It was still late at night when Terry returned to Luke's secret workshop underneath Foxteca. He had called his mom ahead of time to let her know he was working late again. Mary was, of course, concerned about Terry's schedule, especially with the many long nights he was working, but Terry reminded her that the money was good and it would really help the family. That didn't make Mary happy, but she understood. Terry hoped that Wayne would throw in a bonus soon….
At the moment, Terry was carrying a crate filled with the unstable freeze grenades Luke had warned him about earlier and dropping it off on the CEO's workbench. Based on the scattered blueprints, it looked like Fox was planning to develop a freeze batarang – so schway.
Speaking of whom, Luke was staring rather intensely through a microscope, the contents of which were displayed on the computer. It was a sample of Inque's goop. Luke grabbed a nearby syringe filled with purple liquid and injected it into the Inque sample. The goop went inert for a moment…then suddenly exploded into a frenzy, breaking the microscope lens. Luke pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in defeat.
"No, that's not it either," he muttered.
"Still working on those Inque blots?" asked Terry, leaning against the table next to him.
"Trying to find a cure for her cellular degeneration," said Luke as he fiddled with some chemicals for the next test. "I've isolated the genome responsible, but I have yet to create a compound that could stabilize it. Although, judging by this sample, it seems she found a temporary solution. Just enough to keep her from falling apart, but only good for a few days. Powers' handiwork, no doubt."
"The old man isn't helping?" questioned Terry.
"He's looking into some new 'cat burglar' in town," said Luke. "Don't worry, I have more than enough brainpower to figure this out. I'll have this done in twenty-four hours tops."
"Are you sure it's a good idea?" asked Terry. "Giving Inque a cure? She's already plenty tough without it."
"Powers' is holding young woman's life hostage," said Luke, filling a syringe with a new chemical compound. "If we give her the cure, she's have no reason to work for him anymore. Besides, we both know it's the right thing to do."
Terry knew he was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it….
Derek Powers leaned against the windowsill of his private hover car as he soared through the cityscape, coming back from another annoying session of baseless accusations from two of Gotham's finest. Of course, they were true, but they didn't have the evidence to prove it, as Powers' attorney was so happy to remind them. He had hoped Miss Winston would offer him some better news from last night, but instead –
"Unfortunately, last night's damage was minimal," Miss Winston reported via vid-call. "They're still meeting their schedule."
"Just…perfect…," Powers sneered, cutting the line with an angry jab.
Powers' fury was doubled when he leaned back, doing a double-take when he noticed the shadow of his hover car roof moving. He didn't know how she did it, but he was not amused how Inque had snuck into his private hover car and casually dripped into the seat opposite him, reforming into her human shape. He was only marginally pleased to see the shapeshifter fidgeting in her seat like a child being punished.
"Mr. Powers, I can explain," said Inque pleadingly.
"This had better be good," Powers glowered. "What happened?"
"It wasn't my fault!" Inque cried. "It was that guy in the red and black costume – Batman!"
"Batman?" Powers growled, gripping his armrest so tight, it threatened to break.
"Yeah, this is the second time he's gotten in the way," said Inque. "If he hadn't gotten in the way – "
"I don't want to hear your excuses!" Powers shouted, slamming his fist on the armrest, making Inque flinch. In the next moment, Powers turned surprisingly calm as he reached into his suit and retrieved a vial of green chemicals. "I suppose you'll be wanting this…."
Inque hesitated, sensing that Powers was still furious despite his calm demeanor. She shakily reached out to grab it…before Powers crushed the vial in his hand, unconcerned by the glass shards cutting into his hand, the red blood mixing in with the green chemical.
"NO!" Inque cried, dropping to her knees and desperately trying to grab the liquid dripping onto the floor. Powers suddenly surged forth, wrapping his fingers around the shapeshifter's throat. Inque could have easily escapes, but she was paralyzed with fear as Powers stared into her eyes. It might have been a trick of her terrified mind, but Inque thought Powers' eyes were…glowing.
"You idiot!" Powers roared. "You think I would pay you for your screw-up?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Powers, I – "
"Save it," Powers spat, throwing Inque back into her seat. He calmed down again and the glow in his eyes seemingly disappeared. "I'm putting you on a new assignment: Find this Batman and kill him."
"Whoa, hold on," Inque argued. "Breaking a bunch of stuff is one thing, but killing someone…."
"You're not getting any more medicine until he's dead," Powers declared firmly. "It's his life or yours."
"But – but he's working with someone," Inque sputtered. "I heard him talk to someone over a radio link."
"Then kill them both," said Powers impatiently. "Do this and you'll never have to worry about your 'medicine' again."
"You mean you're gonna keep giving be the temporary stuff," said Inque, frowning.
"You can either complain and die, or you can go bat hunting," said Powers. "Now I suggest you get a move on before you start dripping all over my car. I just had it cleaned."
Inque continued to frown, but reluctantly exited the vehicle through the crack in the door and slipped out into the Gotham skyline. She lashed out her arm, hooking a radio antenna, and stuck herself to the surface as she watched Powers fly away.
"Sorry, Bats," Inque muttered to herself and she slipped down the tower. "But it's you or me…."
Another nights, another fie to put out – literally if you're Gotham's resident superhero.
It started with a fire alarm. Someone had set a blaze to the Foxteca building in the Bowery – that someone likely being Inque. Thanks to Luke, Batman got the alert before the fire department did and made it to the burning building first in his new Batmobile. The new Dark Knight parked the Batmobile in front of the building and got out to investigate.
"Bad news: we're too late," Batman informed Luke over the radio link, approaching the building cautiously. He suspected that Inque might be nearby.
And he was right.
The Dark Knight didn't realize it, but Inque had plastered herself against the surface of a billboard, disguising as the lips of the woman on the sign. The shapeshifter stiffed when Batman looked her way for a few long seconds, then carried on like nothing was wrong. Inque exhaled a relieved sigh.
Inque slowly extricated herself from the board while Batman investigated a puddle of her inky body she had purposely smeared on the building wall. The slick saboteur slipped down to ground level next to the Batmobile, checking to see that Batman's back was to her one last time before splattering herself against the vehicle. It was a good thing it came in black – Inque blended perfectly on the surface.
"No sign of her," said Batman, touching his earpiece.
"There's nothing more you can do," said Luke. At that moment, fire and rescue vehicles started to turn up. "Leave this to the fire department. Come back to the workshop. I think I finally figured out the correct compound for stabilizing Inque's body."
"I'm just hoping we don't come to regret it," said Batman as he hopped into the Batmobile.
Batman flew away from the scene before the fire trucks started dosing the flames, also nearly missing Ethen and Yin as they came around the corner to investigate –
Batman flew the Batmobile straight back to Luke's secret lab, though he had to go the long route. To prevent anyone from realizing that Foxteca was developing Batman's equipment like Wayne Enterprises did in the past, they had to use a secret entrance through the abandoned subway system in Old Gotham. The entrance to the tunnel was ten miles out and had to go through an elaborate series of fake walls and automated security doors. Some would say they're overreacting, but given what happened forty years ago, their paranoia was warranted.
Batman jostled the controls as he flew through the final checkpoint, frowning.
"The car's feeling a little sluggish tonight," Batman informed Luke.
"Park and I'll run a diagnostic," said Luke.
The CEO of Foxteca started the system for the diagnostics check as the Batmobile came to rest on the pressurized landing pad. Several spotlights hit the car from all angles as the landing pad flood of automated data directly to his computer via wireless uplink. Batman had just hopped out of the Batmobile when Luke's computer let out a warning siren.
"This can't be right," said Luke, readjusting his glasses. "It says the car's over eighty pounds heavier than normal."
"What does that mean?" asked Batman as he reached to take off his mask.
Luke went silent for a moment, deep in thought, until something occurred to him. He leaned his head around the computer, spying Terry as he started to peel away his mask, then noticed with his critical eye that spot on the Batmobile was a shade darker than the rest.
"Don't take off you mask!" he screamed.
"What? Why? What's wrong?" Batman asked quickly, taken aback by the sudden outburst. Without warning, Luke suddenly jumped from his chair and disappeared deeper into the workshop. "Hey, what's going on, Lu – "
"Don't say anything!" Luke shouted from somewhere. "She's here!"
It took a moment to decipher who "she" was before Batman's eyes went wide and realized his mistake. He turned on his heels towards the Batmobile as Inque peeled herself from the vehicle now that she had been caught. The shapeshifting saboteur threw out her arm, wrapping an inky tendril around the Dark Knight's throat, and shoved him across the workshop, slamming him through a pile of crates into the wall. With her arm still around his throat, she slammed him on the ground and against the ceiling several times before he finally went limp.
Inque retracted her arm, pulling the weakened superhero closer to her. Batman groaned weakly. The suit had absorbed most of the damage, but his whole body was throbbing. It wouldn't surprise him if he developed a full-body bruise.
Inque hanged the Dark Knight aloft while molding her other arm into a corkscrew. She pulls back and begins twisting her limb, aiming for the emblem on Batman's chest. But just when she thought she had everything wrapped up…she hesitated. Her minds was screaming for her to finish the job, but her body refused to obey.
Batman, steadily regaining his consciousness, noticed her reluctance and seized the moment by drawing an electrified batarang at throwing it at Inque. The shapeshifting saboteur screamed when the batarang hit her chest, sending thousands of volts coursing through her inky body, involuntarily dropping Batman on the floor. The Dark Knight bolted behind the crates as Inque ripped the batarang from her body, panting.
"What's the plan, Inque?" Batman called as he weaved through the maze of boxes. "Moving up from corporate sabotage to assassination now? It's not as easy as you thought, is it?"
"You think I want to do this?" Inque screamed, sweeping her arms around and knocking over the piles of crates, dumping their contents on the floor. "I'm no killer!"
"Then why do it at all?" questioned Batman, moving to another hiding spot before Inque knocked over his previous space.
"I don't have a choice!" shouted Inque. "If I don't kill you, he's going to kill me! It's the only way he'll let me go!"
"Powers is never going to let you go, Deanna!" Batman retorted, rolling to a new spot as Inque's tendrils came close closer. "He's just going to keep holding you by a leash until you get caught or die!"
"Just shut hell up already!" cried Inque as she lashed out in another sweep.
Batman pressed himself against another crate, peeking around cautiously. Inque was moving in the opposite direction of him, but her moves were becoming more erratic the more emotional she became. She was tearing through everything trying to find her including a giant mechanized batsuit that Luke had been halfway through designing. Batman could imagine Luke was crying somewhere as the shapeshifter slithered inside the suit and exploded outward, breaking it apart into a thousand pieces.
"She's going to wreck the place if I don't do something about it," Batman muttered to himself as he watched Inque snap an old fashioned two-wheeled bat-cycle in half and flung both pieces across the workshop. "A batarang isn't going to be enough. If only I had some…."
While Inque went on a rampage through an arsenal of bat-gadgets, Batman's eyes wandered to the ceiling and spotted a spout from the building's sprinkler system. Water! That's just what the superhero orders.
Batman retracted a normal batarang up his sleeve and threw it out the spout above Inque's head, amazing even himself when he made a perfect cut. Water sprayed down on top of Inque like a shower, the shapeshifter squealing in pain as parts of her body dripped off and splattered on the floor. She moved away from the spray, desperately trying to hold herself together, but Batman just cut the next spout over and continued dowsing in water. More and more of her body melting into globs of ink as she tried moving away, essentially now crawling on her arms. Batman broke another sprinkler for the coup de grace. Inque cried weakly, desperately reaching out to the Dark Knight as he stepped out into the open, then melted into a puddle of black goop.
The sprinklers finally stopped after a few seconds, probably automated to do so. Batman crouched down next to the puddle of Inque.
"Don't worry, Deanne," said Batman reassuringly. "We'll make sure you're taken care of."
Batman stared at the black puddle with sympathy…until the puddle suddenly jumped up and tackled him against the wall near Luke's workbench. The dark blob reformatted into Inque's humanoid form with her hands firmly locked around the Dark Knight's throat, squeezing harder and harder until he started to choke.
"Just do me a favor and die already!" Inque shouted.
When Batman tried to speak, it only came out in strangled coughs and sputters. His consciousness was fading fast. The Dark Knight looked around desperately for something to get him out of the situation. His eye landed on the crate sitting on Luke's workbench and remembered the contents inside. He extended his hand, but his fingers just a few inches short of touching the edge. He stretched harder until his arm began to hurt, his mind steadily going blank as the world grew darker….
Then, without warning, Inque heard a hissing noise and felt something pierce her shoulder.
Inque yelped at the sudden stinging sensation and dropped Batman, allowing him to breathe again. The inky saboteur touched her shoulder, which was still throbbing, and spun around.
Luke back away slowly, his face concealed behind a metal bat mask, and an empty injector gun in his hand.
"Easy there, Miss Clay," said Luke carefully. "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you."
Inque lashed her arm out and wrapped it around Luke's body, pinning his arms to his side and forcing him to drop the injector. Guess she didn't believe him.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Inque snapped. "Some kind of…Bat I.T. guy?"
"It's Batwing, actually," said Luke calmly.
"What did you do to me?" questioned Inque, pointing to her stinging shoulder. "What did you put in my body."
"I synthesized a chemical compound I believe should resolve your cellular degeneration," Luke explained. "Take a look for yourself."
Inque regarded him skeptically, but gave her body a once over. Immediately, she noticed that he body was less coagulated and become more congealed, similar to how her body reacted to Powers' temporary cure. But Inque could feel the difference. This wasn't a patch job – it was permanent!
Inque let go of Luke and took a moment to admire her body.
She didn't notice Batman pulling himself up to Luke's workbench and reaching inside the crate –
"It's…it's really happening," said Inque, her face splitting into a gleeful smile that made her look young. "I feel like myself again! It doesn't feel like I'm going to fall apart if I make the wrong move anymore! Oh my god, I can't believe this is real!"
"It's real, Miss Clay," Luke reassured her. "Now don't have to work for Powers anymore. You're free to go back to your old life."
"Yeah, I'm done with Powers, all right," said Inque, turning to Luke with a wicked grin. "As for my old life – not a chance."
Luke let out a pained cry when Inque suddenly lashed at him, sending him flying into a pile of crate and rolling across the floor. The CEO gritted his teeth, his arms cut up by the various objects that spilled out of the crate. Inque strolled over to him, making herself bigger and more visually threatening with each step.
"Why would I want to go back to being boring, trust fund baby Deanna Clay?" Inque cackled. "Do you see what I am – what I can do? With these powers, I can do whatever the hell I want! No more asking for mommy and daddy for money,. No more nagging professors and annoying gossip. No more letting people push me around and telling me what to do! I – am – INQUE!"
She stretched her arm and slammed it down on top of Luke. The mask CEO rolled out of the way, narrowly dodging as the tendril crackled the floor.
"And once I'm done here, I'm gonna pay Powers a visit," said Inque. "Then he'll know who's really in charge!"
"As much as I would love to see that." Inque turned around, spying Batman on his feet, a freeze grenade in his hand, "I'm gonna have to take you down. Here, catch!"
He lobbed the grenade into the air and watched it sink into Inque's body. The slippery shapeshifter gave a moment of thoughtful pause before the grenade detonated and created a thick layer of ice that traveled through her body. Inque pained wails rang in their ears before the ice completely encased her. And due to the way she was positioned, Inque's frozen form fell over and smashed into a hundred frozen pieces shattered across the floor.
Batman let out a relieved sigh, grateful he didn't have to use the second freeze grenade he had on hand. Luke picked himself up and walked over to his young partner.
"That's it, you're showing me everything," said Batman, holding up the freeze grenade.
Luke laughed. He liked this new Batman.
"Again, Bennett?" Yin groaned, leaning against Ethan's car as she waited for her partner to come out of Bat Burger, loaded with two bags and two drinks.
"C'mon, Yin, you can't tell me you don't love the Clayface Milkshakes," said Ethan, tempting his partner with the frozen treat.
"…Well, it's not like a Super Smoothie is hard to beat," Yin muttered, accepting the drink milkshake and taking a long, noisy slurp. Ethan leaned against the car and started working on his Bat Burger Deluxe. "I still think Powers is behind these Foxteca attacks. They're competing for the same commission and Wayne-Powers profits the most from Foxteca going under."
"Yin, everybody knows it's Powers," said Ethan. "The problem is pinning any evidence against him."
"Well, it's not like it's gonna fall out of the sky," Yin groaned.
And just like that, a clear plastic bag fell out of the sky on the sidewalk in front of them. Inside the bag were the frozen pieces of Inque, which seemed to still be moving inside their icy prison. The bag also came with a handwritten note that read:
To my two favorite cops.
Keep on ice.
And the note ended with a red bat symbol.
Ethan and Yin snapped their heads up just in time to see the Batmobile sweep around the corner and disappear into the night.
"…Dispatch, we're gonna need a refrigerated truck at Bat Burger, over," Ethan said into his police radio, still staring at sky with his partner.