Chapter 21
"Face-Off"
Before passing out, Roman had told Batman that Strange said he was going to "the Bat's inner sanctum." That, plus a motion detector alert, had led him here. To the cave under Wayne Manor.
Where he'd begun his career as Batman.
Until reconstruction of the mansion was complete, he and Alfred couldn't risk beefing up the security systems in the cave without attracting attention, relying mostly on secrecy for now. So, if someone wanted in, it wouldn't be too difficult. And Strange was determined enough.
Vicki had updated Batman on her findings before he left the mausoleum. On Hugo Strange's history of covered-up murders, illegal experiments, and psychological torture. He presented a threat to Batman's identity and, potentially, his life too.
He entered the cave via the waterfall entrance he formerly used for the Tumbler's access, hoping to go unnoticed for as long as possible. Wading through the shallow water at the bottom of the rocky floor, careful to cause minimal ripples, he surveyed the area.
The cave was empty, silent. Even the bats were quiet. There was no sign of Strange anywhere. Batman knew that he was still here though. One of the storage lockers had been broken open, its contents gone.
Then he heard Strange's deep voice resonating off the vast stone cavern. "Good evening, Mr. Wayne. I see that the Black Mask failed to kill you. How disappointing."
Batman looked around, bracing himself for attack. With the echo, it was impossible to tell where the voice was coming from.
Strange continued to taunt him. "I had prepared for the possibility, however. To tell the truth, part of me was hoping for it. The chance to finish you off myself."
"The only one who's finished here is you, Strange," Batman shouted into the cave. "Vale found out about your past. Your experiments at Graytowers Hospital. She's handed the evidence over to the police, and now I'm going to bring you in for them."
There was a pause, and Batman continued slowly making his way to the centre of the cavern, out of the water. He didn't see Strange around any of the rocky outcroppings or in the elevator.
"Perhaps that is for the best," Strange said at length. "You had the right idea, I think, Mr. Wayne. It is a paradox, but to fight crime effectively, one cannot be beholden to the law. It is time I followed your example and abandon my old life, embrace my new one as a vigilante. As a Bat!"
Now Strange revealed himself, stepping out onto one of the overhead brick structures that were part of the mansion's foundations. Batman was shocked to see that he was wearing another Bat-suit – which was what he must have taken from the locker.
Batman recognised it as one of the original suits he'd worn during the first year of his mission. It was bulkier, with limited head movement, and a different bat symbol on the chest. Although he'd designed it to induce fear, Strange just looked absurd in it, his beard jutting out from the cowl, the armour ill-fitting his smaller body. Had he snapped?
He was too high up to hit with a batarang, and it would take too long for Batman to reach him by grappling up. The next move was Strange's.
The mad professor spread his cape out like wings, looking down on Batman. "I deduced that you must have operated out of your family home before it burned down, and must therefore have a hidden base here. A thorough search of the mansion and grounds revealed its location.
"Quite an arsenal you have here, Mr. Wayne. Once I dispose of you like the common criminal you are, it shall all be mine! I shall become the Batman and bring justice to Gotham!" Now sounding utterly crazed, Strange looked skyward in triumph.
But it was premature.
"Like you did with Hawkins?" Batman shot back. "And Helzinger? And all those others you used like lab rats? Is that your idea of justice, Strange?"
"They were lawless scum!" Strange bellowed, looking down at him again. "Murderous, sub-human monsters! To be studied for their diseased minds, then discarded like the filth they are! That's what you should be doing with people like them! That's what I will do with them!" Strange stepped closer to the ledge, pointing at him. "How dare you even mention Hawkins after what that beast did to my son! My Eli! You, of all people, know what such loss is like!"
"YOU HAD NO SON!" Batman shouted at him. Vicki had revealed this to him too. Strange just glared back at him, his eyes bulging wildly. "You're the one with the diseased mind, Strange! You didn't feel special enough, so you took on someone else's trauma to feel important! To feel motivated! Because you didn't really care about Hawkins' victims, or any victims of crime, but you still wanted the glory of catching a serial killer. To be a hero. So you made up a story of personal revenge, to justify your actions."
"ENOUGH!" Strange screamed, and it echoed off the cave walls. "I will destroy you!"
Batman sighed, eyeing the middle-aged scientist. "You really think you can defeat me? Then come down here and end this."
Strange chuckled smugly. "Oh, I can, and I will. But first…" He took out a syringe with green liquid in it. "A concentrated dose of my serum. The one I used on Helzinger and the others." He plunged the needle into his neck and injected himself. "This will increase my strength, speed, and stamina. Reduce my pain. Give me the advantage."
"Strange, your serum rots the mind! It overtaxes the body. You'll kill yourself like you did the others you gave it to!"
Strange grunted, throwing away the spent syringe, starting to feel the serum flowing within him. "I gave those monsters a less refined form. I have perfected it to minimise the cardiopulmonary side-effects. And the mental damage is only for the weak-minded! A superior brain like mine can handle it!
"Now… I will end you!"
Strange swooped down, using his cape's glide function, and collided with Batman, both of them landing in the water.
Batman tried to pull himself back up, but Strange's grip was unexpectedly strong. The serum must be working. And the punches Strange landed on his chest were powerful, Strange screaming like a lunatic.
"I will kill you! Kill you! You killed Eli!"
He had truly lost it. Batman fired the projectile blades from his gauntlets into Strange's face. Although he felt no pain from the slices, his surprise allowed Batman to slip his grip, get to his feet behind Strange and deliver a kick to his side.
But the armour was thick, and Strange's momentarily dulled pain receptors pretty much nullified the sensation entirely. Strange grabbed Batman's raised leg and threw him across the cave with uncanny force, slamming him into a rock. Batman was quietly thankful that he hadn't used his bad leg, although right now the other one hurt just as much.
Strange charged him, roaring like an animal, and Batman threw some flashbangs in his path to buy time while he picked himself up.
But, unlike with Helzinger, the light and sound did not stop Strange. He ploughed right through it and into Batman, slamming him against the cavern wall.
Batman let out an anguished cry and punched Strange hard in the face. The other man barely reacted and pummelled Batman's body with steady, hard punches. That old suit lacked manoeuvrability, that was why he'd eventually replaced it, but Strange was going for strength over speed.
Batman turned that to his advantage. Putting all his own strength into it, he deflected Strange's slow-moving arms and landed a series of sharp, swift blows to the spots of the armour he knew were more vulnerable – the sides of the torso, the shoulders, and under the arms.
Although Strange felt no pain, his muscles still reacted to the hits, buckling him. Batman used his grapnel gun to latch onto one of the overhead ledges, pulling himself up and over Strange and landing behind him. If Strange had injected himself with a concentrated dose of his serum, it may not last long. He just had to draw this out, so he ran for the armoury, where the equipment lockers were.
Strange soon followed, screaming "DIE!" at the top of his lungs, casually knocking aside the lockers. Batman moved stealthily between the rows of them, avoiding the madman's rampage.
Eventually there was nowhere left to hide though, and Strange found him, pulling him up from behind a locker by the neck with a might that defied his age. Batman reacted instantly. He'd used up most of his gadgets at the gang fight, but he still had the electromagnet, and attached it to Strange's utility belt.
Kicking off Strange's chest, free of his grip, just before the electromagnet activated, he avoided the metal lockers that rammed into the crazed psychologist. Being buried under the lockers just enraged him further, and he threw them aside once the magnet deactivated, but by then Batman had made his escape.
Not before he'd taken the grapnel gun on Strange's belt, however, and looped its wire around the pulley mechanism in the buckle.
Strange, grunting, followed his leash back out into the middle of the cave, just in time to see Batman loading the grapple hook back into the gun and fire it up into the high brick ledges. Strange began barrelling towards him again, but Batman pressed the retract button on the grapnel gun and let go of it.
Both the gun and, soon after it, Strange went flying up to the ledge, pulled by the wire looped around his belt. He was suspended there a moment before his thrashing snapped the worn ledge loose, sending him plummeting back to the stone floor with a loud thud.
He did not get up.
Batman made his way over cautiously, mindful of how Helzinger had played dead in the mall. Still nothing.
He turned Strange over and saw that he was alive, but twitching, his mouth foaming, eyes rolled back. He was paying the price for taking his serum. Despite his bragging, he had not escaped its side-effects.
Batman lifted the broken fool, intending to take him to help, but as he picked up the older man, Strange grabbed his arm, his former strength thankfully gone, and looked at him with unfocused eyes.
"Batman… may live…" Strange said, his once-commanding voice now weak and small. "But Bruce Wayne… will be no more… I will tell… everyone…"
For the first time in a long while, that thought scared Bruce.
He would not become the monster Strange had though. Would not take a life, not even a criminal's, not even to protect himself.
He'd bring Strange to justice and deal with the consequences.