Angel of the Bat III: Da Pacem Domine
A Fanfiction by MJTR
…
[[Author's introduction: On this night, my third attempt at telling this tale and sixth anniversary of the original Angel of the Bat, I am proud to say I think I finally cracked the code on this particular story. I'm ready to give it my all as I have in the past. So thank those of you who have stuck around and come back, because I'm ready to present the main event. In all likelihood, this will cap off a trilogy and be the final true Angel of the Bat story. And I'm going to do everything in my power to end my fanfiction opus on a high note.
If you're coming into this brand new this story may represent some trouble for you. While the main conflict of this story isn't a follow up to either the Seraphim's evils in the first story nor Victor Lipov's in the second, Cassandra's journey, both in her religion, and in her romantic life, is built upon everything I've worked on in the past two stories. I would welcome anyone to try this story if they wish to, but do think knowing the first two would be of great benefit here.
Written with love, as always, to my friends, family, my most beloved of muses. To the church, to my teachers, and to the lord on high. I write this in dedication and honor to all of you. Thanks for helping me to be the writer I am today.
…
It began on a sleepy spring evening in Clermont-Ferrand. Like much of France, Clermont's population was often wont to wind down as the sun settled down upon the horizon. In the center of town, across from the enormous, ebony Cathedrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, sat the Fontaine D'amboise. The fountain had stood since 1515 and all around its circumference, animal and men faces crafted from black volcanic rock starred outward. And at least a few settled their eyes upon the pair of giggling tourists from across the sea who sat with gelato on their tongues and feet in the water.
"Going to get us in trouble, keep telling you." Despite the implied concern in her words, they were said with a smile and a laugh.
"Nah, nah. They're a lot cooler about their landmarks over here. Europeans get there's more to enjoying this stuff than just looking at it from afar. And I've seen people drink from this thing before, so they don't care if you get up close."
The first of the young women, a short but well-toned Asian-American, had to stifle another chuckle as she took another lick of her gelato. "I'm sure everyone wants to taste our feet water."
Her girlfriend with the boyish brunette haircut and the leather jacket laid against a nearby bench eyed her with a mischievous smirk, as if she'd just been issued a dare. "It gets filtrated out a long time before you drink it. Porous rocks and all that sciencey stuff. Want me to prove it?"
"You don't have to." Cassandra leaned her head against one of Sadie's shoulders and let out a deep, contented sigh.
The two had shared a busy few days. Sadie had spent the last months in Paris studying abroad, and the French holiday breaks were one of Cassandra's favorite parts of the year. After a few little adventures in Paris, the two bused out to Clermont-Ferrand for its quieter atmosphere, beautiful architecture, and the Chaîne des Puys mountain range and volcano that surrounded the city. The hike around the last of these was the reason their shoes sat against a bench and their feet soaked in the fountain's cool water.
"The country's in the middle of an election right now, you know." Sadie ran a hand through Cassandra's black hair. "I can't vote out here, obviously, but following along is something to do. This guy, Frances—sorry, François Hollande, he's pretty cool."
"Mmm." Cassandra shut her eyes in relaxation. She had a hard enough time keeping up with politics back in the states, France's internal affairs didn't interest her. She just planned to let Sadie talk.
"Maybe if he wins we should move out here. Not as many masked weirdos, the air's cleaner." She quieted for a beat partly out of hesitation, partly for dramatic effect. "Legalizing same-sex marriage is one of Hollande's biggest campaign promises."
Cassandra's eyes opened wide and her pupils dilated just a little. "What did you say?"
Sadie flashed a satisfied smirk, put her hands up, and wiggled her fingers. "Oooh, listen to me using the m-word." She laughed. "I really do appreciate you giving me space on this, but I'm not so sure I need it anymore." She planted a kiss on Cassandra's head. "I don't think I'm actually going to move out here full time, and who knows if we'll ever be able to back home. But I get that thinking of ourselves that way is obviously different than what we're doing now. And I want to get there."
Almost two and a half years had passed that fall the two romantically reunited with that particular topic placed on the backburner. It was the same season as Cassandra's agonizing battle with her father's old enemy Victor Lipov and his protégé with that title she refused to let cross her mind. Life hadn't exactly become simple since then, but Bruce's dragnet had expanded to include a few new, competent heroes. Cassandra still felt a certain uneasiness when she left Gotham for too long, but her last few trips felt much easier to calm down over. Maybe, just maybe, the city didn't need its Angel anymore. And if that day was coming, she'd have Sadie to come home to at night.
Faced with a lovely sunset at the end of a wonderful day, all seemed right. With one finger brushed against the silver cross that hung around Cassandra's neck, she whispered, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
The two got another minute or two of relaxing with their feet in the fountain. Then there came a the ferocious fwoosh of a sudden incendiary and, a second later, screams. Both women's heads jerked to the right as a nearby clothing shop gave way to a sudden and enormous burst of flames. Contrasted against the twilit sky, the inside of the store blazed in a dark, consuming orange.
Cassandra didn't know a word of French, but a plea for help sounded much the same in any language. She stood up, pulled on her shoes, and turned toward the building.
"Hold up, no way!" Sadie almost tripped and fell as she stood up to try to match Cassandra's pace. "There is no—no way you're going toward that thing!" In the years the two had spent together, Sadie hadgrown accustomed to moments like that one. If ever she spotted so much as a sign of a bad situation, be it a pickpocket or an elevating domestic dispute, Cassandra always threw herself into the middle of it. That was absolutely admirable in Sadie's eyes, of course, but the prospect she was about to rush into a fast-immolating building was just insanity. "Wait for the fire department."
"Too long. And I'm here now." Cassandra held Sadie's cheek for a moment, planted a quick kiss on her lips, and pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth. "Won't be long." She then turned and ran at the blaze. The dumbstruck Sadie was just left to watch and wonder what was about to transpire.
Cassandra reached the front of the store where a woman and daughter of maybe five stood. The woman's hand was tight around the little girl's arm, but all of her attention was on the inferno within the store. "Elsie!" Her voice was racked with pain and guilt. "Elsie!" Within a few cries, the child emulated her yell.
"Over here!" Cassandra called. When the woman turned, Cassandra spread her hands and fingers open. "How many inside?"
The mother looked on at her for a moment in a stupored silence before, in strained English, she said, "Six, think, six. Older daughter, my Elsie—"
"Going in for her." Without another word or moment's thought Cassandra ran into the store. Up and down the aisles of cotton and silk and wood shelving the great blaze set smaller fires. A pair of blonde young women with their hair tied back into tight ponytails in black, sheer button ups maneuvered around the rows and ran at the exit. Cassandra assumed from the look of them they must be cashiers. That made two who'd taken care of themselves, four more to go.
To her right, beyond a set of enflamed manequins in dresses, stood a teenage boy and girl. The fire moved fast on the two, and though the both coughed hard in the acrid smoke, the boy held her tight against him, as if he could serve as a buffer against the flames. Despite her rush and the way her mind raced, Cassandra managed a moment to admire the boy for his efforts. Elsewhere, toward the back of the store, she heard the scream of a child, a girl of maybe ten.
Cassandra first turned toward the scream and shouted, "Hold on!" then turned her attention back toward the teens, since they were closer. She searched about for some way to aid them and her look settled upon a long, white pole proper against the wall. It was probably the busted piece of a clothing rack the staff hadn't thrown in the garbage yet. Cassandra uttered a silent prayer of thanks, acknowledged the reason in all things, and took ahold of it.
As the teenaged Jaques and Nicolette wheezed and gasped for air, Cassandra rushed down the adjacent aisle with the pole extended. She knocked five of the flaming dummies over and pushed to create an opening. With a swing of her arms, she commanded, "Go, go!"
The two exchanged looks of shocked wonder with one another and toward their savior for just a moment before they did as they were told. Cassandra watched their movements until they'd made it out the front door. That just left two, one she already had the location of.
As she ran toward the back of the boutique, the last soul trapped within made himself known. "Oh please, oh dear God, no!" This was followed by a burst of heavy, raspy coughs.
The shouter was an adult man, but the a cloud of black smoke kept Cassandra from getting any better look at him. She figured he must be close, but the acrid jet made it impossible to figure any specifics. And Cassandra wasn't about to rush into the smoke, choke, and disorientation. With the clothing pole still in hand, she slowly extended and poked out into the smokecloud. "Sending a line, feel around for it!"
She felt around for some sign of life from the pole as the man's wheezes grew ever more violent. It took a few precious seconds that felt much longer, but eventually she made contact with something.
"I've—" the man let out another choking cough. "I've got it!"
"Follow my pull, eyes shut, breath held!" Cassandra slid the pole backwards, arm over arm, until, at last, a portly, older man in a tan jacket tumbled out of the smoke with his eyes tight shut. Cassandra cast a look toward the exit to ensure he had a path out, stepped forward, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Open your eyes. Way it clear. Run."
He took a moment to look at her, gawked at just how tiny his rescuer was, and then did as she'd told him. With a great, wheezy struggle, he managed to shout, "Thank you!" as he ran.
Five down, that just meant one more to go. As Cassandra turned toward the direction she'd previously run, there came a terrible crack and then a crashing sound. For an instant, Cassandra's heart froze in terror before she heard another scream from the little French girl. "I'm coming!" Even if the child couldn't understand her words, she could at least know help was on the way.
Cassandra ran past aisles of enflames clothes and melting makeup, a few glass perfume bottles burst an instant before or after she passed them. The run took her past the children's clothing, past the cash registers, until she finally arrived at the changing rooms along the back wall of the store. The screams came from the very last one on her left. It was wider than the other rooms along the wall by two or three times, and a fresh jolt of fear ran through Cassandra as she realized there was a handicap symbol above the door handle.
"I'm here now!" Cassandra tried the handle, but found it was locked. "Open the door."
The little girl on the other side shouted something back that sounded like protest, but Cassandra, of course, had no way of truly knowing. The door didn't come unlocked, so Cassandra tried for a moment to push, realized it was a pull door, and yanked backward. The door didn't budge, the young hero grit her teeth and silently cursed that she probably wouldn't be able to kick it off its hindges. Forced to improvise, Cassandra took a few steps backward, threw a sliding kick into the door right next to the handle, and knocked a hole into the entryway. After a little struggle she maneuvered her hand around in the hole she'd made and opened the door from the inside. Across the changing room sat the little girl in a wheelchair. Cassandra's surge of empathy almost made her run in, but the way her first foot lost purchase when she stepped forward stopped her. She looked downward, the fire somehow had ripped a large hole in the floor, which was probably the crash she'd heard earlier. Still, undettered, Cassandra took a few steps backward and jumped over the hole in the floor. The child in the wheelchair stared at her as she shook in terror and coughed at the stink of the smoke.
"Here to help." Cassandra slipped off her scarf and held it over the child's mouth. The girl didn't seem to understand, but still accepted it. Cassandra bent and scooped her up. The terrified little girl felt like she hardly weighed a thing. As she clutched little Elsie close and prepared for another jump, her eyes settled for just a moment on the pit that formed in the floor. But that glance forced another.
There was at least one other person in the shop, in the underground beneath the floor. Who they were, what they were doing, and even any specific details about them were lost on Cassandra. But, she reflected, that didn't matter to her.
She called into the pit, "Hold on down there, be back!"
Cassandra didn't have a chance to see if the figure below responded, because a flare up in the store and another scream from Elsie forced her feet. The two cleared the gap easily and Cassandra had an unobstructed path out the door. The little girl clung to her like a bur as she ran and they made it outside within a few seconds. The girl's mother stood too close to the flames to be safe and sobbed with joy when Cassandra unlatched her daughter.
The triumph for Cassandra only lasted a moment. She had saved six, but ultimately counted seven. If there was more she could do, she would not be stopped from doing it. She gave a strained smile to the mother, who returned her closest approximation of one back in her shocked state.
Then Cassandra ran back into the blaze.
…
Sadie only waited for Cassandra for about a minute. Because in the midst of her short worry over her girlfriend's rush into heroism, a chorus of car horns sang down the block. A taxi cab with shattered windows and harsh dents in the body rushed into the plaza square. The car weaved left and right as if it was dodging out some horrible, unseen pursuer. After three different close calls with pedestrians, the taxi finally came to a screeching stop in front of the great black cathedral of Cathedrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. Out from driver's side a blonde haired man in a brown trench coat practically fell. With some struggle the man, with blood down his cheeks and into the scruff of some peach fuzz, forced himself to his feet and ran around to the cab's passenger side. A few people from the square, including Sadie slowly congregated around him to shout at his dangerous driving.
"What the hell are you gits doing out here?" His shout was accented with British. "Get off, all of you, the damned thing that did this to the car is fast on my heels. Go! It's only us he wants."
With that he pulled open the passenger door and a second man did fall out, as if he was unconscious. His blonde head fell out and hit the concrete once there was no more door to hold him back.
"Bloody hell." The Brit grit his teeth as he looked down on his companion. Another scream came from the gathering crowd and Sadie was sure from her passing understanding of French someone was about to call the police. "Come on, damn it, wake up. As for you lot—" He stood up straight, pulled back one hand, and appeared to throw something at the ground. A step lower on the cathedral's staircase suddenly jutted forth a small but instantly notable tire. The crowd, in fear and confusion, retreated back as he tried to force his companion upward.
Though she too had pulled away like the rest, Sadie's eyes remained tight on the man as he snapped his fingers and tried to return his companion to consciousness. Ever few snaps she heard something like, "We have to move!" and, "Nearly there!"
Sadie didn't know these two, of course. And from one particular past experiences, she didn't have a strong trust in people in a hurry to get the unconscious into a church. And yet something, an honesty if also a brashness, seemed to radiate off of the Englishman. Whoever the two of them were to one another, the unconscious mean seemed to be in his protection. It wasn't any of her business, of course it wasn't. But she'd spent a lot of time around a true, heart on the sleeve, all-loving altruist those last few years. By just doing what came naturally to her, Cassandra taught Sadie a lot about being a better person. And maybe it was time to put those lessons into effect.
She stepped forward. "You're not going to be able to get him in on your own."
"Well, I don't well have time to wait on anyone else."
"Good thing you don't have to then. Get his other arm."
The Brit's eyes widened at little as Sadie bent down and pulled one of his companion's arms over her shoulders. "You're serious?"
"You said it yourself, you don't have the time to waste. So let's get him in where it's safe."