FIC: Faith Wayne (11/?)
"Sir?" Alfred hurried to intercept his employer as Bruce charged towards the secret passage in his study. "I heard shouting?"
"Bane's targeted Faith." Alfred inwardly recoiled at the blazing fury in his employer's eyes. "You've got her celluar number?" Alfred nodded. "Try ringing her and patch her GPS signature into the Batmobile."
"Of course sir," Alfred hesitated. "You realise Bane knows your identity and could reveal it-."
"I haven't time to worry about that now!"
"Of course sir, Faith's well-being must be your priority," Alfred agreed. He on the other hand could assist by getting Oracle to delete the store's CCTV to hide any spilt secrets.
Faith's head began to throb as the eager to impress her shop assistant rattled on about technical specifications. Damn, she'd never thought anyone could make good music sound so boring!
"Hold on," Faith turned away from the shop assistant, her skin crawling instinctively. Something bad was coming. It was the middle of the day, but nevertheless something bad was coming. Faith decided it was probably a human criminal as she edged towards the shop's entrance.
"Oh shit." Faith reared back as a hulking seven foot tall, grotesquely-muscled man appeared in the doorway, his face hidden under a black and white mask, and his massively-muscled body enclothed in a singlet and black leather pants.
"Hello Faith," the instantly recognisable Bane rumbled, "I thought it time I introduce myself to Gotham's latest celebrity."
"Yeah," Faith swallowed as she peered up at the notorious super-villain, "but I don't do autographs, sorry."
"I'll have to take my disappointment out on you!" Faith ducked under a downward aimed right only to catch a left hook to the jaw that snapped her head around and flung her into a stack of CDs, CDs flying everywhere as she flew through them and into a table filled with laptops, tipping the table and laptops to the ground.
"Jesus," Faith spat out blood as she shook her head clear. Kakistos, no screw that, the freakin' Beast didn't hit as hard as Bane. This was gonna be a hell of a fun day. Faith kipped up and glared at the crook. "You know, not that the attention isn't flattering," Faith moved into a practiced boxing stance, "but why me?"
"Oh this isn't about you," Bane chuckled. "You're a gift for an old friend."
"Oh how sweet." Faith darted in, gliding inside a right and under a hook before driving an elbow into the giant's left side above his hip. "Couldn't you have sent flowers instead?" The behemoth grunted but shot out a hand to grab her throat.
Faith's hand shot out to grab a sausage-sized finger and yank it back, but before it could snap, the man's other spade-sized hand slapped into the side of her face. "Shit," Faith stumbled to her left, her ear ringing as she ducked under another left, grabbed the straps of the giant's singlet and attempted a judo throw that sent him stumbling into a hi-fi stand.
"You're more fun than I ever imagined."
"Flattery now?" Faith leapt up into the air and planted her heels square into the giant's vault-sized chest. Bane stumbled backward, but Faith's eyes widened as he grabbed hold of her right ankle and flung her across the store. Faith grimaced with effort as she twisted in mid-air and hit one of the store's sturdily stone pillars feet-first. The impact shuddered through her legs, but Faith used it to reverse her momentum, curl into a ball, and fly back and over Bane's head.
At least that was the plan until Bane reached up, grabbed, and flung her into the shop counter. "Fuck!" Faith grunted as she hit the counter, skidded across it, and crashed to the ground, the wind driven out of her as she rolled back up. So power wasn't going to do it, Bane was way stronger than she was, and at least as durable. Speed wasn't the answer either, she was faster than Bane, but not that much faster to offset his other advantages.
Which left her options limited.
"You're not a mere human are you? What are you?" rumbled the advancing giant.
Faith ignored the shrieking costumers and store employees stampeding out of the shop to focus on the freakishly-built behemoth, grab a hold of the counter, and one hand vault over it. "Just call me your worst nightmare," she blustered.
Bane smiled. "We'll see." Bane raced in with uncanny speed for a man of his size. Faith leaned back at the waist, his first fist pummelling the air just above her face. Then she grabbed a hold of the man's huge wrist, both her hands together barely encircling the thickly muscled wrist, and twisted at the waist.
Her eyes widened when rather than be thrown, Bane just set his feet and reversed her pull. "Oh crap." Physics and the fact Bane outweighed her by more than three times came into play, pitching her into the air.
Faith twisted in mid-air, until she was upside-down, her legs pulling up into her torso and then powering up to crash feet-first into Bane's jaw, the kick staggering the massive muscleman, knocking him into a display stacked with microwaves. Faith reached behind and under her for the floor, then the moment her fingers touched the shop's fluffy carpet, she powered through them and landed into a fighter's crouch.
Bane let out a growl as he palmed and flung a microwave at her. The moment Faith glanced towards the airborne microwave, Bane leapt at her. Faith dropped into a ball and rolled under the giant's charge. The moment she came up on the other side of him, she back-heel kicked him in his hamstring. Bane stumbled and half-fell into a stand filled with computer games, games and the stand crashing to the ground.
Faith leapt onto the giant's aircraft carrier-sized back, her arm wrapping around her rival's trunk-like neck in a rear triangle choke on the basis even gargantuans needed air. "Oh not good!" Faith's eyes widened when the giant snatched hold of her forearm, effortlessly broke her grip and flung him over his head and at the far wall.
Faith stuck out her left hand and pushed off the approaching wall, hand-springing into a round-house kick to her rival's face, blood flying from beneath his mask. "Ha," Bane staggered his hand going up to his face then dropping away, "you've got his spirit and no mistake."
"Yeah," Faith concealed her confusion regarding the criminal's comment behind an arched eyebrow, "I try." Faith sprang back at the giant, aiming for a dropkick to his right knee. "Owww!" Faith's face exploded like a grenade had gone off against it when Bane caught her with a backhand that sent her spinning to the ground.
Faith kipped up into a punch to the gut that sent her reeling away, lungs heaving as she struggled for air. Her teeth jangled with the impact of another punch to the back of her head. Faith saw another punch upper-cutting up at her bent-over face and grabbed the man's forearm with both her hands, holding it steady while she drove a knee into his gut.
"Still fighting?" Bane laughed as he drove his other fist into the back of her head. "Most commendable." Faith's legs buckled under another blow, sending her to the knees. "I expected to just get my revenge." Faith felt a rib crack under a kick to her stomach, the blow impacting with enough force to lift her from the floor, and fling her into a hi-fi display stand. "But to get a fight as well." Sensing the criminal bending over her, Faith drove her elbow up and into his mask. "Ahhh!" Bane's head snapped back, but then his foot crashed into her ribs again, cracking a second. Then again, snapping another. Faith wheezed and gasped for air as Bane grabbed her hair and repeatedly drove her face into the floor until her blood smeared the carpet.
Then the super-villain grabbed her around the back of her neck and her ass, lifting her barely writhing body over his head. "The sins of the father shall be visited upon the daughter."
Batman's vision crimsoned as he burst through the wrecked store's entrance to find Bane holding his daughter's limp body over his head in much the same position he'd held him before shattering his spine. "Like hell." He flung a hastily drawn bola at the super-villain's legs, the rope wrapping around the thickly-muscled limbs, the weighted balls on either end pulling it tight as he leapt in with a leaping dropkick to his nemesis' lower back.
Bane's lower limbs flexed around the bola, snapping the rope. But that was okay, he'd been half-expecting that, it was just a distraction to allow him to catch the giant with his double-heeled stomp to the back. Bane stumbled, Faith dropping limply to the ground.
Bane let out a roaring laugh as he swung a backhand that Batman ducked under before grabbing the girder-thick forearm and pulling the criminal towards him and into a toe-kick to the belly. Bane caught him with a left to the side of the head that snapped his head to the side but he barely noticed in his rage.
"You'll!" His elbow smashed into the middle of Bane's mask. "Never!" His uppercut caught the man in his jaw. "Touch!" His knee buried into the criminal's stomach. "Her!" His karate chop bounced off the giant's massive neck. "Again!" He stomped on the man-mountain's right instep.
Bane responded to his attack with a maniacal laugh, back-handing him across the face. He saw Bane's follow-up body shot, and slammed his left hand down to deflect it, but the blow still glanced off him with bruising impact while he simultaneously caught the super-villain with a right hook to the jaw. Seeing the crook's knee swinging up, he hooked an arm around his rival's leg and swept the giant's grounded leg away.
The moment Bane hit the ground, Batman leapt on him, coming down feet first on his adversary's massive chest. Bane's back arched with the terrible impact, but the moment Batman dropped to his knees and straddled his opponent, Bane reached up to grab him by his shoulders and flung him away.
Batman hit the floor on his shoulders and side-rolled up, leaping into a side-thrust kick to Bane's head that knocked the rising super-villain back on his ass. Before Bane could rise, Batman had his hands around his head and pulling him down into repeated knees to the face. As a move, it wasn't fancy, but it was effective, and soon yet more blood was seeping out from under the criminal's mask.
Suddenly disgusted by his berserker rage, Batman released his hold, and allowed the crook to slump limply to the floor. "Oh Bruce," Bane lifted his head away from him to look towards the struggling to her feet brunette, "I never dreamed you'd be so protective of your daughter."