Well, considering that The Bat and The Android proved quite popular, here's the sequel AKA the cover for Arkham City!
It had been almost a year since Penny Polendina mysteriously arrived in Gotham City, teamed up with Batman to stop Joker, and met/befriended Benjamin Lane, a Metahuman Bang Baby whose powers seemed more mystical than genetic.
Since then, there have been several new vigilantes pouring out on the streets, inspired by the heroics demonstrated by Batman's newest allies. The Bat-Family was stretched thin across Gotham all the way to Bludhaven trying to keep a lid on the new crimefighters, making sure to separate the ones with genuine good intentions from the extremists.
Like Dick, Barbara, Tim, Stephanie, Cassandra, and Duke before them, Penny and Ben had essentially been adopted by Batman. They had gotten along with their new "siblings" for the most part, who gladly imparted everything they knew to them.
However, halfway through the year, Penny came across an old face from her previous world: Neopolitan. The ice cream-haired girl seemed different, with more cat-like features, and was associating with Batman's sometimes partner, sometimes rival, Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman. From the looks of things, the infamous cat burglar had taken Roman Torchwick's former partner as a surrogate daughter of sorts.
Penny also provided her new family details on her old world and even new gear inspired by her old friends. Batman had been equipped with his own version of Yang Xiao Long's Ember Celicia, Stephanie had her own version of Weiss Schnee's Myrtneaster, Cassandra wielded her own version of Blake Belladonna's Gambol Shroud, Nightwing got his own take on Lie Ren's Stormflower, and Tim had even been given his own version of Ruby Rose's Crescent Rose.
As for Ben, Batman had gotten assistance in harnessing his powers from some of his more spiritual-minded friends to help him out, such as Dr. Fate and Martian Manhunter. Ben even got to meet Static Shock, who was happy to see a fellow Bang Baby on the side of good.
From what Dr. Fate could see, Ben's powers came from a mixture of Metahuman DNA and a spiritual ancestry from a thousand years ago. Apparently, Ben's ancestors were bestowed with the blood of dragons who could control the elements and as such, over the eons, they mixed to grant Ben the myriad of powers he now used.
Also, during that time period, Penny and Ben had begun getting closer together. Eventually, it culminated in them becoming an official couple, which the rest of the Bat-Family wholeheartedly supported.
However, all these good times would come to an end, as a new danger would present itself to Gotham...a super prison by the name of Arkham City.
"Look what I found!"
A small group of thugs, all of whom were loyal to Harvey Dent AKA Two-Face, were looking at an art depicting Cain and Abel. One of the punks tried to touch the painting, only to be stopped by his friend.
"Don't touch it, man! He'll kill you!"
"How long until the boss gets back?"
"He'll be here."
"Riley said he saw the bat. He here, too?" One of the thugs asked.
At this moment, a pointy-eared shadow appeared in the room behind the thugs, before disappearing as the owner of the shadow dropped down into the room.
"In Arkham City? Why would he come here? You guys just need to chill the hell out." The leader of thugs said before they all were alerted to the sound of shattering glass, turning to it with their fists raised.
"It's Batman!"
"What the hell?"
As it turns out, it wasn't Batman but rather Catwoman, who sauntered towards them, stopping a good distance away.
"Sorry to disappoint you, boys." She smirked, extending her claws. "It's just little old me."
"You're gonna die tonight!" One of the thugs said, rushing and punching her in the face, only for her to shatter like glass, a much smaller figure hitting him in the face with a jump kick and smacking him in the face with an umbrella, sending him to the floor.
"What the?!"
The other thugs couldn't process this as a whip wrapped around one of their necks, yanking them backward onto their back before Catwoman stomped on his face, knocking him out.
"Excellent work, Neo."
Neopolitan smirked as she made her presence known. After her defeat in the Ever After at the hands of Team RWBY, who then rescued her from the Curious Cat, she allowed herself to ascend. What she didn't expect was to be reborn in Gotham City, where she was found by Catwoman.
Her new self had a few cat-like features added, such as slit pupils, sharp fanged teeth, and a tail that was evenly colored pink, white, and brown. She also had a pair of cat ears poking out of her head which she liked to keep hidden with a new bowler hat to remember her old friend, Roman Torchwick.
Back to the action, Neo cartwheeled forward and knocked another thug to the ground, knocking him out with a swift smack from her umbrella. Catwoman lunged and clawed at one of them, elbowing a guy behind her about to attack, before knocking another thug to the ground and smashing his head into the floor.
Neo effortlessly dodged several attacks from another thug, before pulling out her umbrella and blocking his attacks, finally countering and delivering an outside crescent kick to the man's head, knocking him down, executing her own takedown with a backflip, and dropping knee-first on the man's head.
Catwoman countered the last thug, throwing him to the ground and wrapping her legs around his neck, choking and knocking him out.
"Now that they're all taken care of, it's time to get what we came for out of that safe," Catwoman said, looking to Neo, who nodded and skipped alongside her as she sauntered up to the vault.
Selina pressed her ear to the vault and listened to the combination before opening the safe, taking out a memory card and inserting it into her phone, giving her a whole map of Park Row.
"Try to get one over on us, will you, Harv? I don't think so."
Neo smiled at this, before looking to the door, letting out a silent gasp as Two-Face walked through, stepping in front of Catwoman, opening her umbrella to block the bullets the crime lord fired at them from his tommy gun. However, because of the umbrella blocking her line of sight, she missed the grenade the disgraced district attorney threw at them, exploding right at Neo's feet, depleting her Aura and bringing her down.
"Neo!" Catwoman said worriedly, kneeling and checking on her silent charge before a pistol was put to the back of her head.
"Get your filthy paws off my things...NOW."
The sound of electricity crackled through a bright room as screams of pain echoed throughout.
"Wake up, Mr. Wayne. We have much to discuss."
"Strange? You won't get away with this." Bruce Wayne vowed as he began to recall what had happened before that caused this.
"I already have."
Bruce's mind played back to earlier; there had been a large press conference in front of the massive prison complex of Arkham City, the new establishment that housed the criminals from Blackgate, and the now-shut-down Arkham Asylum.
Bruce had taken to the stand, wanting to start a political campaign to get Arkham City shut down, knowing that a large supermax prison made in the very heart of Gotham for all of the criminal scum to rampage as much as they wanted was a recipe for disaster.
"I assume that you thought yourself untouchable? Well, as you can see, no one is untouchable."
In that moment, the armed forces hired to supervise Arkham City and make sure the prisoners remained inside, TYGER, came bursting in and detained any and all news reporters before knocking Bruce unconscious. When he came to, he had found himself at the mercy of the man responsible for creating Arkham City; Professor Hugo Strange.
"Shut Arkham City down! It's out of control!" Bruce demanded.
"Shut it down? By the end of tonight, I will be a hero. Just like you... BATMAN!"
And so begins the Arkham City saga! How will things change with Penny and Ben helping out Batman? And what of the inclusion of Neo, which I totally took from Sai Kunai Blade's original The Bat and The Blonde stories. Huge Shout-Out to him, BTW.
This new sway of vigilantes making their names known will become important in the coming chapters. As it turns out, there are others who want to put a stop to Arkham City just as much as Batman does.
See you soon!