wait!"
"Hold your fire…..," the thugs sweated.
I stood there, Myrkblade sharply carving into the outer layer of Fox's skin.
"Oh jeebus….Oh jeebus…..!" the messenger trembled, spun from the table, and ran off into the raving obliviousness surrounding. "N-Not again!" he shrieked.
"Oh….my gawwwwd….," the frilled girl from before repeated…slowly this time. She gazed at me with a flushed smile.
"……," my black eyes narrowed in the peripheral vision of her.
"I seem to….uh….b-be….uh…..at odds here….," Fox smiled nervously. Sweating. "You….uh….you're here for…uh………." He blinked. He blurted with a wide smile: "You're here about Triangular, aren't you pal?"
The gunman on my left, aiming. "Snkkt! Mr. Fox! Shut up!"
The gunman on my right, aiming. "Hey! Don't you tell the boss to shut up!"
"He's gonna blow everything!"
"Just keep cool, man! Keep cool!"
"Yes….," Fox raised his hands and waved at everyone trembling at the booth. "Everyone calm down. Just because my throat's about to be carved out by some poster-boy samurai doesn't mean the end of the world…..th-though it does kinda sorta mean the end of my world, but anyways…..ahem…….h-h-how can I help you, M-Mister?"
I glared at him. I was vaguely aware of the bouncing shape of a full-skirted French Belle walking up from behind me with a fan. But I kept my attention focused on the man's whose larynx I was threatening.
'We need to talk,' I mouthed.
He didn't seem to read lips as well as Superman could.
"Can't you talk, pal? Cat got your tongue? Cuz he sure as Hell doesn't have your sword at the moment! Sucks to be me! Hahahaha!"
"Hehehe! Good one, Billlllly!"
"Guys! Shut up! Don't you see we're screwed?"
"We're gonna give you on the count of three to get your sorry-ass sword swinging self out of our sight…."
"Pssst…..ten…."
"What?"
"Count of ten."
"Dammit! Why not three?"
"We have no time to discuss time!"
"Just shoot the bastard!"
"Sh-Shut up! God!"
"Shhhhh," Fox again waved a hand. He was sweating onto my sword but trying not to make a show of it. "Now now….surely this entrepreneurial salad slicer didn't come all the way into Gothe just to rip me apart in open public? Hahahaha…erhm…th-that's more like Bane's style or Killer Croc's. Not him." He thinned his eyes at me and smiled coolly. "We just need to discuss a few things…a few Triangular things….now don't we?"
"………," I tensed my fingers around Myrkblade's hilt.
I want to kill him already……
"Eh-Eh-Eh-Ahem……..," uttered a feminine voice from behind.
The thugs looked.
So did I….glancing behind my shoulder.
The French Belle stood before us. Waving a fan. Her head crowned by a tall, Antoinette style wig of lavish golden follicles. Her skirt flowed around her like an upside mushroom of colorfully adorned lace and crinoline.
"Excuse me, ladies and fine gentlemen….but could I have a word with Monsieur Fox?"
Fox sweated. He bit his lip. He looked at the Belle. He looked at me with my sword at his neck. He looked at the stranger again. "Sure!" he crookedly smiled. "We're not busy!"
I sweatdropped.
"Look, lady….there's a crisis going on here!" one gunman grunted. "Just who are you anyways?"
The woman narrowed her eyes at us. Blue eyes haloed in a black patch, very mask like from under the shade of her outrageously huge wig. I suddenly felt the sense that something deadly and clownish was stabbing its way down my spine.
"Oh…..," she replied demurely. "I'm nobody special. Just a big FAN!"
And with that pun unrolled, she flicked the fan in her grasp forward. P-POW! A pair of roped tasers spat out like a James Bond gadget and stuck into William B. Fox's chest.
ZZZZ-ZZZZTTT!
"DUAAAAAAAAAH!" Fox convulsed and shook all over before collapsing unconscious. "Unnngh….y-you guys….h-handle the tip." THUD!
"EEEEEEEEK!" The girls flanking him shrieked and scurried off.
I gasped, stepping back.
"HA!" the Belle whipped off her whig with a black-lipped grin, revealing in full the pale face of a kinky 'doll' crowned with alternating red and black tales ending in white puffs.
"Jesus!" one of the gunmen immediately—without question—stopped aiming the gun at me and trained it instantly on her. "Quinn! Quinn! It's Quinn!"
"Son of a….," the other thug aimed.
"Hand off, boys!" Harley Quinn shouted, ducked down 'into' her hoopskirt, and suddenly kicked the entire dress like a detachable rocket booster towards us. FWOOOMP!
"Aaaaugh!" they shouted and shielded themselves.
I swiftly vaulted myself out of the way and perched on the balcony edge of the second story. FWOOSH!
CRUNCH!
The hoop skirt must have weighed a ton! It crushed comically through Table Number Seven, effectively sending splinters and the ragdoll bodies of the two thugs collapsing everywhere.
I panted….wide-eyed.
"WOOO! TOUCH DOWN!" the legendarily nefarious Harley Quinn jumped up and down. She laughed as she twirled in her red and black poker art jumpsuit. Somewhere in the distance, I swore I heard the sounds of cuckoo clocks and springs snapping. "You should just see what my bloomers can do! Too bad we don't have a plate of tank armor nearby!"
She girl-stepped towards the booth, humming.
By now, a good part of the floor had cleared away as gothic rave-dancers regarded the villainous vixen with horror. A trio of bouncers rushed down with brass knuckles.
"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Quinn smiled gaily and cartwheeled through the incoming thugs.
TH-TH-TH-THWAP! SMACK! WH-WHAP! Her spinning limbs and kicking feet expertly slapped each thug aside the face and chin as she rolled, bounced, flipped, and somersaulted through them. She stood up, wobbled dizzily for a second, and bopped herself on the head as if that would clear out the cobwebs. "Nnnngh! Mr. J was right. I'm putting on weight! Must be all of them kidney pies. Mmmmm….kidneys…."
As she was about to pounce on Fox's unconscious body….
Fw-FWOOSH!
I dropped down in front of her.
CHIIIING!
Myrkblade pointed at her skull.
She blinked for just a second before stepping back, smiling wide, and waving a hand: "Now now, Ninjy-Winjy!" She whipped out a gun from….somewhere. A gun with a red boxing-glove at the end of it. "It's not polite to show me your sword on a first date!"
"…..," I frowned.
Lady, if you think that some pathetic little clown prop is going to keep me from protecting whom I came here to interrogate……
POW! SWOOOOSH-CRACK!
The boxing glove slammed into my chest.
I was tossed up onto the stage, where I smashed through the DJ station and effectively brought the techno music to a screeching, ear-splitting halt.
Everyone shook, groaned, and clutched their palms over their ears—even the 'vampires'—as the high-pitched squeal ricocheted through the Nightclub.
But not Quinn. The coy clown twirled the gun, 'blew' the barrel…and looked at the trigger for a second or two before uttering: "Heh….nineteen eighty-three…" She tossed the weapon behind her shoulder and sashayed to the wrecked table. "Good year for gloves."
"……," I winced. I pulled myself achingly out of the shards and debris of the DJ station. I rubbed my long head of hair as the noise of techno music soon gave way for the noise of screaming, fleeing dancers.
A handful of thugs however—under the direction of a hotheaded and sweating Mr. Trent—came rushing down the platforms against the flow with shotguns in tow.
Harley Quinn hummed to herself as she slung a cold Fox over her back. She gazed up at the security, brought a pair of fingers to her lips, and whistled almost more shrilly than when the speakers squealed.
"Hey! Red!" she shouted to the air. "Now's your cue!"
CRKKKK!
SHATTER!
The walls of the Nightclub collapsed in two places. Giant, thick vines of green snaked in.
The incoming thugs gasped and struggled as thorny stalks magically encircled and wrapped around them as if from giant man-eating plants on the outside.
I watched, wide-eyed.
Mr. Trent pulled at his hair.
His men shouted and winced in pain as the constricting thorns stabbed into them.
More and more vines smashed in from the outside of the building, forcing people to run every which way.
There was an uncoiling sound from straight above. And a gentle, deep….womany chuckle.
I glanced up…panting.
A pale, redheaded female in a pixie-tight leotard of black lay reclined on a descending plant stalk. She propped her head sexily on black-gloved hands and winked at the chaotic crowd as she lowered to Harley Quinn's level before the 'theatre' stage where I sat.
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…," Poison Ivy murmured. She eyed the thugs quivering in the stabbing thorn-tentacles holding them in midair. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose…By any other word would smell as sweet…." She quoted and sat up with her hands in her lap.
"Hmmphh!" Harley leapt with Fox in tow and landed atop the vine.
I stood up weakly, gripping Myrkblade.
As the vine started to lift, Poison Ivy blew a kiss towards the rest of the Nightclub. "Poison knows no words. For as soon as you taste the sweetness…you are far too dead to speak of it. Fox comes with us, you sex-craved imbeciles." She produced a handful of pollen….very deadly pollen. "The rest of you—like sperm—can just die……"
And she flung it into the masses.
And I gasped….