The human body is a strange dichotomy between being incredibly strong and durable, while also being equally as incredibly fragile and weak. There are countless stories of mothers gaining super strength to save their children from danger, or of the nervous system shutting down pain sensors in response to great trauma. Yet, most think that these stories were only just that, stories. Especially when they get a paper cut that won't stop throbbing or if they twitch a muscle accidentally while reaching for the remote.
Bruce wasn't one of those people, however. Most of his life was spent learning about the limits of the human body, before surpassing them. Every muscle group, every ligament, tendon, and nerve cell was trained and maintained to peak perfection. Anything else was considered to be a failure on his part. Which meant he was regularly able to perform inhuman feats, or push through pain that'd leave lesser men a sobbing mess, and yet, he always felt that his training wasn't enough. He needed to be more than a man, he needed to be a symbol, to be vengeance, and that meant never giving into pain. Even if his body pleaded with him to do so, as it was now.
He never saw the figure move. One second, he was looming over them, his cape and body angled so that he maximized his intimidation factor. The next second, his chest and back exploded with pain and his mouth filled with a familiar copper taste. All while finding himself slightly crumbling against the side of the Batmobile. But he'd have to ponder what exactly happened later as he pushed through the ringing in his ears and the blurriness of his vision, because the figure was bearing down on him.
Bruce barely had time to shift his head to the left as the figure's fist slammed into the Batmobile beside him, the vehicle rocking with the force of the impact. But the figure wasn't done, as Bruce felt a large hand latch onto the front of his suit before dragging him towards the figure. Thinking quickly, Bruce threw himself in the same direction as the figure was dragging him, hoping to surprise the being and lining himself up for a counter strike. His tactic seemed to work as Bruce abruptly felt the hold on his armor break away. He dipped and rolled over his left shoulder, coming back up in a low boxer's stance.
The figure stood where Bruce had just been, silhouetted by the dim light of Gotham's night. Now being able to fully take in the figure before him, Bruce's first thought was that it was big. Not as big as Croc or Clayface, but still far larger than him. His second thought was how still the figure was. It should be at least somewhat fatigued, especially after running halfway across the city and spending the good part of an hour continuously fighting. Even Clark would appear winded after undergoing such an ordeal. He made a mental note to look into it further once he arrested the being.
Bruce steadied himself, taking shallow breaths to minimize the strain on his ribs. The burning in his chest told him he had at least one fracture—possibly two. Not ideal. But injuries were details. He cataloged the pain and moved forward.
The figure matched his low stance, cocking its head in an almost curious fashion before rushing forward with sudden, startling speed. Bruce barely managed to sidestep the charge, his cape brushing the figure's shoulder as he spun. He used the momentum to drive his elbow into the back of their skull—except they anticipated the move, ducking low and twisting beneath him to sweep his legs.
Bruce dropped hard. The asphalt struck him like a sledgehammer, but he used the fall to roll backward, twisting upright just as the figure closed in again. It lashed out with a high kick, aimed directly at his head.
He ducked. Barely.
The boot clipped the tips of his ears, and his world narrowed on pure instinct. Bruce surged forward, ramming his shoulder into the figure's chest. It staggered, just slightly, and he capitalized, driving an open palm into its sternum to force it further back.
But as quick as he was, the figure recovered quicker. Its hands shot out like vipers, grabbing hold of Bruce's wrist, before he could disengage. The grip tightened like a vice, and suddenly Bruce was airborne.
The world tilted and blurred as he felt his body be hurled against the cold, unyielding metal of the Batmobile. The sound of the impact reverberated through the street, and Bruce slid to the ground in a dazed heap.
It was only through years of training that he both registered and dodged the next strike as the figure's armored boot crashed into the asphalt where his head had once been. However, there was no training on the planet that could have saved Bruce as the figure pivoted and leveled a harsh kick. Bruce once again felt the ground fall away from underneath him as he flew through the air.
Returning to earth, he tumbled end over end until his shoulders caught on something and he skidded to a stop on his stomach.
Bruce groaned, peeling his battered body off the sidewalk. His breath came in short, shallow gasps, a mix of pain and frustration building in his chest. Across from him, the figure was flicking their gaze between him and the city silently, its head cocked to the side, increasing his frustration and infuriating him. With a growl, Bruce pulled his legs back up underneath him and reached for his utility belt. Opening one of its pouches, Bruce pulled out two batarangs which he opened with a flick of his wrist. He then held the two weapons out in front of himself as a pair of makeshift knives before charging.
He dipped low once more, thrusting his right blade forward and into the side of the being. Immediately, he encountered resistance in the form of some sort of energy shield as the figure's suit shined a brilliant yellow for a brief second. But, with his momentum and his suit's enhanced strength, he managed to break through this barrier and landed a glancing blow.
Sweeping right he found himself behind the figure. Only to have that change a second later when the being leapt. Twisting as it jumped, the figure easily cleared Bruce, who tried to spin with it so he could be facing it head on once it landed. But a flash of silver pulled his attention as something slammed into the ground behind his right shoulder. Figuring that he had to complete his turn anyways, Bruce allowed himself to continue his twist while trying to get a glimpse of whatever it was that had flashed by him.
Suddenly though, Bruce found himself stuck, his cape pinned by something behind him. His mind mentally screamed that there was absolutely nothing to get stuck on, while every other one of his senses worked to try and figure out what exactly was going on. But a weighty thump pulled his attention back to the figure that had just landed.
Instantly, two large hands were flying towards Bruce, who had nowhere to go. They wrapped themselves around the two bat-ears of his cowl and yanked downwards. Simultaneously, an armored knee came flying upwards, slamming into Bruce's stomach and causing all the air in his lungs to explode outwards. The knee then retreated as its counterpart flew upwards and into his chest. Once again, Bruce was thrown upwards, his back arched and his body struggling to maintain ahold of his batarangs. Unlike last time however, the figure wasn't letting him go that easily.
Distantly, he felt a hand wrap itself around his ankle before a sharp tug pulled him downwards. He was partly amazed that his leg didn't pop out of its socket then and there. Unfortunately, he couldn't say the same for his shoulder. He landed hard on his side, a low pop echoing up into his ears. Looking to his right, he found that directly in front of him was the largest knife he'd ever seen in his life and it was semi-buried into the asphalt.
Bruce's mind raced even as his body screamed at him to stop. His shoulder was dislocated, his breathing was shallow, and the taste of blood in his mouth grew stronger with every second. He shifted his good arm, forcing the numb and injured limb to move slightly as he scanned the giant knife buried in the ground in front of him.
He pushed himself to his knees, head pounding, and for a split second, he caught a glimpse of the figure through his blurry vision. They stood over him now, looming, their shadow swallowing him whole. Its head was tilted as if Bruce was some sort of newfound curiosity.
Bruce flexed his good hand, testing his grip. The batarang was still there, though slick with sweat and blood. His utility belt still had a few tricks—smoke pellets, a grappling gun, maybe an explosive charge. All of it, however, felt like it'd do little against whatever the hell this thing was. But Bruce was certain of one thing, there was no way this thing was human.
The figure reached down and ripped the giant knife from the asphalt with a single, fluid motion, twirling it with unnatural grace. Their stance shifted, predatory. They were going to finish this—and Bruce knew it.
The figure surged forward, knife angled to strike. At the last possible second, Bruce launched a smoke pellet at the ground. A thick, choking fog enveloped them both as he sprang to the side, his injured shoulder screaming in protest. The sharp hum of the blade whizzed by his ear as he scrambled for cover.
Bruce rolled, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the being, before scrambling back up to his feet. With gritted teeth, he forced his shoulder back into its socket, uncaring of whether or not he pinched off a blood vessel or nerve. He then reached for the small of his back and pulled forth his grapple. With an experienced hand, he aimed the grapple into the thick of the smoke before pulling the trigger, sending the forked end into the abyss.
His line went taunt a second later and he was pulled into the smoke. Angling his body for a flying kick, he sped forth towards his target. But once again the figure surprised him. It wasn't a piece of armor or a part of the Batmobile, sat distantly behind them, that he had connected with. Instead, his line was held in the iron grip of the figure who was already turned and ready for him.
Bruce barely had time to process as the figure yanked the line. Bruce's trajectory shifted mid-air, pulling him forward. Only to have the figure slam their right arm back, across their body. The move caught Bruce squarely in the chest, making the air rush out of his lungs once more and forcing him to drop his grapple. Pivoting in the air, he landed back on his feet before skidding along the ground for a few seconds.
Gotham's choking night air seemed to thicken as Bruce fought to stay conscious. The bruises, cuts, and burns painting his body were secondary compared to the white-hot flare from his shoulder and the increasingly urgent ache in his ribs. This figure was unlike anything he had faced before—not in raw power alone, but in precision and control. He was wrong when he mentally compared the figure to Bane or Slade. This being was far worse, more like a mixture of Shiva's fighting ability and Killer Croc's strength.
The figure stalked forward again. Their steps were measured, unhurried, as if it were waiting to see what else Bruce could do. The knife, shimmering faintly in the polluted light of the city, spun lazily in their hand. The analytical side of Bruce's mind could faintly detect some sort of pattern to the movements, but the rest of his mind was too focused on staying alive to care.
He needed to level the playing field, to break through this figure's seeming invulnerability or, failing that, escape long enough to regroup. But every instinct screamed at him that this would be a fight for survival—no time for retreat, no backup inbound. It was him or the figure.
The smoke was thinning now, giving Bruce only seconds before they had full visibility again. In that moment, he seized the fractured remnants of his strength. He tapped into the reservoir of discipline he'd honed over years of punishing training. Pain and exhaustion became noise, drowned out by his focus.
The figure made the first move. Their hand shot forward with terrifying speed, the knife a blurred extension of their limb. Bruce twisted, barely sidestepping, feeling the rush of displaced air as the blade kissed the surface of his armor. With the slightest opening, he lashed out. His free hand came up, smashing an explosive capsule onto the figure's chest. It detonated instantly, showering them in a blast of light, smoke, and shrapnel.
But the blast seemed to have no effect, as the figure spun its knife into a reverse-grip and slashed back towards Bruce. Once again, Bruce did his best to slip away, leaning away and starting to backpedal. The blade spun once more and was thrusted forward, toward Bruce's heart. Bruce did his best to try and parry it away, finding that it took nearly all his strength to do so. His batarang and the figure's knife met with a shower of sparks before deflecting off to the right. However, Bruce wasn't able to celebrate as a fist crashed into the side of his head, making him stumble backwards. The figure immediately followed up the blow with a forward kick, which Bruce absorbed by crossing his arms across his chest. Still, he could feel his bones rattle throughout his body from the force of the blow.
Compartmentalizing the pain away, Bruce then charged forward, batarang held aloft and readied for a downward slash. Simultaneously, he pulled a high voltage charge from his belt and readied it. His plan was to force the figure to dodge and then catch them mid-motion with the charge. That would hopefully stun them long enough for him to end the fight.
Unlike before, the figure watched him approach passively. Maybe it was analyzing him, or maybe it was trying to calculate how he was still standing. Either way, it didn't matter. Bruce was going to end this, here and now.
Bruce felt his heart race faster in his chest as his vision narrowed and pulsed, his overworked adrenal glands struggling to keep pace with his movements. The world seemed to slow as the batarang slashed downwards and his opposite hand readied itself. Already, his mind was calculating and then recalculating his next three moves, prepping itself to counter anything the figure could come up with. But for all his genius and fighting experience, he failed to account for the most prominent feature of the figure tonight. It's speed.
Even with his adrenaline coursing through his veins and his world tunneling around him, leaving just the two of them in his vision, Bruce missed the figure's movement. One second, it was standing before him, eyeing his attack without any outward sign of concern. The next, it had blurred and disappeared. The only thing Bruce managed to see, was a flash of silver rushing by his right side. Then, his world exploded with a pain that was easily the worst thing he'd ever experienced.
As Batman, he'd been shot, stabbed, burned, had acid dropped on him, fought off attack dogs, fought off hyenas, had his mind messed with a million different ways, nearly drowned, nearly got eaten by a shark, and was practically beaten to a pulp nearly every night. Yet, this pain….. it eclipsed all others.
Bruce tumbled down onto the asphalt again, his entire right-side flaring in pain as he did. His vision became encompassed in red and started pulsing once more. He tried to push himself back up onto his haunches, only to collapse back onto the ground as more pain tore through him. Distantly, he could hear someone screaming, but that may have been his imagination. Gritting his teeth, Bruce turned his head to look at his righthand side, only to freeze in masked horror.
His right arm was just…gone, cleanly separated approximately half-way down his bicep.
Mechanically, his mind registered this, filing it away and immediately ordering him into action. On autopilot, he pulled a tourniquet from his belt and wrapped it around what remained of his appendage. Below him, the storm washed away what blood that had poured out of the wound, leaving behind no evidence. In the grand scheme of things though, that didn't matter. All that mattered was sealing off the wound and fighting off going into shock. Unfortunately, he could already tell he was in the beginning stages of shock, as the world slowly quieted.
He nearly missed the chill of a blade pressing itself into his neck. Glancing upwards, Bruce found the figure standing over him, slightly hunched forward to compensate for its height. With a gentle tug of its knife, the figure forced Bruce to straighten back up, its golden gaze not even bothering to glance down towards him. Yet, Bruce could tell that he was one wrong move away from death.
Turning his eyes away from the figure, Bruce found what had pulled the figure's attention away from him. Spread out in a half-circle in front of them was the GCPD, their patrol cars forming a barrier between them and the figure. Bruce guessed they must have started to show up when the figure was glancing between him and the city earlier. The first officers probably saw their fight and, per their unspoken protocol, started to set up a perimeter while the two of them duked it out. From there, the rest filed in to fill in the open spaces between the cars.
At the center of their formation, Bruce could see Gordon watching on. His normally composed face appeared shuttered, his eyes flicking between disbelief and fear. Around him, Bruce could see the expression mirrored on the faces of the many officers, quite a few of them appeared unusually pale. Gordon was only broken out of his look when one of his officers shoved a megaphone into his arms unexpectedly. The Commissioner fumbled with the device for a second before pulling it up towards his lips.
"We have you completely surrounded! Release Batman and place your weapons on the ground! There's no where for you to go!" Gordon barked; his voice far tighter than Bruce had ever heard it.
Above him, Bruce couldn't find any signs that the figure had heard Gordon's threat, or even much less cared. Its blade was still pressed to his throat while eyeing the small army in front of it.
"Who are you?" Bruce gasped out, speaking directly to the figure for the first time. "Government? Ex-military? Genetic experiment?"
The figure paid him no mind, eyeing the officers beyond coldly. Below, its knife pressed harder against the flesh of his throat, indicating its wish for him to remain silent.
The air then began to fill with the sound of low humming. On the perimeter, the officers began to look up into the sky quizzically, looking for the source of the hum. A few even panned there rifles skyward in an effort to search for targets. But they all soon found themselves diving for cover as the Batmobile exploded in a shower of flame and sparks. Next to it, two SWAT vans were turned into Swiss cheese as a hail of bullets shredded its armor and ignited their gas tanks. A blur of gray then raced by above them some odd thirty feet from the ground. It was then followed by multiple flashes of light as the craft fired off more flares before the concussive force of its sonic boom rocked them. The sound of the main gun firing followed shortly afterwards, adding to the chaos that was spreading among GCPD's ranks.
Focusing on the craft, Bruce watched it tilt upwards before performing a corkscrew maneuver. It then descended back towards the street, its belly angled back towards the ground below while bleeding off speed. Its main gun fired again, shredding two more patrol cruisers and sending the GCPD scrambling once more. Another round of flares announced its arrival as it slowed and descended into the center of GCPD's perimeter.
Suddenly, Bruce felt the pressure of the figure's blade leave his throat. Only to have something hard smash into his temple a second later. Crumpling to the ground, he watched the figure stride by him, unconcerned about the surrounding mayhem. Just beyond it, the figure's ship pivoted and groaned as its rear hatch opened. Pausing only to stoop down and pluck a few golden fragments from the street, the figure casually clambered up into the craft. It didn't even glance back before disappearing through another door, leaving Bruce with the sight of the closing hatch and the slowly ascending vehicle.
All around the ship, the GCPD stared, opened mouthed as the craft's engines flared. Then, with a burst of speed that belied its size, the ship roared away into the night, leaving behind a group of terrified officers and a soon-to-be shocked city.
It was only after the craft had disappeared into the clouds above that Bruce realized something. In his shocked state, he neglected to realize that not only was his arm not on the ground around him, but that it had disappeared. He glanced around drunkenly, fighting against the coming unconsciousness that wanted to consume him. But his efforts proved fruitless. His arm was gone. That was until the mental fog cleared just enough for his mind to realize where he had last seen his arm, clutched in the left hand of the figure as he entered his craft.
Darkness consumed him as his body finally gave into the pain.