James: Chapter 7

"How many bodies were there?" James had been having a rough few weeks since his wife and son had left in the middle of the night. He had no semblance of an idea as to where she had gone or how, but she was gone. Young James was only seven, and Barbara only ten-and-five. Currently Barbara was out working for one of the local bakers while James slowly tried to figure out what to do next. To make matters worse, the past two nights had twice the body count as usual in the city.

"Eleven Ser, the five of ours appeared to have a sword run straight through their chests. The others had slashes or broken necks," James' second in command Harvey Bullock replied. While most of the time it was just a dead thug, or a raped woman with her throat slit, but these past two nights they had been mostly city guard. Five last night and six the night before. Newer recruits, not veterans, to make matters easier in that they wouldn't lose experience, but the phenomenon still troubled James greatly.

Who would be so crazed as to slaughter city guard in such numbers and in such a violent fashion? James had no idea, but it certainly did not appear to be the work of any of the criminals already in Gotham. Even Falcone had never killed men of the City Watch in such a manner; usually he would just win them over with gold as to avoid a mess.

"We don't have any witnesses?"

Harvey looked out the door and back to Gordon. "Well Ser, there is one…but she's rather distraught."

"Well I would be too if I just witnessed five murders right before my eyes…well no I suppose not, but you get the idea. Bring her in." Harvey left and returned a moment later with an elderly woman who hunched forward and had to hobble with a cane to the seat across from James. She wore a violet scarf around her head keeping her dark gray hair from falling in front of her wrinkled and leathery face.

"Tell me what you saw, if you would, my lady," James asked politely.

The old woman inhaled deeply, before coughing violently and shivering for a few moments. When her fit had subsided she finally responded, "W-well Ser, there was your line of guards walking the street. When out of the darkness some man appears wearing an oddly shaped helm. The guards shouted at him to halt, but he just kept stepping closer and closer. The men raised their spears and drew their swords, but the stranger was too much for them. He cut them down in a matter of moments. I barely had time to scream I did." The old woman succumbed to another fight of coughing.

Harvey daringly stated, "It sounds like the Bat's turned cold-blooded killer on us Ser." James had been thinking it but dare not say it. He remembered that night Batman had snuck in to speak with him. The words he had said to try and help the disguised stranger. No, he wouldn't, he couldn't.

The woman spoke a moment later, putting James' doubts to rest. "No, this man had no points on his helmet or mouth that could be seen. He had no cloak neither. His helmet was odd in that it was completely black on one side, not even a slit for the eye. The other was a light red or orange perhaps, it was hard to tell in the dark of night. And his helmet, it was shaped…l-like…"

James was growing impatient. "Shaped like what? A wolf? Bat? A lion?"

The woman's eyes widened in terror. "Like a skull Ser, the man's helm was a skull, and he told me he was going to let me live, but I had to deliver a message."

James' patience had worn out. "What is the bloody message woman!" The woman looked between the two officers before looking down solemnly.

"It's not a message for you Ser, he said I was to give it to the Batman."

Bruce: Chapter 10

"I figured you would get our message somehow," James said as Batman slid into his office chambers through the window. "I assumed if we simply spread the word around that I had need to talk to you it would reach you sure enough. I imagine we'll have to come up with a way to get in contact with you again should a similar situation arise."

Bruce decided getting to the point of the matter would be best. "What did the woman say?"

He had heard from Alfred that some of the street merchants were talking about how Ser James Gordon, head of the City Watch, had an urgent need to speak with Batman over some matter. Bruce had learned from interrogating a thief that some elderly woman had been brought in by the City Watch last night because she saw a man kill a slew of guards. The message was direly urgent apparently.

"Right to it huh? Well the woman said that one man killed all those guards, and was quick about it too. Had a helmet shaped like a skull, one half is black and the other's orange or some shade of red. He told her she was going to live so long as she delivered a message to you. That message being, Gotham's northern square, tonight at midnight. Every minute you're late, another innocent dies."

So the Half-mask has arrived, and wants his bounty to come to him rather than track it down himself. The display of arrogance was telling, Bruce could possibly use that later. He had just under half an hour to reach the city square.

"I've had men patrolling the area all day, but there hasn't been a sighting of a man with a skull helmet. I have three dozen men heading there as we speak, we'll bring him down," Gordon finished.

"No, pull them back now. This man is too dangerous for your men to face. He's mine," Bruce said commandingly in his gravelly voice.

"You know who this killer is?" Gordon asked the frightening stranger standing not two feet from him.

Bruce sighed, "When I found Zucco, he said Falcone hired some man named the Half-Mask to come to Gotham and rid him of me. I searched but found no records of such a man even existing, until tonight."

"And you didn't warn me?! Those are my men out there dead on the streets, and walking to their deaths now! And you knew about it!" Gordon stood from his chair to lock eyes with Bruce.

"You should not have made a move without consulting me," Bruce replied bluntly.

"I shouldn't have? This is my city to watch over by duty, by oath, not yours! I appreciate the work you have done but that does not give you free reign to do whatever you will without any repercussions to your actions! Now eleven men lay dead on your conscience because you didn't care to tell anyone of this unknown threat coming to my city!" Gordon was inches from Bruce's face now. His brow was furrowed in anger and his chest heaving from the shouting.

"The count is higher than eleven Ser…and with my last shred of strength I will fight to stop any and all threats to Gotham. Whether it's a thief, this Half-Mask, or the damn King of Westoros himself, I will stand to face whatever darkness that comes to Gotham!" Bruce shouted in his dark voice.

Gordon's face lost any signs of anger suddenly; his face seemed to sink with sorrow at what Bruce had said. "Why you? Those people out there fear you almost as much as they do Carmine Falcone himself! And I have weight on my soul too son, but why are you doing this? You have no duty to this city, you don't have a badge on your chest like we do, why stand alone against this darkness!?"

Bruce did not have time for this, but he needed Gordon to trust him. "Because if I don't, no one else will." Before James could respond, Bruce dove out the window and onto the roof beside the City Watch's central keep. He had to get to the square and quickly. The night was calm and still, the light of the moon shone down upon the city uninterrupted by clouds. The wind was stronger tonight than most, buffeting across the rooftops and blowing his cape off to the side behind him. It was a peaceful night, and Bruce did not like the feel of it.

He arrived at the square within a quarter of an hour. It lay still, only the fires in the torches lining the streets and the sound of the wind blowing over the stones. Small patches of green grass surrounded by brightly colored stones dotted the square, with tall oaks standing at their center. There were no signs of life, save for the four guards tied to the trunks of the nearest tree naked and gagged. Bruce knew it was a trap, so he waited for his hunter to reveal himself.

After waiting for five minutes, a man stepped out of the shadows of a side alley and into the moonlight. His helmet was as the woman had described, black as night on one half, and some hue of orange on the other. The man only had one eye slit in his helmet on the orange half. The helmet had carved out angles around the eyes and jawline like a human skull would, and had teeth etched into its bottom. His armor matched his helmet, with his chest plate and boiled leather breeches as black as the right half of his face while his gauntlets and greaves were as orange as the left. Underneath his armor he wore dark scaled mail. The stranger wielded a large long sword in his right hand, and seemingly carried it with ease.

The armored assassin strolled to the center of the square under the cover of the trees, and with a single twitch of his right hand, the first guard screamed out in pain and then died. The Half-Mask raised his bloodied sword above his head and shouted, "Come Batman! Come forth and stop hiding in the shadows like a craven! Face your end with bravery and some sense of manhood between your legs!"

Bruce dropped from the roof he was hiding on and slowly stepped closer to the murderer. The Half-Mask immediately took notice of his prey approaching his trap and laughed, "Well, well, so you are the shadow in the night that has Falcone wetting his bed every night! You don't look so fearsome to me."

Good, he is arrogant. "Who are you?"

The assassin dropped his cavalier attitude and slowly replied, "You know not who I am?"

"Falcone called you the Half-Mask, and that he paid you to kill me," Bruce growled.

"Ha, that name, Half-Mask. I imagine I hate that name as much as Tyrion Lannister hates to be called an Imp. If you are to die by my blade Batman, you should at least know your better's name. My name is Slade Wilson, I have no titles, no lands or family, nor an almighty lordship. I have, talents, shall we say. Talents for beating, fighting, and above all, killing men. I am given gold for my services, and usually am tasked with killing some noble or arrogant lordling for Tywin Lannister, and a few times such as this, for killing someone getting under Falcone's skin. No one knows I exist, and no stories or tales are told of my victories or kills. I must have killed more men then Jaime Lannister himself by this time," the Half-Mask bragged.

Bruce was but eight paces from the masked stranger now, only a little more. "The Kingslayer? Funny, I've heard he's killed men by the thousands."

This made the stranger laugh more. "Who do you think taught him Batman?" The man reached a hand up and pulled his helmet from his head. White hair suddenly reflected the moonlight off his scalp, with a matching beard that clung only to the front of his chin. He had a black eye patch over his right eye, covering scars that traveled from his forehead to his cheek. He was an older man, maybe as old as Alfred, but while Alfred's face reflected kindness, this man's was forged in stone and steel from many years of fighting.

The stranger held out his sword, pointing it at Bruce's chest. "This sword is the true danger in the shadows Batman, not you. This blade has had a sea of blood wash over it, and has claimed more lives than a maester could count. I am no man Batman, I am death incarnate. I am Deathstroke!"

The man lunged forward quicker than Bruce expected, giving him but a moment to dodge to the side. In a heartbeat he spun his blade horizontally to which Bruce quickly raised his bladed gauntlets up to block the blow. Despite the bladed edges and the armor plating, Bruce's forearms still seared with pain. The swing was so powerful it knocked Bruce back a few feet. He looked back up to this Deathstroke, who was taking a moment to return his helmet to his head. Bruce charged in the presumed moment of weakness and was met with another horizontal slash which he ducked under before slamming up into the man. He threw the man down on his back and beat the man's helmet while blocking and returning the punches Slade tried to throw. Slade drew a thin dagger from his gauntlet and stabbed it into Bruce's thigh making him groan in pain.

Deathstroke delivered an uppercut to Bruce's chin, effectively knocking him up into the air and down on his back. Then he took his sword in hand, leapt up, and brought the blade down with the point of the steel aiming for Bruce's chest. Bruce rolled to the side and then brought his uninjured leg up and kicked his assaulter in a scaled section of his armor covering his ribs. Slade grunted in pain and was knocked down to one knee as Bruce got to his feet and delivered a second blow to the back of his head.

Deathstroke fell forward but quickly returned to his feet with his sword in one hand and the dagger in another. Bruce noticed Slade's helmet had dented and bore vague fist prints from Bruce's pummeling. Slade pried it off chuckling, "Ah you will be a good kill Batman, one of the few that I will remember well into my later years."

"You haven't killed me yet Slade," Bruce growled in reply.

"Ha, no not yet. There is too much enjoyment to be had from this fight to end it so suddenly," he jerked forward with another slash. They danced like this for the better part of an hour, the sound of steel on steel, shouts and cries and groans of pain, and the sound of blood splattering the stone street. People in some of the nearby steads had cracked open their windows to gaze down upon the cause of the sounds. The guards had arrived a while ago, but were held back by Gordon's orders. Gordon was no-where to be seen in the brief glimpses Bruce dared to take at his surroundings. Luckily this square was mostly filled with the workplaces of bakers, smiths, metalworkers, butchers, and other craftsmen, leaving the square mostly free of onlookers to wander into harm's way.

Bruce was bleeding a good deal, with slashes across his inner thighs and arms, two across his back, one on his chin, and a deep cut in his side below his ribs. The stab wound in his thigh from Slade's dagger was sending convulsions of pain through Bruce with every step. Deathstroke was also hurt fairly extensively. Bruce knew he had broken at least two of his attacker's ribs, fractured his jaw, and littered severe bruising across the man's chest, legs, and back. Deathstroke's left arm was also unusable as Bruce had broken it about ten minutes past. He had a bloodied nose and his last eye was black and bruised.

Rha's Al Ghul's words echoed in his head, "Remember apprentice, a man can succumb to bleeding from bladed wounds and cuts over the course of a fight but it will not stop him. A bruised man will slow, have greater difficulty breathing, and ultimately defeat himself."

Despite Slade's many injuries the man just did not yield. He wielded his long sword in one hand with the grace and strength of two masterful ones. Bruce knew he would only be able to fight another five minutes at most before he would grow faint from the loss of blood, but Deathstroke did not look too far from collapsing himself.

"Give up Slade, you cannot win this fight," Bruce threatened to the man as he sidestepped another flurry of steel.

"Ha! I will not lose to some madman with pointed ears and a cape! I will kill you and be known from this moment on as the Bat-Slayer!"

"No Slade, tonight you only find yourself the victim of the darkness you surround yourself in. Tonight you answer to me!" Bruce roared.

Deathstroke brought his long sword down with an unexpected display of strength, but was left only to swing at the wind as his blade crushed the stone beneath its blow into a hundred crumbled bits. Bruce had stepped to the side and wrapped a hand around the man's neck while simultaneously bringing his head forward and pulled Slade's in as well. Their heads collided as Deathstroke's unprotected skull collided with Bruce's steel helm.

Slade gasped for air and collapsed from the blow, unconscious. Bruce stuttered before falling to his knees. He gasped for air as his entire body ached and burned from pain and exhaustion. He looked over to Slade's unconscious body beside him, and slowly chained the stranger's hands behind his back before attempting to stand. Then Bruce heard a noise he did not expect.

He heard the slow and steady beat of a few hands clapping together, before more and more joined in the chorus. Before long the whole square was echoing with the sounds of hundreds of hands applauding. Cheers dotted the sound of waves of clapping as Bruce stood and looked around. Bruce had not even noticed that a crowd of a few hundred smallfolk had gathered over the second half of their fight. A few guards ran over to the scene and lifted the bound Slade Wilson onto the back of a horse. Two guards rode off towards the jail cells of Gotham to house its newest guest. Another slowly approached Bruce, "Thank you Ser, but we have a problem."

Bruce did not know how to respond, "What happened?"

The guard was sweating profusely and had terror in his eyes, "It's Ser Gordon, ser, he's disappeared."

James: Chapter 8

James slowly recovered his consciousness and looked around the room in a dazed confusion. He remembered grabbing his sword and belt to follow Batman to the square, and then a sudden pain to the back of his head as he emerged from the keep. The back of his head was still sore, and he could feel the dried blood matting his hair. He was bound to a chair, with nothing but an old desk in front of him. The room was small and dark, most likely underground James figured. Soon he heard a rustling and some shouting from outside.

Two men in black tunics and trousers walked in dragging a bloodied man in scaled chainmail. They brought in a second chair and tied the man to it. He had white hair clinging to his scalp and a matching beard on his chin rising up to meet the corners of his lips. He had an eye patch over one eye with a matching black eye in his remaining good eye. The man looked like he had been through hell, not that I look much better I'm sure.

A man in a red doublet and silver cloak walked into the room as the two thugs retreated back outside the door and closed it behind them. He had golden hued spaulders on his shoulders and a paired chest plate across his torso. The white-haired man slowly woke, and looked around the room confusedly.

"You failed Slade, and Falcone is very unpleased with you," the unbound stranger told him.

"Ugh, tell Falcone to go fuck himself. What I fought, he is not human. I've fought…ugh…many men before, and not even the Kingslayer fights with the skill or intensity that that Batman wields," he said while trying to inhale deeply for air. He had dried blood on his lips; the man had gotten beaten to within a few inches of his life.

He's the Half-Mask? I should have had more faith in Batman… Their captor responded angrily, "You were supposed to be the best! You were supposed to kill him easily as you kept bragging you arrogant old fool! We paid you a mountain in gold to do it and all you gave us was the city loving him even more!" The man drew a dagger from his belt and stepped closer to the Half-Mask.

His walking came to a halt when screams were heard from outside the door. "What in the name of the Others…"

The man slowly walked to the door and held an ear up to it to try and hear outside. As he slowly opened the door and slid his head out to see into the hall, his body suddenly jolted. The man's body dropped to the ground a moment later, a knife stabbed into the center of his forehead.

James' spine froze with a foreboding cold shiver that traced from his skull to his ass as he watched the blood drip down the stranger's face and pool on the floor. The room was silent for a few moments, before an inhumanly-sounding laughing came from behind the door. Both James and Slade stared at the door, pale as ghosts with frightened anxiety.

The door burst open, as the oddest looking man James had ever laid eyes on strolled in with a happy bounce in his step. He had dark green, shortly cut hair that frayed this way and that. He wore a deep violet hued jacket with tails trailing behind his knees and matching trousers. His most frightening feature however was his pale white face, and lips with a smeared, crimson red paint over them, or so it seemed. His eyes though, were bright emerald and made James' skin grow cold just from looking into them.

"Well ain't that just a kick, why pay so much gold to wear armor if you aren't gonna cover the neck? Pfft and people say I'm mad," the man taunted as he strolled into the room. He stopped his paces directly in front of the Half-Mask, and knelt down to look him eye to eye.

"So you're the one who fought the Bat and lost eh? Tell me, does he know how to dance well? I do hate a partner who always steps on my toes! Ha Ha!"

Slade looked at the strange man in front of him with disgust. "I don't know who you are or what miserable pit you crawled out of but I-" He was cut short as the white-faced man slashed a blade across his neck.

As Slade took his last gasps of breath and blood fountained from his neck, his killer sighed, "Ugh how I do hate sour-pusses. No wonder you lost to him, you don't have the right smile! And the sad part about that pit jest is, I don't remember what pit I crawled out of either! HaHaHa!" His voice suddenly grew harsher as he angrily growled, "You did not deserve to kill him!"

The white faced man then doubled over in uncontrollable laughter, before standing up straight and jumping over to where James sat bound. "So you're the Bat's messenger bird eh? Ohhh don't worry Ser, I have no intentions to harm you. I find myself having a great need for your services! Hahaa! Soo, I have something for you to whisper to the little Dark Knight next time you see him. Tell him the clown king of crime is here, and ready to make Gotham quake until it brings itself down to the ground, HAHAHA!"

James dared to look up and meet the man's gaze. "Who are you?"

The man looked taken aback, "You haven't heard of me? Oh by the Seven what has the world come to? I am nothing but a fool really, a jester before the court of the world. A world full of fat kings, arrogant lords, and foolish knights who would die for the both of em! I'm a jester, a fool, a Joker if you would! Ha, ha…Ha HahaHaHahaHa!" The man's sickening laughter echoed against the stone bricks of the room and chilled James to his core.

I've gotta say, writing that last chapter was really fun! As always, any reviews would be welcomed and I'll respond to every one!