Studying the Bat
A wounded and battered looking TYGER guard was sitting strapped to a chair in a dimly lit room. A black-gloved hand took a Taser from a metal tray nearby and jabbed it into the side of his throat causing the unconscious guard to jerk awake, screaming in agony. He began to struggle against his bonds as the Doctor circled around him.
"I need details Captain. Tell me everything about him," Strange ordered.
"I'm in a lot of pain," the TYGER guard grit out. The doctor's black-gloved hand took an injection from the metal tray.
"This will help you remember!" Professor Strange said, giving the guard the shot.
"We thought we had him trapped. But he was waiting for us," the guard explained, much more calmly.
The guard, fully garbed in TYGER guard armor, observed the Batman from afar, using night vision goggles to keep track of his location. "Target in sight," the guard said into his radio, and after the other guards silently signaled the others, they began to advance on him. However, by the time the guard turned his goggles back on, the Batman had vanished. He looked to his left, only for someone to push his face into the low wall in front of him.
Strange injected the guard with another shot, covering the guard's mouth as he did so, and when he released the guard from his hold, the poor man promptly vomited blood. "Extraordinary, isn't he?" Strange commented.
The Batman glided toward two guards, using his grappling gun to boost him toward the two. He slammed into one of the guards, somersaulted into a kneeling position, before using his grappling gun cable to pull the gun from the other thug's grasp. The Batman then hit the goon's head against his knee, before punching upward and chinning him, before knocking him out on the ground.
The guard continued to struggle in the chair, turning in an attempt to keep Strange in sight. "You knew!" he shouted as flashes of the battle played through his mind. The Batman had taken out multiple armed men in a matter of moments, while the guards could hardly even get in a few good hits. "You knew we couldn't take him down! You knew we were no match for him!"
"Yes but soon we will be! This is merely one more twist of the knife. To test him," Strange explained.
Breaking through a wall, the Batman grabbed the guard Strange was currently interrogating. The other TYGER operatives trained their weapons on him, but the Batman simply threw a smoke bomb at them and grappled away, carrying the guard with him. Holding said guard over the edge of a building, the Batman shouted, "Who sent you?"
"Hugo. Strange," the guard grit out.
Back in the TYGER guard facilities, Professor Hugo Strange leaned in as the guard took one last gasping breath and died. Straightening up, Strange lamented, "So, you know my name. Good, because I know everything about you. Your darkest secret. Your ultimate weakness. I know you are, Bruce Wayne." He took no notice of the twelve-year-old blonde girl, who was standing in the corner of the room, a look of absolute horror on her face. The Professor had required her to be at these interrogations in order to pick up more on the Batman's fighting style through her observations. But while the Professor found these sessions informative, Mary found them to be down right cruel and terrifying. Quietly moving toward and opening the door, she walked next door to her own cell, fell to her knees and started bawling. She'd been forced to watch as the light left the guard's eyes as Strange had interrogated, and while she had seen people die before, this experience was entirely different. When she witnessed the light leaving their eyes, Mary, the girl who could see a person's every memory, could only watch as memories flashed before their eyes and then… nothing. No memories, no feelings, not even a final image ingrained. Just a pair of glassy eyes staring back at her, reflecting her own fear and pain. Mary shakily made her way to her feet but was immediately forced to throw herself onto the toilet in her cell as bile made its way up her throat. Emptying her stomach into the bowl, she sobbed. She couldn't do this much longer. One more session like that and she'd probably turn into a catatonic wreck. Clenching her hands into fists and taking a shaky breath, Mary tried to find a little sanctuary in hell on earth.
"TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" Mary quoted in an unsuccessful attempt to calm herself. She'd read many different poems in the Library since she'd arrived here and while she enjoyed them immensely, all the books in the world couldn't shield her from the unfortunate reality: Strange would either end up killing her, driving her crazy, or leaving her no other option than to end it herself… unless she made her long awaited move. Mary nodded to herself. Yes… it was time to escape.