"I don't want excuses, these bastard aberrations are going under instantly, or it's your job!" Commissioner Loeb screamed to Gordon as he left the room, the hunt for this 'nut conspiracy' seems to finally be important for the police commissioner, Jim wondered why he would want to see these things dead so much when he didn't give a damn a few days ago. But at least he was given more resources to investigate, which he would need
Sting operations to get the attention of the aliens didn't work, they could distinguish actual crime from a dramatized version of one, so Gordon was forced to move onto a different angle. Interrogating anyone who might be covering up for these aliens, at least one of them must be hiding with a human, it would also give a motive for why they would fight against crime, a way to help their friend for covering for them maybe. At least that is what they were told in the briefing, he didn't want to say it but this also didn't feel right considering the methods approved by Loeb for these interrogation
"They know when and where we set up our traps, and night after night, these aliens terrorize the most powerful men in Gotham." Jim spoke as he walked into the office of Harvey Dent, the district attorney had a lot of promise, being seen as the city's best up-em coming defense and prosecutor advocate.
"Have you seen what one of them did to Roman's car?" He touches on the subject, knowing very well how much Dent resents the Falcone crime family, after all he was the only district attorney who wasn't corrupt. A sad reality of Gotham, those truly clean of corruption didn't even make a percentage in the count, not in the way that matters anyway
"I died laughing, it was a Rolls-Royce." Harvey responds amused, the way that car was taken apart and rebuilt into a crude mockery of Falcone was a really great way to start a day, some even say a literal imp devil was behind it but most assume it was a overly religious group confusing one of the aliens for a bible creature
"You been after Roman for years, some testimonies changed their minds, others disappeared without a trace. Must be frustrating" not just for Dent but Gordon felt the same, only made this place look more like an shit hole than ever, corruption of this level was something he never expected to see outside of an exaggerating rant. Gotham was ironically better with these aliens popping up, at least they weren't corrupting the legal system in every corner, their vigilantism was almost the only real blow against organized crime.
"You bet" Harvey didn't really try to deny any resenting feeling towards the subject, he had made statements about Falcone previously about taking him down, but no one really took it seriously considering how many have tried and the fact Dent was still an upcoming D.A which all the previous ones had backed down from these attempts in the past
"I think he uses muscle to push back the Prosecutor's Office, wouldn't it be nice to do the same to him?" Gordon raises an eyebrow to Dent as he looks at the office room, nothing really out of the ordinary aside from a set of weights, however Jim had to do this since they were on a manhunt... Even though what they hunted was not human in the slightest
"What are you implying, lieutenant?" Harvey fires back at the insinuating spot he was being put on, crossing his arms but not really in a defensive way, he was calm and chill about the whole thing.
"I just need to know where you were on the following dates" unless of course Harvey has been meeting with a few extra terrestrials during those times, him being a suspect was a stretch... But one he couldn't overlook for the sake of the case or his job, Loeb wanted any lead as soon as possible so the aliens could be put down.
After the set of questions were made, Gordon took his leave as Harvey Dent wasn't someone known for lying if his reputation was to be taken, unlike other Two Faced lawyers in this city.
"Thank you for your time" Jim walked out of his office, ready to end of another fruitless day of questioning people about aliens, felt like he was working for the FBI or an attempted mockery for how this whole alien situation is, Harvey's expression becomes more serious as he looked at the lieutenant leave and making sure no one else was in the hall when he entered his office
"Thought he would never leave, you can come out now." Dent said to someone else in the room, as a blue hybrid between monkey and spider wearing a white jumpsuit comes into the room from the window, showing that Dent hadn't been completed honest with Gordon's questions.
Meanwhile back on the streets, James went back to his car as Essen was awaiting him. She was a better partner than Flass, but still felt wrong for him to have a partner at the moment, this whole alien mess and things back home with Barbara were really putting a drain on Gordon
"He had an alibi for each data, Essen. Said he was at home around midnight to 4 AM with his wife, we don't even need to confirm" Jim didn't want to bother the man's wife, knowing full well how it was to try keep a good marriage, especially with the type of job they had in a city like this. Plus Dent gave good evidence for everything, his time of events didn't connect with the attacks on Falcone despite how much Gordon wanted to have a lead, even if not to arrest Dent he could at least ask to have a private conversation with one of the aliens
"You really thought he was helping the aliens, tenant?" Essen asked since Harvey Dent wasn't someone she expected to be in the list, granted he was more worthy to go after compared to the people of poorer neighbors that Flass was covering. But as far as they knew these aliens could just vanish in booming lights without them even knowing, it was like trying to catch a ghost.
"It's possible" Dent has the passion and wants to clean things in Gotham, but he doesn't have the means to do it outside of the court, especially considering how corrupt the system could be here. So him making a deal with these aliens made some sense, the aliens did the heavy work while he finished things off in court, had at least a way to imagine happening.
"But the problem is that Dent didn't have anything to offer, these aliens are running around the city but don't seem to be kidnapping cows or anything really" Jim had yet to crack their goals here in the city, unless these aliens wanted to create a crime ridden metropolitan area, he could not understand why go after all this effort. These things had super powers, no one could contest against them in the department and only the military would possibly stand a chance, so what do they gain from helping the city?
"Hard to imagine someone who could keep all of these things under wraps, would need a lot more money than a district attorney's salary" but that also was a problem, some of the richest people in Gotham were criminals so whoever was baking this whole crusade had to be from outside the corruption circle, that was easier to say than actually believe given everything he saw so far. But Gotham has been this pot full of brewing surprises, a majority terrible but surprises none the less, this makes Essen think for a bit.
"Money... Bruce Wayne is the richest man in Gotham, since you're not from here you may not know but Wayne's parents were murdered by an robber. Could he be a suspect?" The blonde suggested although the connection was a tad hard to make, but that was the case for almost all the interrogated individuals so far, and he was the only one without a criminal record to speak of. Jim looks at her for a bit before coming to a realization that she might be onto something
"Essen, I could give you a k-"
"Jim!" She called out in a scream for him to press the brakes, Gordon is only able to see a small glimpse but he could see a truck going past them, one where the driver was asleep in the wheel, that wouldn't end well.
"Hold on" Gordon begins chasing after the truck while playing the siren, hoping the driver would wake up and regain control but seems like he was black out cold, so their only hope of stopping this was manually
"Grab the wheel." Jim ordered her as he opened the car's door when he was close to the truck, preparing himself to jump onto the moving vehicle and get to the drivers seat before they hit another car or building, meanwhile on the roofs, Bruce was jumping around and swinging in his web before spotting the incident.
Gordon is almost at the door when he sees an homeless woman coming towards them, she would certainly be run over if a blue simian hadn't swung by just in time to take her out of the way, Jim unfortunately is spinning out of the car went the sleeping driver leans his head to the side, causing the vehicle to turn right and crash into a land post.
Hitting the pavement wasn't pleasant, but way better than multiple baseball bats to the body, felt like he was down for a whole second before his body's systems came back to him.
"Don't move!" Essen's muffed voice shouted as Jim began to get up, seeing her holding one of the East End aliens at gun point, this blue chimp standing by the side of a homeless person was their chance to interrogate one of these... Gordon's head wasn't really in the right place to consider this, everything still spinning a bit after that fall
"Lieutenant, are you all right? I called reinforcement" Essen responded to James, trying to keep her eyes on the alien in order to catch any funny business, when she sees it lift all four hands into the air, Essen assumed the creature knew it couldn't resist so she lowered her guard momentarily. But Gordon recognized that alien, and what his alleged abilities were
"Don't let it-" suddenly a web like fluid is shot out from the tip of his tail and pulls the gun out, before he pushed the woman to the ground in order to make his escape
"Stop or I'll..." Gordon falls to his knees, that head injury was definitely a concussion of some kind, thankfully the reinforcement arrived, just as he couldn't quite give chase to the creature.
"It's the monkey, he's going through the alley" all he could do was help point the other officers into the alien's direction, Jim could barely stand with the headache he was experiencing. As the two cops get in the alley, they can see the monkey climbing on the scaffolding outside the building, both begin shooting at him with their sights on the head
"Argh!" Bruce groaned as he lost his grip, a bullet going straight into his lower left arm as he had to quickly maneuver around to land safely while still being shot, unfortunately another bullet in the leg forces him to improvise, doing an acrobatic jump in order to break through a wooden barrier of an abandoned buildings window
"Cover the building's front! Merkel, take the team to the roof. No one fires until I order" Gordon ordered the officers, knowing this was their only change and they had to make it count, the alien was hurt and had no way of escaping the building unless he went to the top, even the ugly son of a chimp and a tarantula couldn't do it while healing from bullet wounds.
Meanwhile Bruce made his way up the stairs, blood dripping as he tried to push through but knew he wouldn't make it, pressing the insignia on his shoulder causes a green flash to change him into a humanoid alien with green vegetation for body along petals reminiscing of fire, wearing a white short with black lines on the side. His bullet wounds begin to heal, even the one he had in his extra arm was gone now that said arm didn't exist anymore, this was only a half solution since changing transformation when his time out was so close only made sure he wouldn't have charge to get out
"He didn't attack anyone, he's too hurt to leave, Brendon isn't necessary. I have the situation under control" Gordon spoke over the walkie talkie with the captain, trying to stop the situation from scaling out of proportion, unfortunately the bright light of the police helicopter along with the heavy wind only confirmed this. Especially when he sees an incendiary bomb loaded into the helicopter, Bruce is making his way upstairs when he sees the light flashing outside, even as Swampfire he knew something bad was about to happen
"Oh no... Everyone stay back!" Gordon warned all of the police men standing by as they moved for cover behind their cars, the helicopter dropped the bomb into the roof. Causing a large explosion that pushes back Swampfire, plummeting him through the stairs as fire engulfed the building and created a giant pillar of smoke.
Bruce got up, hearing the floor boards crumb under him as he goes down the ceiling of the building, barely having time to roll out of the way from a collapsing pillar, the burns weren't as bad as one would think for a plant, Swampfire had some level of resistance to them due to being able to create his own methane gas to make fire.
He sees a charcoal body burning amongst the flames, before running away from more of the collapsing floors above. Unfortunately, his Omnitrix charge comes to an end as he is transformed back into human, but he could see something of use in the floor.
Meanwhile just a few blocks away, the sound of explosions were waking up entire buildings and in one of them, residing a large amount of stray cats, a woman is woken by all the commotion happening
"It's five in the morning, what is all that noise?" She angrily said while getting up from the bed, the many cats in the room moving hiding from the loud noises while a black one watched it all happening from the window as the woman came to make him company
"Brendon must have caught a pedestrian jaywalking, they must be talking about it on the news" she commented before picking up the cat and gently taking it out of the window, as the last of the incendiary charges was dropped. Back at the scene, some of the injured cops caught by the explosion were being taken away while Gordon had his head treated by a paramedic, before long the SWAT team came into the scene
"Get ready" Brendon ordered his men as they deployed out of the vehicle, Jim began making his way to the team angrily
"Brendon! Control you men, no one shoots without my order" Gordon shouted as the situation was already out of control, exploding a building was too far of an extreme measure for them to take when they didn't even know if there were civilians present. Even if it was to kill one of these aliens, blowing up a building in the middle of East End wouldn't do them any good, it would only show the police being an extreme authoritarian force.
"Not this time, Gordon. The commissioner wants this thing's carcass, and he'll get one." The SWAT team leader responds with a decisive look and an angry expression to match, he was ready to put the alien being in a museum as a stuffed statue
"All units, to the target's location. Let's show these freaks that we own this planet, I don't want prisoners." He begins charging the building and Gordon can only hope it won't end in any casualties. All of this had caught the attention of the media as news channels began to come into the scene
"One of the alien vigilantes, nicknamed Spider-Monkey by the police officials, has been surrounded by Gotham police inside an abandoned tenement off Robinson Park" the news reporter spoke to the wide audience on TV, some who were close by the place decided to go check it out for themselves despite the dangers, others who were very far away from the event were just content to knowing what was happening, but some were more curious. Like Selina Kyle who was finishing feeding the many cats in her room, but as she saw this transmission it perked up her curiosity... Is not every day you get to see the police go all out on a bunch of aliens, this morning was by far becoming the most interesting one in a long while
"Now this is interesting..." Selina said to herself as she began to get dressed to go out, see what this was all about. Criminals such as the Red Hood gang were cheering to the news while they played poker in their hideout, though their boss seemed to not bother with this news. Meanwhile Brendon's team moved through the destroyed building looking for the monkey's remains.
"Unit one reporting, second floor's a mess. Nothing alive" spoke a member from the SWAT team, a good part of this place was gone from the fire and explosions, some might not even be accessible by them with how much the floor has gotten unstable, so there was a possibility for the alien to be hiding in one of the remaining rooms
"Unit Two reporting. The body under the water heater, doesn't look like the alien, must be a nobody" another one responded with nothing about the alien invader, only dead bodies were those of homeless people sleeping in the building when it caught fire. Brendon's team reached the lobby and looked around, finding a steel door with a high voltage warning that seemed to lead downward and close by an broken chaminé.
"If he made it down there, he still might be alive" one of his teammates suggests and Brendon's response is to look at the ground before shooting multiple rounds into the floor below, intending to kill anything underneath or at the very least critically hurt the monster bastard
"Check it out" Brendon ordered as his men moved to the basement, leaving two men to stay in guard close by. But they are quickly knocked out by Bruce slamming their heads together from the shadows, meanwhile Brendon's team find nothing underneath aside from an old bible in a table by a rundown bed
"The janitor must have lived here" one of the swat members said as he closed the book with the tip of his gun, suddenly the steel door leading up to the basement is shut down, trapping them underneath.
"What the hell's going on? Open that goddamn door!" Brendon ordered as he banged against the steel door with his fist, before static comes from his walkie talkie
"I like you right where you are, Brendon." A voice from someone outside his SWAT team responded, with the only one left being the alien they came to arrest.
"Too many people have already died, order your squads to withdraw. I can't guarantee their safety" Bruce gives him a chance to surrender and end things before they get more serious, after this building bombs plus the other cases Brendon used extreme violence when he was involved, the Wayne wasn't going to give them anymore chances.
"Units One and Two, converge on the lobby! He's here! Shoot on sight!" Brendon orders through the intercoms of his men, as he does that a smoke bomb is thrown down a broken chaminé leading up to the basement as it covers the room
"Goddamn! Unit One, do you read me?" Brendon shouted in between coughing to the radio, but doesn't hear anything but static from his end.
"Sounds like Brendon's in trouble, lieutenant." An officer listening to the communications on the outside of the building said, they didn't have any visual for this stuff but from the alien trapped with them, he could only imagine some horrifying things
"Wish I could help, but orders are orders. Breaks my heart" Jim was clearly his glasses as he said that, relishing in the small irony of the situation as he was actually rotting for the alien, all because he really hated Brendon that much.
"Sir, he's taken out the entire Unit Three, commissioner" the helicopter pilot communicates to Loeb as they approach the scene, who reacts by cracking the mint he had on his mouth before turning to the gunner in the back seat
"You better shoot straight, son." Loeb said with the intention of having an absolute affirmative from the sniper, who nodded as he put the building's entrance on his scope.
'I've made a mess of things, let it get out of hand' The Wayne reflects to himself and a stray white who was underneath the stairs with him, so far he had done everything perfectly and never left a trail to be followed, but now he had been cornered in a dangerous situation by the police, all because he didn't turn into the right alien for his getaway from Gordon. But he didn't have time to dwell on past mistakes as he hears footsteps, hiding himself in the shadows of the stairs
"Careful, these stairs are about to give away." One of them comments as the group comes into the lobby, Bruce making his best to check the watch to see if it had come out from charging since it would not only light up but also make quite the noise, which he didn't need at the moment. As the Unit finishes entering, a white stray moves out of underneath the stare case, scaring one of them off as he begins to shoot at it.
"Hold your fire, it's the alien we're after." Another SWAT member told him as he holds his teammates weapon down, giving him a steer look. Meanwhile Bruce watches carefully, analyzing his circumstances
'Without my transformations, I'm down to my utility belt. I should make short work of them should I enter conflict, the battery life is still short... But should be enough' enhancing experimental Wayne technology with the powers of Upgrade and creating new gear years ahead of the modern standard with the likes of Brainstorm, Bruce had enough gear on his normal form to still be inhuman for most to compete, problem was creating a battery that could live up to the gear without using the electrical current from an transformation such as Buzzshock or Brainstorm
The members of the SWAT were trying to lift up a broken down wood pillar that was blocking the steel door from the basement, even with three men pulling they couldn't make the thing budge.
"Whoever this freak was, he's stronger than a-"
"Shut up, he could be anywhere." A SWAT member shuts down his teammate, looking around the room's remaining roof for the alleged alien Spider-Monkey that was here, meanwhile another gunner of the group looks at the stare case seeing a small bit of dust falling and decides to investigate. As he moves closer, Bruce prepares a small metal disc from his hand, shooting at it when the man is close enough. It causes a shock that explodes his gun from his hand and knocked him out cold
This of course calls the attention of his colleagues, who turn around and begin shooting frantically trying to hit him as Bruce begins running around the room. He swipes down to catch the fleeing cat, tossing it over one of the broken windows to the outside, the white stray runs towards the crowd watching the standstill where it quickly but gently gets picked up by the observing Selina
"Cease fire, you idiots!" Gordon ordered in the comms as stray bullets were flying off the building and into the streets, one even hitting a fellow officer. The SWAT focus on the pillar Bruce is hidden behind, as he clicks a button in his belt, causing a small blue light to start charging. Just then Brendon crawls out from the destroyed chaminé, incredibly pissed off.
"I'm going to cut that bastard in half" he spoke before taking a gun out of the SWAT member and moving forward to shoot himself, but as they approached closer and the pillar became weaker, Bruce slammed the belt buckle who had a blue glow coming from underneath the metal. Suddenly an EMP type of energy expands outwards, covering the entire room for a brief moment as all electronics shut down and the rifles begin jamming.
Just then, Bruce did a swift quick with his leg in the weakest part of the pillar, causing it to fall over and scatter the SWAT team as they got out of the way. When it hit the ground, the pillar also lifted up a lot of dust which served as cover for Wayne to move in to take down the entire SWAT now disoriented
Before anyone outside could tell, Brendon is flung through the rundown brick wall and makes a large hole in it. With the sunlight showing a figure standing there for all to see, and it wasn't the alien who caused this whole incident to happen
It was a human male, tall but not overly muscular as he had a black cowl covering his entire head with the exception of the mouth and jaw, the cowl covered around his entire neck which was connected to the white shirt in his torso, making a straight line down to his grey belt full of pockets. He had black gloves along with similar boots that all had a military look aside from the metal sole that extended to covering the front of the feet, his pants were a darker shade of grey compared to the belt, but most curious was the large watch-like device in his arm. It was so weird looking that it becomes very extraterrestrial in design, which had the same symbol as the aliens badges where you would usually find the clock's hands.
Just then a multitude of things happened in a span of seconds, first was the sniper's rifle going off as he made a shot to the head, second was a technological sound coming from the watch as it becomes green in an instant, followed by a booming sound as a flash of light blinds everyone. Then the spectators saw that instead of a human, stood in his place a diamond man who blocked the bullet with his arm and a wide arrange of reactions could be seen, but most only had shock.
Gordon for his part was processing this with all he had worked on the alien case so far, and it was starting to click everywhere he could imagine, they weren't dealing with multiple aliens... They were dealing with a singular, transforming individual capable of taking the form and powers of these things, while still absurd he could at the very least take out the alien invasion angle from his mind.
Before more can be done, Bruce slapped the watch's symbol in his left chest for another boom of green, now people caught a glimpse of a gigantic bug leaving the scene through the sky as the police helicopter gave chase, with the people below watching in complete awe, while some like Selina felt... Inspired in a way
As the commissioner's helicopter followed behind Bruce, the insectoid alien turned his eyes back 360 degrees to look at them, before a thick green mucus shot out from them like a gatling gun and quickly covered the window, blinding the pursuing vehicle as it was forced to land. As to be expected after this incident, the entire city couldn't stop talking about the news about all that had happened
Four of Brendon's men were hospitalized with broken bones, Brendon himself suffered 5 broken ribs and internal bleeding after the beating he got. The dead winos had no relatives to complain about their fire bombing, everyone who could have ordered Brendon and Loeb up on charges remained unavailable to Gordon by appointment or telephone. Not like the news would have cared about that part of the whole thing
What no one in Gotham could shut up about was the identity of the alien vigilante, coming up with names and conspiracy theories about his origins like he was a Martian who crash landed on their planet or some type of government super soldier turned vigilante. A few media outlets started to use him for the purposes of fear mongering, others saw this as the start of a heroic age in Gotham now that it had a super hero of its own, other groups felt he should have left us common people to our own devices instead of bringing this alien business to Gotham.
He didn't know which side to lean towards, Gordon still believes he could bring some form of positive change for the city, but the criminal escalation brought by him... Now he had to hope super nutjobs or even aliens from outside the milky way would start to come here, after all they knew nothing about him or what his arrival meant for them. All Jim could do is hope, that is all he could really do when feeling this powerless.
"I was hoping to use the threat of multiple different entities to stop criminals, have them fear not knowing who could appear. Now they know if any of them gets killed, they kill every single one" Bruce contemplated this in his cave, now that criminals knew he wasn't everywhere at once it surely would make the crime rate rise back up, he would have to put even more work in surveillance of the city if he wanted to stop every major crime from happening
"To be fair sir, it wasn't like crime was really slowing down even after the first ten aliens came into the scene, some people are too stubborn to stop and others will take any risk for more money." Alfred gave him another look at things, sure he was scaring off some individuals from attempting crime but quite a few didn't care for the risk, the threat of police brutally beating or killing then wasn't stopping the criminals before, so even aliens could be ineffective.
"... All of this could have been avoided if I changed to another form, flying off the scene instead of staying as Spider-Monkey." Bruce had been thinking back to the whole situation ever since getting to the manor, angry at himself for being such a fool and letting the situation escape his control, he didn't need such a big and public confrontation with the police, not now.
"You made an error in judgement and that is fine Master Bruce, you're only human like the rest of us" Pennyworth did his best to give the man some form of consolation, all things considered he had gotten out of that situation very well and even set an example for the-
"I can become anything that isn't human, I shouldn't be making mistakes. Not when they cost people's lives, human failure shouldn't be a factor when I..." Wayne let his frustration flare up for a moment when slammed the computer's desk, before that anger turned into doubt about himself and if he truly was worthy of wielding the device, he needed it to protect Gotham and to end crime, but could there be someone better for it? Someone who wouldn't have made a mistake in that situation, he needed to be at the top of his game at all times if he wanted to truly be the hero Gotham needs, but also the one it deserves.
Seeing this, Pennyworth thinks that his master deserved to have a heart to heart, something to remember what to be more like.
"Our mistakes are what defines us, without them we wouldn't be who we are today because we would never learn from them" Alfred decides to pass on some wisdom to Bruce straight out of another Wayne, quoting something Thomas had told him back when Alfred was just a Plumber for the family
"Even with your new power, you shouldn't delude yourself in the idea that you can stop every tragedy in Gotham from happening... Because it can strike at any moment, that is the way of life" that last part takes Bruce back to that faithful day, reminding him of the gunshot and the sound of his mother's pearls hitting the ground. He was right, tragedy wasn't something he could simply remove from his life, nor is something that he could prevent from ever happening to someone else ever again, but he could try to make them lesser in quantity.
"You are making a difference to Gotham, a positive one I hadn't seen since your father's time. you are not an infallible guardian angel, but you can be something more important for this city and its people, hope." Alfred concluded, and it seems that those words have done something indeed as Bruce lifts up from his chair and puts back his cowl, ready to keep going even with the weight of the world, maybe even the universe on his shoulders... But he would carry on regardless.
[Author's notes]
Leave a review as it really helps the creative process, follow and favorite to support the fanfic.
So this chapter was a bit hard to write, I don't know exactly what part of it gave me much trouble but I guess formulating how the public first learned of the aliens nature was a complicated concept, mostly recreated a part in Year One but with an alien twist
Also I wanted to show Bruce fighting in his human form, because him relying solely on the aliens for combat isn't very Batman like, he had trained years before finding the watch so I didn't want to make him useless when on a time out
So moving on, I am writing the story as I go so there isn't really a solid laid out format to go off once this arc is done. I'll try my best to make my own stories but a few suggestions wouldn't be bad, currently the next two plans are the "Vilgax attacks" and "Forever Knight" arcs that will... You can assume who will be the focus on those, but I am tackling them slowly in terms of planning so nothing concrete yet
To FictionFan272: sorry some should have unique eye colors because of this being the prototype, but AF aliens just naturally have green eyes when you think of them. I will try to make any other AF UA have a unique color like yellow or blue
To afonsopinheiropedro: thank you, I have consumed a lot of Batman media throughout the years and I am a big fan of the character, so I take extra caution when writing to make sure he is as close to what I know of the character whenever possible (seriously I studied the character deeply, plus he has such good media outside of comics it becomes hard to not like tbe character)
To the mysterious Mr.E: you see the reason I don't know how to handle both characters is because Zomboso in his first appearance had an supernatural element to him, basically stealing people's souls to power himself up and later coming back as a zombie. Which makes him vastly different from Joker who is just an insane monster but still very much human, so I find it difficult to choose whether to adapt both or only pick one
Also some of your suggestions are interesting, but I would need to read more about the characters and setting to even attempt writing it, choose Batman specifically because of my knowledge on the character. Sokka, Nathan Drake, Billy Butcher and Lara Croft sound to me like the most interesting ones to try (although a L with the Omnitrix has it's fair share of fun to have)
To SombraZorro70: thank you, try to put my all into the writing. He is Batman after all, he would be trying to unlock the device in whatever way he possibly can even in five weeks, plus 26 aliens is not a lot considering the 89 or so aliens been had unlocked by the end of the series, but don't expect powerhouses like Atomix or Way Big since that would break power scaling this early on. Changeling is good, maybe it would be his version of 'Dark Knight' but we'll see, Joker is in a weird spot for me since I have grown a distaste for the character in recent years due to saturation, not helped by his new awful movie (he hasn't been cut from the possibilities yet, just don't know if he will actually become the Joker we always see popping up)
To Eagle10000: you got most of them, but a few names are a tad misleading (Clone is actually Ditto, Chill has nothing to do with Articguana, Ghostfreak was part of the original ten Bruce had before inserting more codes.)
To GameMax10: kind of the vibe I'm going for, this will become more apparent when he does get Master Control. Batman can exist without Joker since we have seen it done multiple times over his 85 years of existence, some of the best stories involve Joker but he isn't a must for all versions of the character to work. The main problem is that Joker is at a severe disavantage even if Bruce doesn't have Master Control, most villains have some way to fight back or get in a stand still but without a hostage the Joker is getting his shit wrecked. Not to mention the fact he is only human so pushing a guy capable of transforming into aliens that could easily kill you is not a great plan long term, heck if he kills Jason and I'm pretty sure Batman would find a way to lobotomize Joker with Nanomech before the clown knew what hit him.
To zanzara: the Forever Knights overlap with a few other secret groups in DC mythos, although I can certainly make it work if I change or mix them with another group. Dr Animo was planned to be involved in Man-Bat's creation, but I have yet to fully conceptualize him into the story. Although him and Poison Ivy could be entertaining to see interacting, maybe he was her teacher at university or something alike, but my problem is that his mad animal scientist thing has been done plenty in the Batman mythos
To Superfan787: thanks for the list, not sure if I'll use it. Most of the bounty hunter type characters are high in the consideration since they don't change much or have too many problems attached, Khyber is a legit great pick but I'll wait until later to use him.
To Guest: Batman with Alien X... Yeah that transformation is never getting unlocked, Bruce is too good of a voice of reason he could make the other personalities agree to anything he says (could be interesting if the only time he uses the form is to change something that doesn't help himself, but someone else. The problem is the larger DC cosmology, hard to fit Celestialsapiens with what DC establishes for their multiverse in every crisis)